ODD NUMBERS

by M. Grace Bernardin

  She broke the last of her promises to her grandma shortly after that terrible day. She quit high school, left her Daddy, and moved in with her boyfriend. The few contacts she had with her Daddy after that were civil but cold. She was completely estranged from him when he died some four years later. Her grandma followed him to the grave the very next year.

  The monotone voice of the Vietnam vet finally stopped droning and the sound of applause replaced it, bringing Vicky back to the present. The meeting closed as usual with everyone holding hands and saying the Lord’s Prayer. Vicky couldn’t bring herself to say the words.

  A few people cleared out after the meeting but most hung around, refilled their coffee, and visited. It was like this after AA meetings–plenty of sipping, smoking, and mingling. It was like a cocktail party, except booze had been replaced with cigarettes. AA meetings were the only social gatherings she’d ever attended sober in her adult life. She hung with her little group from the shelter in the corner, all of them in their awkwardness, clinging to one another for security. There was always that fear that she’d see someone she knew–someone from her past who remembered her as Vicky the bartender. She spotted plenty of her old customers at these dreaded meetings, after all Lamasco was a small town. They’d notice what a pitiful old toothless wreck she’d become. Never mind that they were drunks too. Nobody had gotten as bad as she had.

  She looked around the crowd anxiously trying to spot the sober drunk volunteer man who drove them to and from the shelter to the meetings. She spotted him sipping coffee and talking with a group of men. From the looks of it he wasn’t ready to leave anytime soon. The room was beginning to clear out but this happy little cluster remained, oblivious to the thinning crowd. Everyone in her group began to express their impatience to leave, but the volunteer man didn’t notice.

  Vicky looked again. This group of men was certainly a strange potpourri of humanoids. But then it was always that way at AA meetings. “Doctor, lawyer, Indian chief,” Vicky said aloud, cackling up a little bit of phlegm. Laughter rose from the group of men across the room but one laugh in particular cut through all the rest. It was loud, boisterous and very familiar to Vicky’s ears. It hadn’t changed over the years. The face that went with the laugh had changed, however. It had all the puffiness and lines around the eyes and mouth that came with hard living. Still she recognized it.

  “Aw shit,” Vicky said as the man’s familiarity found his place in her memory. It was Tim Schultz from back in the Camelot days. She only lived there about a year and a half, but that was the longest she’d lived anywhere since she left her Mama and Daddy’s home at the age of seventeen. Tim looked over in her direction. She didn’t think he recognized her but then he turned and looked again. The wheels were turning in his mind. He’d figure it out eventually. That was it. That was the cue she’d been waiting for. It was just the excuse she needed to make her exit.

  “I gotta go to the bathroom,” Vicky said to the drunk standing next to her.

  “Well, go on and go. You don’t need my permission. We’ll wait for you.”

  “Yeah. I’ll be right back,” she said.

  She stepped out of the meeting room and into the hall, where the bathrooms and the front door were. She looked back just briefly to see if anyone was watching her. She bypassed the bathrooms and headed straight for the front door.

  She stepped into the cold night air. The thought of spending the night trying to stay warm when she could walk right back inside like nothing ever happened vied with that compelling craving that kept her moving forward, further into the cold dark and farther away from the door and her two and a half weeks sobriety. She began her all too familiar monologue, the lie she always told herself.

  “It’s my right to be a drunk. America’s a free country. Ain’t nobody’s business how I live or die. If I want to die a drunk it’s my right. I’m living how I like. I don’t care.” Except deep down she did care. Still she kept telling herself this lie in hopes she might one day believe it, then at last she could drink without guilt and despair.

  “It’s my right. It’s my right,” Vicky cried out. By now she was running as far and fast as she could.

  A few days passed since Vicky ran away from the meeting, Tim Schultz, and her sobriety. At nights she stayed in an abandoned warehouse in the old manufacturing section of Lamasco. Once alive and bustling with industry, it had now become a ghost town with its broken windows, uprooted rails, rotting crossties, and endless rust. It was there amongst the rubble and the faint haunting of dead dreams where Lamasco’s homeless stayed during the cold winter months.

  The old warehouse provided more protection from the elements than most places. It had a roof and four walls, though part of the ceiling was caved in. And you could always find a fire burning there just outside the big sliding warehouse doors by the abandoned railroad tracks and loading docks. Occasionally the cops came and cleared the place out, but folks always came back.

  Vicky warmed her hands over the flames that licked out of the large industrial sized drum. She and her companion, Joe, were the only ones by the fire. Joe was one of the last of the hobos who hopped freights from town to town. He stole away on a blue and yellow L&N boxcar from somewhere up north and was trying to get as far south as he could before he froze to death.

  Folks would go inside the warehouse, sleep for a while, then come out by the door and warm themselves by the fire. Whoever was out there at the time was responsible for keeping the fire going. She and Joe went out earlier that night, climbed a chain link fence and stole some pallets for firewood. Joe did the climbing and gathering while Vicky stood guard and stole swigs off his tall bottle of beer.

  “I appreciate you helping me Joe. I can’t climb no more. Oh, I can climb up I just can’t get down,” Vicky explained to Joe while he hurled pallets over the fence with loud accompanying groans.

  She paid him back for doing the grunt work by sharing a bottle of whiskey and some fine weed. Together she and Joe stood by the fire passing the bottle and the joint back and forth.

  “A first rate buzz and a first rate fire. Warm inside and out. It don’t get much better than this,” Vicky said.

  “You got that right,” said Joe holding his breath after taking a deep toke off the marijuana cigarette.

  “I just wish I could sleep standing up so I could stay here by this fire all night. It’s colder than a witches tit in a brass brassiere inside that warehouse,” said Vicky wrapping a threadbare blanket tighter around her shivering shoulders. “Oh, well. Beats the hell outta sleeping in a dumpster. Last big snow we had I climbed in a dumpster and couldn’t get back out again. If the cops hadn’t found me I’d been a fuckin’ popsicle by morning. A dead fuckin’ popsicle.” They laughed, coughed, and hacked, and Joe spit chunks of phlegm through his toothless mouth.

  “You was lucky the cops found you. How did they find you anyways?”

  “I don’t know. I wondered that myself a time or two. I was laying in that pile of garbage just fixing to die. Thought for sure I’d be dead by morning. Then this squad car just drives up the alley where the dumpster was. Just like they knew I was there. Last thing I remember is the cops hauling my frozen ass outta that dumpster. Next thing I know I’m coming to in the hospital, shaking like a leaf, tubes sticking out of everywheres.”

  Joe nodded as if he understood.

  “Winter’s the best time to go dumpster hunting though, cause the smell ain’t so bad. Never know what little treasures you’ll find.” Vicky coughed, all at once becoming quite pensive. “I miss my memoirs. My memoirs. My pictures. I got no memoirs left. Nothing but memories.” She began sobbing.

  “Memories is all any of us got left,” Joe said, placing his hand on her back and trying to comfort her.

  Vicky stared into the fire, mesmerized by the flame. “It was fire that took it all from me,” Vicky said as she remembered.

  All her memorabilia and pictures burnt up in the last real home she had–a run down little house near the ri
ver she rented about five years ago. She left the house with the stove on during one of her benders, just plain forgot to turn it off. With all the paper junk mail and memoirs set too close to the burner, it didn’t take long to catch fire. Anyway, she thought that’s how it happened. Nobody ever claimed to know for sure, but deep down she knew it was her own fault. She came home that night to a house in flames.

  She lost everything but her grandma’s hope chest. She sold it to an antique dealer about a year or so before the fire. She sold it, contents and all, and she never even opened it to find out what was inside. At least it was still out there somewhere. She dreamed one day she’d find it and buy it back.

  “Of all the stupid things,” Vicky said through sobs.

  “What’s that?” asked Joe.

  “Nothing,” Vicky said wiping her damp face with the filthy worn blanket she had wrapped around her shoulders. “Just remembering.”

  “Whatever it is it ain’t worth remembering. Here, this’ll help you forget,” said Joe, passing the joint to her.

  “Trouble is it ain’t making me forget. It’s making me remember,” she said taking the joint anyway, holding it up to her lips and inhaling.

  “Of all the stupid things,” she said again shaking her head. She was drunk at the time she hocked that chest and needed the money fast. She had intended to get it back. She helped some of her buddies hoist the chest onto the back of a pick up truck and that was the last she ever saw of it. She didn’t care at the time. Now all she had left of her grandma was the key to the hope chest; she wore the key on a chain around her neck. She touched it. It was still there. She often thought she might still have a home if she just had something of her grandma’s left–something other than a key without a lock.

  How she wished she had one of her grandma’s quilts wrapped around her right now and not a dirty old blanket that wasn’t even long enough to cover her frozen feet.

  “You gotta let it go, Vicky,” said toothless Joe. And remember, when you got nothing, you got nothing to worry about. Nothing tying you down or holding you back. IRS can’t take nothing from you ‘cause you ain’t got nothing. You’re free, lady.” Joe said, holding the bottle of whiskey up to her lips. He poured a fair sized swig into her mouth and it flowed down her throat like liquid gold. She didn’t even have to tell herself to swallow. She closed her eyes and basked in the warmth of the whiskey.

  Her eyes were still closed when Joe suddenly grabbed her and began kissing her. His tongue nearly choked her and his face pressed so close to hers’ that it felt like his large bulbous nose might bruise her cheek.

  “Off of me, you old fool,” Vicky said pushing him back. She picked up a wood slat off the wood pile ready to defend herself if need be. “I’m warning you, Joe.”

  “Whoa! No need getting huffy. I ain’t ever forced myself on no woman before and I don’t intend to start now. If you don’t want me, you don’t want me. ‘Tain’t nothin’ I can do about it. ‘Course, you don’t know what you’re missing.” He smiled a great toothless grin at her.

  “It ain’t you, Joe,” Vicky said dropping her guard along with the wood slat. “I just don’t have no desire no more. Maybe I burnt myself out. The only time I ever fuck around anymore it’s, you know, for money,” Vicky said hanging her head. “So I guess you’re keeping company with a whore tonight.”

  “’Tain’t the first time,” said Joe. “Shit, almost makes me wish I had some cash on hand.”

  “You’re awful nice, Joe,” said Vicky.

  “What the hell,” said Joe shrugging his shoulders. “To tell you the truth, I’m kinda relieved. I’m probably too wasted to get it up anyways.” Together they laughed. He took a swig of whiskey and handed it to Vicky.

  Vicky lay in the warehouse later that night curled up in the tightest ball her long legs could possibly allow her so that her blanket would cover her. She was remembering again. Not all of Vicky’s memories were unbearable. Some were pleasingly painful and she loved to revisit them time and time again, like a scab you just can’t help picking. She knew she shouldn’t indulge in the past so much but those memories were all she had left. She nursed them, and babied them and held onto them like a miser. She enjoyed her memories most of all when she found them at the bottom of a bottle, all bittersweet and wrapped up in self-pity and tears.

  “Frank the Fuckwad. Frank the Fuckwad,” she cackled over and over again until the laughter became a sob. “Francis. My Francis. I’ve lost you.”

  “Hey, Dooley, people are trying to sleep around here,” a voice hollered out to her from the darkened corner.

  “Least I ain’t hollering,” Vicky screamed out all the louder.

  “Shut up, Dooley! Or we’re gonna throw your ass in the dumpster,” another voice called out.

  “My loud mouth’s always getting me thrown outta places,” she mumbled. “They all wanted to kick me outta Camelot. Banish me from the Round Table. Sir Francis Fuckwad wanted me out worst of all. Wish they had gotten me thrown out then and there.” Vicky sat up and wrapped the blanket tightly around her shoulders. She couldn’t sleep.

  She went back outside by the fire. It was dying down so she threw a newspaper and some wood slats into the drum and poked around at the embers with a stick until she got the fire going again. She stared into the flames, remembering another fire. Not the one that burnt her last home down, but a pleasant cozy fire–one she could only dream of being by these days: the hearth of the great brick fireplace in the lounge of Lamasco’s River Inn. The smell of wood burning and the warmth that only fire can produce was the same as what she now experienced, and in the hush of this cold winter night, only the occasional noise of a passing car might distract her from hearing the sounds of cool jazz and polite cocktail laughter. As long as she kept her eyes closed she could make herself believe she was back there.

  Chapter 11

  1983

  Vicky stood before the fireplace poking at the logs with determined effort, hoping to resuscitate each fizzling spark and ember. The fireplace at Lamasco’s River Inn was located on the west wall of the lounge where Vicky tended bar. The fireplace kept her sane and warm on long winter weeknights when customers were few and there was nothing else to do but wash bar glasses and wipe the bar down. The restaurant was known for its excellent cuisine, elegant ambiance, and awe-inspiring view of the Ohio River.

  As she wiped off the large mahogany surface of the bar, she suddenly saw the reflection of a man on the shiny finished wood. He cleared his throat and lightly tapped a rolled up newspaper on the edge of the bar to get her attention. She looked up and there he stood smiling, all pressed and starched, clean shaven and smelling good, with his suit coat buttoned and not a hair out of place. Vicky quickly concluded that he was not from Lamasco. The men from Lamasco were easy to read, but not this man. His eyes were dark, almost navy blue, framed by black thick lashes.

  He ordered a dry martini with Bombay gin. This distinguished him from other customers. Not many people under fifty drank martinis in this town. She made it extra dry and put two olives in it. After he got his drink he joined some businessmen at the table nearest the huge fireplace. Vicky had ample opportunity to watch him. He obviously enjoyed that martini, which gave Vicky unsurpassed satisfaction. She remembered the way he savored it and how he closed his eyes and inhaled deeply with each swallow. There was something very sexy about this man who took such pleasure in a simple drink. Before he left he stopped by the bar, complimented her on the drink, and stuck a ten dollar bill in her tip glass. A bartender doesn’t forget that sort of thing.

  Vicky saw him a few times at the lounge after that and she never forgot him. But the first time she saw him up close without a bar separating them was days after she moved into Camelot. She was on her way out to go to work one evening when the door to building 3300 opened before her hand reached the knob. There he stood under the front porch light, the wind blowing at the tails of his expensive suit coat, as he held the door open for her. He was taller than she reme
mbered but it was him.

  “Well, if it isn’t Prince Charming,” she said with her hand on her hip as if he were an old friend. “Where’ve you been?”

  He had a bewildered look like an old man. It made Vicky laugh. The wind, filled with impending autumn chill, blew through the open door. Realizing she wasn’t going to exit the building right away, he stepped across the threshold and pulled the door shut behind him.

  “I’m sorry. Do I know you?”

  “Dry martini. Bombay gin. Right?” Vicky stuck her hand out. “Vicky Dooley. I tend bar at the River Inn. I’ve waited on you before.”

  “Oh! I haven’t been there recently.” Recognition still had not dawned on him but he gave her an obligatory handshake all the same.

  “I know. That’s why I asked where you been. You know you once told me I make the best martinis you ever tasted. You toss that line out to all the lady bartenders or what?”

  “No, I must have meant it,” he said with a chuckle.

  “So you remember my martinis but not me, is that it?”

  “Come to think of it you do look a little familiar.”

  “A little familiar? I make the best martini you’ve ever had and all I am is ‘a little familiar’? You know, most people remember me, especially men.”

  “My humble apologies. I assure you from now on I will.” He said with sarcastic emphasis giving a kind of mock bow, then smiling politely without showing his teeth, he stepped aside and began to make his way through the hall and towards the stairs.