Always Box Set

by Ward, Susan

  “Sammy,” I called out to get my son’s attention. “Come up carefully behind it. Don’t scare it. It’s already scared enough. I just want you to move him close enough so I can catch him.”

  We closed in and then I took hold of the bird. I carried it to the beach and began washing it in the tray we’d carefully prepared to get tar off the sea birds.

  Sammy watched and hovered. “Is he going to be all right, Dad?”

  “He’ll be fine, Sammy. Don’t worry. Let me finish with this one. You go look for another one.”

  He sprinted away.

  “Looks like things are going well with your son.”

  I looked up to find Liam hovering over me. I nodded, my chin jutting out. “He’s home with me instead of traveling with Lena. I think it’s a good thing.”

  Liam smiled. “I think so, too. I won’t bring up again your performing with us at the festival.”

  I laughed. “Bring it up all you want. I’m not going. I know where my priorities are, Liam.”

  He nodded approvingly.

  “Jack!”

  I looked up to see Lena at the top of the stairs built into the cliffs. I waved. I looked over my shoulder. “Come on, Sammy. Mom wants us. Help me put away the stuff.”

  I straightened up and Liam jeered, “She calls, you jump.”

  I nodded. “Yep, and trust me, brother, you would, too.”

  He laughed.

  I reached for another beer. “Go on back to the house, Sammy. Tell Mom I’m on my way. I can finish this.”

  His dark eyes stared at me intently. “Sure, Pop. You’re coming, right?”

  I ruffled his hair. “Right behind you, kid. I just want to finish my discussion with Liam.”

  Sammy headed toward the stairs.

  “I thought we were done,” Liam said.

  I smiled. “We are. I’m not doing the festival.”

  I finished my beer, tossed the empty can into the cooler, and stowed it with the trays we washed the birds in.

  When we reached the back patio of the house, George and Patty were there.

  “Jackie,” Patty squealed, hurrying to give me a hug. “Still cleaning birds?”

  “Still cleaning birds. It’s a fucking crime what they did here.”

  Her eyes flashed. “If anyone can shake it up and stop the blob, it’s you, Jackie.”

  The blob. The slogan on the protest signs against Union Oil. “Power to the people,” I said, but I was just teasing.

  “Fuck the man,” Georgie said.

  And, fuck, Lena’s eyes flashed. I pretended I didn’t see it. “You got everything ready so I can barbecue, doll?”

  She nodded, but I could tell she wasn’t happy about something. As I cooked dinner, Liam and Georgie argued about why I should do the festival.

  “Listen,” I said, tossing a burger, “I’m not going anywhere. I got more than I can handle here.”

  “You have to,” Patty claimed fiercely. “It’s the embodiment of everything we’ve work for. Three days, Jackie, of music, love and peace.”

  “I’ve got enough love and peace here.” I refilled my glass of scotch and carried it with the tray of burgers to the table. I sat down. “I’m retired, Patty. It’s time for someone else to pick up the fight. Why don’t you get that?”

  “Georgie and I are going. Everyone important is going to be there.”

  I shook my head as I added ketchup to the bun. “Not Dylan.”

  Patty stared at me intently. “You’re important to the movement. Liam is going to be there with Still Light. Don’t tell me that you don’t want to be there, too.”

  “The money is short,” Liam said, and I appreciated him having my back on this.

  “Who the fuck ever thought we’d make as much bread as we do?” Georgie said. “It’s not about the money, Jack. It’s about the movement. What we stand for.”

  “The only movement I’m interested in these days is the movements I do at night with my wife.”

  Patty slapped my arm. “Don’t be obnoxious, Jackie. We’re serious.”

  “So am I, Patty.”

  I grinned at Lena, but then I frowned. She was staring at her plate and, fuck, I could tell I pissed her off with that one.

  Great. Fucking great.

  We continued to eat, but the mood around the table had gone flat because my wife was angry over something and my best girlfriend was disappointed in me.

  “Reggie would have been there,” Patty said quietly, not looking up from her plate. “He would have loved this.”

  That did it.

  Lena pushed her plate away and left the table.

  I leaned back in my chair, shaking my head at Patty. “Thanks a lot.”

  Her eyes widened. “What? What did I do?”

  You fucking mentioned Reggie to my wife!

  “Can we just not talk about me doing the festival?” I said.

  Patty’s eyes flashed at me. “Fine, Jackie. Whatever you want.”

  “My life is here, Patty. There’s nothing wrong with that,” I said firmly before I followed Lena into the house.

  I found her in our room, sitting on the edge of the bed. Before I could say word one, she said, “You can go, perform with Liam and the guys if you want to.”

  I crouched down in front of her. “I don’t want to.”

  She looked at me. “Let’s not lie to each other anymore, Jack.”

  I slipped my fingers through her hair and brought her forehead to mine. “I’m not, doll.”

  “I’m not pregnant. Maybe it’s a sign.”

  I eased back on my haunches, alarmed. “A sign of what?”

  She lowered her gaze. “That we’re only kidding each other. Our problems are here with us in Santa Barbara, we only pretend they’re not, and there’s no reason why you shouldn’t be at the festival if you want to.”

  And like a fool, I took my wife at her words and went.

  Thirty-Three

  I arrived at Woodstock on the second day. Patty and Georgie were with me in the helicopter. The earth beneath us was an incredible sight. People seemed to stretch forever.

  I’ve never forgotten how it felt as we slowly descended so I could join Liam and the guys on stage there. It was everything we’d lived and breathed for a very long time. I wanted to savor each minute of being there, but seeing the crowd from the air was the last thing I ever remembered with any clarity about it.

  Oh, the rest of it, how we were on stage, I knew from the newspapers or the band or Patty. But everything after I hit the ground until I woke in New York in my apartment was mostly a blank, lost hours never to be recalled completely.

  There were a few snippets here and there. My staying behind with Patty and Georgie to enjoy the scene after Liam and the band cut out. A hazy memory of waking up somewhere with Patty lying beside me naked, my clothes half off, and pretty sure I’d fucked my best friend’s wife while Georgie slept next to us.

  Then waking up in the city in my own bed, the guilt keeping me in New York another month.

  It wasn’t until Patty called, aggravated that I was ditching her calls and Lena’s—and even more aggravated that Lena was calling her trying to track me down—and demanding to know why I was behaving stupidly with everyone, that I told her the truth, that I couldn’t go home to Lena after having fucked her.

  Patty laughed so hard I could hear her crying through the receiver. “God, Jackie. Are you nuts? We just went into the trailer to get out of the rain, but my clothes were soaked so I took them off so I could sleep. But nothing happened between us. You were so drunk you couldn’t even undress yourself. Christ, you probably couldn’t have gotten it up either.”

  My face turned red—that was a humiliating comment—but Patty being obnoxiously blunt made me sure she was telling the truth and not trying spare my feelings.

  “Oh fuck, Patty. You don’t know what’s been running through my head—”

  “Well, I do now
that you told me,’’ she interrupted, laughing again. “Go home, Jackie. You’ve got nothing to feel badly about. Except that part about it making you feel like shit that you thought you fucked me. That’s kind of an insult to me.”

  I laughed for the first time in weeks. “Thanks, Patty. I love you, do you know that?”

  “Yep, now go home and tell your wife that you love her. And nothing else this time. Confessing that you’ve been acting like an idiot because you thought you cheated with me isn’t going to work out any better with Lena than it did that time you confessed that you nearly fucked Jessica.”

  I hung up the phone, showered, shaved, and went home. When I stepped through the front door of the Hope Ranch house, I was prepared to face a tirade. What I got instead was a kiss on my cheek before Lena disappeared into the bedroom.

  I was so relieved I didn’t question it or follow her. She was home, she wasn’t angry, and I wasn’t going to risk anything to change either of that.

  We limped along as a couple into 1970, trying to have our second child, though not really, because Lena tossed the calendars, along with her crazy regimens for the both of us. We definitely weren’t making love often enough for it to matter if she was ovulating or not, and she stopped nagging me about my drinking and other things.

  I was working on a solo album in the recording studio we’d converted my father’s study into when I’d hired contractors to have the back of the house turned into a wall of glass for Lena.

  She stopped traveling to New York without explaining why. We were both home with Sammy full time now. Everything seemed all right again, not perfect, but we were still together.

  In January, Georgie and Patty moved into the Thompsons’ house next door. Patty took care of Vivien now that she was widowed and ill, and George became a partner in a high-profile civil rights law firm.

  Our lives were just sort of in a silent calm, all four of us were just living, being friends, trying to figure shit out—us, our marriages—hell, being adults and not kids anymore—then the protests against the war came to my backyard.

  It was a pleasant Wednesday in February, and the four of us were lounging around my pool.

  “Come on, Jackie. Come with us. It’s going to be amazing,” Patty said.

  I shook my head and refilled my glass. “Nope, have at it without me, Patty. I’ve got more than enough to keep me busy at home. Found four birds covered in tar only yesterday. I don’t give a fuck what Union Oil is saying. Something is spilling out there in the ocean.”

  She rolled her eyes at me then planted her chin in her palm. “Think of what it will mean to those students to have Jackson Parker show up to hear William Kunstler speak,” she cajoled.

  I shook my head, cautiously examining Lena as I sipped my drink. I had no intention of going, even though I wanted to, not with how Lena was freezing me out lately. Me there in a crowd with an attorney who represented defendants in the Chicago seven trial was not a good thing, not for my marriage, anyway.

  “I can understand you not speaking when the organizer asked you to,” George said, “but I can’t understand you not showing up in support. The fight against the war is a local issue, too. Kids are being drafted every day from our university through the lottery to fight a war none of us agree with. Christ, they’re our neighbors. You telling me you don’t care anymore, that’s not you, Jackie. What’s happened to you?”

  Without a word, Lena left the table and marched into the house, shutting the door loudly behind her.

  “Thanks a lot, Georgie.”

  Patty made a face. “Marriage happened to Jackie. You should try it sometime, George.”

  “Fuck you,” I snapped at her and left to follow Lena.

  “Jackie,” Patty called after me. “I was just teasing. You know that.”

  Lena was in the kitchen cleaning up the mess from the lunch we’d just finished.

  “You can go if you want to,” she said, not looking at me. “Don’t use me as an excuse.”

  I kissed her on the back of the neck and slipped my arms around her. “I don’t want to go and I’m not using you as an excuse. I don’t think it would be good for me to be in the crowd. The whole country is boiling. It won’t take much to set off things even in Isla Vista.”

  She shut off the faucet. “Go if you want to.”

  “I don’t,” I repeated as she hurried out of the kitchen.

  I ran a hand through my hair.

  Fuck, nothing I did seemed to make Lena happy anymore.

  From the cabinet, I took bottle of scotch and filled up a tall glass, more than ready for something stronger than the damn Mimosas we’d been sipping all morning.

  I went back to the patio with my drink and the bottle and pointed with the scotch at Patty. “Don’t start in on me again.”

  She held up her palms in front of her. “I won’t.” She crinkled her nose. “Should I go talk or apologize or something to Lena? I didn’t mean to put a downer on your afternoon.”

  I shook my head. “No, leave her alone. When she gets like this you’ve just got to wait it out.”

  Patty frowned. “Is that what you’ve been doing these days? Waiting things out?”

  I shrugged. “More or less.”

  She studied me. “Is it her not getting pregnant? Is that the problem? I should never have told her this morning Georgie and I were pregnant. Oh fuck, me and my big mouth. It’s my fault, Jackie. That’s why she’s been crying on and off all morning.”

  “Crying?” I asked, alarmed because I hadn’t noticed.

  Patty nodded.

  Fuck.

  “It’s not that, Patty. We gave up trying for another kid a long time ago. I think she just got tired with the disappointment every month. She’s happy for you. We both are.”

  I refilled my glass.

  “I think you two need a break from each other,” she said. “Lord knows, I couldn’t be around Georgie as much as the two of you are together.”

  “Hey,” George said into both of our laughter.

  “I was just kidding,” Patty said, kissing him affectionately on the nose. “You’re brilliant. What woman wouldn’t want to spend every minute with you?”

  We sat around the table talking, but it was mostly them. I lapsed into silence because it hurt given the state of things with Lena watching them touch and poke fun at each other.

  Their closeness.

  Their common causes and passions.

  I couldn’t even remember knowing this with Lena, if we’d ever shared anything close to how Patty and George were together, and I wasn’t sure that we had.

  “Hey, Patty cakes, we better head out if we want to find a close parking spot there so you don’t have to walk too far to the stadium.”

  Patty pushed up from her chair. “Let me just make a stop in the bathroom. Jeez, I pee every half hour these days.”

  Georgie’s brow furrowed. “Are you sure you should go? Maybe you should stay and visit with Lena?”

  She gave him a look. “Trying to get rid of me so you can go out rabble-rousing alone, huh?”

  George rolled his eyes. “Do what you want, Patty. I was trying to be considerate of you.”

  “See, Jackie, he doesn’t want me either,” she taunted, giving me a smile before busting up into laughter as she headed for the door.

  I went into the house with George, and Patty stopped him at the front door. “I’m going to stay behind, Georgie. You were right. I should stay with Lena.”

  “Everything OK?” he asked, worried.

  Her eyes fixed on his. “I’m fine, George. She just needs a little girl time. Take Jack and go.”

  They stared at each other for a few minutes and then Georgie patted me on my arm. “Girl time. That means you’re my date for today, Jackie.”

  “No, I already told you…”

  He practically pushed me from the house to the car.

  “George, what the hell has gotten into you?”
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  “I think it’s better you leave Lena alone with Patty today.” That was all he said before he shut the passenger door.

  We drove out of Hope Ranch toward Goleta.

  “You going to tell me what’s going on?” I asked.

  Georgie didn’t look at me. “Nothing, probably. But when my wife says to do something I do it.”

  I laughed and said, “Whatever, man. Just don’t think I’m paying for dinner after our date, you cheap ass son of a bitch.” I took a long swallow from the bottle I’d carried with me from the patio.

  When he parked, I tossed the empty bottle into the backseat and followed Georgie across campus. The vibe was pretty tame, like it always was in Santa Barbara. Things were low-key here. Small time, not big time anything, the way things were living on the edge of the Pacific. No one bothering us, just wanting to come and talk or say hello to me.

  When we left the stadium, George was fired up, talking to everyone in every step, and the students were, too, once Kunstler had drawn the connection between what was happening nationally to what was happening here on campus.

  Still, it was strange to see so many cops lined up anywhere in Santa Barbara. DC, New York, Chicago, oh yeah; Santa Barbara never.

  “Why don’t we go into IV and grab a beer?” I suggested, and he followed after me as I started walking toward the college village.

  We were at our favorite falafel stand, downing beers and rapping with the students, when I heard about the kid being arrested outside the stadium because police thought he had a Molotov cocktail and all he had was a bottle.

  Fuck, I was so used to protests that it hardly fazed me, hundreds of kids in the street and that tension that was building to boil between opposing sides.

  The students lit a trash can first near the Bank of America building. Then the police pushed back and everything exploded. Georgie and I were still there in the thick of it, hardly able to believe this was happening here, in our hometown, even though it shouldn’t have surprised either of us after all we’d seen.

  People were running, shouting, screaming all kinds of things. We stayed late into the night, Georgie at my side as I just talked to people, trying to turn down the heat a little.