Return to Shepherd Avenue

by Charlie Carillo

  “None for me, thanks.”

  “You going to make me drink alone?”

  “I don’t drink.”

  “At all?”

  He hesitated. “I’m a recovering alcoholic. Sober two and a half years, now.”

  He wasn’t ashamed and he wasn’t proud. He was simply stating a fact.

  “Good for you,” I said at last. I was holding the wine bottle in both hands, like an altar boy who’s forgotten his moves. Kevin chuckled.

  “Go ahead, have your wine. I can be around it.”

  I poured myself a glass. “I take it Taylor knows about your . . . alcohol situation.”

  For the first time, a look of concern crossed Kevin’s face. He fought with himself over whether or not to tell me, and suddenly it was out.

  “Truth is, we met at a meeting.”

  It didn’t hit me at first, and then it did, like the fucking night train. An Alcoholics Anonymous meeting. My one and only child was an alcoholic who stood up in church basements, drank bad coffee and confessed her problem to strangers.

  “Holy shit,” I breathed.

  Kevin eased me into a chair, like a corner man guiding a dazed boxer between rounds. I took a long swallow of wine.

  “Are you all right, sir?’

  “I had no idea.”

  “We all hide it.”

  “This is a hell of a punch, know what I mean?”

  “I know what you mean.”

  “Mr. Ambrosio—”

  “Joe! Call me Joe. We’re practically in-laws!”

  Kevin laughed. “You got a Coke for me, Joe?”

  “Water’s all I can offer, besides coffee.”

  “Water’ll do.”

  * * *

  I sipped wine while Kevin drank water and told me about Taylor’s drinking history. She’d been dry for six months, after a few years of leaning hard on the vodka bottle.

  I’d never even imagined my daughter drinking, much less being a fall-down drunk. And Kevin couldn’t tell me anything about what Taylor had been like on the bottle, since they’d met at AA after they’d both quit.

  “Her mother’s death brought the problem to a head,” he said.

  “And my not going to the funeral didn’t help.”

  “I didn’t say that.”

  “You didn’t have to.”

  “Joe, your daughter’s doing well now, and I want you to know that I love her very much.”

  By this time I’d knocked off half that bottle of wine, so I was a little fuzzy, but that didn’t diminish the punch in his words.

  “I love her, too.”

  “You’ve got to call her.”

  “I did. She instructed me to wait for her to call.”

  “I wouldn’t obey that particular instruction, if I were you.”

  “She has my number, Kevin. It’s her move.”

  He rolled his eyes and got to his feet. “You’re both so stubborn!”

  “It’s an Ambrosio specialty.”

  “Someone has to make a move!”

  Now he was shouting at me. What balls! I was both impressed and convinced as I got to my feet.

  “Okay, Kevin. You made the move, and I appreciate it, so now I’ll make the move.”

  I got up to shake his hand, a gesture that morphed into an embrace. It was like hugging a tin soldier, all hard angles. “I’ll call her. And I won’t tell her you told me about her . . . problem.”

  Kevin broke the embrace. “No, that’s all right. Go ahead and tell her. I’m going to tell her I came here today, and told you everything.”

  “Really?”

  Now his smile was sad, pitying. “We tell each other everything, Joe. That’s what people do when they’re in love.”

  I walked him to the front stoop. The rain had stopped and there was a blissful freshness to the air. I watched Kevin trot up Shepherd Avenue, toward the elevated train. Halfway up the block he suddenly turned and ran back to my house, stopping at the stoop but continuing to run in place. I braced myself for something profound.

  “Remember, scatter the food when you feed those chickens!” he said, and then he turned and sprinted away.

  I felt wobbly on my feet. The wine had me woozy, so I went in the house to lie down and slept until a familiar knock jolted me awake after dark.

  Rose stood there looking puzzled, sniffing the air I was fouling with my sour wine breath.

  “What are you, boozin’ all alone, Jo-Jo?”

  “I just found out my daughter’s an alcoholic, so it seemed like the right time to get drunk.”

  “Jo-Jo, man, I’m so sorry!”

  “What are you sorry about? You don’t even know her. Shit, I don’t even know her! Come out back with me, I have to do something.”

  She followed me down the stairs and out to the backyard, where she let out a gasp at the sight of the chickens, strutting around in the moonlight.

  “You crazy, or what?”

  “You like it? Eddie Everything built the coop and the fence. They’ll be laying eggs pretty soon. Ever had a freshly-laid egg?”

  “Jo-Jo, I think maybe you’re crackin’ up.”

  I tossed handfuls of cracked corn around the yard, just as Kevin had instructed me.

  “You might be right,” I said. “But I like looking at my birds.”

  She took me by the elbow. “Come on, we can watch ‘em from your bedroom window.”

  * * *

  It was the gentlest lovemaking I’d ever experienced. We lay there afterwards, looking in each other’s eyes without looking away. I wondered if Rose might stay the night. This lying-after business was a step in the right direction.

  “You gonna see your daughter?”

  “I’m going to try.”

  “That’s good. I know how you feel. I miss my Justin.”

  “This is different. You and Justin are connected, no matter where he is. Me and my daughter . . .”

  I let the sentence dangle. Rose stroked my hair. “Hey, guess what? I read those books you gave me.”

  She was referring to three of my Sammy Suitcase books, which I’d given her the last time she was over.

  “Did you like them?”

  “Yeah, good stories. That kid’s one tough little mother.”

  I laughed. “Best description of Sammy I ever heard.”

  “Those pictures you drew, Jo-Jo, I gotta ask: Who taught you to do that?”

  “I pretty much taught myself. Funny thing is, I started in this house, fifty years ago. Used to draw and paint in the basement.”

  “You just, like, wanted to do it, so you did it?”

  “Guess so.”

  “Kept on practicin’ ‘til you got good?”

  “Yeah. Kind of like Justin, with his baseball.”

  Rose shook her head. “No. It’s different. Justin, he just does what he does, kinda like an animal. It’s his muscles and his speed . . . don’t take much brains, and some day he ain’t gonna be able to do it. What you can do is special.”

  “I don’t really do it anymore, but thanks.”

  She sat up. “What do you mean?”

  “Well, I haven’t done a book in a long time.”

  “Why not?”

  “Guess I’m out of stories.”

  “Bullshit. Tell another one! You can do it, Jo-Jo. At least one more.”

  “Why?”

  “ ‘Cause you gotta write a happy one.”

  I sat up. “A happy one?”

  “That’s right. This kid Sammy, he has his adventures, he makes friends, then he’s gotta move. Always sayin’ good-bye to everybody, his father draggin’ him off someplace, right?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Well, you gotta settle him someplace. He can’t keep movin’ forever. Maybe his father meets a woman, buys a house . . . I don’t know. You’re the writer, it’s your problem.”

  “I wasn’t aware I had a problem.”

  “Jo-Jo. I ain’t tryin’ to pick a fight with you. Just sayin’ you gotta give Sammy Suitcase a
break, man, ’cause even when he wins, he’s still so damn sad.”

  A tremor ran through me, so fierce that had I to lie back down. Rose had struck a nerve nobody had ever gone near. What instinct!

  I swallowed hard, hoping to keep my voice from trembling. “You’re right, Rose. Sammy Suitcase is a sad kid.”

  “Aw, Jo-Jo, I don’t wanna upset you.” She cuddled up with me and stroked my cheek. “Childhood is sad, ‘cause it don’t last.”

  I wiped my eyes, rolling over so she couldn’t see me crying. “No, baby. Childhood is sad because it never ends.”

  I fell asleep with Rose stroking my shoulders. When I woke up it was still dark, and of course I was alone.

  I went to the window. The moon was shining bright and three of my chickens were sleeping in the yard, outside the coop, their heads tucked into their sides in that funny way that chickens do.

  It was a comforting sight, the birds swelling slightly with each breath they took. I was eager for the sun to come up so I could feed and water them before heading to Manhattan to see my daughter.

  Chapter Twenty-one

  The next day I called Taylor. I just did it without thinking about it, the way a timid kid shuts his eyes and forces himself to jump off a high dive, and to my shock she agreed to meet me for coffee in Greenwich Village. I fed the chickens and headed to town to see my estranged, alcoholic daughter.

  Never dreamed I’d ever write a sentence like that last one.

  * * *

  Taylor was sitting there waiting for me at a Starbucks on Sheridan Square, and when she saw me the deadpan expression on her face did not brighten, and she didn’t get up out of her chair. I might have been a homeless person, about to hit her up for spare change.

  It’s hard for me to describe my daughter because in my mind, she just was. Maybe the easiest way would be to describe her late mother first. Moonchild was long and lanky, with untamed hair, like a cluster of windblown snakes. She had wild hazel eyes and a tiny button nose which, combined with her eternal wackiness, made her seem much younger than her years.

  Now take that person and darken her pale complexion, the way a spoonful of cocoa powder darkens a glass of milk. Tame the hair into a tasteful shoulder-length cut, and replace the wildness in the eyes with a cool serenity.

  And lastly, take that grinning mouth and tug its corners downward into a seemingly sad expression having nothing to do with her mood of the moment.

  As you may have guessed, she got that last trait from the Ambrosio side.

  Now you had my daughter Taylor, a combination of two human beings who didn’t come together so much as they collided.

  But one thing was different from the last time I’d seen her: My once-chubby daughter was now jackrabbit slim, with cheekbones and a swanlike neck. I couldn’t think of a way she could have looked more beautiful.

  I knew I would have to speak first. “Am I late?”

  “No, I’m early,” she said in a voice that was flatter than the floor.

  “My God, Taylor, you’ve lost a lot of weight!”

  “Yeah, well, that’s what happens when you live with a personal trainer.”

  I gestured toward the counter. “What can I get you?”

  She hoisted her latte. “I’m all set.”

  I got myself a drip coffee from a worker in a green apron who moved like a deeply anaesthetized man. His coworkers existed in the same dreamy state. I guess they stayed away from the product they peddled.

  Then I sat down across from her, and as I took my first sip she said, “You’re a chicken farmer?”

  “Well, I have six hens.”

  “What in the world possessed you to get chickens?”

  “I guess they’re sort of pets.”

  “You couldn’t get a cat, or a dog.”

  “I wanted chickens. I had chickens when I was a kid on Shepherd Avenue.”

  She shook her head. “Unbelievable.”

  “Kevin seemed to get a kick out of them.”

  “Kevin isn’t familiar with your bullshit.”

  “Taylor, please. Get it right. It’s chicken shit, okay? I don’t have room for a bull.”

  She sighed, shook her head, checked the time on her cell phone. “What do you want?”

  “I want to apologize. I should have been there when your mother died, and I’m sorry. I just couldn’t do it.”

  “Apology accepted.”

  “That didn’t sound sincere.”

  “It’s the best I can do.” She leaned closer. “What do you really want? Do you want to catch up on my life?”

  “Well, yeah, sure. We’re both catching up. You find out I’m a chicken farmer, I find out you’re an alcoholic.”

  She was ready for that. As Kevin had told me, they had no secrets from each other. She took a long sip from her cup and offered a bland smile.

  “What do you want to know?”

  I shrugged. “Whatever you want me to know. I’m here to learn.”

  “Well, I started boozing pretty hard about two years ago.”

  “When your mother died.”

  “Around that time, I guess.”

  “You guess?”

  “That’s the thing about drinking. It blurs the lines.”

  “Yeah, but I’m getting the feeling this is all my fault, for not going to the funeral.”

  She stared at me in what appeared to be disbelief.

  “My God,” she said, “your ego knows no bounds!”

  “Hey, it’s just a theory. You don’t hate me?”

  “I was disappointed, but it was never hate. I don’t have time to waste on hate.”

  “So you’re saving time by not hating me.”

  “Oh, for God’s sake! Get me another latte, would you?”

  That was encouraging. It meant she wasn’t going to rush off. I did as I was told and returned to the table, and by then her mouth had tightened up again, and it was as if we hadn’t broken any ground.

  I wanted to reach across the table to take her hand, but I dreaded the certain rejection, so I clasped my hands together and went for it.

  “Taylor, I’m sorry you were so unhappy.”

  A tiny smile tickled her lips, the same smile she wore when she was a two-year-old, noodling around in the sandbox at the Carmine Street playground.

  Which was about two blocks from where we now sat at this Starbucks, formerly a diner, formerly a bookstore. A former dad and his former daughter, eyeing each other like a pair of poker players.

  “Unhappy?” she echoed. “What makes you think I’m happy now?”

  “Aren’t you?”

  “Reasonably. Are you?”

  “I’m getting there. You feel like walking? I feel like walking. Take that latte with you.”

  If there was anything about the Village I missed it was the aimless walks in any direction that somehow always lifted my soul. We headed down Bleecker Street, crowded as always in the middle of the day. Didn’t these people have jobs? (And who was I to ask?)

  “Are we going any place special?” Taylor asked.

  “No,” I lied, “just walking. Sometimes I miss this neighborhood.”

  “I like the Upper West Side.”

  “Well, I like Kevin. I think you’re well-suited.”

  She stopped walking. “Don’t patronize me.”

  “I’m not. I’m impressed by him. You’re not an easy person, and I’m sure he isn’t either, but I’ve got a feeling you’re both worth the trouble.”

  Her eyes moistened. “Well, he’s worth the trouble, anyway.” She checked the time. “I’ve got to get back to work.”

  “Walk with me a little more. Just one more block.”

  “Okay, but there’s something I need to know.”

  “Shoot.”

  “You might not want to tell me, so don’t promise anything.”

  “All I said was shoot.”

  “Why’d you and Mom name me Taylor?”

  We stopped walking. “Your mother never told you?”
r />   “She refused.”

  “It’s nothing bad.”

  “So tell me.”

  We resumed walking. “You sure you want to know?”

  “I think I’m entitled to know, and I obviously can’t ask her anymore, so don’t give me any bullshit about how you liked the way it sounded.”

  Here goes nothing, I thought. “You were conceived at a loft party in SoHo, on top of a bed covered with coats. And the one under your mother was from Lord and Taylor.”

  Her eyes widened, but not with rage. She was actually smiling, broadly enough to reveal her teeth, which I was delighted to see were straight and white.

  “Is that the truth?”

  I crossed my heart, held up my hand. “Could have been worse. We could have called you ‘Lord.’ ”

  “My God.”

  “Taylor, it was the eighties. We were all a little bit crazy and careless, and your mother, I’m sure you noticed, was a bit of a flake.”

  She actually chuckled, to my great relief. “All this time . . .” she said, letting the sentence trail off.

  “All this time what?”

  “Well, all this time I had my own idea about it.”

  “I’m listening.”

  She hesitated. “I thought maybe I was named after Elizabeth Taylor.”

  I shrugged. “Stick with that version, if you like it.”

  “There aren’t any versions to the truth!”

  “Oh, Taylor. Where did I go wrong with you?”

  She laughed out loud, then said she really had to get back to work. I urged her to walk one more block with me.

  We crossed Cornelia Street and walked to the front gate at the Carmine Street playground. It was teeming with kids on swings and monkey bars that looked to be newly installed.

  “Remember this place? I took you here until you were two years old.”

  Taylor peered between the bars. “Guess it’s vaguely familiar.”

  “There used to be a sandbox in that corner, and you’d play there for hours. Funny, it’s in better shape than it used to be, but the old playground had more character.”

  “Did I ride on a little red train on wheels?”

  My heart jumped. “You sure did.”

  “Yeah. Yeah, I remember.”

  I dared to hug my daughter.

  “This was an extremely manipulative maneuver,” she said into my shoulder.

  “Yeah, well, I was desperate.”