by Gail Sattler
She didn’t know why she’d done it, but after she’d cried herself out, she couldn’t stop herself from going into the living room and studying the picture grouping containing twelve frames in sequence selected from the video of Randy falling into the water at the duck pond.
He’d given it to her as a gag gift, along with a beautiful framed and matted picture of the male and female ducks, whom Randy claimed were happily mated, until death do them part.
They’d laughed so much about him falling into the water; at least they had the next day. Randy claimed that it was a sign from God that he was to buy the printer he had his eye on, because every frame he printed came out with the quality of a real photograph.
Not that she didn’t believe in signs, but she knew it was just an excuse to buy the printer, and told him so. All he’d done was laugh and buy the printer anyway.
Even though the play-by-play starting with Randy trying to feed the ducks, ending with him landing in the water, complete with one photo of just the splash, was only meant as a joke, she’d hung it right alongside the professionally framed picture of the pair of ducks.
Randy was a man who could fall down, get up, come out smiling and move forward.
The world needed more people like Randy.
Except, this time, he’d fallen and she couldn’t bring herself to go help pick him up. The same thing had devastated her mother for as long as she could remember, and she’d been through it too many times with Eric and Susan. She wouldn’t open herself up to being hurt like that. She refused to be a victim like her mother, and like Susan.
Lacey watched from above as a bus slowed and came to a halt at the bus stop in front of her apartment building’s main entrance.
Her heart nearly stopped when a man dressed in a tuxedo stepped out, and the bus continued on its way.
She stared from above, but he didn’t look up. Just like in a scene from a B-grade movie, he staggered to the lamppost and hung on to it with both arms, hugging it as he leaned, the whole time keeping his head hanging low.
Even from the height of six stories, she saw his body lurch as one hand left the pole and he pressed it to his mouth. Suddenly he pushed himself away, ran to the bushes on the property line, bent at the waist and began to throw up.
Just watching him made Lacey feel sick.
She stepped back inside, but the mental picture haunted her.
She didn’t want to get involved. She couldn’t go through that.
But she couldn’t leave him out there. Self-inflicted by the evils of alcohol or not, Randy was sick and he needed someone, and the only someone who was going to help him was her.
She made her way down the elevator partly wishing it would stop, and partly wishing it would go faster.
When she joined Randy, he was hunched over with his palms pressed onto his knees, gasping for breath.
“Randy? It’s me. Lacey. Are you going to be okay?”
“Go away. I didn’t want you to see me like this.”
A strange reaction. Eric always demanded that Susan help him, and most especially, clean up after him.
“I’m not leaving you out here. Come inside. I mean it.”
He stood, and his pained expression told her how awful he was feeling. They walked slowly to the elevator, but when Lacey raised her hand to push the button, Randy’s hand enveloped hers.
“Wait. I don’t know if I can take the motion of the elevator yet. Not after the bus. I’m so sorry.” He closed his eyes and leaned his back against the wall, his breathing labored.
She waited until he stood on his own, then pressed the button. At the first lurching movement of the elevator, Randy’s face paled, and he staggered slightly. He clenched his teeth and fell back against the wall, then grappled with the bar that went around the three solid walls of the interior as if he were hanging on for dear life.
“I don’t feel very good….”
Lacey feared for the worst, but at that moment the movement stopped and the door swooshed open. Randy drew in a deep breath and stepped out, almost swooning.
As drunk as she’d seen Eric, he’d never been as bad as Randy was now.
The second she opened her apartment door, Randy stepped inside, kicked off his shoes and ran for the washroom. The door slammed closed, and she didn’t want to, but some demented part of her made her approach it. The question if he was going to be okay almost came out, but instead of the sound of wretching, which was what she’d expected, came the sounds of what seemed to be Randy brushing his teeth.
She cringed, thinking about him using her toothbrush. She should have been angry, but she couldn’t be. Despite his condition, he’d seemed embarrassed outside. She couldn’t begrudge him her toothbrush.
The door opened. Randy held up a toothbrush she didn’t recognize. “Don’t worry. I brought my own. See? I got it at the sidewalk sale.”
“What are you doing carrying around a toothbrush?”
“It’s a long story.” He folded it up, slipped it inside a small plastic case, tucked the case in the pocket of his tuxedo jacket and stepped toward her. “But now I can be closer to you and not have to worry about being disgusting. I think God really does have a sense of humor.”
Lacey backed up a step, but didn’t comment.
“Lacey, we need to talk. I need to know why you ran away from me.”
“You’re drunk,” she croaked out.
“No. I’m…” Randy shook his head a couple of times while he spoke, but his words trailed off. He stopped moving his head, swayed and his eyes widened and became glazed.
He bumped into the wall, continuing to lean on it for support. “No. I’m not.”
“You could have fooled me.”
“It’s not what it looks like. I didn’t want to get sick.”
“You’re sick all right, but I don’t feel sorry for you when it’s self-inflicted.”
“No.” He reached forward, toward her hands. “Not like that. I’ve always gotten sick on the bus. I meant—”
“Don’t you dare touch me,” Lacey ground out from between clenched teeth. “Don’t forget, I’ve heard it all and seen it all from Eric, and from my father. I may have only been a kid, but I saw a lot more than they thought I did. I wouldn’t want any child to have to live with those kinds of memories. Especially not a child of mine.”
“But—”
“It’s not open for discussion.”
“I—” Again, Randy reached for her hands and stepped forward, but Lacey sidestepped him. When his hand moved forward into the empty spot, his whole body leaned forward with his hand and kept moving.
Randy fell flat on his face.
“I’ve fallen and I can’t get up,” he said not moving from his prone position with his face pressed against the carpet. “Can I stay here? I promise I’ll be good. I’m housebroken. I really am. I’m cute, too.”
Since he wasn’t moving, Lacey didn’t know if he meant stay on the floor, or stay at her apartment. She wanted to send him home, but she didn’t think he’d be safe going alone in his present condition. But if he couldn’t take the movement of the elevator, she certainly wasn’t going to risk taking him home in her car. To his credit, at least he had been responsible enough to take the bus and not drive his car in his present condition.
She stood above him and looked down. He turned his head to the side so his nose wasn’t pressed into the carpet, but he didn’t get up. Instead he closed his eyes and the corner of his mouth turned up into what seemed like a lazy half smile. “Your carpet is nice and soft. Like lying on a cloud. Just like that commercial. Except there’s no angels. Did you know that all the angels in the Bible were really men, none were women? Although they did kinda wear dresses. I don’t wear dresses, but I’m wearing a nice tuxedo. Do you like it?”
He’d looked very handsome in the tuxedo…when he was upright. But she wasn’t going to tell him that. “Are you going to get up?”
She continued to watch him, but he didn’t move. Except the longer she waited, the m
ore his body relaxed.
After a few minutes, Lacey gave up waiting for him to respond. “I guess you can stay, but…”
A soft snore interrupted her words.
“I don’t believe this,” she muttered.
From across the room, Lacey’s cell phone rang inside her purse. She jogged across the room and answered it.
“Hi, Lacey. This is Adrian. We lost Randy. Is he there?”
She looked at Randy, who hadn’t moved, which wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. “Yes. He’s here.”
Adrian breathed a sigh of relief. “I’m glad, because that means he made it safely. I guess you can see that he’s not in very good shape.”
“You can say that again.”
“Don’t tell him I called, but I’ll be right there to come and get him. I just need your address.”
Because she didn’t want to take Randy home in her own car in case he was sick again, she didn’t think that was a good idea to take the same risk with Adrian’s car.
Randy snored again.
“I think he’s settled down, so it’s probably best to leave him where he is.”
“As long as you’re sure.”
She wasn’t sure, but she didn’t know what else to do.
“We’ll be fine.”
“Thanks, Lacey. I owe you. Bye.”
Lacey sighed and returned to Randy’s prone body. She lowered herself to kneel beside him and lightly shook one shoulder. “Wake up. You can stay here tonight, but I think you’ll be better off on the couch. Randy?”
His eyes fluttered open, so Lacey held on to one arm and tugged, in order to help him up. With her help, he pushed himself to his knees, but again he swayed, tipped and fell into her. On impact he wrapped his arms around her.
Leaving them facing each other kneeling, almost nose to nose, wrapped in each other’s arms.
Randy grinned. “Just one kiss. Make me see fireworks.”
“That does it. You’re on your own.” She pushed him away, and this time he fell onto his side.
Lacey stood. “You can stay, but I’m leaving. Just remember, by the time I get back to get ready for church you’d better be gone, both from my home and from my life.”
She left quickly, not bothering to grab her sweater.
Just in case he somehow managed to get to his feet and try to follow her, Lacey ran for the stairwell. She walked down a flight of stairs, then got into the elevator from the fifth floor to go into the underground parking.
The only place she could think of to go was Susan’s house, although she didn’t know what she could say.
She knocked softly on Susan’s door, almost wishing that Susan would send her home.
“Lacey? What are you doing here? Wasn’t tonight Randy’s friend’s wedding?”
“Yes, but it’s all over now.” In more ways than one.
“Have you been crying? Come in!”
Before she realized what she was dong, Lacey spilled the whole sordid tale to her sister, including the part about falling in love with a man whom she knew would hurt her time and time again.
“I can’t believe what you’re telling me. Something just doesn’t seem right. You should hear the things Eric has been saying about Randy. His dedication, his strong faith. His strength and determination. I can’t believe he fell away. Are you sure about this?”
“I didn’t want to believe it. But I saw him put the glass down, and I picked it up right away. It was wine. And he’s so out of it. You know how he jumps quickly from topic to topic when he gets started on something. He’s ten times worse that usual.”
“Usually that’s a sign of high intelligence.”
“Or insanity.”
“You know what I mean. I’ll let you stay here under one condition.”
“Name it.”
“That you don’t go back to our old church in the morning, that you go one more time to Randy’s church and talk to his friends. Something’s really bugging me about this, but I can’t put my finger on it. But right or wrong, you should really take a hard look at what you’re throwing away. Sometimes God wants us to take the bad with the good, because ultimately, God can use it for a purpose. We just can’t see it right away. Sometimes we never will, until after we’re dead and in His presence.”
Lacey had been taught that concept in Sunday school, but she’d never had to actually apply it to anything in her life. It was a very difficult lesson.
“I’m waiting for your answer, Lacey.”
“Since when did you become so assertive? You always used to back down in any confrontation, even if you weren’t the one who was wrong.”
“It’s something Randy taught me, and he’s right. I’ll go get you a blanket and a pillow. It’s time to get to bed, and I’ll be seeing you in church in the morning.”
Bob Delanio had just tucked the crash cymbal into its tote when a woman’s voice sounded behind him.
“Bob? What are you doing here? Isn’t this supposed to be your honeymoon?”
He stood and turned around. “Hi, Lacey. We’re not leaving until tonight. George’s mother is in town just for the weekend, so when we booked our flight, we took that into consideration.”
“Oh, that’s good. Listen, I hate to do this to you, but did you hear about what happened last night?”
“A little bit. Why?”
“I know you’ve been good friends with Randy since you were little kids. I wanted to ask you a few questions, if that’s okay.”
“I won’t betray something told to me in confidence, but I’ll do my best to answer anything else.”
“Do you know why he has a drinking problem? Did he have a bad childhood, or was he affected by some tragedy?”
He looked up to the sound room, where he could see Randy turning everything off. He’d noticed that Lacey hadn’t been up there with him during the service. “I think this is something you should be speaking about to Randy, not me.”
“I tried, but he won’t talk about it.”
“Well…” Bob turned to the side as he continued to pack up his drum set, so he couldn’t actually see Randy as he was talking about him. He didn’t want to tell Lacey anything Randy didn’t want her to know, but he could tell Lacey what he saw from his own perspective, and then she could be her own judge and draw her own conclusions.
“I don’t remember anything tragic, as you say, and I wouldn’t say he had a bad childhood, but if there were ever two people who shouldn’t have had kids, it was Randy’s parents. Maybe he was an afterthought, I don’t know. But he was always left alone so much and it ate at him. I guess you’ve learned that Randy is quite a social animal.”
“Yes. He seems to know people everywhere. And if he doesn’t, he gets to know them quickly.”
“Yet, he was quiet as a kid. He would brood for days when his parents forgot his birthday, which, unfortunately, was often. Nothing any of us could do made any difference. Mama used to throw huge birthday parties for him when he was with us on his birthday. Bigger than ours.” He smiled. “But none of us minded. We knew that a big party didn’t make up for him being away from his family.”
“Maybe it was hard for them to call from wherever in the world they were. Communications were a lot different twenty years ago than they are today.”
Bob grinned. “Yeah. I think Randy has every electronic communications device known to man. Maybe that’s why. Have you seen his cell phone?”
Lacey smiled back. “Of course.”
Bob’s smile faded. “I tried to tell him that the first time, that they must have not had access to international long distance, or that it was too expensive, and he kind of went along with it, but the next year they forgot his birthday, too, and they were home that year. They actually forgot a lot. I don’t know how. They also kept promising that one day they’d get him a dog, and they never did. I don’t think Randy ever got over that. Why are you asking about Randy’s drinking?”
“Because of yesterday.”
“He wasn’t drunk.
I heard that he had a bad reaction to some medication.”
“That may be true, but I know he was drinking. I smelled it.”
Bob’s movements froze for a few seconds. “Really? I find that almost impossible to believe. It doesn’t seem right.”
“I’m not lying.”
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it that way, but it just doesn’t make sense. You should have seen him when we were practicing. He was devastated that you wouldn’t talk to him. I remember what he was like when he was hungover, even though it’s been a number of years. He wasn’t like that this morning. He’s a little slow on the draw today, but otherwise he seemed fine.” Just so sad, which normally wasn’t like Randy at all. For the first time, he hadn’t seen Randy singing while the worship team was practicing before the service. Randy didn’t know that Bob knew what he did up there, but the drums were on a platform, so he was a bit higher up than the rest of the worship team, and he could see better across the sanctuary and into the sound booth window.
It was very telling that Lacey didn’t look any happier than Randy did.
“He was sick and everything last night.”
Bob shrugged his shoulders. “I would have expected that. He gets the worst motion sickness I’ve ever seen. As kids, and even in our teens, I can’t count the times we all had to get off the bus and wait while Randy was sick. Some of the bus drivers knew us and let us on for free, but often we had to pay a second fare midtrip. I know we shouldn’t have, but when that happened we always made Randy pay us back out of his allowance.”
“That’s awful.”
“We were kids and we didn’t have much money. But he got us back. He was the first one to get his driver’s license and a car, and he always made us pay for gas. Kids usually grow out of the motion sickness, but Randy never did.”
Bob smiled at the memories, but his smile quickly faded. “I also remember that he was the first of us to experiment with drinking, except his parents never caught him. Either that, or they couldn’t be bothered enough to do anything about it. Looking back, I wonder if that’s why he overdid it so much. He was just waiting for someone besides us guys to care enough to tell him to stop, and no one ever did.”