"Why would you call it a bad-boy boat?"
"Maybe because it's called The Sinbad."
"Sinbad was a heroic sailor," Luther countered.
"Fictional as I recall."
"Fictional but heroic. The name has nothing to do with sin."
"How many voyages did Sinbad take?" Karen asked.
"I'm not sure," Luther said. "But you might want to read The Seventh and Final Voyage of Sinbad."
Karen laughed. This Luther was fun.
She listened intently as Luther told story after story about Honey and Leonard, revealing quite a bit about himself in the process. He was down to earth, charming without trying too hard. He was obviously excited to share the scoop on Honey and Leonard.
Before she knew it, Lindvall's staff had gone home for the night. She and Luther were alone. She considered offering him a shot of Scotch from the bottle in her desk but then thought better of it. After all, it was their first meeting.
Luther saved the day before she had time to think things through.
"I've got a great idea," he said. "Let's continue this conversation over dinner. I'm famished and I could use a drink. Would you care to join me? Or better yet, direct us to the finest dining establishment in the region? I could have us in Chicago in less than an hour."
"That's right. You've got a helicopter, and probably a jet as well."
"Does that offend you?"
"No, I guess not. It's just that I've never gone out with a guy who had his own helicopter. Not that we're going out, per se."
"Of course not. We'll just have a cocktail and a bite to eat. We don't need the plane."
"You know what?" Karen said as she stood up and Luther followed suit. "I could be talked into a Scotch. And I know a great Italian place right around the corner."
Twenty-one
GRETCHEN SET HER SUITCASE on the linoleum floor and looked around the small but comfortable room. There was a single bed along the left wall and a table with two chairs on the other side. A doorway on the right led to a bathroom that looked like it could be used by the room next door. The front wall of the bedroom was a sliding-glass door that afforded a nice view of a private patio and garden.
This won't be too bad at all.
It was a sunny day. Gretchen walked to the glass door and grabbed the handle to open it. The door wouldn't open. She pulled harder. It wouldn't budge. She bent over to examine the handle. There didn't seem to be a lock or a switch to open. She put both hands on the handle and used her body weight.
A nurse in a crisp, white uniform walked in without knocking and saw Gretchen pulling on the door. "You can stop pulling on that thing. It won't open. It's locked from the outside. You're in a lockdown detox unit. Sit down, I've got to take your blood pressure and ask you some questions."
As Gretchen slowly took her seat in one of the chairs, the gravity of her situation hunched her back and made her shoulders slump.
Has it really come to this?
The nurse got her to sit up straight and told her it would only be a few days before she could leave detox and join her fellow addicts and alcoholics on the unit. "That doesn't sound like much to look forward to," Gretchen said.
"It's better than where you were headed," the nurse said. "Your blood pressure is dangerously high."
This was the beginning of four miserable days for Gretchen. The vomiting and the sense of impending doom and the skin bugs weren't the worst part of alcohol withdrawal. It was the nightmares that really dished out the punishment. Her dreams of Uncle Leonard were the most terrible psychological suffering she had ever endured. In these dream hallucinations she was often inflicting unspeakable physical torture on him until he finally had no strength to even cry out in pain. She beat him like an evil horse trainer breaking a stallion.
Gretchen awakened from each dream drenched in the sweat of her own guilt. She had never before suffered dreams of violence.
The dreams became less frightful as the days and nights crept slowly and painfully by. The icy fingers of alcoholism gradually stopped choking her. On the fifth day, she was released from the detox unit and assigned to a room with five roommates.
As soon as she arrived, she wanted to return to detox. Being forced to interact with others would be a new kind of nightmare. The only time she ever had a roommate was her freshman year at college, and that had been a disaster. Gretchen had always needed to get her own way.
The unit was a suite of sleeping rooms around a large living space with couches, a television and a snack area with a kitchen. There were 26 women in the unit and each of them was at a different point in her 28-day stay.
The first woman she talked to was a crack addict out of Boston with ten days in the program. She was a prostitute, thin as a rail. Gretchen could not relate to her tales of doing tricks and staying up for a week at a time.
The woman in the bed next to Gretchen was on her twenty-fourth day. She saved Gretchen from the Boston girl by introducing herself as a "wild whiskey woman from Washington." Gretchen felt an immediate affinity for her.
"Name's Barbara," she held out her hand. "I'm just about out of here. Don't worry. I know how you feel. Right about now you're beginning to wonder why in the world you let them talk you into rehab. This place feels like prison. It's hard at first but it does get better as you go through it. What brings you to Mapleton?"
"Jack Black."
"Oh, yes, I know him well. Too well."
"Also, it looks like I'm about to get busted for embezzling money from my uncle and selling his farm."
"We do the damndest things when we're drunk," Barbara said. "For me, it was always about the sex. I'd get drunk enough, I'd roll with a buffalo."
Gretchen laughed like she thought her new roommate was joking. She wasn't.
"It's all the same," Barbara continued. "Drugs, booze, sex, money. They're all symptoms of the disease of addiction. The real core of addiction is the self-centeredness. That's what the twelve steps are all about. It's not about quitting booze. It's about not being selfish. It's about surrender."
"Surrender to what?"
"Surrender to the fact that you can't drink alcohol like a normie."
"What's a normie?"
"Normal person."
"Oh, brother. You people have a funny name for everything."
"What do you mean, 'you people.' Don't look now but you're one of us."
"I'm not as bad as her," Gretchen said, pointing to the Boston girl.
"Don't say that to her. She'll scratch your eyes out," Barbara laughed.
The Boston girl came over and said, "Don't think I don't know you're talking about me. I see you doing your little pointing and giggling. You white girls might think you're better than everybody, but last time I checked, we all ended up in the same place."
"I'm sorry, I didn't get your name," Gretchen said.
"Oh, so now you want to play nice. Well, that's all fine with me. It's Shaniqua. My name is Shaniqua. I know it's gonna take a while, but you'll learn how to pronounce it."
"Come on, Shaniqua," Barbara said, "sit down and talk with us. I've got to warn Gretchen how you fart in your sleep."
"Me?" Shaniqua loosened up as she sat down. "You're the one who turns the room blue every night. It's you old girls got the problem."
It took several days, but Gretchen's worldview broadened considerably as she learned to live in close quarters with roommates of all ages, races and social status. Their common bond was addiction, and they all knew they needed each other's help.
Barbara and Gretchen became such fast friends that it was difficult for both of them when it was time for Barbara to go home. Her twenty-eight days were up. Gretchen was on day nine.
As they were hugging each other goodbye, Barbara said, "Stay writing on your steps. And don't wait too long to get to Step Nine. That's the one about making amends. If you try to make amends to your Uncle Leonard, you'll be amazed what happens."
After Barbara left, Gretchen began helping a new woman o
n the unit. That was the beauty of the 28-day program at Mapleton. Everyone arrived raw and disoriented, but they soon learned the value of helping others. In ten days, they could help new arrivals on the unit. In twenty-eight days, each woman had progressed from rehab rookie to fledgling recovery counselor.
The woman Gretchen took under her wing was a 41-year-old art teacher from Tulsa, Oklahoma, named Bobby. Bobby had been caught using art supply money to support her cocaine habit, which had turned into a crack cocaine addiction. Bobby was a hot, skinny mess when she came in, convinced that her life was over.
"I can't believe I stole from my school. That's the last thing I'd ever do. I love my kids. They mean everything to me. I can't believe I let them down."
Gretchen felt like she was looking into a psychic mirror. "I know how you feel," she said. "I stole a lot more money than you and I did it to the one man who really loved me."
"You stole from your husband?" Bobby asked.
"No, I stole from my uncle. I've never been married."
"Are you gay?" Bobby was brusquely straightforward..
"No," Gretchen answered after too long a pause. "I just never found the right guy. To be honest, I never even had a long time boyfriend."
"I had a husband. He divorced me about a year ago. Thank God I'm still on his health insurance to pay for this place. How is it you never had a boyfriend?"
"I guess it was growing up on the farm, being an only child. We kept pretty much to ourselves out there. By the time I got to college, I was already a loner. I never felt comfortable with myself until I started teaching school. I found my calling and my true self as a teacher. I was good at it. My kids were everything to me. I never had time for men. But I started drinking. My daddy taught me how. Before long, I was taking a nip between classes."
"How did you not get caught?"
"I mixed the booze into a coke bottle and ate tons of breath mints."
"Yeah, I used to do a bump for lunch."
"What do you mean?" Gretchen asked.
"I'd snort a line of cocaine instead of eating lunch. Cocaine makes you not hungry. But it's an expensive diet plan. I figure it cost me about $10,000 a pound."
"How did you afford it?" Gretchen asked.
"I stole from anybody I could. My husband, my parents, and eventually, even the kids at school. That's why I'm here. They caught me. It was rehab or jail. So what goes on around this place?"
"For starters, it's time to eat. The food is great. It's cafeteria style and you can go back as many times as you want. They've even got ice cream. You look like you haven't eaten in a month. Let's go."
Helping Bobby and the other women on the unit turned out to be the best medicine for Gretchen. She was older than most of the women. By her twenty-fifth day, she had become a virtual housemother on the unit. She took to recovery with such enthusiasm that her counselor began suggesting she might have a career in the recovery industry.
One afternoon at the pool, she heard herself saying to Bobby, "You've got to find a way to forgive yourself so you can move on with your life."
"I don't think I can."
"Oh, come on," Gretchen said. "You're not that important. Everybody makes mistakes. The whole point of the twelve-step program is getting over your self. It's the self-centeredness that keeps us using and drinking and stealing, not the drugs or the alcohol."
As the words came out of her mouth, Gretchen realized she was talking to herself. She had been taking herself too seriously. She did need to let go of the past and put some faith in a higher power. Let go and let God, as all the recovery books said.
She needed to let go of her need to be so controlling. She needed to forgive herself so she could move on and do what she needed to do.
A new resolve came over her as she made the decision she knew she had to make.
I've got to make things right with Uncle Leonard.
* * *
Honey and Leonard were waiting for another round of their physicals to begin at the Mayo Clinic.
"I hate all these tests," Honey said. "Everybody treats me like a little old lady. I don't feel old. Do I feel old to you, sweetie?"
Leonard missed his cue. He was lost in that place he went from time to time. It was a terrible time for his mind to wander. His wife needed reassurance and she needed it now.
Honey wasn't one to suffer in silence. She punched him hard on the arm to bring him around and grabbed his head with both hands to turn his face toward hers. "I said people are treating me like an old lady. Do I feel old to you?"
Leonard instantly realized the importance of giving the right answer. He kissed her on the lips and stood up to formally proclaim, "You are not old in the slightest. You are my sweet, baby, pumpkin. When you're mad, you're my sweet, baby, grumpkin."
Honey stood up to throw her arms around him. The motion raised up his hospital gown and exposed his bare ass to a couple of passing nurses, who giggled and kept moving. Honey grabbed his butt with both hands and said, "Leonard Atkins, you are one smart man."
"Was I wandering for a minute there?"
"Yes, you were."
"That's scary," Leonard said. "It seems to be happening more and more."
"No, you just haven't had your medicine today. The doctors want to test you without that new drug you're on. They don't really need to test you. I can tell them it's working wonders for your memory and for your attitude in general. For all I know, they're getting close to a cure."
"Wouldn't that be grand?" Leonard said and then fell thoughtfully silent.
"What are you thinking?"
"I'm thinking I wish we would have met fifty years ago. We could have danced all night."
"We can still dance all night," Honey said. "We just don't want to."
"I know," Leonard laughed. "That's not what I mean. What I'm talking about is why it took us so long in life to find each other. Why didn't we fall in love when we were kids?"
"Do you think we would have had as much fun?"
"Maybe not. They say every age has its compensations. For us, being older has freed us. It's almost like we had to go through a lifetime of struggle to become free enough to find each other."
Honey hugged him and marveled to herself how insightful her man could be in his moments of lucidity. He had made remarkable progress in the six weeks since getting on the experimental Alzheimer's drug. Now, being off the drug for twenty-four hours before testing, she could feel him slipping into the dark world of the forgetful mind. She knew he didn't remember his most recent profound remark.
"What's that you say about every age having its compensations?" she asked.
Leonard gave her that blank look that told her he had no idea what she was talking about.
"You were saying we had to go through a lifetime of struggle to become free enough to find each other."
Leonard picked up on her point, although he didn't remember making it himself. "What I think," he said to recover, "is it's a darn shame we didn't meet each other much younger in life."
"Are you saying I'm too old for you?"
"No, no. Not at all. I guess all I'm saying is I'm so grateful we got together. For the first time in my life I feel complete. I really don't know how I went so long without you."
Honey gave him a big kiss on the lips and breathed in through her nose his smell of Old Spice deodorant. "I love the way you smell. And I love the way you kiss, especially since you are now the most famous lover boy on the planet."
"Tell that to my little man," Leonard said. "As much as I love you I honestly feel like he's not down there anymore. It's strange. He used to lead me around like a dog on a leash. Now, I'm off leash and I don't even want to run away."
"Sweetie, I do not feel deprived in any way. We still have our moments. But your hugs and kisses are all I need. Like you say, every age has its compensations. One of the main benefits of getting older is not thinking about sex all the time. Men confuse sex with love, but the two are not even related. Sex is love's evil stepmother."<
br />
"Oh, that's a good one," Leonard said. "I'd better write that one down."
Dr. Laughlin came walking down the hall with three nurses and introduced them to Honey and Leonard. "Leonard, you'll be going with Susan and Laura here, and Honey, you'll be going with Sandra. I'm sorry to break up this little party. I'll get you back together before lunch."
As the doctor spoke, Jack Crumbo came walking down the hall, unescorted.
"Hello, Jack," Dr. Laughlin said. "How'd you get in without a pass? Not that I'm not happy to see you."
"People let me in anywhere these days," Crumbo said. "It seems everybody knows I'm with Honey and Leonard. Hi, guys. You look cute in your little hospital gowns. How's it going?"
"It's a little breezy," Leonard said. "What brings you to the hospital? Is everything all right?"
Crumbo looked at the doctor as if requesting permission to proceed. Once Dr. Laughlin nodded approvingly, Crumbo said, "I thought you ought to know that Gretchen has checked herself into rehab. She's less than an hour drive from here."
"Good Lord," Leonard gasped. "Is she okay?"
"She's better than ever," Crumbo said. "She hasn't had a drink that anybody knows about for 24 days. It looks like she'll be checking out in four more days."
"Can we go see her?" Leonard asked, looking to Dr. Laughlin for an answer.
"You could go tomorrow," he said. "Your testing will be completed and I'm pretty sure they allow family visits. She's at Mapleton, right?" he asked Crumbo.
"That's right," Crumbo said. "Nobody knows it yet. I called her attorney, Alice Chambers. She wouldn't confirm it but she wouldn't deny it either. She knows Gretchen is in trouble about your money, Leonard. And she knows rehab might help her client's position. She just doesn't want to break the story herself."
"How did you find out?" Honey asked.
"She called me one night in a big drunk and let it slip that she was in a hotel in Warsaw, Indiana. She wanted to set the record straight about how incompetent her Uncle Leonard was and how the evil Honey had him under her spell."
"What did I ever do to make her hate me so?" Honey asked.
"You stole her Uncle Leonard," Crumbo said. "You should have heard her on the phone. She was spitting fire."
Honey and Leonard Page 24