Together Morrell and Vasco got him upright, and Lowell had no energy to push back anymore and get thrown around Vasco’s house like a handcuffed beanbag.
One on either side of him, they marched him out to Morrell’s squad car. Orson drove, of course. Kelleher rode in the front passenger seat, with Vasco and Lowell in the back seat, which was really a wire cage with the door locks controlled by the driver. It was a twentyminute mad rush on the interstate, going 90 mph with the police lights flashing. This was the only way they could catch the plane. Nobody said anything. Lowell’s friends were determined not to crack smiles or lighten up in any way.
Lowell squirmed in the handcuffs, which held his arms behind him and made sitting a contortion and a chore. “This is an overreaction,” Lowell said.
“Give me your cell phone,” Vasco replied.
“Why?”
“C’mon, give it to me.”
“Get the cuffs off me so I can get it.” Lowell realized the phone had several calls to Carol in the register. “I’d like to text Veronica, before it goes off.”
“We’re almost to the airport,” said Orson Morrell.
Orson produced the key, and Vasco unlocked the cuffs.
Lowell scanned the register and removed calls to Carol Brown. He changed the security code so no one could get in. He texted Veronica: I’ve been abducted by Vasco, Kelleher, Morrell. Back in a few weeks. When they did this with my father, it wasn’t possible to text and we didn’t know where he went. I’m sorry for all. Feel free to buy a car before I get back. Love, L.
He handed Vasco the phone. “I locked it,” he said.
Yes, this was something that happened to Lowell’s father when Lowell was fifteen. His father never told him about it, but it probably wasn’t much different. In a way, Lowell was fine with this forced trip, something he’d never managed to do for himself. He was following in his father’s footsteps, not entirely by choice but at least by genetic script. He wouldn’t soon forget his chat with Misty, her earnest, mature plea to him to get control of himself and step up to being her father. It was true she had more or less grown up while he was looking some other direction. It was time to get himself together.
Southwest Airlines. Soon they were sailing down Illini-Willard’s longest runway in a 737, en route to Lambert in St. Louis. The jet lifted off and gained altitude fast, as though the noise would bother the corn. At the level of the clouds they banked left and went all the way around the airport. From his window seat, Lowell saw Orson Morrell’s car, police lights still flashing, departing the lot enroute to Tuscola with Father Kelleher. There was no one in the middle seat and Vasco, earnest, far from feckless, sat on the aisle. It was over. Lowell thought of Veronica. He hoped she remembered to pack his notebooks. He would do a full dump in his notebooks over these coming weeks, sort it all out. He would once again read the literature of AA and drink the Kool-Aid. He would go to mass. He would purify—run, drop weight, detox. He would think, he would work, reconsider, get ahold of himself. He would step away from people who were trouble and recommit to a responsible life. He would be dry forever because he had no handle on alcohol and hated himself for all that had happened. He would read The Stranger again. Why did he suddenly think that, high up above the clouds? It wasn’t long and he was asleep in his seat, his head leaning against the window. He was emotionally exhausted and couldn’t control all things at home anymore. Instead, he gave himself over to it, all of it.
•
On the approach into St. Louis, people on the plane stirred with anticipation and Lowell woke up, not exactly refreshed but feeling better. The plane was bumpily descending and outside his window there was another plane also on its approach, apparently parallel deaver runways. He woke up Vasco and asked him what was next.
Vasco was groggy. He hadn’t slept much either. “A van from the White House will pick us up. That’s the name of the facility we’re going to. It’s on the Mississippi, an old retreat place that because of the economy they’ve started using as a drying out facility. It’s south of St. Louis someplace. I’ve never been there. Kelleher suggested it.”
“Three weeks?” Lowell asked.
“Four.” Vasco remained serious, staring straight ahead.
“What happens during these many weeks?”
“I understand that three hours a day you’re either with a counselor or in an AA meeting or doing some menial task to keep the place afloat. The counselor one to two in the afternoon—he’s who will pick us up at the airport. The meeting eight to ten nightly for your whole time here. Seven days a week. There are others there drying out. I think it’s a bit like basic training. KP, working in the fields, the whole schmeer.”
“What else?”
“No talking otherwise. You can read in your room, take walks. No talking at all. There’s a mass early morning each day. It’s not a monastery with prayer calls all the time, anything like that. You’ll have a lot of time to think. The rooms all have showers, and you’re expected to keep the room clean and yourself too. Hopefully Veronica packed other clothes for you and your shaving kit.”
“You’re saying I’m dressed shitty?” Lowell looked at him. “I’d have dressed up if I knew I was traveling.” There was a laugh or two from that. “Are you staying for the duration?”
“I want to monitor how you’re doing and make sure you give over to it. Forty Martyrs is paying for both of us to be there. We all want this to work, for you, the family, the community. You’re important, and you’re losing it.”
The plane touched down, taxied, lurched to a stop at the gate. There was a little ding, and everyone was up and wading into the overhead bins. Lowell and Vasco remained in their seats. “They pick us up at eleven,” Vasco said, eyeing his watch, “and it’s just now ten, so we’ve got time for some breakfast.“They went to breakfast in the airport and found their bags at baggage claim, then met the White House van driven by a Jesuit named James David Cavanaugh. He was a tall guy, silver-haired, a psychiatrist in addition to being a priest. He had a hard New York way of talking, everything very pointed and quick.
“So you’re Wagner?”
Lowell nodded.
“Been here before?”
“No.”
“You’ll love it. Who knows, you might come back under improved circumstances.” He laughed. “Bring your work clothes?”
Vasco said, “He doesn’t know what he brought. His wife packed for him.”
“Well, no wives here. We do it all. We cook, we clean, we maintain, we repair, we build. We sleep eight hours. Ever drive a tractor?”
“In high school, yes. Baled hay.”
“That’s good work. If you liked that, we’ve got plenty of it here. There’s some livestock. There’s painting, maintenance, that kinda stuff. Do any of that?”
“In the Army.”
“In the Army. Okay then. You been in the Army, you paid some dues already. When was the last time you slept eight hours?”
Lowell had no answer for that.
Lowell saw that Cavanaugh was imagining an infantryman in Vietnam, delayed PTSD. He’d leave it like that for a while, until the question was asked directly. In fact, Lowell was a clerk in Germany, a cushy job while the rest of his generation was fighting Charlie. Still, it was the Army’s choice to draft him and then send him to Germany, and it was two years of his life and that was not nothing.
They found their way to the beltway and were quiet for a while.
“I work with a lot of drinkers and junkies,” Cavanaugh said. “One of the things I notice is that they are dishonest. They lie their asses off, and many of them don’t even know they’re doing it. Part of what deaver you’re here for is to get honest, with others and, more importantly, with yourself. You and I will meet after lunch today for an hour, my office. It’s easy to find. You are probably living with a number of lies, and it’s important to dispose of all that as soon as possible.”
They drove for an hour, took an exit, and drove another forty-five minu
tes. They turned up a green lane, stone buildings in the distance. Cavanaugh gave them each keys to their cells, which to Lowell’s dismay were adjacent. Vasco was apparently his jailer. “Okay, men. Your silence starts now. Oh, and it’s lunch time.” He pointed out the cafeteria, the chapel, the walking gardens. He shook their hands, and said to Lowell, “See you at one sharp.”
There was something foreboding in how Cavanaugh said this. As in the Army, a cost was promised for lateness. At any rate, they were finally where they were going. It was April, high spring, flowers sprouting and leaves sprouting in a new green. In bright noon sun, they wheeled their bags over blacktop to the dorm facility, attached to the chapel, and took the elevator to the third floor. Saying nothing, they each unlocked their rooms and stepped in.
•
No surprise, Veronica had read his mind. There was a handwritten love letter in the bag, and a nice note from Monique—it was signed “Monique”—and his leather-bound notebooks were in there along with plenty of pens. There was a sheaf of writing paper, envelopes, stamps. There was a box of instant hot chocolate and his favorite coffee cup. The clothes she packed were right, casual and also work shirts, and pants, including favorite jeans and t-shirts. Tons of socks and underwear. Also his running clothes and shoes. And his laptop.
The room was sweet, especially with the view of the river his window provided, a view of the Mississippi far below. The writing desk was substantial, not a token thing like in hotels—good sized, with a worthy desk chair. The single bed was firm and perfect, and next to it was a chair for reading, with a small ottoman and a good strong floor lamp that served both the bed and chair. An alarm clock was on the desk. On the wall above the door, a crucifix that Lowell would have photographed if he had his camera. The walls were construction block, painted tan, but the room was full of color, from the scarlet wool blanket on the bed to the royal blue curtains to the large framed print of The Sacrament of the Last Supper by Dali on the common wall between Lowell’s and Vasco’s rooms. The whole building was quiet even though it didn’t seem like it could be with all the concrete block and hard tile flooring. Since there was no talking, all you heard was the occasional sneeze or cough, a clearing of the throat, a hard short screech as a chair was moved. That afternoon Lowell noticed people in the hall were at special pains to go quietly, to close the door to the stairwell carefully. Because his window faced east over the river, with no retreat property in between, there was the very real sense of being alone. A hawk would circle. A murder of crows would come flapping in from Illinois. Boats, big and little, would steam by, and watching them Lowell could discern the main channel.
He unpacked and stacked everything on open shelves. A black curtain could be drawn across the shelves to keep it all private, but what was the sense of that since all here was private anyway? Four weeks of quiet stretched before him, and within the confusion about the future he was relieved and happy in spite of himself. He stared out the window and let go of worrying about home.
At one in the afternoon, he found Cavanaugh’s office and was invited in. It was a professor’s office, books open and closed everywhere. A high ceiling and big windows and amazing light gave the room a comfortable feel, and Cavanaugh embarked on a mission of getting to know Lowell, whom he called Wagner. During their visit, Cavanaugh defined “alcoholic” as a person whose drinking had begun to be a problem in his family and his work. This consoled Lowell, because he realized he didn’t have it bad if he had it at all. The slip at the ballgame was serious, but it was the first one he’d had, deaver perhaps the first sign that he was on the slippery slope.
“So, Wagner, were you in Vietnam?”
Lowell told him he’d been in Germany, very lucky.
“Yes, lucky—same with me,” he said. “I benefited from the favorable outcome of the lottery.”
“I was drafted before the lottery,” Lowell told him.
Cavanaugh was reviewing a file in front of him. “Well, I understand you are a psychologist in your town, and have been for a long time. Do you have other interests? Do you have an avocation?”
“Teaching perhaps.”
“Yes, yes, well that actually is a job you must do, as I understand it. I mean something that drives you, captures your passion when you are not involved at the college.”
Lowell thought a while. “I have a family, a wife and daughter.”
“Is that all going well?”
“Not lately, but overall yes.” Lowell immediately questioned the veracity of his answer.
On the wall behind Cavanaugh was a black crucifix with an attached gold chain. Lowell asked about it.
“Oh, that’s a gift from a professor of mine, a Precious Blood Father who mentored me in college and who was present at my ordination. He’s died and they passed the cross on to me.” Cavanaugh stared at it a moment. “It’s part of the garb for that order. Quite dramatic when they wear it.”
It was quiet for a few moments.
“But we were talking about avocations. Do you ever think about returning to school and getting another degree?”
“I did that actually,” Lowell said. “For a number of years I worked on a doctorate in Anthropology.”
Cavanaugh was enthusiastic about that, saying that it complimented the work of counselors, filled in the cracks left by training in psychology. “Any other driving interests?” he asked.
“I like silent retreats,” Lowell said. “And baseball.”
“Don’t we all!” Cavanaugh got up and went to the window. “You will agree then that you aren’t the only lucky person in the room. So what has precipitated your friends forcing you to come here?”
Lowell told him the whole story in the least self-serving manner he could. He said that Vasco was a good man and had known for a long time that this, all this, needed to happen. Cavanaugh agreed that Vasco was a good man, one of the best. Lowell talked about Misty and Veronica, the town, the college, the counseling practice, the drinking, his affair with Carol Brown, the fire in the administration building, made it all sound like a hectic roil of tasks and busyness and exhaustion that had caused him to lose who he is. He talked quite a while and Cavanaugh sat back down and took notes on a pad on a clipboard. Cavanaugh asked follow-up questions, about Carol, about Lowell’s health, about anything going on in town at that time that might be preoccupying him. The time flew by, and finally Cavanaugh indicated the time was up. “I really like this idea of yours, anthropology,” he said as they were walking to the door. “You may think all your time is accounted for. You’ll be amazed how much more time you’ll have once you get off the sauce.” There was a pat on the back and a handshake. “Nice to meet you, Wagner,” he said. “We’ll make this real good for you and send you home well.” As Lowell departed down a long hall, he realized his initial impression of Cavanaugh as a ball-buster was wrong. Why didn’t he know that first impressions were never right?
It was a sunny day and after that meeting Lowell walked in the garden. Vasco joined him out of nowhere, exactly like at Forty Martyrs that last night, and they walked together in silence. Vasco’s presence next to him seemed to be a conversation and a comfort. When he thought back on the walk they took, Lowell felt the communication was crystal clear, and they hadn’t said a word. They walked nearly a mile on the bluff above the river, and finally Vasco tapped his shoulder and indicated they should begin walking back. Otherwise Lowell might have walked all the way to Arkansas. It was deaver a Tuesday, the first day of a long, long stay.
By Saturday, Lowell was feeling much better. Rested, his mind refreshed and alert, and his system cleared of alcohol. Why couldn’t he live this way at home? He could feel pure rest behind the eyes and in his legs, shoulders, and back. Across the highway from the White House there were running paths, and Lowell ran there, became familiar with them. It was a forest, and among the trees there were benches and small venues almost like chapels, each with its own imposing statue of a saint. Sometimes Lowell would sit awhile to cool off before retu
rning to his cell. He preferred the small area dedicated to St. Paul. The statue of Paul was particularly relatable, how his arms were open to passers-by. Others would jog by from the White House, some alone, some in twos or threes, all silent, and Lowell noticed the sounds of them running together, the rhythmic breath, the footfalls. None of them glanced his way as they passed. Somehow these runners had become friends, even without talking.
Vasco would sit with Lowell at the meals in the cafeteria. The cafeteria intercom played a recording of Hal Holbrook reading Mark Twain’s Life on the Mississippi. Other than that, the sound was of plates and silverware clinking. Lowell found himself looking forward to meals because of the recording and because it gave him a chance to get some eye contact with Vasco, who was deep in his own reflections. Because of this retreat and Vasco’s strong interest in everything working out, Lowell knew theirs was a friendship that would last forever.
In the middle of the night, in the middle of the second week, Lowell was awake and reading when he heard someone outside his door. He went to the door and put his ear to it. Whoever it was was just outside. He slowly opened it. It was Veronica. She was smiling and she handed him a bundle of flowers and a box of ginger snaps. There was a nice card attached to the box from Veronica and Monique—saying “Come home soon.” Then she took his hand and wanted to walk him outside. He slid into his jeans, and they sneaked down the stairs instead of causing the elevator to rattle. She’d driven to St. Louis in their new car, a royal blue Toyota Camry, appropriately humble but symbolizing renewal. She was all smiles. Not a word was said. How had she found him?
Back in the room, in silence, they immediately went to bed. The bed was small but they didn’t need any extra space. Even a whisper would travel through the halls, they knew. Veronica frequently did this, a rescue, a touching of base. She had an instinct not only for survival but for renewal. And what a beauty. When Lowell popped awake at sunrise she was gone again, and except for the flowers and the ginger snaps and the lingering scent of Veronica herself, it could have been the best of dreams. Many more days to go at the White House, one day at a time, and Lowell was rising off the bottom. That morning at breakfast, Vasco smiled at him and said in a whisper, breaking the rule of silence, “So, how was your evening, bro?”
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