Diary of an Alcoholic Housewife (29 page)

“You brought a salami?” the customs agent asked. “You can’t bring any meat over.” She handed me a leaflet on foot-and-mouth disease that I stuck into my purse and I began feeling guilty for not checking the box that asked if I’d been to a farm during my visit. We’d been to that ranch for the putska.

“Do you have anything else?” the agent asked.

“No,” I lied.

“No other meat or food products?”

“No,” I lied again. “What are you going to do with my salami?” I asked, directing her attention back to the one piece of food I was admitting to. “It’s a salami that’s considered by many to be the best in the world.” I took it out of the bag and handed it to her.

“We have to burn it,” she said.

“Really? No one’s going to take it to a back room and eat it?”

“We have to burn everything.”

“What a bummer.”

“Do you want the bag?” the agent asked, holding up the empty plastic duty-free bag.

“No,” I said glumly, hoping to convey that she’d taken my only piece of illegal contraband.

I grabbed my things, walked to a ticket counter, and waited behind two men who were also re-booking flights to Chicago. I complained to the guy in front of me about my customs incident.

“They don’t burn that stuff,” he said. “I’m sure someone got a nice loaf of bread and they’re eating it now.”

“Maybe I should have tried to sneak it in,” I said.

“If they catch you, it’s a $400 fine,” he said.

“But if I hadn’t declared it, they probably wouldn’t have noticed.”

“We have to go through American customs before we get on the plane tomorrow,” the man said. “We’re not done.”

I began worrying about the pâté again.

I checked into a hotel near the airport, opened my suitcase, and wedged the triangle-shaped tins of pâté upright against the ends of my suitcase, hoping that when my bag was X-rayed, the tins would appear to be a structural part of the luggage. The paranoid part of me wanted to leave the pâté in the room for the maid. The honest part of me felt guilty about being dishonest. And the thrill-seeking part of me was enjoying the risk. Years ago, I routinely hopped on planes with pot in my purse and never gave it a second thought. Now I was twisted up about a couple tins of goose liver pâté.

I got into bed feeling tired and edgy. I tried to sleep but couldn’t. My mind was reeling. During my years of religious training, I remembered reading that to God, sin is sin. It’s all the same. Smuggling in two tins of foie gras, blowing someone’s head off, it’s all the same. I got up, went to the bathroom, and popped a Vicodin that had been prescribed for Charlie’s hernia. I’d brought a Vicodin in case I had trouble adjusting to the time zone change in Europe. I hadn’t needed it in Budapest, but I was in need of sleep now. I got back into bed and prayed. I had the audacity to ask for his protection as I smuggled the pâté through customs.

[Tuesday, September 23]

I successfully smuggled the pâté. I got home and kissed and hugged my kids like crazy. Van said he had fun with Nana and Papa, and Max said he had a good time at Seth’s house.

“There was a tornado warning while you were gone,” Max said. “It was serious. We had to hide in the crawl space.”

“That must have been scary,” I said. “Were you scared?”

“Not that much, but Seth was. You should have seen him.”

I went over to Liv’s later to thank her for watching Max and give her the gifts I’d bought her in Hungary.

“Did Max tell you about the tornado warning?” Liv asked. “You should have seen him. Seth was so scared, and Max put his arm around him and kept telling him it was going to be okay. He’s a great kid.”

[Thursday, September 25]

I went to a meeting this morning, and Krissy was in bad shape.

“I haven’t been taking care of my basics, I haven’t taken care of my basics,” she kept saying. “I let myself run out of my medication. Yesterday, I was thinking about steering my car off a bridge. I don’t have money for my medication.”

After the meeting, I saw Krissy in the parking lot and walked over to her.

“I’ll help you get your medication,” I said. “How much do you need?”

“My prescription’s three hundred dollars.”

I blanched.

“Uh, I have a couple other options to try in the next couple of days,” Krissy said.

“If you’re in trouble and need your medicine, I’ll go to the pharmacy with you and get it,” I said and gave her my phone number. We parted ways and I hoped she wouldn’t call.

[Friday, September 26]

I went to a meeting tonight and hung out with Henry afterward. I love flamboyant, witty Henry. He told me he used to own a restaurant and, waxing nostalgic, said, “Oh, the coke we used to do.”

“I waitressed my way through college and almost got caught in a sting operation,” I told him. “An undercover FBI agent tried to get me to line him up with some blow, said he’d turn me on, but the bartender didn’t have any that night, thank God. The next day I found out they busted a bunch of people at the bar down the street.”

“You should have partied at my restaurant,” Henry said. “We partied like rock stars. One night, there was a drug dealer in my place we didn’t like. We called the police on him while we were snorting big fat lines of his coke in a back room.”

Henry and I laughed hysterically.

“I walked into a police station tripping on mushrooms to report a hit-and-run to my car,” I said, still giggling. “My friends and I were at a Violent Femmes concert. We went to a punk bar afterward and a guy sideswiped my car right in front of the bar. I got his license plate number, went to the police station, and filled out a report while I was tripping my brains out. I was a waitress at the Playboy Club at the time,” I continued. “Did I tell you I used to be a bunny?”

“Really? You were a Playboy bunny?” Henry said, smiling, clearly impressed.

“Yeah. One night I got so drunk after work I couldn’t find my car. I thought someone had stolen it. So I’m walking down the street and this police car cruises by and I flag it down. I tell the cops I think my car’s been stolen. They tell me to hop in and they start driving up and down the streets looking for my car. I spot my car, right where I had parked it, and tell them, ‘Stop, there it is.’ I get out of the squad car and thank the officers profusely. ‘Drive safely,’ the cops tell me and drive away.”

Henry and I laughed hard again.

“How about this one,” Henry said. “One night, we got all coked up, closed the bar, and drove to the lake. I was driving. We were doing lines on a cookie tray while I was driving. All of a sudden, splash! I drive my car into the lake and all we’re worried about is snorting the rest of the coke before the car goes down.”

“I can’t top that one,” I laughed.

“Then there was the time I decided to go cliff diving,” Henry said. “Only I jumped and missed the water and went splat on the rocks. But I was so drunk and pliable I only got scratched.”

I love Henry. I drove home and called Sara to let her know I was back in the country. She sounded strange.

“Are you okay?” I asked her.

“A sixteen-year-old patient of mine OD’d,” she said. “Her mother found her in her bedroom this morning. She didn’t make it.”

“Wow,” I said, stunned. “Are you okay? How do you handle something like that?”

“You learn to detach,” she said, not sounding detached.

We got off the phone and I sat on the couch for a while feeling paralyzed. Why do some of us get to careen through life driving cars into lakes and jumping off cliffs while others die?

[Sunday, September 28]

Olivia might be getting kicked out of the women’s shelter she’s living at, for having a fling with another woman living there.

Olivia started coming to meetings recently. She’s a cute young blonde I’ve given rides to a few times. We were both at the same meeting tonight, and afterward, I gave her a ride back to the house she lives in.

“I grew up in an affluent suburb, I have a BA from Loyola, and I have a felony conviction for forgery because I’m a crack addict,” she said, shaking her head. “If I get kicked out of the shelter, I’m going to jail. And you know what’s weird? I won’t even mind going to jail as long as it makes me stay clean. That’s how desperate I am.

“I really screwed up,” Olivia continued. “I’m not even gay. I’m just needy. I had a fling with that woman because I needed someone to tell me how great I am, how beautiful I am. How sick is that?”

[Monday, September 29]

When Max got out of school this afternoon, I drove the kids into the city to buy a bike for Max’s birthday. I was set to drop a sizable chunk of change, and I was irritated by Max’s lack of appreciation and enthusiasm. Max wants a shrimpy trick bike. I want to buy him a mountain bike.

“This is going to be your car until you can drive,” I told him, pointing to a black and silver Specialized model that had been wheeled out. “You’ll be riding to your friends’ houses, to school, around town. Remember how upset you got in Wisconsin when you had trouble keeping up with Seth because your bike was so much smaller? You’re going to be glad you didn’t get a little circus bike you have to pedal like mad.”

Max was not a daredevil. He was a cautious kid. If I thought his interest in trick riding would last longer than his two-week interest in his skateboard, I would have bought it for him, but I know better.

“Okay,” Max said, frowning and flipping his hand at the mountain bike. “I’ll take this one.”

It made my heart glad to buy Max a present he was so thrilled about.

I paid for the bike, wheeled it out of the store, and mounted it on the bike rack behind the Jeep. Max moped and got into the car.

“Don’t you have anything to say?” I asked him as we pulled away from the curb.

“Oh yeah, thanks Mom,” he said.

Part of me felt sad for not getting Max exactly what he wanted for his birthday, and part of me wanted to smack the little ingrate upside his head.

[Wednesday, October 1]

Today was Max’s eleventh birthday. I invited my parents over for dinner, and as soon as they walked through the door, my dad poured himself a stiff scotch on the rocks.

“After today, I’m quitting drinking,” he told Charlie, who was having a drink with him. “I’m quitting for a week to see if I can get in this study for a new cancer treatment. The doctor told me to lay off the booze because my liver enzymes are elevated.”

“Hey Papa,” Max interrupted. “Will you help me build a go-cart?” Max’s latest thing is he wants to build a go-cart with Papa because Charlie is as handy as I am.

“Sure, that sounds like a good idea,” my dad said. My dad can build or fix anything. “Do you know what you want it to look like?”

“I’ve already designed it,” Max said, handing my dad a drawing of a Cadillac Escalade.

“That looks pretty good,” my dad said, folding up Max’s drawing and putting it in his shirt pocket. “You’ll have to come over and we’ll measure it out and figure out what we need.”

“What you need to do is stop drinking, old man,” I muttered under my breath.

[Thursday, October 2]

“Can I ride my bike?” Max asked when he got home from school. “I want to go down the bike trail and see if there are any Cadillac parts for my go-cart.”

Our house is a two-minute bike ride to wooded trails. If you ride one way, you’ll pass a parking lot surrounded by warehouses where a local car dealership parks part of its inventory. There are some junk cars they use for parts, and one is a burned-out Cadillac.

“I don’t know,” I said, leery of letting Max ride the trail by himself. “I don’t want you out there alone.”

“Oh come on,” Max said. “The lot’s just five minutes away, maybe not even. I just want to look at the car and come back.”

“Okay,” I said reluctantly. Up until now, Max has only been allowed to ride his bike around the block. Most of his friends have been riding all over the neighborhood, but I’m paranoid. “Come right back,” I said. “Supper will be ready soon.”

“I will,” Max said and bounced out the back door.

Ten minutes later, Max slammed the door open and slammed it shut behind him. He sat at the kitchen table wheezing.

“Are you okay?” I asked. “Did something bad happen?”

“Two men followed me,” Max wheezed. He grabbed his backpack, which he’d left sitting on the kitchen table, pulled out his inhaler, and took two puffs.

“Two men followed you?” I gasped.

Max nodded gravely.

“What happened?”

Max jumped from one detail to the next, but the story was this: Max rode his bike down the trail and headed for the burned-out Cadillac. He rode past an old shed and noticed a homeless man on a bike.

“I nodded and said, ‘Hello,’ and kept going,” Max said. “The man looked at me really weird and unfriendly.”

Max said he got off his bike by the burned-out car and as he was examining it, he noticed the homeless man and another seedy-looking guy circling him on their bikes.

“The first man had brown hair, a brown jacket, and he was riding an old brown ten-speed,” Max said. “The second man had long gray-and-brown hair, real scraggly, and he was wearing a black jacket with white patches on the shoulders. His bike was an old yellow ten-speed with side baskets on the back that were full of junk. Both of them were white, around forty, I think.”

Max said he hopped on his bike and pedaled fast toward home and the men followed him.

“I got up to Fourth Street and there were a lot of people around,” Max panted. “I raced across Fourth and when I looked back, the men were gone.”

“The people probably scared them off,” I said shakily, but trying to appear calm. “I’m calling the police.”

Moments later, Max repeated his story to the cops.

“From now on, no riding down the bike trail without an adult, ever,” I told Max. “Stick to residential streets around the neighborhood. Got that?”

Max nodded. I hugged him and squeezed him tight.

The first time I let Max ride his bike further than around the block, I let him go down a wooded bike trail peopled with homeless pedophiles.

[Friday, October 3]

I took Max to see the movie
The School of Rock.
While we were watching the scene where Jack Black takes the uptight Joan Cusack character to a bar, plies her with beer, and watches her let her hair down, I began missing being buzzed. I miss that warm happy feeling of not giving a shit and getting crazy.