Needle Too (17 page)

These days, due to the horrific fate that awaits the vast majority of homeless and of course, abused companion animals—I seldom find myself sympathetic when it comes to the plight of human beings; however, as far as Whitman students were concerned there were so many times I just wanted to run out of the office and give those idiots a good kick in the ass and suggest they seek a refund and a more conventional path to owning a home. And certainly, this was really just the tip of the iceberg because at the conclusion of the workshop “instructors” would immediately begin hawking additional programs in asset protection and property management to a room full of people with no assets to protect or property to manage.

By the end of the month I received a call at Kristen’s from Marlon, who was somehow able to track me down and get my number from the Wealth Center. He was planning to visit his old girlfriend in Sarasota on the following Saturday and wanted to meet for lunch in Fort Myers beforehand. Although we’d spoken a few times since sharing that bus ride to sobriety I hadn’t seen him in over two years and was excited to hang out and catch up.

“By the way,” he asked before disengaging. “Who the fuck is Willie Whitman?”

“A snake oil salesman.”

“What does he sell?”

“False hope.”

“What
specifically
?” Marlon pressed.

“NOTHING specifically,” I told him. “It’s all a bunch of self-help nonsense. Some bullshit training courses—
a lot
of books. A lot of
nothing
.”

“Sounds fascinating, I can’t wait to hear the details.”

“
THERE ARE NO DETAILS
.”

With that we ended the call but had agreed to meet next week before he headed to Sarasota. In the meantime, however, Amy had been living at her stepmother’s condo and I’d been calling there in an attempt to convince her to let me have Savannah for a week or so. The weekly roundtrip voyage to Jupiter was losing its luster, as I would spend six hours driving just to spend three or four hours with Savannah and hoped my new living arrangement would enable me to work during the day while Kristen babysat, and then spend time with my daughter in the evenings and over the weekend. Unfortunately, Amy would dismiss my request by insisting she was still too young, and then try to impress me with details about her newest boyfriend.

“But in a couple of weeks I’ll take a ride out there with her to see what you’re living in,” she said before terminating the call as she seemed to doubt my ability to provide Savannah with a safe or decent place to visit.

On Saturday Marlon arrived in Fort Myers and I was twenty minutes late meeting him at a café in Downtown Fort Myers.

“Where the fuck have you been?” he asked me the moment I walked into the establishment. “I was about to give up on you.”

“Sorry,” I said. “I was stuck with Willie Whitman.”

“On Saturday?”

“He was suddenly inspired and couldn’t wait to share the stupid details.”

“Another self-help deal?” my buddy asked.

“Of course.”

“What’s it called?”

“Why do you care?”

“I wanna know what not to buy.”

“It’s called
Cash Flow Generator
—if you can believe it,” I told him.

“Wow, Craig! A Willie Whitman
Cash Flow Generator
sounds like something people might really be interested in,” he said—with unbridled, unadulterated and unrelenting sarcasm.

“It may be a cash flow generator for Willie Whitman—I’m not so sure about anyone else. But enough about my miserable life, what’s going on in
your
miserable life?”

“I’m working with Immigration and Naturalization in Miami,” he said.

“Doing what?”

“Ah, you know—helping out with interviews mostly, some investigations here and there.”

“I bet you’ve got a nose for sniffing out the coke smugglers.”

“No, that’s a customs thing. I mostly investigate potentially fraudulent marriages. You know, weeding out anyone trying to marry their way into the country,” Marlon explained.

“So, no coke then?”

“No coke. But what about you, smack-head?”

“Clean as a whistle. Except when I’m smoking weed.”

“How often do you smoke?”

“As often as I can.”

“That doesn’t sound like such a good idea. Sounds like maybe you’re just substituting one drug for another.”

“That’s
exactly
what I’m doing.”

“Well, I suppose it’s better than shooting dope.”

“It’s nowhere near better.”

23

In April, Amy finally agreed to bring Savannah to the Cape for a visit. Before she arrived, however, I spent three hours cleaning and baby-proofing an apartment that was littered with toys, coloring books and magic markers left behind by Kristen’s five-year-old twins, Jeremy and Zach. Indeed, I could leave nothing to chance as earlier that morning I could tell by the tone of Amy’s voice she’d
be looking to find fault with
something
.

Savannah and Amy arrived at the apartment by 1 p.m. and the moment they did, Amy looked at my roommate suspiciously. I’m not sure why that was the case because, not that it should’ve mattered, she knew the nature of the platonic relationship I shared with Kristen and besides, we agreed long ago to raise Savannah separately, realizing that although it was an unconventional arrangement it would be the
healthiest
arrangement.

After visiting for a half-hour and then giving the spotless apartment an inspection of sorts, Amy left to visit family in Fort Myers. Then, after about an hour of fussing over Savannah, Kristen suddenly picked her up, brought her into the master bedroom and laid her down on the king-sized bed as the most putrid smell in the world began to attack me from every direction.

“WOW—she is really cute, Craig,” Kristen said. “And she shits like my ex-husband.”

“Does he wear Pampers also?” I asked my fantastic friend as she showed me how to change a diaper.

“No, but he acts like a fucking two-year-old,” she said as she suddenly covered her mouth to prevent anymore R-rated verbiage from slipping away.

At that point Savannah rolled over on the bed and smiled.

“Hooray, Savannah—that’s great!!” rejoiced Kristen as she applauded. “Craig! What’s wrong with you? Act excited, you idiot!”

“What for?”

“Because she just turned and rolled all the way to the other side of the mattress!”

“Big fucking deal. I did that in bed every night with her mother.”

“And stop cursing. Before you know it she’s gonna be repeating everything you say.”

After celebrating Savannah’s pooping and rolling, we brought her into the boys’ bedroom to do some army crawling on the thickly carpeted floor while she tried to put everything in her mouth. Then, suddenly, there was a loud and almost violent pounding on the front door.

“What’s wrong with you?!” Amy screamed at me the moment I turned the knob.

“What’s wrong with
you
?!”

“Why was the door locked?!” she demanded as she barged in.

“Because that’s what it fucking does! There are usually two little babies running around here and we’d rather them not stumble out on to the street and get flattened by a fucking truck! Is that okay with you, Amy?”

“Where’s my daughter?!” she demanded again.

“She’s in the bedroom with Kristen.”

“Oh, that’s just wonderful!”

“What’s your problem?!”

“Don’t worry about it!” she said as she stormed into the boys’ bedroom, grabbed Savannah and then stormed out of the apartment.

24

After Amy’s meltdown in the Cape she refused to allow me any access to Savannah. And whenever I called her stepmother’s condo she wouldn’t come to the phone and I would soon learn from Jane—her father’s new bride of six months—that my name wasn’t even on the birth certificate.

“Oh, this is
such
a bunch of fucking bullshit!” I told her. “And she has no right to prevent me from seeing my kid. I’m her father, everyone
knows
I’m her father and I’m not just gonna go away.”

Jane was about twenty years younger than Amy’s father who was almost sixty. She arrived on the scene and inserted herself in Amy’s life just a few weeks prior to Savannah arriving, eventually insisting that Amy and the baby live with her at the condo for at least the short term. But then she made a fatal error by attempting to insert herself in
my
life as well:

“Well—you know, Craig, you’re not the most stable person in the world, so maybe at some point we can arrange for a supervised visitation,” she told me.

And there it was. I
knew
it was coming. Indeed, I knew at some point my past would come back to haunt me in a terrible way and low and behold—a scarlet letter
A
for
ADDICT
was now burning a hole in my chest. Obviously, the virtue and value of being open and honest was overrated.

“Excuse me but uhhh…who the fuck are
you
?” I had to ask. “I don’t know why I’m even
talking
to you.
You
don’t matter.
You’re
not relevant.
You
have no standing.
You’re
not
anyone
to
anyone
.”

“And
you’re
not exactly father material—at least not yet,” she told
me. “But I won’t give up on you, Craig, because with a little help from me you might just rise to the occasion.”

“Maybe you’re confusing me with the old man’s pecker.”

“Oh, how dare you!” she actually gasped. “You just wait and—“

“Listen, asshole, you’re just a fucking gold-digger, and judging from the dilapidated shithole hubby used to live in—not a very good one at that.”

“Why are you even getting into it with that stupid son of a bitch?”
said the crusty old man in the background. “
Just tell him to fuck off and hang up the phone!”
I heard and decided I’d had enough of the bullshit and hung up first.

So, for the next several months I’d be given no access to my daughter, and though I wouldn’t hear directly from Amy I’d regularly get disturbing and occasionally threatening phone calls from a pathetic procession of underage boys, all of whom were barely out of high school.

“Don’t worry, man, I got it covered,” one of them once said to me.

“Tell me douche—what exactly do you have covered?”

“Being the father that Savannah deserves.”

“You don’t say?”

“Yep,” he went on. “I play with the little cutie all the time. I even change her diapers.”

“Who changes yours?”

“
My mommy
.”

“Does she suck you off while she’s doing it?”

“Yeah, you’re a real funny guy. I tell Savannah what a funny guy you are when I feed her breakfast each morning.”

“
You’ve
been feeding
my
daughter?”

“I certainly have.”

“Well I hope at least you’re breastfeeding.”

“I’m gonna fucking kill you.”

“Well you’re gonna get the opportunity
real
soon, brotha—REAL SOON,” I told him though I had no intention of heading to Jupiter with things the way they were, because I knew if I drove out there and was prevented from seeing Savannah I’d end up in jail.

“Oh, yeah? When exactly is
that
gonna be?!” the little boy asked as his voice cracked.

“Sooner than you can imagine—
fuckhead
. Sooner than you can imagine.”

25

Regardless of how it may appear at times, I’m really not a hopelessly hateful person. In fact, I’ve had longstanding dislikes for people that after a second thought and a little consideration I was easily able to change my way of thinking, shed the ill feelings and develop a meaningful appreciation and respect for those once despised. And, not surprisingly, after living in Southwest Florida
and exposing myself to the gut-wrenching agony and perpetual humiliation suffered by so many devoted and unwavering Boston baseball fans—I was finally able to forget about the past, let bygones be bygones and develop a deep appreciation for…

The New York Yankees
.

The pain inflicted by their perennial success was exquisite, and though it affected Bostonians like none other—championships won in the name of Gotham delivered a palpable malaise that descended across the entire area and each time it sounded a little less like shit. Of course, there would always be those who simply refused to shut their stinky mouths.

“Yankees fucking suck!” was suddenly trumpeted at me from behind as I simultaneously smiled with satisfaction and stepped into Tiny Tots Daycare to pick-up Kristen’s kids. But when I turned around to get a gander of what was making the awful noise there was clearly nothing to smile about.

“Oh, my God—Andrea!” I said as I covered my mouth in horror and sort of squinted at the awful aftermath of what had to have been a terrible accident. “What
happened
to you?!”

“I’m pregnant,
dumbass
, what do you think happened?!” she said with a smile as she held a belly full of baby with one hand and attempted to corral her already-ejected offspring with the other. “Seven months.”

“Wow.”

“And six-months horny,”
she whispered in my ear before nibbling on it.

“Well
I’m
starving,” I said hoping to replace the subject with another that might also spark her interest and distract her from where this little chitchat was obviously headed. “Let me grab my
roommate’s kids and we’ll head back to the apartment for something to eat.”

When we arrived I threw a couple of frozen pizzas in the oven and as the kids ran into the bedroom to play, Andrea held her back and with great difficulty attempted to lower herself onto a couch that was so old it was beaten into the floor.

“Oh, Jesus!” she moaned in discomfort as she leaned against the edge of the couch and then landed on the tired old piece of furniture.

“Pregnancy hurts,” I said.

“Oh,
really?
How would
you
know?!”