Touch (1987) (6 page)

"You're in contempt!" The judge cut him off, straightening as if to rise out of his high-backed leather chair. "And will be remanded to the custody of the bailiff!"

"I want a jury trial," Murray said. "God help me, in another court. It's my right and you know it."

Now. Murray unlocked his hands, bringing them to his sides. He saw the judge's gaze rise suddenly and the police sergeant come to his feet, hand going to his holstered revolver.

"You gonna shoot them?" Murray said.

The signs were up now, he knew, he could feel them before he glanced over his shoulder to see the words, red on white squares of cardboard, OUTRAGE . . . OUTRAGE . . . OUTRAGE . . . OUTRAGE . . . OUTRAGE . . . OUTRAGE, six of them held high, scattered through the courtroom, and the twenty members of the Gray Army of the Holy Ghost standing now, silently facing the court.

"Go ahead," Murray said to the police sergeant, "shoot them."

Chapter
6

A LITTLE GRAY-HAIRED WOMAN in a sleeveless yellow blouse brought Lynn a breakfast tray at 7:30. She said, "How you doing? I'm Edith, I'm your Big Sister."

Lynn could smell oatmeal. She said, "Where am I?"

"You're in detox. Don't you remember coming here?"

"I mean where am I?"

Lynn was still wearing her scooped-neck Bob Marley and the Wailers T-shirt and cutoffs. She sat up in the single bed, thinking of an orphanage, not a hospital. She had pictured white walls and hospital beds. The walls were pale green and needed paint. The two empty beds in the room, made up, were covered with faded summer spreads. Sunlight came in the window through a heavy-gauge wire screen. The place was old, an institution.

"Few days, once you get dried out, they'll move you up to four," the little gray-haired woman said. "I'll take you around, help you get some other things if you want. I don't see a suitcase anywhere--"

"I'm at Sacred Heart, huh?" Lynn said, practicing, trying to sound foggy and vague. Her head was fairly clear though it throbbed and she was nauseated. She could remember one hangover before this, years and years ago, and hadn't had anything to drink for weeks.

"There was a bar--I was sitting there talking to a friend about getting straightened out--"

She had not worn her eyelashes or skin gloss, but had rubbed on a dark red shade of lipstick Bill Hill said would make her look pale, left the apartment about 2:30 A.M. after two and a half bottles of Spumante--giggling, telling him she was going to walk in naked, liven the place up--and had been dropped off in front of the Center with Bill Hill's parting words, "Ring the bell then quick see if you can throw up a little."

"Your friend done you a favor," the little gray-haired woman said. "You don't look too bad except maybe your eyes."

The doctor asked how long she had been drinking. Lynn said, oh, about ten years. She said lately she'd been drinking about a gallon of wine a day and carried a pint of vodka in her purse just in case. The doctor didn't seem impressed.

The nurse, taking blood samples, asked if she'd been eating regularly. Lynn said, oh, you know, now and then. The nurse said well, she didn't look too bad, considering.

What was this, not too bad? Compared to the other women wandering around here, with their bruised white skin and circles and oily hair, she looked like a homecoming queen.

The nice woman counselor, sitting at her metal desk smoking cigarettes (everybody here, Lynn decided later, smoked two packs a day) asked if she remembered coming. Lynn said, vaguely.

"Have you experienced blackouts?"

"Some."

"For extended periods or just the night before?"

"I guess both."

"Do you think you're alcoholic?"

"I guess I must be, all I've been drinking."

The woman counselor said it wasn't the quantity that counted, it was the dependency. The first step was to realize she was powerless over alcohol, then learn to accept it, and finally substitute an entirely new attitude for the dependence.

"How?"

That would come. She'd see films on alcoholism, hear talks by recovering alcoholics working in the field and, once through orientation, take part in group sessions twice a day during the seventeen weeks of the program.

Seventeen weeks?

The woman counselor asked about her moods--any feelings of depression or anxiety?--to the point that Lynn was afraid the woman suspected something and was trying to trap her. When the phone rang and the woman counselor walked over to the window with the receiver, looking out as she spoke, her back to Lynn, Lynn looked at the steno pad on the desk and saw the notations, "Natural but somewhat evasive . . . Underlying feelings of guilt . . . Appearance not too bad."

When the counselor returned to her desk Lynn asked if she could use her phone after. The counselor explained that in order to concentrate on her immediate problem and not be concerned with anything else, Lynn would have no contacts outside the Center for the first five weeks.

"You mean I'm trapped here?"

"You can leave anytime you want," the counselor said, "but if you stay you have to play by the house rules."

"I thought the door was locked."

"To keep friends and relatives and all their good intentions, and all your old problems, out," the counselor said, "not to keep you in."

Lynn felt better, but tried not to show it.

* * *

She studied a crucifix on the wall: a pale plaster Jesus on a varnished cross, the figure contorted, eyes raised in agony. Dramatic, but was it necessary? She liked plain crosses better, without the figure.

Lynn's gaze moved to a blown-up photograph of an empty room littered with old newspapers and junk, the hall or lobby of a condemned building where street bums would find shelter.

Lynn said, "Is that this place before it was fixed up?"

The man sitting next to her in the booth, stirring his coffee, said, "I don't know what it's supposed to be. Looks like some dump on Michigan Avenue."

Maybe the photograph hung on the wall as a reminder, or an option. Huddle in that filthy place sweating or shivering, or both; or relax here in the coffee shop of the Sacred Heart Center, second floor, across from the TV lounge. There were tables, booths along the windowed wall that looked down on the backyard and the volleyball court; soft-drink, cigarette, and candy vending machines and a pair of sixty-cup coffee urns with trays of cups, cream pitchers, and packets of sugar. The coffee was free, very strong, and all you wanted.

Lynn had eaten lunch, sat through an orientation session, watched a film called Bourbon in Suburbia, and had been in the coffee shop nearly an hour, wondering if she should ask about Juvenal, look for him, or wait until they happened to meet. It was kind of interesting watching people, sizing them up.

They used a lot of cream and sugar and ate candy, passing around a box of butter mints, and smoked cigarettes. Some of the men rolled their own and, at first, Lynn thought they were making joints, but it was Bugle pipe tobacco, a blue package they rolled up and shoved into their back pockets. People, the residents, sat around awhile and left and others came in---

Considerably more men than women, a few black people, which, for some reason, surprised Lynn. A good-looking black girl with a cute figure. Two tables of bridge. It was hot in the room, even with the windows open. Looking down at the yard she saw a younger group sitting in the sun, on a bench and the grass nearby, four boys with their shirts off--actually young men in their twenties--and a girl wearing cutoffs and a halter top.

The little gray-haired woman, Edith, sitting across from Lynn, said, "They got the problem, you know it? Oh, there's plenty of others, I don't mean you have to be a hippie or anything. But drugs and booze, that's the killer. You notice they don't give you any tranquilizers here unless you're climbing up the wall."

The man next to Lynn told them how many Valium he used to take a day; sometimes six, eight, plus a couple of fifths.

Lynn said she wondered if the Stroh's Beer sign across the freeway bothered anybody, tempted them.

The man sitting next to her said it didn't bother him none; beer always gave him a headache.

Edith would stop people and introduce them to Lynn, saying, almost proudly, "She only come in last night." As though look, she's better already. "I'm her Big Sister."

A skinny, hunch-shouldered man said he came in three days ago, fella told him he was his Big Brother and he hadn't seen the son of a bitch since. Edith was concerned and told him he should talk to a counselor. The skinny, hunch-shouldered man said he wanted to call Wayne County Social Service, but they wouldn't let him. He said how was he supposed to get his check if they didn't know where he was?

There were a number of those skinny, hillbilly-looking guys, recent skid-row graduates who still looked soiled and wore second-hand clothes that hung on them. What happened to guys' asses who drank too much? But there, playing bridge, was a man who had to be an executive of some kind, distinguished, even with his florid Irish face and little slit of a mouth. Now there was an alcoholic. But if that was the look, what about the black guy with the beard and the yellow tank top? Or the fat girl in the Big Mac bib overalls, awful hair, sitting with the blond lady in the designer blouse and white earrings? There was no obvious type, and yet all were aware of something Lynn would never understand. No matter how well she faked it she would still feel left out as they smiled and shook their heads and talked among themselves, passing time, hopefully saving their lives.

It was interesting. Then less interesting, thinking, What am I doing here? Quit fooling around and go look for the guy, Juvenal. Except she didn't want to appear to know anything about him. She didn't want to ask for him---

As it turned out, she didn't have to.

Lynn had a feeling--it was strange--the moment she saw him come in and begin talking to people, touching shoulders, moving from table to table on his way to the coffee urns, she knew it was Juvenal: not from Virginia's or Bill Hill's description, but as if she had known him from some time before, when they were little kids, and recognized him now, grown up but not changed that much.

He had a boyish look, light brown hair down on his forehead, slim body in a blue-and-red striped knit shirt and jeans. Very friendly, the outgoing type--and yet he seemed a little shy. Was that it? No, not shy. What it was, he seemed genuinely glad to see everybody but was quiet about it, natural. Maybe a little naive? No, it was more like he was unaware of himself. That would be a switch, Lynn thought, a guy who's the center of attention not trying to act cool or entertaining or anything. People were getting up and leaving, but stopping to say hello to him.

Edith, her Big Sister, said, "Oh, shit, I got to meet with my group. I shouldn't say that, it's doing me a world of good, but I get tired of thinking all the time, trying to say how I feel."

The man next to Lynn said, "Quit your bitching, you're sober, aren't you?" He got up with his empty cup and left.

Lynn was alone in the booth by the time Juvenal got his cup of coffee, looked around the room, and came over to her.

He said, "Can I join you?"

"Sure."

"You're Lynn, aren't you?"

"Yeah. How'd you know?"

He slid in across from her. "I'm Juvenal--on the staff here. You came in this morning early . . ." He paused, staring at her with a warm expression, nice brown eyes, super eyelashes.

She wanted to ask him if they were real.

He said, "You look great. You know it?"

It stopped her. "Oh--do you think so?"

"How do you feel?"

"Not too bad. A little, you know, fuzzy."

"Your eyes are clear." He smiled and there was the innocent look. "You have very pretty eyes."

"Wow," Lynn said, "all the compliments. I'm not used to it."

"You don't look like you've been drinking, I mean too heavily."

"I thought the amount isn't what you go by."

"No, but after a while it shows." He smiled again. "What're you doing here, hiding?"

"From what?"

"I don't know. That's why I'm asking."

Lynn hesitated. "I thought you were being funny."

"No, I'm curious. What're you doing here?"

"Isn't this a place you dry out?"

"You're not an alcoholic," Juvenal said.

"That's funny, the doctor didn't question it, or the nurse, or my counselor."

"Come on, tell me."

Looking at his eyes, into his eyes, she felt strangely moved and wanted to say, I can see you in there, I know you.

What she said was, "You've got it turned around," not believing she was saying it, but knowing she had to be honest with him and not play games or try to put something over on him. "You're the one that's hiding. I came here to find you."

"Oh, no. Oh, Christ," Father Quinn said. They had seen him and there was nothing he could do but continue along the short hall to the lobby where the right-winger was waiting, the right-winger with a folded newspaper under his arm and a seedy old priest it looked as though the right-winger was delivering.