'So it would sound spookier? Or to keep her from recognizing his voice?'
'Not that. He wanted her to know who it was. I think he was being careful about voiceprints. Damn it, he was careless and stupid twelve years ago. Prison turned him crafty.'
'It'll do that,' he said. 'It may not rehabilitate them, but it sure will make better criminals out of them.'
* * *
Around three it started raining. I bought a five-dollar umbrella on the street and it blew inside out before I got back to the hotel. I left it in a trash basket and took shelter under a canopy until the storm leveled off some, then walked the remaining few blocks home. I got out of my wet clothes and made a few phone calls, then stretched out and took a nap.
It was eight o'clock when I opened my eyes, and just past eight-thirty when I entered the basement meeting room at St. Paul's. The speaker had just been introduced. I got a cup of coffee and found a seat and listened to a good old-fashioned low-bottom drinking story. Jobs lost, relationships ruined, dozens of trips to detox, panhandling in a bottle gang, innumerable exposures to AA. Then one day something clicked, and now the son of a bitch was standing there in a suit and tie with his face shaved and his hair combed, looking nothing like the story he was telling.
The discussion was round-robin at that particular meeting, and they started in the back of the room, so it got to be my turn early on. I was going to pass, but he'd talked a lot about hangovers, and how if all sobriety meant was a permanent respite from hangovers, it was worth it.
I said, 'My name is Matt and I'm an alcoholic, and my hangovers used to be bad, too. I figured I was done with them in sobriety, so I felt a little resentful when I woke up with one this morning. It didn't seem fair, and I started off the day with a pretty good resentment. Then I reminded myself that I used to feel that way every morning of my life, and that I took it for granted, I didn't even object to it very strongly.
My God, a normal person who woke up feeling like that would have gone to a hospital, and I would just pull up my socks and go work.'
A few other people spoke, and then it was the turn of a woman named Carole. 'I never woke up with a hangover since I've been sober,'
she said, 'but I identify with what Matt said in another sense. Because I like to believe that everything works out for us once we stop drinking, that bad things don't happen to us anymore. And that's not true. The miracle of sobriety isn't that our lives get better, but that we stay sober even when they get bad. But it still tears me up when bad things happen.
When Cody got AIDS I couldn't believe how unfair it was. Sober people aren't supposed to get AIDS! But the thing is they do, and when they do they die, just like everybody else. And sober people don't commit suicide. My God, all the times I tried to kill myself when I was drinking, and I don't do that anymore, and I thought nobody did, not sober. And then today I learned how Toni committed suicide, and I thought, that's not supposed
to happen. But anything can happen, and I still can't pick up a drink.'
I went up to Carole on the break and asked if Toni had been a member of our group. 'Came here all the time,' she said. 'Sober three years. Toni Cleary.'
'I can't place him.'
'Her. I'm sure you knew her, Matt. Tall, dark hair, around my age.
Worked in the garment center, I forget doing what but she used to talk about how she was having an affair with her boss. I'm positive you knew her.'
'My God,' I said.
'She never struck me as suicidal. But I guess you never know, do you?'
'We went out and spoke together in Queens less than a week ago,'
I said. 'The two of us and Richie Gelman, we went all the way out to Richmond Hill together.' I scanned the room looking for Richie, as if he could help confirm what I was saying. I didn't see him. 'She seemed in great shape,' I said. 'She sounded fine.'
'I saw her Friday night and she seemed fine then. I don't remember what she said but she didn't seem depressed or anything.'
'We had a bite afterward. She seemed solid and content, happy with her life. What was it, pills?'
She shook her head. 'She went out a window. It was in the paper and there was something on the six o'clock news tonight. It was freaky, because she landed on some kid fresh out of church services and he was killed, too. Crazy, isn't it?'
Call your cousin, the message read.
This time I didn't have to go through the answering machine. She picked up on the first ring. 'He called,'
she said.
'And?'
'He said, 'Elaine, I know you're there. Pick up the telephone and turn off your machine.' And I did.'
'Why?'
'I don't know why. He told me to do it and I did it. He said he had a message for you.'
'What was the message?'
'Matt, why did I turn off the machine? He told me to do it and I did it. What if he tells me to unlock the door and let him in? Am I going to do it?'
'No, you're not.'
'How do you know that?'
