No, he didn’t.
“What’s this?” Stu spluttered as the waitress set a cup in front of him. “This isn’t a boilermaker.”
“It’s coffee,” said the waitress. “I told you before, this is a restaurant, not a bar.”
Before I could stop him, Stu was on his feet and pushing past the waitress. “I have to go to the john,” he announced loudly. “I expect that to be a boilermaker by the time I get back.”
While Stu was away, Ella and I congratulated ourselves on how well everything was working out.
“Can you believe it, El?” I could barely control my excitement. “You and I are having coffee with Stu Wolff!” I’d never let Carla Santini live this down.
A frown crossed Ella’s face. “I wish he were sober, though. It’s so hard talking to someone who’s drunk.”
As if she’d had a lot of experience talking to drunks. Ella had less than I did, and the only time I’ve seen either of my parents really wasted was the Christmas my father hit the eggnog too hard and danced into the tree. It was quite a sight. But my father hadn’t behaved like Stu. My father had been happy. He was still laughing as he took broken bits of Christmas ball from his hair.
“I wish he were, too,” I admitted. “I have so many questions I want to ask him about his work.”
Ella tentatively sipped her coffee. “I wonder why he
I’d tried to explain to Ella that artists aren’t like ordinary people, but she clearly hadn’t understood. Not that I blamed her. Mr and Mrs Gerard think suffering is when their lawn gets crabgrass or the deli runs out of Brie.
“You just don’t understand the artistic soul,” I said. But, fortunately, I did. And I knew Stu’s soul almost as well as I knew my own. There wasn’t a line he’d written that wasn’t burned into my memory and etched in my heart. “The artistic soul can never be happy. It creates through anguish and pain. That’s probably why he drank so much.” My face clouded with empathy. “He has to numb the intensity of his feelings. All true geniuses do.”
Ella, of course, was radically impressed by my explanation. She looked over her shoulder towards the restrooms.
“You know,” she said, “he’s been in there a while. I hope he’s all right.”
The counter-man, the waitress, and the cops were all looking towards the restrooms, too.
Ella turned back to me. “Do you think he’s passed out again?”
“At least we know that he’s safe if he has,” I answered, slightly distracted for the moment. I was watching the cops push their cups away. The one with powdered sugar on his chin got to his feet and strolled towards the door. I didn’t like the way he glanced over at me and Ella as he stepped into the street. It suddenly occurred to me that Ella’s concern about her mother’s protectiveness might be justified. What if Mrs Gerard had called my house to check on Ella after all? A person with far less imagination than I could easily picture what would have happened. The shrieking; the tears; the phone calls; the overwrought conversation with the police…”
As casually as a person who is dripping all over could, I glanced towards the street again. The patrol car was parked on a yellow line right out front… The police officer was sitting inside, talking on the radio. I wished I could read his lips. Was he saying, “That’s right, one has blonde hair and the other one’s a redhead…?”
My euphoria had vanished. It would be just my luck to end up not in Stu Wolff’s embrace but in the strong arms of the law.
The waitress materialized with Stu’s order and the coffee-pot. “Your friend’s takin’ a long time,” she said conversationally as she refilled our cups. “I think one of you better go check on him before the boss does.”
As one, Ella and I looked towards the boss. He was leaning between a plastic bottle of ketchup and a pitcher of milk, talking to the remaining cop, but his eyes kept darting to the restrooms.
“I’ll go,” I volunteered.
Nonchalant as an antelope, I walked to the back of the diner, praying that no one could hear me squelch. I slipped into the ladies’ – which was next to the men’s room – and locked the door.
“Stu!” I hissed urgently. “Stu! Are you OK?”
I pressed my ear to the wall. I couldn’t hear a sound.
My next move was to try banging.
“Stu!”
The silence of a pharaoh’s tomb came back at me. And that was when this really awful thought struck me like an arrow. What if Stu had gone in the john to kill himself? He was drunk, he was depressed, he was haunted by the fear that he would never find anyone to love him for himself. Maybe he even worried (foolishly) that his career was over, now that the band was gone. Tortured geniuses are prone to suicide.
I exited the ladies’, acting carefree and calm.
The second cop had come back and was talking to his partner. The counter-man was scraping gunk from the grill. The waitress was cutting a wedge of pie. Only Ella was looking at me.
I put my hand on the doorknob of the men’s room, and turned it gently. It was locked. I pressed my ear to the door. I couldn’t hear anyone breathing. My stomach began to churn as I pictured the crumpled form on the floor, the eyes open, the lips slightly parted, the handsome face blank, the once great mind as gone as yesterday. A soft cry of pain escaped me. I turned back to the diner, unsure of what to do.
A dark figure was passing in front of the restaurant. Slowly and uncertainly. Almost stumbling, it braced itself against the window for a second. Joy, relief and total panic all surged through me at once. It was Stuart Harley Wolff! He must have found a way out the back. No mean feat for a man in his condition.
I raced to our booth and grabbed my things. “Come on,” I said. “We have to go.”
“But Stu—”
“Now!” I gave her a yank. “He got out!”
Ella scrambled to her feet. “What about the bill?”
I picked up the bill and pretended to examine it carefully. The deluxe hamburger platter was $5.95. The large onion rings were another $2.50. The coffees were nearly three.
“Put whatever you have on the table,” I ordered. I put down my five-dollar bill and fifty-eight cents.
Ella put down $1.40. “You had the rest of my money,” said Ella. And then, in case I’d overlooked the obvious, added, “We don’t have enough.”
One of the cops had disappeared; the other was watching us in the mirror behind the counter.
I got a firm grip on Ella’s arm. “Just walk to the door like nothing’s wrong,” I whispered.
“And then what?” she whispered back.
“Then run.”
It would have worked, I’m sure it would have. But we never got a chance to run. The cop got up as we started walking; he blocked our way to the door.
“Not so fast,” he said, in a friendly tone. “I want to ask you two a couple of questions.”
“Now?” I asked, feigning panic and urgency. “I’m afraid we’re in a hurry. Our friend—” I tried to push past him.
He took each of us gently but firmly by the arm.
“Don’t worry about your friend,” said the cop. “He’s going to be just fine.”
I will never forget that ride to the precinct house. The streets were dark and blurred with rain; the blue lights flashed; the neon signs shone feebly through the storm; the windshield wipers whispered like demons. Given her views on being driven home in a patrol car, I’d expected Ella to feel equally strongly about being driven to the
