maybe someone who didn't exactly speak English.
'That's Canadian, isn't it? We don't carry that brand, sir. Sorry. How about CC?'
It may have been nothing but a fluke of the international liquor-distribution system, but heavy drinkers are a superstitious lot. And J.P. Beaumont is no exception. I took their not carrying my brand as a sign from the Oracle.
'Forget it,' I muttered irritably. 'Where's the damn phone?'
The bartender shrugged and pointed. 'Down the hall,' he said.
We've come a long way from 'Number please' days. The sound of a human voice-even a telephone operator's-would have been welcome right then, but no such luck. By the time I finished punching in Ames' number as well as the fourteen digits of my telephone calling card, my hand shook so badly I could barely hit the right buttons. On a Saturday night, naturally, Ralph was out. I didn't bother leaving a message on his voice mail.
I slammed down the receiver and grabbed for the slender Jackson County phone book. I thumbed through the pages, scanning down the column until I located a listing for the local office of Alcoholics Anonymous. A telephone volunteer directed me to the only meeting available that evening, an N.A. (Narcotics Anonymous) meeting that would start at seven in the basement of a downtown church. Any port in a storm. I took down the address.
Still strung too tight, I went back to the dining room and managed to limp my way through dinner with Alexis and her friend. Alex and Dinky, caught up in girl talk and in reminiscing about old times and acquaintances, never noticed anything wrong. At the end of the meal, I made arrangements to meet Alex outside the theater just before our eight-thirty curtain. Engrossed in their conversation, the two chatting women happily waved me on my way.
Twelve-step meetings frequently attract unusual people. The N.A. meeting in Ashland was more unusual than most. A lot of Oregon still lingers in the sixties. Parts of it never emerged from the fifties. The rural population contains a number of Cold War, bomb-shelter-type survivalists and more than a few renegade flower children. There are also increasing numbers of chronically under-and unemployed loggers and mill workers whose jobs have disappeared right along with spotted-owl habitats.
Enterprising folks from those diverse groups had countered bad times by turning to agriculture, producing Oregon's illicit but cash-rich crop of marijuana, which federal and state drug-enforcement agencies obligingly attempted to obliterate. Busted again, in more ways than one, and drowning in their troubles, these hard-luck Joes would appear in criminal courts where right-thinking judges ordered them into treatment.
Some of them turned up at the N.A. meeting in Ashland. They arrived in their heavy boots, flannel shirts, and bright red suspenders. Not necessarily remorseful but reasonably good-humored about it all, they joined in with the usual collection of housewives, waitresses, and professional men to form the nucleus of that particular Saturday night group. That nucleus also included several artsy-fartsy types, some of them no doubt connected to the Festival. The latter were generally better educated than the one-time loggers/hippies/survivalists turned ex-pot-growers; they weren't necessarily better dressed.
The rest of the people in attendance were like me-out-of-towners, tourists in Ashland for the plays. Even on vacation-maybe especially on vacation-a lot of us need extra help in holding our own peculiar demons at bay.
One good thing about N.A. or A.A. is that you can go to a meeting and take away only what you need at the time. No quizzes are administered, no grades issued.
That night what I needed to hear was the Serenity Prayer. Repeating it in unison, I heard myself say what I had come there to hear: 'accept the things I cannot change.' When those words penetrated my thought processes, I lost track of the world around me. I thought about what I could change and what I couldn't.
The baby, for example, was something I couldn't change, so I could just as well shape up and accept it. Now that I was calmer, I recalled how Jeremy had looked at Kelly just before he reached out to shake my hand. Glancing down at her, his eyes had glowed with concerned questioning and tenderness, too. He loved her, dammit. I probably shouldn't try to change that, either.
Halfway through the meeting, I noticed that the fellow across the table kept zeroing in on me. Late fifties and heavyset, he tried to be subtle about it, staring at me only when he thought I wouldn't notice. Once I became aware of him, he seemed vaguely familiar. At the beginning of the meeting, people had introduced themselves on a first-name basis, but I hadn't paid much attention. Since I had never before set foot in Ashland or southern Oregon, it seemed unlikely that I knew him. No doubt the portly gentleman resembled a double back home in Seattle.
When it came my turn to talk, I said something about how unfair it seemed that even after you quit using or boozing or whatever, your damn kids could still drive you crazy. That comment seemed to strike a raw nerve with almost everyone in the room. Drinking or not, being a parent is hell, almost as rewarding as trying to nail a scrambled egg to a tree.
The guy across the table picked right up on my comment, giving the problem his own personal spin. 'It's not just kids, either,' he said. 'Take me, for instance. Ten years ago, I dumped my first wife. It didn't seem like that big a deal. She was a Lulu with a mean streak five miles wide, and we didn't have anything in common anyway. Besides I was trying to sober up, get my life in order. I figured I could do better. And I did. I figured-‘What the hell? Better luck next time, right?' I mean, what do drunks know about picking decent wives? Found me another wife, a real beauty, too, but now…' He shook his head dolefully, as if searching for the courage to continue.
'I always thought booze was what made the first marriage go bad. Now I'm afraid I'm going to lose this one, too, that my wife will walk out on me. And I haven't had a drink in damn near ten years. I ask you, what kind of deal is that?'
Good question.
The meeting finished up promptly at eight because the people running it were well aware that most of the out-of-towners would be rushing off to an eight-thirty curtain in one of the town's live theaters, and theater is Ashland's bread and butter.
As I hiked back up the main drag toward the Festival, I came to an out-of-order stoplight where a shorts-clad uniformed police officer was directing traffic. I found myself caught in a crowd of theatergoers waiting to cross the street.
'Mr. Beaumont,' a voice called from behind me.
Surprised to hear my name, I turned around. Red-faced and puffing with exertion, the man from the meeting came trotting after me, smiling and holding out his hand. Despite the early-evening heat, he was carrying a red down-filled jacket.
'Aren't you J.P. Beaumont from Seattle?' he rasped. 'Guy Lewis, remember me?' Running to catch up had left him winded, so much so that I worried he'd die of a heart attack on the spot. 'I'm the one who bought your Bentley at the auction, remember?'
Primed, I did remember. Guy Lewis looked familiar because he was, although four hundred miles from home my brain hadn't quite managed the critical connections.
Months earlier, under the helpful auspices of Ralph Ames, I had first met Alexis Downey, the director of development for the Seattle Rep. The two of them prevailed on me to convince the Belltown Terrace Syndicate to donate (read 'unload') the building's cranky and mostly nonrunning Bentley to the theater's first-ever charity auction.
At the black-tie affair, Guy Lewis turned out to be the poor stupid jerk who had paid top dollar to cart away the Bentley, which I regarded as an incredibly expensive piece of junk. For all I knew, he had to have the damn thing towed. I remembered watching him and his much younger and very blond wife be congratulated by the enthusiastic auctioneer. At the time, I had suffered a sharp pang of conscience to which Alex had applied the soothing balm of reassurance. She swore the money had gone to a good cause, and that Guy Lewis, sole heir to his father's portable-chemical-toilet empire, wouldn't even miss it.
Encountering Guy Lewis on the street in Ashland, I wondered if that was true. Would he shake my hand or punch me out? Remembering the Bentley, I would have bet on the latter.
'I didn't know you were in the program,' he said.
'I don't exactly go around advertising it.'
He nodded. 'Me, either. It helps to have a place to unload things.' He sighed and shook his head as if warding off an errant thought. 'Down here to see some plays, are you?'
I wasn't prepared to say the real reason behind my visit to Ashland, certainly not to him. 'Yes,' I answered.
'Henry?' he asked.
