Rummies by Peter Benchley
So they met at dusk, before supper—Preston, Duke, Lupone, Twist, Crosby and Hector. Preston had assembled them carefully, feeling like Lee Marvin in The Dirty Dozen, choosing them for their ingenuity, daring, commitment and ability to keep their mouths shut. They gathered on the grass beside the exercise area.
Preston grouped them in a circle, sitting on the ground, creating (he hoped, for the benefit of prying eyes) a tableau of an impromptu discussion of Fifth Step priorities or individual approaches to long-term sobriety.
He told them what he knew, including his assumptions about the blanks in Priscilla's memory.
“That stupid fuck,” Lupone said when Preston had finished.
"Fat lot you talk," said Twist. "You and Raffi, you the guys gave him the blow."
“A guy's got a gun, don't mean he hasta shoot somebody. A guy wants to stick shit up his nose, fine with me, I'll sell him all he wants. But that ain't a license to fuck up little girls. Uh-uh."
"Or throw people off mountains," said Hector.
"We don't know that," said Crosby.
"Chuck knows," said Duke. "Unless the tooth fairy's giving out Porsches."
"Anyway," Lupone sighed, "it's no big deal."
Preston said, "No big deal!"
Lupone shook his head like a disappointed parent forced to discipline a child. "I call Raffi, Raffi checks with the don. We whack Banner. Have to. He's bad news."
"No," said Preston.
"What you mean, no?"
"All that'll do is make him a martyr."
"Bullshit!" said Twist. "What it'll do is make him dead. He won't mess with Gloria no more."
"But nobody'll know why," Preston argued. "There'll be testimonials to him. Plaques. People will revere his memory. You want that?"
Lupone said, "We'll put a fuckin' note on his chest. You know your problem, Scott? You don't wanna whack nobody. You're one a them liberal pussies can't see the virtue of capital punishment."
“Nobody'll believe it, Puff! He says he's a saint, and to a lot of people he is.''
Lupone chuckled. “So let's bum him at the fuckin' stake."
“It'll make you people look bad, put a lot of heat on the clinic. No more drying out juicers. No more helping junkies."
"I say horseshit!" Twist shouted. He was about to shout again, but he saw Crosby looking over his shoulder and raising a hand in warning, so he stopped.
Just Mel was strolling by on his way to Peacemaker, and Twist's expletive had made him veer this way. "Hi there, fellows," he said. "Everything copacetic?"
Lupone glared at Just Mel and was about to suggest that he perform an anatomical impossibility when Preston cut him off.
"Hi, Mel. Boy, this higher-power stuffs a real bear."
"How so, Scott?"
"Well, Hector was saying that he regards Corazon as his higher power, but Khalil here, he denies that a higher power can be manifested in one human being because if that human being should die, then one would have to conclude that God is dead. . . . Right, Khalil?"
"As rain, Scott." Twist was shaking his head to conceal his smile.
"Higher power is difficult," Just Mel said, and he crossed his feet and started to drop down.
"Please, Mel," said Preston, stopping him by catching his elbow. "We'd like to thrash this one out ourselves."
"Oh. Right," Just Mel said, straightening up. "But call me if you need a guide. The forest of the higher power can be pretty dense.”
"For sure, Mel."
When Just Mel had entered Peacemaker, Twist leaned forward and said, ''I gotta hurt Stone. No way he gonna get away with messin' up Gloria. I gotta go up that mountain and hurt the man real bad."
Duke said, "You'll go to jail."
"Maybe.”
"For ten years?"
"I'll put a stocking on my head."
"Great. I should've thought of that." Duke rolled his eyes.
"Hey, Duke, fuck you!" said Twist. "You got a better idea?"
"Nobody disagrees," said Preston. "But we want to do it right.''
"How?" asked Twist.
"I don't know yet."
There was silence for a moment, and then Lupone said, "Forty-eight hours."
"What about it?" said Preston.
"You got forty-eight hours to come up with something. If you don't, I call Raffi."
"And if Raffi don't do it," Twist said, "Puff and me, we will."
They were shepherded aboard the bus like inmates from a prison farm. They had been told to wear clean shirts and comb their hair, and if any of them felt the urge to speak during the meeting—and Gwen urged them all to rise and tell their stories and "get in touch with the higher power of a group of sympathetic souls" if the spirit moved them—they were to watch their language.
Preston tried to sit beside Priscilla on the bus, but she had already boarded and was squeezed into a comer by Butterball, who knew nothing about what had happened to Priscilla and nattered on about her plans to start a holistic hair-care center when she got out.
What did he care if Lupone had Banner whacked, or if Twist wanted to go up the hill and maim him? It wasn't his business.
Yes, it was.
Four weeks ago, this had been a good place, staffed by good people who lived by a rule Preston had come to respect: If you help other people, you help yourself. Give, and you will receive. Take without giving, and you will live in the splendid aloneness that leads to self-loathing.
He had taken—a new sense of himself, a new regard for people the likes of whom he had never known existed, and, at least on a day-to-day basis, a clarity of mind he hadn't known since he was a child.
Now the place had gone bad, and it was stinking, like the proverbial fish, from the head down. The head had to be removed, and maybe there would be enough good will left so the body could live.
For lagniappe, of course, there was always the sweet prospect of pure vengeance.
But killing Banner was no answer, maiming him no solution. They had to bring him down and let him crush himself before the world whose adoration was his sustenance.
The problem was, Preston mused as the bus cruised through the twilight toward the dim orange glow on the horizon that signaled the town of Monte Vista, he and the others existed in a vacuum surrounded by a substance about which they knew nothing.
They didn't know what had happened to Natasha. They suspected that Chuck knew, but where was Chuck? Normally, he was ubiquitous, driving Banner here and there, delivering patients to the clinic, subduing the unruly and discouraging the curious.
Nobody had seen him since the blowup with Duke over the Porsche.
They didn't know what had happened to Marcia, except that she had been fired. Where was she? Was she lodging a complaint? Was anybody ever going to look into anything that happened at the clinic?
They didn't know what Banner's soft spots were, where he was vulnerable, if he was vulnerable.
Marcia might know. Possibly. If they could find her.
But Chuck was the key. He was Banner's beard, Preston was sure of it. If there was any way to get to Banner, Chuck would know it.
And he was gone. Probably ordered to drive to Canada to break in his Porsche.
The bus pulled up before the church, a forty-year-old run-down replica of the Alamo, and after a final admonition about cleanliness of mind, body and mouth, Gwen and Just Mel permitted them to file off the bus and descend directly into the basement.
Preston thought he had stepped into history, perhaps into an old Eric Sevareid documentary about a Bierstube Bund meeting. The low-ceilinged room was a thirty-foot square packed with folding chairs. A folding table held a coffee um, three boxes of doughnuts and a cereal bowl into which those who chose to dropped change to pay for their coffee. Knots of men and women stood around gossiping and smoking, and their exhalations gathered in a blue layer that hung like fog below the ceiling. A.A. exhortations had been tacked up beside Sesame Street posters, children's drawings (the room probably doubled as a day-car
Gwen and Just Mel ushered their charges into three rows of seats, then stood against a wall, watching, like warders. Preston felt like a mental patient on an outing at a shopping mall.
A bald man with rimless glasses, checked trousers, a powder-blue polo shirt and two-tone shoes detached himself from his group, walked to the front of the room and stood behind a rostrum made of a milk crate overturned atop a desk. He cleared his throat, and the gossipers quieted down and took seats.
''Hi there,'' the man said genially. "I'm Walter and I sure am an alcoholic."
“Hi, Walter!" shouted everybody but the contingent from Banner, some of whom mumbled but most of whom looked at the floor.
Gwen, peeved that her lessons had been so ill learned, nudged Crosby with her foot, and like a twitchy frog, he jumped and squeaked, ''Yo, Walter ..."
"We have a couple birthdays," said Walter. "Bessie R. . . . Where's Bessie R.?"
A huge women in a pansy-print dress as large as a king-size bedspread wheezed to her feet.
"Bessie R. has been sober for . . . sixty days!"
Everybody applauded—everybody but the spoilsports from Banner.
Gwen kicked Crosby, who yelled, '*Yeah, Bessie!”
"And here's a whop-doozer," said Walter. "Lester V. Where you at, Lester?"
Preston heard a chair scrape somewhere behind him, and a voice say, "Rahcheer."
"Lester V. has been in God's platoon, sober as a judge, hasn't had a drop, for three thousand, six hundred and fifty days . . . that is ten years today!"
People whistled, applauded, stamped, and Preston thought, I will never be sober for ten consecutive years. Not if I live forever.
"Did you ever think you could go ten years, Lester?" asked Walter.
"Never did," said Lester. "Just go one damn day at a time, though, and them suckers do pile on up."
"Come see me after," Walter said. "We got a cake for you, and we'll all sing 'Happy Birthday.' "
"Look forward to it," said Lester, and he sat down.
" 'Course, we could do the cake now"—Walter grinned—"but I 'spect with all our fine young friends from The Banner Clinic, theren't be none left for you, Lester." When his thigh-slapper didn't receive the uproarious laughter he evidently expected, Walter coughed and continued. "Which reminds me: You all prob'ly know but I'll remind you anyways, tomorrow night Stone Banner's gonna receive the President's own special medal for contributions to humanity and a drug-free America."
Preston had been barely paying attention, had let his mind begin to drift. Now he froze and focused.
"It'll be over to the civic center in Promised Land.
They gonna be all sorts of celebrities there and dignitaries, they say maybe even Dick Van Dyke—he's a personal favorite—and the television'11 cover it so you can go home and see yourself on TV. Anyhow, we're all invited, and it s important that we get a real good turnout for our very own Stone, so I hope to see you all there. Tomorrow night. Seven o'clock."
There is no justice in the world.
"Better get there early, though," Walter said, trying another joke, "else all the Banner people gonna get the good seats and get themselves on TV."
Preston looked at Gwen. She was beaming and applauding, forcing the rest of the audience to applaud with her. She caught him looking at her. He raised his eyebrows and pointed to himself: Are we going? She winked at him and nodded vigorously.
Well. There's something to chew on.
Preston felt that someone was looking at him. He turned his head. Halfway down the row, Lupone was leaning forward and staring at Preston, and when he saw that he had Preston's attention he extended a fist and shot him a thumbs-up sign.
"Okay," Walter said, "who wants to get things rolling?" He looked over the room. "How 'bout one of the folks from Banner?"
Sixty people held their breaths at once. Sixty pairs of eyes tried to drill holes in the floor.
"Maybe later, then. Somebody? Nobody? Hey listen, folks, I'll tell my story till I'm blue as a dead calf, but I know you're all sick to pukin' over it."
A man in the second row stood up. He was thin as a pencil and had hair to his shoulders. "I'm Ferlin," he said, "and I'm one sorry sumbitch of a drunk."
Walter led the room in a chorus of "Hi, Ferlin!"
While Ferlin ambled into his story (he was the son of a waitress and a pass-through cowboy; his mama fed him whatever she could scrounge from the cafe where she worked, which turned out to be mostly beer), Preston pondered their options.
They could try to get to Banner before the ceremony, could knock him out and tie him up, prevent him from getting there.
What would that accomplish?
Nothing.
They would be escorted to the ceremony, put in their seats and watched over like serial murderers. What could they hope to do? Produce secret placards and face them toward the TV cameras, proclaiming Banner to be a hypocrite?
Banner would make a joke and they'd all be thrown out of the clinic.
They could place anonymous calls to the TV stations and feed the reporters their suspicions.
The reporters would check out the rumors, find them baseless and ignore them.
They had to make Banner destroy himself.
And they couldn't.
Nobody could.
Except maybe Chuck.
And he had disappeared.
Preston was distracted by a light breeze on the back of his neck. The outside door had opened. He half-turned in his seat and looked at the door.
Marcia.
She saw him, and she gave him a tiny nod, and what struck him was that she didn't smile or wave or look the slightest bit surprised to see him.
It was as if she had known he would be there, as if she had come to the meeting to speak to him.
How could he speak to her? He couldn't just get up and walk back there and sit beside her. Gwen of the Gestapo would knock him down and stomp him to death. Maybe he could hang back after the meeting, pretend he had to go to the John, meet her in a hallway or upstairs in the apse. (He wasn't sure what an apse was, it was a crossword-puzzle word, but he had always fancied meeting somebody in one.)
No. Just Mel would be on toilet detail, would follow everybody into the John, probably check specimens for controlled substances.
He had to talk to her.
Ferlin had concluded his story, counting off ten days, twenty-two hours and seventeen minutes of continuous sobriety, and now someone else was telling how he had convinced himself that booze was God's elixir since if Christ's blood had been turned into wine, why then all he had been doing all his life was taking nonstop communion.
The guy finished, to laughter and applause, and suddenly Preston—without knowing what he was going to say but positive that this was his only chance to make contact with Marcia—jumped to his feet and heard himself say, *'rm Scott and I'm an alcoholic."
“Hi, Scott!"
Duke looked at him as if he had rabies.
Lupone was so startled that he bounced on one of his chairs and splayed its legs.
Gwen smiled at him like a proud mother at a potty-trained child.
I said it! Preston felt that his brain was unspooling, like a videotape on fast-forward. I said it in public and nobody laughed! What have I been scared of? Sonofa-bitch.'
He almost said it again, to see if it felt as good in reruns. But that wasn't why he was on his feet.
“I was born . . ." he began, and stopped. Born where? Poor and black in Mississippi? Born on a farm in Nebraska? Born to lose? He wanted to send a signal to Marcia, but he couldn't deviate too far from the truth or Gwen would manacle him and bundle him off to a rubber room.
'That's a start, Scott," Walter said, and people laughed.
''I was born into a family where problems weren't discussed. Standards were set, and you were expe
Good. Close enough to the truth. Now: throw in a ringer to get her attention.
“There were three of us—my sister . . ." name. Think of a name! "... Penelope, my brother, Charles—we called him Chuck ..." Yes. That should do it. "Chuck ought to sit her up straight. If she remembers that I'm an only child. "... and me. We idolized our father. He could do no wrong. Of course, if he had done anything wrong, nobody would have talked about it."
Enough back story. Get some drinking in here. Now!
"Anyway, I started drinking when I was about fourteen, but nobody said anything. It was almost as if they didn't want to notice.”
He glanced down and saw Twist looking at him with a worried frown on his face, as if he was debating whether it would be a kindness to subdue Preston and give him a shot.
Preston gave Twist what he thought was a reassuring smile.
“Over the years. Chuck drifted away, and I haven't been able to find him, and I need to find him now . . . because I've just learned something pretty terrible and I feel I have to share it with him."
Twist whispered something to Duke, and Duke whispered back, and they were both about to come out of their seats when Lupone put one of his giant hands on Duke's thigh and pressed him down into his chair.
Thank God. Puff has got it.
“What I've learned is that all along our sainted father has been abusing people—maybe Penelope, too—and it's critical to my recovery that I tell Chuck and see if we can work it out together. . . . That's all I have. Thanks for listening."
Preston sat down.
Walter said, "The Program isn't in the lost-and-found business, Scott, but never mind. We know what kind of courage it takes to stand up for the first time, and we're with you!" He clapped, and a bunch of other people clapped along with him.
Walter then called on a handsome woman in jeans, riding boots and a sweatshirt, who said her kids wanted her to go white-water rafting with them but she was happy staying here and raising her mastiffs, and though she didn't want to tick off her kids, because she enjoyed their company, or at least their attention, there was no way she was going to be able to spend a week sitting in a raft without a little liquid comfort to get her through the rapids of their bickering. And that led to a roundtable discussion of what was more important, sobriety or family, leading to the inevitable conclusion that without sobriety there was no family.