Lies My Mother Never Told Me (18 page)

I resented the happy drinkers in the bars and wanted to be them instead of me.

 

I toured Hemingway's house, and there were about a hundred cats living on the grounds, direct descendants of Hemingway's original cats. Hemingway had installed a drinking fountain for them in the garden, the base of which was a finely detailed tile urinal from his favorite bar, where every afternoon he used to drink himself into a stupor. His writing studio had been left intact, his old typewriter still on the desk. It looked so much like my father's office that I felt a knot in my throat. Had I betrayed my father? Had I betrayed them all by accepting that I was an alcoholic?

I remembered my father telling me when I was a little girl, “Guilt is just bullshit. Don't ever let anyone make you feel guilty.”

But how did one learn to stop feeling guilty?

I joined a fitness club for the time we were there and went to two classes a day, but the grinding anxiety I felt just being on vacation sober for the first time in my life—the overpowering itch to move, to do, to run—was not quieted. I went scuba diving twice a day as well while Jennifer took the training course. Even diving, which I had so enjoyed in the past, did not make me feel calmer, or more serene.

One evening, at twilight, while Jennifer was napping, I went for a bike ride alone, pedaling furiously and randomly down the labyrinthine streets. I found myself once again back on Mallory Square, where a concrete pier demarcates the sudden end of the United States. At the far side of the square stood the gauntlet of open bars that called to me like sirens from a rocky shoal. In the back of my mind a voice said, Why not? Pedal over there, step into any one of those bars, order a Brett Ashley, or a Robert
Jordan, or an Old Man and the Sea, or whatever the hell they're drinking—and all your worries will vanish in an orgy of booze and boys on vacation.

But what would Gianna think? And anyway, all my worries would be back tomorrow morning, having grown during my drunken stupor into a clamoring barbarian horde.

The sun was about to set, and a small crowd had gathered on the quay. I had stopped my bike some distance away, and now put my foot on the curb and watched as the red sun touched the water and began its downward slide into the waves, the bank of clouds on the horizon exploding into a diorama of pink and red mountain ranges. For the first time in my life, 112 days away from a drink, I earnestly prayed.

God, if you're there, help me.

The sun disappeared into the waves and a dark blue curtain fell slowly over sky and water. I waited for a while as the people drifted away and the bars continued to blast their party music out into the street, but I felt nothing. Resigned, I pushed my bike forward and pedaled away.

 

I went back to New York convinced I would never be able to travel again. I felt like a person on dialysis; leaving home was no longer an option. Gianna insisted it would get better, but I did not believe her.

I reread Bill Styron's
Darkness Visible
and was once again seized by the brilliant, totally illuminating thought that I was not an alcoholic, only clinically depressed. The next time I saw Gianna, I mentioned this to her. “William Styron says in
Darkness Visible
that alcohol is good for him. It was only when his body rejected alcohol that he sank into depression. You know, Gianna, I don't think I can write without it.”

Gianna did something I'd never seen her do before: she snorted derisively through her nose. After she'd regained her
Zen-like composure, she said, “That book should be used in every alcohol and drug rehab center as a classic, textbook case of denial.”

I didn't know how to respond to that, so I remained silent.

I continued to think my life had reached a dead end. But I never failed to call Gianna, sometimes two or three times a day, trying to explain that I didn't think I was going to make it. She told me to pray, to just accept
her
faith in me, and that everything would be all right.

 

For years, I'd wanted to start a writing fellowship in my father's name. In November 1992, a group of college professors and childhood friends of James Jones were getting together in Robinson, Illinois, to found the James Jones Literary Society, and it was my opportunity to try to put my wish into action. Kurt Vonnegut had once mentioned to me that he hoped one day there would be a James Jones fellowship for struggling writers, so I decided to call him to ask his advice. He was my mother's neighbor in Sagaponack, and we'd become friendly over the years. Kurt, while brusque, was one of the kindest and most generous writers I've ever known. He had given me a jacket blurb for my first novel and told me quite strenuously, whenever he got the chance, that I was an excellent writer and should not live in my father's shadow. “You're just as good as he was,” he'd tell me. I did not believe him.

My parents had met Kurt in Paris back in the early seventies. Kurt and his future wife had visited Paris but had lost their travelers' checks and didn't have ready access to cash. An acquaintance referred Kurt to my dad. Kurt called and introduced himself.

“Hi, I'm Kurt Vonnegut,” he said. “I'm a science fiction writer—”

My dad was an avid science fiction reader and cried out, “Kurt Vonnegut, by God, I love your books!” And he invited Kurt and his companion to visit the house that day to cash a check. It must have been late in the afternoon when they arrived, because my dad opened the door himself. There stood a tall, wild-haired, slightly stooped man. My father welcomed his visitors and he and Kurt proceeded to have drinks, sitting around the pulpit bar. My dad got the whole sad story of how Kurt had been wandering around Paris without a cent, and he cashed Kurt's check so Kurt could pay his hotel bills and get home to the States.

I was always afraid to call Kurt because I felt I was disturbing a genius at work. But this was important enough that I picked up the phone. He answered, grumpy and annoyed, a genius at work who had been disturbed, so without further ado I reminded him of what he'd said years ago, and put forth my plan to try to start a first novel fellowship in my father's name.

“A fellowship?” he said. “Forget it. You need an endowment. There's no way in hell you'll find a hundred fifty, two hundred thousand to get the thing started. Nice thought, though.”

But at the gathering in Robinson, Don Sackrider, a retired commercial pilot who now lived in Miami, put up the first $5,000—seed money for the fellowship. Don had been raised in Robinson and, at seventeen, had been the youngest member of the Handy Colony in Marshall. He felt the Colony had given his life direction, and he wanted to offer the kind of help to struggling writers that he'd received when he'd shown up on the Colony's doorstep as an aimless young man.

 

A few weeks later, I met Kevin at a Writer's Voice reception. In the crowded, echoing room, he ambled over to me and introduced himself. He said he knew I was a teacher there and that he'd heard wonderful things about my class. In his early thirties, he had a stoic, angular face and a thin slit of a mouth, but his eyes were large and expressive, a tawny color, with long black lashes, and when he gazed at me they seemed so gentle and vulnerable
I felt scared. He wore an old black cotton long-sleeved T-shirt and faded blue jeans, and carried slung over his shoulder a thin, black nylon windbreaker that was surely no protection against the late-November cold. For some reason a poem by Rimbaud, “Ma Bohème”—“Je m'en allais, les poings dans mes poches crevées…”—about the poet's happy-go-lucky homeless travels, passed through my mind.

A crazed poet, I thought. Run!

We started talking about books and writing, and I sensed immediately he'd lost someone close to him. Perhaps it was a familiar shadow I saw lurking behind his eyes. I knew I had that look too, and he probably sensed I was also a member of that unenviable club. He said he'd recently moved to New York from North Carolina because of his job, but his true love was writing. He'd been a freelance journalist and screenwriter and had an idea for a novel. By the end of the evening, I gave him my phone number.

A couple of weeks later, we had our first date—which wasn't really a date because Kevin had called and asked me for writing advice. It was a Sunday morning in mid-December, at a loud and trendy art deco diner on Second Avenue. Concerned that he'd think I was overly interested in him, I arrived straight from my Gilda Marx bodybuilding class in my sweats, and that seemed to convince him immediately that whatever interest I had in him, it wasn't romantic.

Before the food even arrived, I told him I hadn't had a drink in eleven months and felt completely unprepared for life. I figured if this was going to scare him off, better to know right away. He responded evenly that his parents drank heavily but never considered the possibility they were alcoholic. His father had died of a heart attack when Kevin was twenty-six, on New Year's Day, while watching football on TV. Better to know you're an alcoholic than not, Kevin said.

After a short lull, I asked him what he did when he wasn't writing.

Kevin worked for an airline, and he could fly standby, for free, anywhere in the world and his idea of weekend fun was going to the ticket counter at the airport and checking which flights were lightly booked, and getting on a plane bound for South America, or Europe, or California. He just packed an extra sweatshirt and a pair of thick socks, in case the flight was bound for Reykjavík in January.

He smiled happily, and I shuddered at the thought. Having just taken my second sober flight, I had no intention of ever getting on a plane again.

I told him that in the old days, when I was drinking, I handled air travel with two or three vodkas and a Valium, passing out and coming to when the plane landed. Now, I explained with a mirthless laugh, I would
never
fly anywhere unless it was absolutely necessary. His expression went from hopeful to crestfallen. It hadn't occurred to me until that moment that he was considering asking me on a romantic air travel date.

He tried to pay the bill with a credit card, but the place only took cash. Now he looked sick to his stomach with embarrassment, his face turning ashen. I felt so bad for him I didn't know what to do, so I smiled, reached for my handbag, and said he could get the next one. This didn't seem to help him feel better, so I started belittling myself by telling him I'd never been on a “date” in my entire life and wouldn't recognize one if it fell on my head from the sky.

When we walked outside I noticed he was still wearing that skimpy nylon windbreaker, even though it was freezing cold, and I had the urge to take him shopping for a coat.

We read
All the Pretty Horses
at the same time, having separately bought the book. Sitting in a coffee shop near the Writer's Voice late one dark afternoon just before Christmas, I told him I
thought it was a beautifully written book, but such crazy notions of romance were for teenagers. At our age, such careless foolishness was no longer possible.

“Why not?” he said. “I just turned down a promotion in Washington, D.C., because of you.”

We hadn't even slept together yet, and he turned down a promotion? I was suddenly terrified of him. But this was the most romantic thing anyone had ever done for me. He reached across the Formica tabletop and placed his hand over mine. His palm was warm and dry, several degrees warmer than mine, comforting. He told me he'd done the long-distance relationship thing and he would never do it again.

“I think you're the one,” he said solemnly. “Maybe you're not, and that's fine. But I want to know, and I'm not going to find out by moving to Washington, D.C.”

 

A month later, on January 27, 1993, one year to the day after I stopped drinking, my mother was scheduled for hip replacement surgery at Lenox Hill Hospital. A month before her operation, her surgeon, Dr. Brenner, a renowned sports medicine specialist, asked Gloria and me from behind his wide, imposing desk if he should know anything about Gloria before he operated. My mother told him she was in perfect health. That settled, we all stood up; I hung back and let her limp out into the waiting room ahead of me. As Dr. Brenner stood by the door waiting for me to pass, I turned to him and told him point-blank that my mother had a very serious drinking problem, and I was worried about the anesthesia, how it would affect her if she was full of alcohol.

“Don't worry, I'll take care of it,” he murmured, and patted my shoulder.

The day of her surgery, I woke up angry and resentful. It was my one-year anniversary of sobriety and fuck her anyway. As Kevin got up and dressed in his suit and freshly laundered shirt
for work, I was cold and silent. When he left, I didn't say good-bye. At 7:00
A.M
. I picked my mother up at Cecile and Buddy's and took her by cab to the hospital. After we'd waited for three hours, a nurse marched us into a room, asked my mother to step behind a curtain, and told her to undress. Two or three other people in white lab coats came in, and when the nurse slid open the curtain, I saw a small, fragile old lady, gripping a flimsy hospital gown in one tight fist over her chest, her knuckles white with tension. Her eyes were wide with fright as she glanced around at all these strangers, and I suddenly felt frightened myself.

“Mrs. Jones,” said the first nurse, clipboard in hand, “how many drinks do you have a day?”

My mother seemed to give this some thought. “Six,” she said with finality, looking the nurse straight in the eye.

Six? I thought. Six? My God, she has six before lunch. Don't believe her, I wanted to shout. As if six drinks a day—as opposed to twelve, or twenty, or thirty—weren't cause enough for concern.

The last thing they did before rolling her off to surgery was ask her to take out her dentures. With tremulous fingers my mother reached into her mouth and took out her upper teeth, then handed them to a nurse, who swiftly rinsed them and put them in a plastic container. Suddenly my mother's whole face caved into her mouth, and she looked exactly like my grandmother Gertrude; my breath caught in my throat. I went back to the waiting room on shaky legs and collapsed into a chair, stunned into a kind of emotional paralysis, unable to read any of the three books I'd brought along to pass the time.