Authors: Michelle Huneven
As for this speaking commitment, Barbara refused to let him off the hook; it might even, she said, distract him from self-pity. And she was right: to command the podium, he had to pull himself together or else look like a fool. The group laughed, as they always did, at how he worked Step One thinking he was writing PR material for Round Rock Farm. They gasped hearing how his first sponsor stole his girlfriend. And when he told them Lydia had scuttled, concern flickered in their eyes and he’d had to pause, catch hold of himself, accept the Kleenex Barbara held out.
Afterward, people stood in line to shake his hand. He was numb
with relief. Barbara slid up to him and whispered, “Tops,” meaning she and a few others were going to the Tops coffee shop and he should meet them there.
“You going back up to Rito today?” said one Latino guy.
“No, no, I haven’t been there for years.”
“I thought you worked there.”
“No, not for almost three years.”
“I couldn’t hear well way in the back,” he said. “But my car broke down and I thought, if you were going up … It did seem too good to be true.”
“Hey, sorry, man,” Lewis said. “Good luck.”
By the time Lewis shook every well-wisher’s hand, two women had slipped him their phone numbers and three newcomer men had asked for his—all of which might have cheered him up, if he’d wanted anything besides a phone call from Lydia proclaiming her change of heart.
A
T
T
OPS
, Lewis found Barbara and a fair sampling of the core Nightcrawlers in a large corner booth.
“Our fearless leader,” said an actor named Kip, who moved over to give him a seat.
Celia, a rock singer, spoke in her throaty voice. “I was thinking, Lewis, that maybe you should be a minister.” She turned to the others. “Don’t you think Lewis would make a good minister?”
“What, was I too preachy?”
“No, no. I didn’t mean that.” Celia turned to Barbara. “Jesus. I thought
I
twisted things around.”
“You
would
make a good minister,” Kip said. “You’re funny, smart, sufficiently spiritual. You think well on your feet.”
“I fornicate, I blaspheme, plus I don’t believe in God, per se.”
“Who cares?” said Kip. “You’re a natural speaker.”
“And you cried, Lewis,” Celia added. “That was so sweet it killed me. I don’t think I’ve ever seen you cry before.”
“Are you kidding?” said Barbara. “He’s a total sponge-face.”
“When I quit smoking,” said Lewis, “I was furious at everybody for about a month, and then I started getting weepy at Pepsi commercials.” He sat back so the waitress could pour his coffee. “Although
I never actually
cry
cry, much less sob. Just leak from the eyes.”
Kip laughed. “And I always love hearing about how your first sponsor stole your girlfriend. That’s really rich.”
“I say that for effect, but the truth is, I’d already broken up with her.”
“So you said. But the body wasn’t cold.”
“I don’t want my friends going out with my ex-lovers,” Barbara said. “People should find their own mates, not pounce on your leftovers.”
“Did you really punch your sponsor?” Renee was a robust young woman with thick straw-colored hair and clear blue eyes; she looked more like a picture of the right life than a girl who used to unplug the phone, lock her bedroom door, and retire for the weekend with a couple quarts of vodka.
Lewis bowed his head. “It was awful, actually, to boil up so fast. It was like watching someone else. I still feel like shit about it.”
“Sounds to me,” said Kip, “like you need to make amends to yourself.”
“Yeah, well …” Steam tumbled upward from Lewis’s coffee cup in a small shaft of light.
“So you made amends, right,” Renee said, “for hitting him?”
“Renee’s about to make her amends—can’t you tell?” Barbara, who sponsored Renee, gave her an affectionate glance.
“Good for you,” said Lewis. “I didn’t start feeling lighter and freer
until
I made my amends. But no, I never did with Red. I like to think that staying the hell away from his girlfriend was amends enough.” He tried to laugh, but what came out was a humorless hack. “Look, can we change the subject? Or do we want to spend the rest of the day on what an asshole I am?”
“Hey, hey,” said Kip. “We’re all assholes here. Isn’t this Assholes Anonymous? Or am I in the wrong program?”
Big sighs at this old joke, then the waitress came up to take their food orders. Lewis was too keyed up to eat. He had liked being on the podium, but it wore him out. After three cups of watery coffee, he felt scorched around the edges, and his friends were beginning to look like unflattering caricatures of themselves.
“You okay?” Barbara asked.
“It just caught up with me,” said Lewis. “I need a nap.” He stood and threw two dollar bills on the table.
Barbara’s face darkened. She considered his naps “another place to hide,” an escape only slightly less contemptible than drinking.
“I’ve got to,” Lewis told her. “Just a quick one.”
“Well, thanks for speaking. You were great, Lewis. I really appreciate it.” She stood and put her arms around him and kissed his cheek.
As if suddenly fragile, he walked slowly back to his car. Each time he remembered anything he said at the meeting, it seemed stupid or corny. Had he really snuffled over a woman in front of all those people?
Quel
dope. No wonder Lydia was leaving for Paris without him.
The neighborhood Lewis walked through had Spanish-style homes with red tile roofs and tidy yards. Cars, cleansed from yesterday’s rains, sat in driveways. Not a soul was in sight. Sunday: the day of deep family burrowing. Throughout his childhood, other kids couldn’t play on Sundays—they had to go to church, visit relatives, sit down to the ritual Sunday supper—and not much had changed. Families and friends were still huddled indoors around hot meals, and here he was skittering through the empty streets, alone and unhinged.
He’d been so good for so long now: sober, well-intentioned, consistent in schoolwork, meditation, AA, returning phone calls and library books, paying taxes, getting his teeth cleaned. The list could go on forever, yet the women he loved still left.
D
RIVING
across the bridge, who did he see but that man who’d asked him for a ride to Rito. He was walking at a good clip, his jacket flapping.
Lewis pulled over and rolled down the passenger window. “Want a lift?”
“Great, thanks.” The man climbed in the car. “I’m staying just a few blocks away.” He extended a hand. “David Ibañez.”
Lewis shook hands and introduced himself. “You live in Rito?”
“Tijuana. But I grew up in Rito.” said David. “On your drunk farm, as a matter of fact. You know the farmworkers’ housing on the west end?”
“Yeah! I worked in one of those bungalows. What do you think about your birthplace turning into a drunk farm?”
“I love it. One of God’s great jokes. And much better than having it subdivided or paved into an industrial park. I only wish I’d gotten sober there.”
“You always could, you know.”
David laughed. “I’m not sure I have another recovery in me. Bleeding from the eyes kind of got to me the last time around.” He wore a nubbly sport jacket and, under that, a purple knit vest with iridescent hairs and a band-collar dress shirt: beautiful clothes, undoubtedly expensive.
“You sober long?” asked Lewis.
“Seventeen years.” David pointed to a Chinese restaurant. “Take a right here, please.”
David’s destination was a small house on a treeless block. Lewis parked and, suddenly loath to relinquish the company, turned off the engine. “What do you do in Tijuana?”
“I work in alternative medicine. I guess you’d say I’m a healer.”
“You mean, like, hands-on healing?”
David lifted his hands. The fingers were long and tapered, the skin an even brown. He flipped the palms up, showing pinker skin with creases like lines depicting rivers on a map. “I use my hands some,” he said.
“I always wondered how someone knows they have the power to heal. You just discover it one day?”
“It’s more an affinity than a power,” said David. “And I grew up in the Mexican healing tradition. My uncle’s a
curandero
and he always said I had
el don,
the gift for it.”
“And you can actually find jobs doing it?”
“Hospices, holistic health clinics, rehab centers, you name it. A lot of
curanderismo
is very helpful in treating alcoholics and addicts.”
“Really?” Lewis had an image of cravings being pulled from the body, hand-over-fist, like thick orange yarn. “How so?”
“Oh, Western doctors constantly misdiagnose certain conditions as flu or depression when it’s actually
susto,
a disease of fear that’s epidemic in addicts.”
Lewis promptly experienced a surge of fear himself; maybe
he’d
never been properly diagnosed. “How do you know if you have it?”
“The symptoms are similar to depression—weight gain or loss, lethargy, irritation, volatility. But
susto
also means loss of soul, and that’s what makes it so much more helpful a description than depression. People with
susto
have lost any sense of true or higher self. They react to things only out of fear or guilt or shame.”
Lewis tried to keep a keen interest out of his voice. “What’s the treatment?”
“Herbs to relax. Conversation to examine the fears. A ritual to cleanse the person and reconnect them to both a higher power and a firmer sense of self.”
“Well, I could probably use some of that myself.”
“Come on in.” David smiled and nodded toward the house. “I’ve got time. I’ll give you a
barrido
—a quick, ritual sweeping. Fix you right up.”
“Better yet …” Lewis articulated the idea as it occurred to him. “Why don’t I drive you up to Rito? It’s a great day. I don’t have anything to do.”
“Oh, I’ll rent a car. I’d just thought if you were—”
“Hey, I’m happy to go.”
“I wouldn’t want to put you out.”
“No, really, I’d like to.”
“May I bring my dog?”
“Sure,” said Lewis.
David went into the house to fetch his things. Alone in the car, Lewis reconsidered his impulsive offer, which obviated once and for all the possibility of intercepting Lydia at the airport, hurling himself at her feet, and begging one more time.
David emerged from the house with a blue blanket, a leather knapsack, and an ancient spotted hound. He spread the blanket over the backseat and helped the dog into the car. A female. White-muzzled, with huge droopy ears and filmy eyes, she gave Lewis a doleful look and slumped against the seat, exposing a belly of festering sores. The car filled with a moist, sour smell like rotting bacon.
Lewis opened his window, breathing in cool, fresh air as David sat down in the front beside him. “What’s wrong with her, anyway?” Lewis asked.
“Her oil glands have stopped working.”
“How old is she?”
“Seventeen.”
“She already smells dead.” When David didn’t reply, Lewis said, rather more nicely, “Isn’t that old for a dog?”
“Especially such a large dog.” David leaned into the backseat, stroked the dog’s head, then pulled his door closed.
The door shut with a muffled click, a subtle and final sound that triggered images of Lydia with acute, almost hallucinatory clarity: the curve of her long neck; her small, exquisite head. Barbara said Lydia, at twenty-five, was simply too young for him. Lewis felt Lydia’s disinterest, whatever the cause, was inevitable. The miracle was that she had
ever
enfolded him, all his meagerness and angst, in those slim, tennis-sculpted arms.
“Hey,” he said to David. “I don’t mean to mooch free medical advice or anything, but I was wondering: do you know a treatment for someone whose idiot heart has been kicked to a bloody pulp?”
“What’s that again?”
“You know, a cure—or maybe not a cure exactly, maybe just a salve—for a guy who’s just lost the most brilliant and beautiful girlfriend?”
They were on the freeway now. Trucks trundled alongside them. The car was incubator warm. “Oh,” said David. “What you need is a
guayanchero.
These men and women in Peru are world experts in love magic. Actually, they’re wonderfully pragmatic. I met a man who went to one because his wife had stopped loving him. The
guayanchera
went into a trance, burned herbs, consulted dead birds, and then she said, ‘Well, if your wife doesn’t love you, maybe you’d better start looking for someone who does.’ ”
“I’m glad I didn’t fly all the way to Peru to hear that.”
“It’s not what anybody wants to hear.” David thought some more. “There’s always the literature cure. Take a big box of books out to the desert and read until things shift.
Bleak House
can cure anything.”
Lewis smacked the steering wheel. “
Bleak House
is about my favorite fucking book in the world.” He couldn’t wait to teli Barbara and the chair of his thesis committee he’d spent the day with a
curandero
who prescribed
Bleak House
for a broken heart. You can’t make up something like that.
They settled into a relaxed, motoring hum. Lewis explained his dissertation on Flaubert, Turgenev, and Paris in the 1860s. David Ibañez described his childhood on the Sally Morrot ranch.
G
ROWING UP
in the workers’ village, said David, was like living on a feudal estate: a prescribed, simple, unquestioned hierarchical arrangement in which Sally Morrot spoke the word of God.
His earliest memories were smells. Wood smoke and dirt, a gamy mixture of chickens and compost, the orange groves’ pungent dust and perfume. As a small child, he could smell water, before it rained or when the river was full. On certain February days, he’d get a whiff of spring, the moist balminess peculiar to afternoons in April, May, and June. People smelled then, too, and he could identify them by their particular tangled blend of food, sweat, and soap. He gauged moods by the onion scent of fear, the baked-goods aroma of contentment, the rankness of alcohol rising off skin.