Sins of Our Fathers (9781571319128) (9 page)

He woke with a buck of panic, his father's baleful expression stuck in his mind. He lay in the dark, hot and sweaty, and listened to the trailer's murmurs and creaks. His heart was thumping, and a terrible lucidity came over him as he cooled and the dream faded.

He got up, his limbs stiff and dull as wood, and stumbled in to the tiny kitchen. He made a cup of chamomile tea to settle his stomach. The pot whistled as he tried to shake off the spell. As feeling returned, he sat at the tiny table and sipped in the dark. The speckled Formica glowed in the moonlight. He needed help, he realized. He had been utterly competent most of his life, but now he was in over his head—with his gambling, with Jorgenson, with his failing relationships and his enormous debts. He was coming apart on the inside. But there was no one to
help him, no one who could understand, or offer aid and counsel.

He began to make a list. He would find the local Gamblers Anonymous group and he would get a Big Book. He doubted it would do any good—after all, gambling was not an addiction like alcohol—but he wrote it down. He would go to Carol and fix things with her. He would take Julie camping or shopping—whatever she wanted to do—in order to rekindle their relationship. Make more of an effort. Get over himself. He could feel a sense of normalcy and resolve returning as the list grew.

He had never before done anything like what Jorgenson was asking of him, but he tried to make a list for that, too. He would try to become Eagle's friend, he thought, and then he would search his house. The thought seemed ludicrous, like something out of a movie. He imagined breaking in, only to learn that it was all a big mistake. Eagle was probably planning to open a fast food restaurant, or something equally innocuous. He would tell Jorgenson that he had it all wrong. Jorgenson would be relieved, and he would give JW another chance. JW would put his nose to the grindstone and stay away from the casino, he would make his payments, he would be home every night for dinner, at church every Sunday; he would slowly work himself out of debt and earn back Carol's trust. Slow and steady is what he needed, just like everyone else. Conservative, clean, no more crazy risks. And no more gambling, ever again.

As JW imagined this new reality, his earlier sense of dread and anxiety began to dissipate. He had a plan in his notepad. Life was not out of control. He carried it back into the bedroom and set it on the nightstand. He lay back down, and slipped into a turgid, tentative sleep.

He woke in the late light of mid-morning, and after showering he dressed in a crisp white shirt and a nice fall suit. The ominous, unsettled feeling still lingered from the night before, but he had a plan. He stepped out of the trailer and locked the flimsy aluminum door behind him. During the ride back to town he reviewed his list, and with the mental activity the feeling began to subside.

He drove first to the county library, where he used the Internet to find the local Gamblers Anonymous chapters. One of them was meeting just before lunch in the basement of Christ Lutheran Church, an old white clapboard structure north of town. He hated the idea of joining a group like this, especially considering his stature. The whole thing seemed stupid to him, the kind of thing that he imagined urban liberals did to get in touch with their feelings. It demanded a willingness to sit among people who were not functioning at his level of accomplishment, and it would also be damaging to his reputation. He would have to find a way to redefine his identity in a way that didn't seem so broken, that allowed him to maintain more self-respect—and more importantly, the respect of others—and allowed him room for professional redemption. But first he needed the damn book. He had agreed to get one and “carry it around” with him, as Jorgenson had put it. He would have to suck it up and go to the meeting.

The church sat a few miles out of North Lake, on a two-lane ribbon of eroded blacktop that mostly served as a field-access road for local sugar-beet farmers. It was surrounded by a stand of oaks and a small cyclone-fenced cemetery with tilted headstones. JW parked behind a large four-by-four pickup—knobby tires and mud flaps the size of his car doors, bearing silver naked ladies—where his Caprice would not be
seen from the road. He got out and waited for a car to pass, then followed another man into a side door and down a set of concrete steps.

In the basement a sign directed him through a service area and into a meeting room with a gray painted cement floor and walls, and joists painted white above. There was an old inlaid-wood card table bearing a stack of Big Books near the door. A hand-lettered sign on the table read, “If you need one, take one.” JW took one and turned to leave, but more people were coming in behind him, so he took a seat on a metal folding chair in the back row. The room smelled of rosewater, which was probably the only dignified thing about it in his mind. A pale yellow plywood sign was mounted on the wall nearby, bearing the hand-painted words Character Assets in shiny red letters with blue painted shadows. A long list followed in blue letters with red bullets:

              
self forgiveness • humility • self-valuation • promptness • straightforwardness • trust • forgiveness • simplicity • love • honesty • patience • activity • modesty • positive thinking • generosity •
look for the good!

This last phrase was in a rollicking red script that dipped up and down as if it were written on the peaks and valleys of a carnival ride. JW was growing anxious to leave, but two men stood conversing in the doorway, so he remained in his chair with his legs and hands crossed, the Big Book on his lap.

Below the wooden sign was a paper one made from several pages of computer printout. There's Nothing So
Bad That Gambling Won't Make It Worse, it said, followed by four exclamation points. In the lower left corner, it bore a small image of a royal flush with a circle and a line through it.

The basement's white concrete walls had high dusty windows. A cobweb glinted in the sunlight. Hosta leaves grew thick on the other side of the glass. JW thought about the royal flush on the computer printout, imagined getting the deal in some casino poker game, and fantasized about how much he would win. (“A hundred thousand dollars!”)

“Visitor, please stand,” the meeting's chair was saying to him.

JW looked around. The meeting was in session and people were looking at him. He noticed that an older woman with kind eyes had sat down next to him.

“I'm sorry, I guess I wasn't paying attention,” he said.

“He asked you to stand,” she said with a warm smile. “Don't worry.”

The chair was middle-aged, balding, and wore a navy blue plumber's uniform bearing a patch embroidered with the name “Gary.”

“Thank you,” JW whispered to the woman next to him. He stood and smoothed his suit jacket, realizing as he did so that he had slipped into exactly the position he wanted to avoid: junior to some well-meaning—but less intelligent and less successful—gambling addicts.

“I'm Gary L.,” the man said, “and in keeping with Gamblers Anonymous tradition, we're going to start by asking you twenty questions. If you answer yes to seven or more I'm going to ask you if you think you're a compulsive gambler. All right?”

JW glanced around at the faces watching him. The farmer
with the long brown face and fingernails. The frizzy-haired waitress with rashy cheeks. The implement salesman with blonde bangs combed long and low across his forehead. The kind-looking woman in mom clothes, who wore a home detention ankle bracelet. They seemed encouraging, but all of it was mildly disgusting. They knew nothing about him—what he did, what he knew, what he had accomplished—or the position he had in the community. Who were they, to judge him?

“I think you can probably skip the questions,” he said, a hand in his pocket in his best business-conference-presenter persona.

“Well, it's our procedure,” replied the chair.

“That's fine, but, you know, I was just going to leave,” said JW, pointing in the direction of the door. “I just wanted to get the book and then the door was blocked. I'm sorry to disrupt your meeting—”

“That's fine,” said Gary, in a tone that struck JW as surprisingly gentle for a plumber. He suddenly felt that it would be rude of him to leave. He lifted an arm.

“You know what? Go ahead,” he said, and smiled around the room. “You all seem like reasonable people.”

“Okay.” Gary read from the Big Book. “Did you ever lose time from work or school due to gambling?”

“No.”

“Has gambling ever made your home life unhappy?”

JW let out an ironic laugh. “I don't have a home life per se. My wife and I are separated.” He was smiling as if it were funny, he realized, and a wave of regret washed over him. He felt his face flushing. “You know, I'm really not that comfortable sharing personal information like this.” He looked around the room, hoping to find a sympathetic
smile. Instead, they all looked sorry for him. JW was deeply unsettled, but he clasped his hands and tried to stand in place politely.

“Did gambling ever affect your reputation?” the chair asked.

JW sighed in renewed irritation—with himself more than anything. “So I've been told.” It came out clipped. He felt the blood rising in his temples.

“Have you ever felt remorse after gambling?”

“Gary, just give him a minute,” said the woman beside JW.

JW shrugged. “Hasn't everyone?” Now his sarcasm was unmistakeable.

“Look,” replied Gary, “you may think this is stupid, but this isn't banking. Yes, I know who you are. We're not your loan applicants. We're gambling addicts, all of us, and wherever we come from, we're all on the same level in here.”

JW felt a burst of anger. “I'm sorry, I didn't realize we'd been through the twenty questions yet.”

A few of the people laughed, and Gary glanced at them and banged his gavel. “That's enough,” he said.

JW's mouth was dry and his feet hurt. “I'm sorry,” he said. “I just don't think I'm ready for this.”

“You're among friends. You can let it out.”

JW looked from the chair to the others in the room and back again. He let out a small laugh and rubbed his neck.

“No,” he said, “I'm not going to do that.” He realized he was clenching his fists, and willed them to relax. “I'm gonna go,” he said. “Thank you. I'm sorry.” He began moving toward the door.

“You don't have to,” said Gary.

Too late, JW realized he'd left his Big Book on the chair. He grabbed another one from the table and hurried out.

“Addiction is cunning, baffling, and powerful,” he heard Gary call after him as he headed for the stairs. “It's other people that keep us sane. You can come back any time!”

He took the stairs two at a time and pushed the door open, stepping out into the fresh air and sunshine. He was angry with himself for becoming combative and sarcastic. It was shameful, really, the way he had conducted himself. Maybe there were things he could have picked up by sitting in the back of a meeting like that.

The gravel was littered with cigarette butts and withered dandelions. There were polished flecks of green glass from an old Mountain Dew bottle mixed in with the rocks near his car. He got in and closed the door. He inhaled the sweltering air. Turned the key and let the air conditioner blast dust at him. Then he pulled back out onto the highway and headed toward town.

Some ten minutes later, JW pulled up and parked in front of his house, still jangled and full of self-recrimination. It was shortly after noon. He wanted to catch Carol, and he knew that she usually tried to eat lunch at home, where she could listen to the midday program on public radio. He got out, walked up to the house, and rang the glowing round doorbell. He waited a moment. Maybe he should have stayed in that meeting. He felt as if he had made a choice between two paths without realizing it, but he also knew that he was being overly dramatic. He could always go back, as Gary had said. Any time. He rang the doorbell again. He heard the sound of a squeaking floorboard just inside, and then the door was unlocked and swung inward.

“John!” Carol smiled nervously at him. Her face was flushed and she seemed pleasantly surprised and a bit out of breath. She stepped out, pulling the door partially shut behind
her. Her shoulder-length blonde hair fell in loose shaggy locks around her face. He recognized a cubic zirconium necklace around her neck, just like the one he had seen on the Home Shopping Network. It struck him as odd that she would buy something like that for herself, especially now. Still, seeing her somehow made him feel relieved and normal again.

“Hey,” he said.

“You look awful.” She smiled quizzically and pushed a lock from her face.

“I tried calling, a number of times.”

She frowned and smiled at the same time, a mixed expression that he had always found endearing in its impenetrability. “John, you stood me up. I waited up 'til after eleven.”

“I know, I'm sorry. You got time for lunch?”

“No, I don't, I have a meeting today.”

“A meeting?”

“Yeah, I told you. Jim Franklin's taking me to the new agents luncheon.”