Five-ten. Happy hour was well underway in every watering hole around the city. Frank started to rise. Changing her mind, she sat and drew the journal close. When she was done, she called Mary.
"Hey. Figured I'd better check in."
"Good. What's goin' on?"
Frank told her sponsor everything, including the part she'd admitted to Annie. "On the one hand here's the asshole who murdered my dad, right? On the other, I've known this guy a long time. We've got a good working relationship. He's a decent guy. Aside from the fact he killed my dad. So it's weird locking him up. I didn't want to do it. Thought that would be the happiest day of my life and it's anything but."
Frank traced the grain on her chair arm. The worn wood was smooth as glass, but warmer, softer. She thought of Gail under her hand.
"You know, it feels kinda like locking myself up. Yeah, okay, we're different color and different gender, but me and this guy, we're cut from the same cloth. When I was done interviewing him I asked, 'So all this time you had no idea who I was?' and he said, 'How could I? You're supposed to be in New York, just like me.' I had to leave the room, Mary. We both ran away. We both abandoned our families. Both lost our dads. Both tried to ignore the past and ended up here. It was like we couldn't run any farther. Like we've been running parallel all these years and finally crashed into each other at the end of the road. Now there's nowhere left for either of us to run."
Mary suggested, "Maybe that's a good thing. You can both stop running now."
"Yeah, but I don't have to go jail."
"Don't you think he's been in jail all this time anyways?"
"Spare me."
"No. Think about it. You didn't like putting a gun to your head, Frank, but it sobered you up. And you don't like getting sober but you like the relief it brings. Yes or no?"
"Yes."
"Maybe this man will too. I'm not saying he wants to go to jail but maybe this will be the gun to his head. Maybe now he can drop the load he's been carrying, just like you're doing, and who are you to deny him?"
"I'm not denying him anything. He's going."
"And that's the way it has to be. My point is, we never know who our angels are. Did I ever tell you about my last day?"
"Nope."
"I was done. I'd had it. I'd left my husband, abandoned the kids. I had nothing left but my car. I was living off five-dollar blow jobs. Five bucks was just enough for the vodka it would take to get me through another day. And I was done. I didn't want another day. I'd had all I could take. So that morning I blew the clerk at the gas station for a quart of vodka and a gallon of gas. I was gonna drink the vodka, drive up the Coast Highway and turn left over the ocean. I stumbled out to my car and a man filling up next to me said, 'You look like you're having a rough day' I told him he didn't know the fucking half of it. He said, 'I bet I do,' and took a card from his pocket. He gave it to me. He was an insurance salesman and I though he was hustling me, but he went on. 'If you decide you want to stop doing what you're doing, give me a call. Anytime. Day or night.' I said something rude and drove off.
"But I kept the card. Thought he might be good for a twenty-dollar blow job. I drank the vodka. Drank it straight down and headed north. That's all I remember until I came to in a phone booth. It was dark and foggy and I had no idea where I was but I was talking to this man and he was listening. I told him everything. About the blow jobs, leaving my kids, how I couldn't control my bladder anymore—I mean everything. He stayed on the line with me for what seemed like hours, until finally these two women drove up in a warm, shiny car that didn't smell like piss or booze. They put me in the backseat and covered me with a blanket. I woke up the next morning in a recovery house. I never saw that man or those women again. I have no idea who they were. But I do know they saved my life. That's why when Joe called that morning and asked me to pick you up I was only too happy to do it. Because someone did it for me. So don't beat yourself up, Frank. You could be this man's angel."
"Oh, yeah, that's me. Got a seat in the tutelary god squad."
"The tootle who?"
Frank explained what Darcy told her.
"Sounds like you're working the second step."
"Hey, that's his theory, not mine."
Well, so how's it coming?"
"It's coming."
"Geez," Mary griped. "Give me a for-instance or two."
"Let's see," Frank reflected. '"Came to believe a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.' Well. For starters, I'd kill for a drink right now—quiet the banshees in my head—but I'm not gonna do that because I have faith that the desire will pass. That if I talk to you and go to a meeting and have dinner that feeling's gonna change and I'll get through another day without a drink. And I have faith that's gonna work because you tell me it does—that if I tell the truth and go to meetings the desire will pass. And I have faith that's true because I've seen it happen. In the beginning I could barely go a few minutes without thinking about a drink. Now it's hours. I have faith that at some point in the future it'll be days, then weeks, maybe even months or years. But that's getting ahead of myself. Gotta take it one day at a time, right?"
"That's the deal, kiddo. That's how it works."
"Yeah." Frank nodded. "So there's my faith."
"Good enough," Mary said. "And think about those tutelary gods. You never know where they are."
"Roger that."
"Okay, kiddo. Anything else?"
"Nope. Just thanks, as usual."
"No, the thanks are all mine. You helped keep me sober today. One alcoholic talking to another."
Frank grinned into the phone. "Were you in danger of going out?"
"Probably not, but only because I get to talk to you and my sponsor and go to a meeting tonight. And because I never forget that, even after twenty-five years sober, my next drunk's only as far away as the end of my hand. You been getting to meetings since your love life picked up?"
"One a day."
"Atta girl. Don't drop your guard just because life suddenly gets good again. You're an alcoholic, you're always going to be an alcoholic, and you need to always remember that. This is a disease and you need to treat it like you would any other. Keep doing what you're doing even when the ride's smooth, because I can promise you there are bumps ahead, and when the ride gets rough you want to be able to reach into your toolbox and pull out the tools that'll help you through. Okay?"
"Okay."
"Good. Stay close, kiddo. I'd hate to lose you."
"I'd hate to be lost. I'll call you tomorrow." Frank hung up.
Talking to Mary always made her feel like she had dumped a heavy pail of rotting trash. Not only dumped the trash but scoured the pail as well. Frank slid into her coat and switched the lights off. If she hurried she could get to the downtown meeting. She jogged down the stairs and stopped halfway across the parking lot. She went back inside, to the holding cells. Pablo sat in the last one.
"Irie," she called, shook her head. "Pablo. Come here."
He shuffled to her. Bringing her head close to the steel Frank spoke quietly. "I'm sorry it had to end this way. You're a good man. I know you didn't mean to kill my father. I knew it then—that look on your face when you shot him—I'll carry that to my grave. You were strung out. Junkies, drunks . . . they do things they never meant to. I know it was the junkie that killed my father, not the man standing here today. So for what it's worth, if it means anything to you, I forgive you."
Tears spilled over red-rimmed eyes and Pablo said, "I never mean' to hurt nobody. All dese years, dis time I hadda t'ink about it. If I coulda taked back dat one minute, jus' d'at one second, evert'ing be differen'. You know? Evert'ing."