bore and began tapping it gently with a rubber mallet, listening to the sound it made with careful attention, then picking up the oil can and giving a gentle squirt before tapping gently again.
I told him about Julia coming to see me and her concern that she couldn’t find Caleigh. I’d promised Julia not to tell Jonathan, but it didn’t seem to violate that promise to talk to Mike.
“They’ve been fooling around with some dangerous stuff. They’ve kind of been playing hooker.”
Mike looked up, startled. He put down the oil can; I had his attention.
“Going out with older men and getting paid to do it. Supposed to be a fad in Japan called ‘enjo kosai.’”
“Nussbaum’s kid?” He’d worked for Poseidon too. He seemed as incredulous as I’d been.
“Anybody go to the cops?”
“No. Caleigh’s parents are denying anything’s wrong, and Julia hasn’t told her parents because they both work for Caleigh’s father.”
He wiped his hands clean on a rag. His garage smelled of oil and grease, mixed with freshly varnished maple, mingled with the breeze from the ocean just a block away. The music that came out of his speakers was an eclectic mix of surfer music, reggae, blues, and songs that might have played on the radio when the car he was restoring was new.
“The first thing I’d do is talk to her friends. Kids know everything. They’d know where she was if she’d run away, or what kind of trouble she was in. That’s where I’d start.”
He picked up the piston rod and fit it into the crankshaft. “Hand me that torque wrench, would you?” He gestured to some tools on the table.
As I handed him the wrench, he held my gaze in his open, clear blue eyes.
“How are you, Brett?”
It had been a long time since anyone had looked at me with kindness or caring. Was that the reason? Or something within me I hadn’t known was there? How to account for the words I heard myself say to him; the secret I’d I never admitted to anyone before.
“Actually...” My face burned with shame. “I think I may have a problem. I drink...too much. I try to stop, and I can’t.”
He broke out into a grin so wide, it was as if I’d just told him we’d won a first class trip for two to Fiji.
“Brett, that’s wonderful.”
I stared back at him, dumbfounded he could find anything marvelous in what I’d just said.
“That you’re admitting it. That’s the first step.”
I felt sick to my stomach; I thought I would faint. If I could take back the words I’d just said, I would have.
“Come on inside. I’ll make you a cup of coffee. Let’s talk.”
* * *
This was a man who took his coffee seriously. He brought me into his kitchen, sat me down at the table, and began a process that began with grinding whole beans, then boiling filtered water to pour over the grinds in a French Press. In moments, the house was filled with the smell of strong, freshly brewed coffee. He poured me a cup. My hands were trembling, and I spilled it on myself. He seemed to have anticipated this; he’d brought a napkin and wiped up what I’d spilled.
“Just alcohol or drugs too?”
“Both.”
He wasn’t surprised. “Hardly anybody just drinks anymore. They call it ‘alcoholism’ because that used to be the main drug. Now there are so many. But addiction is addiction—it’s all the same disease. You ever have a blackout? Where you wake up and can’t remember what you did the night before?”
That had been happening to me since high school. But lately, it would happen while I was up: I’d come to in the middle of a conversation and have no idea who I was talking to, or where I was, or how I’d gotten there. It was terrifying beyond description.
“Congratulations! You’re an alcoholic!” He beamed again with that inexplicable delight I would soon learn people in AA found in the most sordid of admissions.
Mike tried to put me at my ease by telling me stories about himself. He talked about using the drugs he was supposed to be confiscating, testifying in court to things he’d been too drunk to see. He told a story about thinking he was going to a law enforcement conference in New Mexico and ending up at a stripper’s convention in Texas. He made me laugh, but when it came time for me to tell him stories of my own, I held back.
“Why’d you quit?” I asked instead.
“I blew a murder case. A girl got killed, and the perp got off because I screwed up. I got fired and was about to eat my gun.”
He paused to make sure I knew what he meant. I thought about my plan to walk into the ocean right before Julia arrived. I said nothing, but he knew I understood.
“Instead, I called a sober cop I knew, and he helped me get sober.”
“How?”
He looked at his watch.
“I’ll show you.” He told me there was a clubhouse a few blocks from his house that held meetings every night. He suggested he make me a bite to eat, and then we’d walk over there together.
If I told him I had other plans, he’d know I was lying.
The clubhouse was in an old log cabin a few blocks from the beach. It had one large room for meetings with folding chairs facing a podium and AA slogans, steps, and traditions all over the walls. Another room functioned as a lounge, with ragged sofas and several easy chairs, none of which matched, and an old beat-up TV in the corner. There was also a counter, behind which a young man in a sleeveless shirt, little gold earrings, and rock and roll hair, sold coffee, soft drinks, and sandwiches.
“Boots!” Mike called to a large brassy dame, age indeterminate, from another era. She had bouffant hair the color of Raggedy Ann’s. An unrepentant cigarette between her lips curled smoke up into her false eyelashes, bold with mascara, ample as awnings.
“I’d like you to meet Brett. She’s new.”
Boots’ eyes lit up as if she’d found a mink stole beneath her Christmas tree.
“Welcome, precious. We’re so happy you’re here.”
Mike knew everyone in the room and introduced me to more people than I could ever remember. Everyone shook my sweaty hand, greeted me warmly, and expressed delight at meeting me. It had been a long time since anybody had been happy to see me, and before I knew what was happening, I found myself smiling too.
The first speaker that night was a grandmother in long skirt and crocheted vest. When introduced, she put down her needlepoint, got up to the podium, and regaled the group with stories of dancing on tabletops, jumping naked into pools, and eloping to Tijuana with one man forgetting she was already married to another. Everyone laughed uproariously, including, I was surprised to find, me.
But when the second speaker got up, I cringed. It was an actor I’d worked with on the show. I was mortified that he should see me here. I whispered as much to Mike.
“Brett, he’s here too.”
He told a story of broken marriages, shattered lives, opportunities squandered, and then—the happy ending. Sobriety! Music up, pull back, fade out, the end.
As if.
When we left the meeting, Mike exuded satisfaction like a man who’d had a good meal, great cigar, Turkish rubdown. He turned to me with his clear blue eyes.
“So, kiddo, think you can go from now till you go to sleep tonight without taking a drink or a drug? I’m not saying you have to stop forever, just for the rest of today. Think you can do that?”
I studied my shoes. I knew I could not be trusted,