Just Past Oysterville: Shoalwater Book One (16 page)

Jack looked down into his water glass, as
though unable to meet her eyes. “Sometimes I think maybe she’s
waiting for me to do something, but I’m just not much of a
romantic, ‘fraid I’d mess up everything and then I wouldn’t even
have a friend, you know?”

Cassie nodded, though she had the feeling
that Jack was talking more to himself than to her. Finally, he
looked up again and, catching her eye, his smile was bitter.

“
Maybe I
should
have read her poetry,” he
murmured and then, draining the last of his water, he stood, "or
maybe not.” Jack paid the bill in silence and, as they walked
across the parking lot to the motel, he handed Cassie her
key.

“
Here,” he said, “you're in
room eight; I’ll be right across the hall in nine. You go on ahead;
I’m going to drive around for a little while and try to clear my
head.”

“
Jack,” Cassie tried again,
“I’m really sorry…”

“
Enough said,” Jack
dismissed her again. “I told you it wasn’t your fault. Go get some
sleep; I’ll see you in the morning.” Then he turned his back and
walked away.

Cassie felt miserable as she climbed the
sagging wooden steps that led to her room. Unlocking her door, she
barely noticed the shabby furnishings and faded wallpaper. A low
bed, covered with a worn rose-colored comforter, took up most of
the tiny space. A battered television rested on a dark chest of
drawers, its surface scratched and scarred with cigarette
burns.

The room smelled of stale smoke and old
paint. She washed her face and hands and, too exhausted of mind and
body even to pray, she collapsed onto the bed and was asleep.

*

Jack sighed through clenched
teeth as he pulled the old van out of the motel parking lot and
back onto the highway, heading south. He shouldn’t have snapped at
Cassie. He knew when he cooled down, that he’d be sorry and have to
apologize. Right now, however, he was mad; mad at himself for being
so obvious, for being too gutless to tell Beth how he really felt,
maybe before she
did
give up on him. Mad at life
for beating him down until he was afraid to have anything for fear
it would be taken away. Most of all, mad at Cassie for seeing
through him so easily, for so thoughtlessly tearing the scab from
the wound. As he glowered through the darkened windshield, Jack
drove without considering his destination, on autopilot, his anger
and frustration at the wheel.

A couple of miles further,
the van seemed to pull itself into a potholed gravel parking lot in
front of a low, dingy, brick building. Sickly yellow lighting
washed the front of the tavern, pooling around the heavy wooden
door and the single, blacked-out window with its glowing
Budweiser
sign. Jack
sat behind the wheel for a long while, long enough for the engine
to stop pinging and the interior of the van to cool.

Suddenly he was tromping up the three
sagging wooden steps that led to the door.

The inside of the bar was a monument to the vision that every
non-drinking American must have of a truly third-class watering
hole. Somewhere across the smoky, smelly gloom, Jack could hear the
whirl and ping of video games over the sad warble of Garth Brooks
on the jukebox.

Dank and dingy, the place was filled with
men who wanted to get drunk in the darkness and maybe go a couple
of rounds in the back alley if someone looked at them wrong. A
couple of drink-spotted pool tables sat, untended against the back
wall, and the only light came from a host of neon beer signs behind
the bar.

Jack grimaced as he felt the soles of his
shoes sticking to the grungy linoleum, and hoisted himself up onto
a weathered barstool, its vinyl cushion crossed and re-crossed with
long, peeling strips of duct tape.

The bartender meandered his direction,
laconically sponging at the filthy bar with an even filthier rag.
He was average height, thin, but with ropy muscles showing beneath
the rolled-up sleeves of his tee-shirt.

Most of the men in the bar probably had a
hundred pounds on the guy. Jack was willing to bet there was a
well-used Louisville Slugger or maybe an old double-barrel smoke
pole under the counter if things got out of hand. The man glanced
at Jack, his face set in the cold contempt that came from long
association with the bottom of the barrel.

“
What’cha having?” he
grunted.

Jack was no stranger to his surroundings
and, tossing several bills onto the beer-puddled bar top, he looked
the smaller man in the eye and sighed, feeling his anger beginning
to fade already, dissipating into a clinging cloud of familiar
failure.

"Let's start with a tall bourbon and water,”
he muttered,”and go easy on the water, friend.”

*

When a fist pounded on the thin, motel-room
door at three o’clock in the morning, Cassie had a sudden, dizzying
moment of disorientation, unable to remember where she was or why.
She stumbled from the bed towards the door and woke just enough to
stop herself with her hand on the latch. Mark Wexler's face flashed
through her mind and she was suddenly afraid.

“
Who is it?”

“
My name is Tom Barnhart," a
deep voice replied, "I'm sorry to wake you Miss, but I have a man
out here named Jack Leland who says that you know him.”

Cassie opened the door a
crack and peered out. Jack stood, leaning heavily on a stocky,
younger man. The man had Jack's arm over his own broad shoulder,
holding him up. Jack peered blurrily through the doorway at her,
his eyes blinking and unfocused. Then, a bittersweet wave of
whiskey breath hit Cassie like a fist, staggering her back a step
from the door. The man, Tom
somebody
, pushed the door open
with his foot and half led, half carried his burden to the bed,
where Jack flopped on his back and lie, groaning.

The man held out his hand to Cassie. “I’m
Tom,” he said with a sheepish smile, “wish we were meeting under
better conditions.”

Cassie was fully awake now. “What
happened?”

“
I’m a member of AA here in
Gold Beach." He said, "Every once in a while we’ll get a call from
one of the local bars that they have a member who’s gone off the
wagon and shouldn’t drive."

Cassie looked at him curiously, her eyes
narrowing.

"How would the bartender in Gold Beach know
that Jack's in Alcoholics Anonymous?"

The man laughed. "When we drink, we talk.
First thing we do, after ordering another drink of course, is tell
the barkeep how long we've been dry." He smiled again. "Don't ask
me why, but we all do it."

Cassie nodded, as he went on.

"So anyway," Tom said, "we take turns
finding out who they are and where they’re staying and trying to
get them home before they hurt themselves or someone else." He
nodded towards the bed.

"Jack here has spent the
better part of the night in a real dive called
Chico’s,
up on 101. When the
bartender announced last call, they couldn’t wake him up enough to
ask if he wanted one more drink, so they called me."

Tom started moving towards the door. "I’ll
give a call to the group up in Long Beach," he said, "and let them
know what’s happened. Does he have his own room?”

Cassie blushed, “Yes! Across the hall.”

“
No offense,” Tom offered,
raising his hands in a gesture of peace, “I’m not here to judge
anyone, I just want to make sure he has a place to sleep it
off.”

“
His room is across the
hall,” Cassie repeated tightly, “You can leave him here though, and
I’ll sleep over there.”

Tom handed her a room key identical to her
own. “The number wasn’t clear and I didn’t want to start trying
doors in the middle of the night.” Then he stepped out into the
hall for a moment and returned with a white plastic bucket. “Better
put this on the floor near his head.” He said.

“
You think he’s going to
throw up?”

“
I always did.”

“
Good.” Cassie replied, "I
hope he’s sick all night."

“
Take it a little easy on
him,” Tom murmured, “everyone slips now and then.”

“
Yeah?” said Cassie, holding
the door open, “Tell that to my mother!”

Tom looked at her, confused, then shook his
head and walked out. Cassie slammed the door after him. The sound
brought Jack momentarily out of his stupor and, groaning, he sat up
on the edge of the bed, his head in his hands.

“
Cassie,” he started, his
voiced slurred and pained, “I’m…”

“
Don’t,” Cassie hissed, the
anger in her voice bringing Jack’s bloodshot eyes up to meet her
own. “Don’t tell me you’re sorry!”

“
What…” Jack
started.

“
Don’t you dare tell me
you’re sorry, Jack,” Cassie repeated as her voice broke and tears
started down her cheeks.

She balled her fists in rage, fighting back
the desire to leap at him, to lash out at the fog of confusion and
the stink of alcohol that enveloped him. Her own stomach heaved,
and for a moment Cassie thought she might be the one who needed the
bucket. In the sound of Jack's slurred voice she could hear, again,
her mother’s agonized cries for help and see the red taillights as
they weaved away into the night. She could hear the driver’s
drunken voice from beyond the grave, calling in inebriated
cadence…

“
I’m sorry…
I’m sorry… I’m sorry…”

Everything she had begun to admire and
respect in Jack suddenly came crashing down around her in an
avalanche of anger and disgust.

“
Yeah,” she said, her voice
low and hateful, “I’m sure you’re very sorry, you’ll be even
sorrier the night you booze it up and kill somebody, if you don’t
luck out and do yourself in the process!”

Jack flinched, his cheeks flushing at her
words, his eyes widening, “What are you talking about…”

Cassie picked up her bag from the floor and
rummaged through it for her Bible. From between the book’s pages,
she pulled a scrap of newsprint and flung it in his direction, as
the tears overwhelmed her and she began to cry.

“
Here,” she cried, her voice
cracking, “here’s what I’m talking about, you…you stinking drunk!”
As the clipping fluttered to the ground at Jack’s feet, Cassie
turned and ran, weeping, into the hall, slamming the door behind
her.

Jack tried to stand, to follow her, but the
spinning of the room brought him crashing back to the bed. He lie
there for a moment, sheened in cold sweat, his stomach churning,
and his eye fell on the piece of newspaper that Cassie had thrown
at him. With trembling fingers, Jack reached down, and after three
swipes, managed to catch hold of the clipping and bring it to his
face.

With a great deal of effort,
his eyes slowly focused on the scrap. Above the picture of a
middle-aged woman was the headline “
Nurse run down by drunk driver
.” Jack felt his stomach lurch at the words, his mouth was
parched and dry as the first sentence burned though the alcoholic
fog of his brain.

Katherine Anne Belanger, 40, of Bowie,
Arizona, was struck and killed by a drunk driver Tuesday evening in
front of Bowie Adventist Medical Center.

The face in the picture swam before his
eyes, his brain superimposing Cassie’s face over it. The tiny,
shabby motel room began to spin in earnest and Jack realized, as
the paper slipped from his fingers, that he was suddenly stone cold
sober.

“
Oh God,” he whispered, “oh
my God…”

Without warning, Jack Leland burst into
tears and, curling up like a child on the faded comforter, he
sobbed until the room spun into blackness around him.

*

She is wandering in a dark, desolate place.
A dank wind howls around her feet, bringing storms of dead leaves
hissing along the flat ground. It feels like a graveyard, but there
are no stones, at least none that she can see, marking the places
of the dead. Cassie can hear, just above that mournful whisper, a
voice far ahead, weeping and full of pain. She shivers with cold,
drawing the thin, rose-colored blanket tightly around her. It is
very cold and her bare toes are aching when she finally comes to
the lip of a deep well. The voice drifts up from the bottom;
someone is suffering, lost in the darkness below. A blood red moon
suddenly rises over the edge of the featureless, shadowed horizon
and, in a moment, it has reached its pinnacle, casting its bright
crimson beams into the pit. Cassie leans as far as she dares, the
fingers of the wind pulling her forward, clutching at her from the
yawning chasm below.

At the bottom of the pit lays a man. The bloodlight strikes
his face and it is Jack. Jack, ragged, bleeding and starved, his
clothing is torn and ragged, caked with filth, gaunt ribs stretched
with pale skin show through the rags he wears. Crisscrosses of raw,
oozing lash marks cover his exposed back. Fresh bleeding wounds
over a lifetime of scars. Jack's eyes are closed and his hands
cover his ears. He is weeping.

"May the day of my birth perish," he cries,
"and the night it was said, a boy is born! That day, may it turn to
darkness; may God above not care about it; may no light shine upon
it!"

The wind rises mournfully once more, as Jack
repeats the words again and again, never opening his eyes, never
unstopping his ears.

"May the day of my birth perish…"

Cassie calls to him, screams his name over
the gale, but he can't hear her, his eyes are closed and can't see
her.