Self-Esteem (35 page)

Jimmy,
You sorry son of a Bitch. I hope you don’t mind me and my old lady using your toilet. (She had to pee reel bad and I did too) I just want to say that I apolagize for what hapend. I shouldnt of kicked you like that. I’m not sorry I punched your sorry ass, Im just sorry I kicked you. I figered it was best to let you just lay there and get over it. (I got sick about it) I hope you feel better now. I was also reel mad. And besides, I Did NOT kick you that hard. But the way I think, we can still be Freinds you and me. I never tell you I read those books you wrote (2 of them) and I think they were reel good. I felt BAD like I needed to read them I guess. As a peace oFering, I decided to leave you my last bottle of Old Arkansan, just to say let the bigones be bigones. It’s one of the last one’s on earth. I hope you enjoy it. By the way, when I said the Lord sent me as a messanger, I wasant kidding, but I guess I failed.

Your freind since college, MELVIN

PS: Call me next time your ass is in Arkansas

How did this asshole ever get out of college?

Crawford crumpled up the note and looked at the bottle. I should stop right now, he thought, but he always thought that. He looked at the morning show playing in front of him. There was a stage out on a New York street. A young woman in her early-twenties with a tightly curled hairstyle wearing a lime-green tank top and skin-tight jeans nodded attentively as the flattering female host asked her about her current project.

Crawford removed the lid from the bottle.

“So, Kristine,” the well-designed host said.

Appearing at the bottom of the screen was “Kristine releases new album of all new songs.”

“You have said your new song
Whatever
is a love song to yourself. Can you tell us more about this? What exactly is a love song to yourself?”

Kristine beamed with confidence, extending a mile-wide smile that revealed perfect white teeth. “In the last few years I’ve just aspired to adore all the different things about myself. I’ve just gotten to where I love my bright and witty side, but I also love my not-so-smart side,” she said. “I like them all, my profound side, my sexy side, my creative side. But I like my dummy side too,” she said.

“Oh, you don’t have a dummy side,” the host said, giving the young star a sunny slap on the arm.

“Yes I do. A little. But I love all of my complex and far-reaching sides. Yes, I accept them all.”

Crawford could feel the side of his face begin to throb. He brought the bottle to his lips.

The young star continued talking, turning toward the crowd of mostly college-age women as if she’d been asked another question. “And in loving myself I’ve just become more at ease because I’m not so stressed about how complex I am. And I encourage others to do the same,” she said. The audience clapped as the camera panned by their eager faces, many of them nodding at her insight. “And it’s helped the relationship I’m in now. My partner just loves me unconditionally.”

“Oh that’s wonderful,” the host said with a clap. “Yes, let’s talk about your love life.”

The pop star’s smile widened even more. “We’ve been embarking upon a really blessed journey.”

Crawford put the bottle down and grabbed the remote, pointing it at the TV.

“And to an extent that I’ve never really felt before, I feel really blessed and humbled by this bond I have with Tyler.”

It’s not working. Off. Off. Off.

“That’s wonderful, Kristine,” the host said, looking into the camera. “Of course she’s talking about Tyler Taylor, the sexy new star of TV’s
Dashing Dropouts
, which can be seen Tuesday nights at eight on this network.”

Crawford’s head pounded even harder as he waved the remote from side to side, pressing the off switch as if the device were a giant bug he was trying to squeeze to death.

Off. Off.

“Fuck!” Crawford looked at the pop queen’s neck as he squeezed the little gadget.

“You know, I don’t really like to talk about myself very much, but if it helps others, that’s what I’m really interested in.”

“Fuck!” Finally the screen went dead, and Crawford picked up the bottle again; and this time he drank.

“At least my kid’s not into
that
shit,” he said, lifting his drink in a toast to the black screen.
God, where is that poor kid?

Crawford took two more swigs of Old Arkansan so he could make the trip upstairs for a shower. It was a rationalization, but at least it was for something semi-productive. Without Dorothy, the rotgut booze was all he had.
Not such a productive rationalization.

But
Dorothy. And Cal
.

What Crawford had been avoiding was an urgent, blaring reality.

He staggered past the living room, looking at the mess he and Melvin had made. It looked just like a night in Melvin’s dorm room, minus the Lynard Skynard poster.

How could I sit there and drink with that asshole? How could I do that now? Do nothing. It’s your wife and son, you sorry som’bitch! But this nut said he tapped into the phone lines. Then what
can
I do?

Maybe this was a rationalization too, he thought, putting his hands over his troubled face.

You call the police, they both die.

Crawford staggered onto the stairs and began dragging himself up by the rail.

I’ll be calling you soon.

That’s what he said — that he’d call. When will this asshole call? And then what will he say? What? Are you going to second-guess what this crackpot will do? You don’t even know who…

Crawford thought about the ringing phone that woke him up.

That was him.

Crawford fumbled down the stairs and charged into the kitchen. The quick movement caused a sharp pain in his stomach. Crawford bent over with his right forearm around his midsection, pounding his other hand on the kitchen counter.

“Goddam it,” he said. “
Goddam it
!”

He looked at the caller ID. There was a number there.
A number!
“Four-four-three-seven, six, two…”
Who the hell?
It was Dorothy’s mother. It was
Dorothy’s mom’s number.

Crawford had never been so happy to see she had called.
Dorothy
did
make it to her mother’s.

Wait, but what about Dorothy’s voice when Happy Pappy called?

Maybe she’s still there and the phone call was just some fake bullshit this guy created
.
He said he’d tapped into the phone lines. Maybe he taped Dorothy’s voice
.

But she said, ‘Do as he says’.
That wasn’t taped.

Crawford picked up the phone and punched the numbers. He had never learned how to use Call-Return and wasn’t going to learn now.

The phone rang.

What if her mother answers and Dorothy’s not there? She’ll want to know where Dorothy and Cal are and why I’m calling. She’ll be worried. Then she could do no telling what. And if Dorothy and Cal were missing, she’d be the first one to tell the police that I probably killed them in a drunken fury and hid them somewhere. She’d tell the cops to throw me in prison and I’d be there before I had a chance to find out who’s behind all of this and that would probably lead to…

The ringing seemed to speed up.

What do I do? Tell her I’m looking for Dorothy, that Dorothy said she was going there for a few days. But surely she’d know that. Surely Dorothy called her. And if Dorothy didn’t show up, her mother would call to see where she was.

But she did call, he thought. What if Dorothy didn’t tell her she was coming?

Or maybe she did and her mother’s been trying to call all night and I was knocked out loaded on the living room floor and didn’t hear it. Maybe it was Dorothy calling to check up on me and everything is okay. But she wouldn’t call; she’s too mad right now.

Crawford hung up.

Crawford’s inner monologue slowly turned to his mother’s voice.

‘You can’t do anything like this with your face swollen and these smelly clothes you’ve had on since you threw up on television. You should just…’

Take a shower. That’s always been a good place to start. Get into some new clothes and then decide.

The fiasco of the show was creeping back as well.
But who cares!

“Just shed that old skin!”

Crawford’s consciousness screamed from the vault of the
Self-Confidence
book-on-tape.

“Oh, shut up!” he yelled uncontrollably, rushing up the stairs as if to run away from his own thoughts.

The bathroom just off the main hall looked as it always did, except the toilet seat was up and there was a ring of what appeared to be brown vomit around the toilet bowl. Crawford thought when Melvin wrote “I was sick,” he was saying that he was sickened by his violent behavior. Apparently not. Crawford didn’t mind the ring of puke so much — he had, after all, left many a puke stain on many a toilet bowl. It was the upright seat that made Crawford mad.

“Goddam hick,” he said, slamming the seat down.

Crawford looked at himself in the mirror for the first time since the Hershey show. The part of his head that Melvin had stomped didn’t look nearly as bad as he thought it would. There was just a little bruising around the edge of his right eye.

Maybe it was the Thai woman
, he thought he heard Dorothy say.
And maybe it’s not a part of their culture to return the seat to the downward position.

Crawford rushed into his bedroom, stripping off his clothes as fast as he could.

“I’ll go see Peters. I’ll tell him the whole story.”
Just shed that old skin!
“He’ll know what to do. Maybe I’ll see Peters, then I’ll call Lee, then Lee can call my lawyer. And we’ll figure out a game plan.”
Yes, I’ll figure out something!

‘People always need a game plan for everything they do! Do you think plays in football are just thought up on the spot? No, the football planner, commonly known as a “coach,” always has…’

Crawford moaned when the frigid water from the shower hit his aching naked body. He would have waited for the shower to warm up, but he was in a hurry to get back to that bottle — the Lowlander Pure Malt, not the Arkansan — and besides he felt like he needed a shock to his system. He was starting to hear sound bites from his books and his mother talking and damn it, something needed to be done fast.

He dried himself off in a hurry and slid into a fresh pair of slacks and a shirt. Both were a little dressier than usual, but they needed to be.

Tie? No tie?
No tie.

Crawford inspected himself in the mirror and saw his slightly swollen eye was less swollen than before. The cold water had worked. And to his surprise, he actually liked the little injury. It almost made him look handsome.

Handsome is as handsome does.

Or perhaps it gave him “character.”

Your affection for an injury could be a further sign of self-hatred.

“Wait a minute. I never wrote that line,” he said into the mirror. “Did I?”

It was time to have that drink or two before going over to Peters’ office.

Crawford grabbed Melvin’s peace-making note and bottle of Old Arkansan off the family room coffee table and headed down to his study. He took his briefcase from the space next to his file cabinet and placed Melvin’s gift in its place. He put his briefcase on his desk and opened it, pulling out the Lowlander Pure Malt and taking quick a nip. But it didn’t taste the same.

What’s with this? he thought. It tasted like maple syrup mixed with Drano. He smelled the rim of the bottle then took another sip. Again it tasted terrible, like some cheap liqueur made in Mexico from eucalyptus trees.

Crawford put the lid on the bottle and carefully placed it on the desk then grabbed the Old Arkansan. He pulled a trusty shot glass from inside his desk drawer and filled it with the precious liquid.

Bouquet good, he thought, swirling the glass.

That thar is some
good color, good texture
.

He promptly downed the shot, which was even more pleasing than before.

He poured himself another shot, drank it, then another, raising it to eye-level.

Okay. ‘Kansan it is
.

Crawford opened his desk drawer — that drawer he seldom opened — and reached inside. There it was. Surprisingly cool and smooth, like the surface of that Porsche the first time he saw it in the showroom. He put his hand tightly around the grip, allowing his finger to rest gently on the trigger. He brought it out from its resting place then let his left index finger slowly crawl the length of the barrel. He couldn’t stop thinking about how cool and smooth it felt. It was more than a weapon. It was a work of art. And now it was a friend. That story he had told many times, written about many times, about how he was so depressed that he bought a gun. That was all bullshit. He hadn’t bought that gun at all. He had inherited it from his Uncle Jerry.

CHAPTER 18

As Crawford walked through the front door, he tightened his buttocks and ground his teeth and clutched his briefcase close to his body. Stepping off the front steps, he felt the bottle roll from the back end of the briefcase to the front, as if it wanted comfort from him. He eyed his car then reached for his keys with shaking hands. The thought of the bottle inside steadied his nerves, if just a little.

Crawford got in the car and carefully put his briefcase on the passenger’s side seat. Immediately in front of him he saw a boy bicycling down the street delivering newspapers. The boy had a serious look on his face, like he was concentrating completely on his job, putting all of his focus into every toss of every paper. Crawford looked at the boy’s expression. He was way too committed, Crawford thought. He even thought about telling the boy to relax — to not put so much of himself into something so trivial as a job.