Baby Huey: A Cautionary Tale of Addiction Read Online Free Page B

Sure, what better way of sobering up than driving ten miles out your way. It was raining when we stepped outside, my car a block away. She told me to drive back and pick her up. One car down from mine stood the uptight woman who’d embarrassed me, her black sequin dress soaking wet, looking under the hood of a Ford Escort.
    Before I could get my keys out she said, “Excuse me, you got cables?”
    Nice-like, the get-outta-my-face attitude gone.
    “What?” Doreen asked again, bringing me back.
    “Nothing. I was just thinking about the first time we met.”
    “Yeah, you and Louisiana were kicking it then.”
    “I wasn’t kicking it with her. Just willing to give her a ride home. It was raining, remember? Louisiana, was that her name?”
    “No, at first it was Tallulah, you know, the city? East of Monroe? She gained weight, changed it to cover the state.”
    “Was your battery really dead? I touched the cables together, got a big spark.”
    Doreen laughed. “No, sugar, I waited in the rain knowing you would come out and rescue me and forget all about your fat girlfriend. The battery wasn’t dead, the alternator was.”
    Moving to her I said, “I’m glad it was,” and hugged her tight. “You remember our first real date? We hiked Pinnacle Mountain, took us all day to reach the top. That was the first time I held you in my arms.”
    “I remember.” Her voiced dropped: “I want a good life for us, John. For Lewis, you, and me. That’s all I want. Lewis is not your child, I know that.” I loosened my grip on her. “You don’t like him, that’s what I don’t understand.”
    I released her, stepped back and started to say, “He doesn’t like me,” but that sounded childish.
    “He tries to be nice to you, but you shoot him down every time,” Doreen said. “He really tries hard. Last week he told me he had a bad dream, you were trying to hurt him and me, you’d gone crazy. It scared him. I promised him you wouldn’t hurt us and then you try to send us through the windshield. Told your mother about it and she said, ‘Nothing but the devil,’ and that we both needed Jesus. Okay, I thought, that’s the answer. Get you in church, we both stand up there with Reverend Wilson, the next day you’re drinking beer. I don’t know what to do.”
    The defeated look in her eyes stopped me from saying what I wanted to say: Lewis was a spoiled brat whose bad dream resulted from overeating.
    Doreen wiped a spot on the counter with a dishtowel. On my way out she said, “I love you and I would like to stay married…” She paused but kept wiping the same spot. “My son comes first. Myself, my marriage, you , all that is secondary. My son comes first.”
    I said, “I hear you, Doreen,” and walked out of the kitchen and then came right back. “You know, I was thinking maybe it wouldn’t be a bad idea if Lewis spend some time with his real father. You never know, he hang around his old man, sees what he’s like, realizes he and I don’t get along so bad after all.”
    She stopping wiping, stood straight to her full height, her eyes narrowed and locked on mine.
    Something told me to drop it, but I didn’t. “By the way, who’s his real father?”
    Her shoulders flinched. Calm, she said, “Does it matter? Far as Lewis is concerned he’s dead. Far as I’m concerned he’s dead.” Then, raising her voice a notch: “So why in the world does it matter to you?”
    “Because it’s such a big mystery, Doreen. A mystery makes people curious. He’s in prison, what? The nuthouse? A sex offender? You tell me I’ll stop guessing.”
    She glared at me but didn’t speak.
    “Or…maybe, you’re still in love with him?”
    That did it. She threw the dishtowel in the sink, brushed past me. Following her to the bedroom I said, “At least tell me the man’s name. Why can’t you tell me his name?”
    Doreen responded by slamming the bedroom door and locking it.
    My turn to sleep on the couch; the next night, too.