Page 22 of Blue Umbrella Sky
Claire wasn’t what he’d expected. What he’d expected was a woman who overdid the sherry after Sunday mass.I mean, come on, her clothes make her appear like someone ready to bake cookies or maybe join some other old biddies playing pinochle at the senior center.
“Hi, everybody.” She smiled and met eyes with several of the people in the circle, Billy included. Billy was caught short by the warmth—and the inherent mischief—of that smile. Her dark brown eyes engaged with his for only a second, but Billy felt as though he’d been really seen.
“I’m an alcoholic named Claire.” Her voice was raspier than Billy expected, a Brenda Vaccaro growl that spoke of too many cigarettes.
“Hi, Claire!”
Billy mumbled, “Claire,” and gazed down at the floor, noticing some dried vomit on his shoe.
“Ah… what do I say? I’m grateful to be here. Grateful to be among you all, who help me on this sometimes twisted, sometimes tiresome road to recovery. We’re all different, aren’t we? And yet I see myself in each of your faces. I know your pain. I know your struggles.” Claire drew in a deep breath.
Billy forced himself to look up.
“I know your joy too.” There it was, that smile again—radiant and just a hint of “I’ve got a naughty secret.” Billy began to wonder if there was more to this woman than met the eye. He had perhaps judged too quickly and too harshly.
“When I walked into these rooms, too many years ago for this gal to reveal, I was a mess. On the outside everyone thought I was on top of the world, a theater actor at the top of her game. I’d done major roles on the big stages in town—Steppenwolf, Goodman, Court. A little film work. Some TV. If you passed me on the street, I’d look vaguely familiar to you.” She grinned.
Billy would have never assigned her the occupation of actor.
“But on the inside I was barely hanging on, honey. I’d leave the theater and head straight home. I wasn’t big on drinking in bars. I had other uses for bars, which I’ll get to in a minute. Ironically, the consumption of alcohol wasn’t one of them. No, I’d go home, usually still floating three feet off the ground—that’s what being on the stage did for me. I wonder why it wasn’t enough? Anyway, I’d get home, and the first thing I’d do, after kicking off my shoes, was pour myself a shot of bourbon and crack open a can of Old Style.”
She chuckled. “I was a classy broad.
“I’d tell myself the beer and the bourbon were just to bring me down after the adrenaline rush of being onstage. Amazing how many times I bought that line! But if it were true, I would have stopped after the first ones. Got myself to bed. After all, the booze, especially at first, brought me down quick, made me reasonably comfy, you know? But I kept going… and going. Like the Energizer Bunny.
“When I was drunk enough, that’s when I’d go out. Hit one of the watering holes in my ’hood, which back then, was Lincoln Park. And I’d pick somebody up—anybody. I didn’t care. Male, female, tall, short, fat, thin, rich, poor, black, white…. Just hated to sleep alone. Hated tobealone. Couldn’t stand the sight of myself. To find someone whosawme, you know, and wanted me—that was the ticket. That was my addiction.”
Claire paused for a long moment. Billy wondered if it was because she’d maybe crossed over into bitterness. Even from this short exposure to AA, he already knew the meetings were supposed to be about helping one another recover—not despair.
“What was my point? Hell if I know. Oh yeah, I wanted to talk about hitting bottom.” Claire sighed, looking around the room as though she were gauging how she’d be accepted—or not.
“One night I met up with this guy, a kid really, couldn’t have been more than twenty-two or so. Cute. Bit of a baby face. Sandy hair. Big brown eyes. The kind you don’t know whether you want to mother or just fuck the shit out of. You know what I mean, ladies?”
A spasm of nervous laughter pulsed through the room.
“Anyhoo, we got to talkin’, and he’s all flattery and shit. Tells me what a nice figure I have, how I couldn’t possibly be in my forties.
“I trusted him, you know. I was three sheets to the wind by the time he suggested we find someplace more private. Here’s the thing about me and being loaded—most people couldn’t tell. Whether it was genetic or years of faking being someone I wasn’t, who’s to say, but I could be shit-faced and you wouldn’t have a clue. It’s all about poise and diction.
“So we went out into the night. It was hot. You know how Chicago in August can be? Humid as hell, with heat that fairly shimmers up from the sidewalk.” Claire left them for a minute. Billy could see it in her eyes. The place she traveled to wasn’t a happy one. What she said next came out fast and low.
“Long story short. Keith, that was his name, tells me it would ‘fun’ to do it outside, since it’s such a hot night. And I’m of a mind where anything goes. We traipse down to the lakefront. Remember when it was all big boulders at the end of Belmont? The gay guys used to hang out there.
“There weren’t any gay guys there that night at the Belmont Rocks. There wasn’t anybody. Too late. And I trusted my Keithy. He was a little boy. Harmless. Maybe even a virgin. It didn’t occur to me that he would like the rough stuff.” Claire let out a bark of bitter laughter. “Oh, but he did. He did.” Claire nodded. She was silent so long, Billy wondered if she were going to speak again. So did several of the others, since they leaned forward, expectant.
“I won’t catalog the abuse. Let’s just say I can never hear someone say ‘on the rocks’ again without shuddering—for many reasons.” There it was, that bitter laugh again. Billy wondered if Claire was beyond laughing joyfully. A pain rose up in his heart.
Claire shrugged. “He left me for dead. The three Bs, folks—bloody, bruised, and battered. Some kids found me around dawn at the bottom of the boulders. Broken ribs, split lip, both eyes black, face of a monster. Slacks around my ankles. Blouse eaten by the sharks.” She hooted. “A couple more inches and I would have been in the lake and maybe no one would have found me.
“Yada, yada. An ambulance came. At St. Joe’s, they patched me up, sent me to detox.”
She smiled, and Billy was taken aback. It was radiant—he found the joy he’d sought earlier.
“And I am so fuckin’ grateful to Keith and for that night because—ta-da!—here I am. And I might have never found all of you and a way to throw these fuckin’ chains off if Keith hadn’t taught me that painful lesson one August night so many moons ago.”
There was a hush in the room, broken by Claire at last saying, “That’s all I got.”
People shifted their feet, looked around. Billy glanced up at the clock. The hour was almost up. Finally a few folks mumbled their thanks to Claire, and then everybody clapped.
