Kiddo

Nobody answered when I knocked. I still had the phone away from my ear and could hear my father, “Is there a doorbell? Try the doorbell! Are you there?!”

     There was no doorbell, and still no answer even after I knocked again.

     “Look, dad! I’ll call you back later okay?”

     “Is he there?”

     “Yeah, he’s here. I’ll call you later. Love ya.” And I hung up. I don’t like lying, but I like being on the phone for eternity even less.

My father hesitated calling my uncle Charlie up to tell him about my decision to move out west. My father didn’t want me moving out to Los Angeles in the first place, but that wasn’t why he didn’t want his little brother knowing about it. He knew my uncle would suggest I stay with him, and he had mixed feelings about that. And from what I’ve heard, he wasn’t wrong to.

     I opened the front door with the spare key my uncle had sent in the mail. The second the door cracked, a smell of leather soaked in cigarette smoke made its way up my nose, and a forgotten memory appeared. It was a Christmas evening and I was ten. My uncle had a few too many Black Russians. He had taken me out to the front of the house to talk to me in private, something he’d never done before. He threw his leather jacket over me and we walked out into the crisp winter night. He tossed a freshly lit cigarette between his right  hand and his mouth and there, taught me the art of the sucker punch.  He said if anyone ever got in my face, challenged me to a fight, I was to put my hands up like I was begging for them not to hit me.  

He even acted it out, leaning forward with his arms in front of him, begging and whining, “Please. Please don’t. I don’t want to. Come on man!” He slowly made his way toward me and then out of nowhere he broke from the cowardly act and threw a jab at my face, pulling it back before it could hit me. “BAM!” he yelled. I flinched. Then he pretended to knee me in my balls, shouting, “POW!”  I reached down quickly to shield my privates. “A shot to the nose will leave them disoriented, and they won’t be able to see through all the tears pouring out of their eyes.  And while they’re holding their nose, wondering what happened, a knee to the nuts will finish them off. Fight’s over. Done.”

     I was speechless.  He inhaled deeply from his cigarette and smiled, “Got it?”

     All I could muster was a dumbfounded, “Uhhhhhhh.”

     “All right, kiddo. Beat it,” he said, and I ran into the warm, noisy house, leaving him to finish his smoke in the quiet Christmas night. 

     The leather jacket that brought this memory forward was hanging on a coat rack next to the door, a pack of menthols peeking its worn corners out of the side pocket. It appeared new but smelled like that night eighteen years ago.  

     “Hello?” My voice was muted by the lingering cigarette smoke and dust floating in the sunlight, sliced like white bread by the Venetian blinds. “Uncle Charlie?”

     The sun’s early morning rays gave the apartment a reddish orange glow, which made it appear trapped in amber like some prehistoric specimen. It was fitting, too. With its floor to ceiling mirrors, ceramic tile countertops, and floral wall paper, the apartment’s decor was straight out of the 1980s.

     I called his phone and a message told me his voice mailbox was full. 

     Maybe he’s a heavy sleeper, I thought. So I peeked inside his bedroom, calling his name softly and, to be honest, a little creepily, “Uuuuuuuncle Chaaaaaarlieeeeee?”

     He wasn’t in bed, just his impression from the night before. On top of his dresser, I found a box that looked like a tiny treasure chest.  After a moment of guilty hesitation, I opened it and found a picture on the underside of the lid.  It was my Uncle Charlie sitting next to a woman. She was nestled in his side, his arms wrapped around her. Her eyes were closed as if she was turning her face to the warmth of the afternoon sun. She was loving every second it took for the picture to be taken. He was smiling so big, his face took on new lines. Years back, I found out over some roast beef and mashed potatoes that my uncle had been married once. I knew the woman in the picture was his ex-wife, and at the time it was taken, they looked like the happiest couple in the world.  They had had a baby boy with a hole in his heart. He died days after birth, and my uncle’s marriage died soon after that.  I wonder if that night he taught me how to fight, he was picturing his little boy standing in front of him, wide eyed, and hanging on every one of his father’s words.   

     After his marriage ended, his life was full of stints in rehab for alcohol and drug abuse.  I remember my father receiving a phone call on my twelfth birthday. His voice was frantic and and he raced from the house, speeding down the street in the pea green Dodge Dart he inherited from my grandfather. My uncle had overdosed on heroin and was in a coma at the county hospital. 

     When he was released from the hospital, he immediately entered AA and narcotics anonymous and apparently hasn’t stopped going to meetings since. 

     In the corner of his bedroom sat a desk. desk. On the wall in front of it were post it notes, scenes from a script in progress scrawled on each. They were faded and curled, as if placed there years ago.  The desk top was cluttered with mail and random household items. On the floor to the left was a tower of screenplays three feet high. A thick layer of dust covered the top of the stack, and at its base, dust had commingled with hair and tiny bits of debris forming dust bunnies, or as my mother called them—ghost manure. The title of the manuscript sitting on top was Forgive Me.  I peeked at the one underneath. It had the same title. All of them, all the way to the floor, were the same. He either was very confident about this script or very embarrassed by it. 

     The coffee I had picked up hours ago back at the truck stop was knocking on my bladder’s door. I ventured into the bathroom and peed. I rinsed my hands, careful not to let them come into contact with the bits of hair, wads of spit, and globs of toothpaste that adorned the sink.

There was no soap. And no hand towel.  Never had I come across that combination.  Well, I thought, when there’s no soap on the sink, chances are it’s in the shower. 

     But before I pulled the shower curtain back, I had a horrific thought—that my uncle had been in the apartment the entire time. I imagined swiping the curtain open and seeing my uncle laying in the tub with a needle sticking from his arm. He looked like a violinist. His head leaning against his left shoulder, which was tucked into the nook of his neck. His right arm across his chest, holding the needle as if stroking a bow across the bloody strings that ran down his arm and pooled in the scroll of his softly curled fingers. Even his eyes resembled a performer listening with euphoria to the final note played in a long and somber song. 

     But a booming voice snapped me out of that ghastly scenario.  “Kiddo! You here?” 

     I walked to the living room, and standing there, was a grayed and wrinkled version of the man who I had last seen so many years ago.

     “So glad you’re here, kiddo.” He smiled, placing his keys and a little black book down on the kitchen counter. “Now I have someone else to bounce some ideas off of besides Gus.”

     “Who’s Gus?”

     “My cat.”

     “Ohhh, you have a cat? I didn’t . . . I haven’t see a cat.”

     He knitted his eyebrows and looked around, “Actually, I haven’t seen him in awhile.” He quickly shrugged, “Ahh, he’ll turn up.” 

      “Where were you?”

      “Yes! Where was I indeed!” His eyes lit up as he danced to the fridge and pulled out two cans of seltzer.  

     He extended one to me, wiggling it from side to side in my face. “Hmmm?”

     “I’m good. Not much of a seltzer guy.”

     “Oh, come on. It’s really just for toasting purposes.”

     “Okay,” I said, as I took a hold of the can and cracked it open. 

     “Here’s to you making it safely all the way from New Yawk,” he said in a mocking New York accent, holding his can up in the air, “and to your future successes here in beautiful Los Angeles, California.” He winked as our cans clinked and we both took sips. 

     In the midst of a carbonation induced hiccup I again asked, “So where were you?”

     “Riiiiight, right, right, right . . . I was at a meeting,” he said looking down at his seltzer. After a moment he continued, “An AA meeting.”

     He must have noticed my discomfort and said, “Usually, here in LA, a meeting means one with investors, producers, directors . . .” He waved his arm in front of him, indicating the list went on. He then brought his beverage to his lips and took a swig. When he brought the can down, he was wearing the biggest smirk I had ever seen on a human being. It was almost cartoonish. He looked up from the can’s pull tab he was thumbing, “But this time it means both.” 

     “I don’t get it.”

     He set his seltzer down on the counter next to the little black book, which he then picked up. He walked over to me, turning filled page after filled page until he reached the information he was searching for. “See that?” he asked, pointing to a name and phone number. 

     I nodded. 

     “That is an investor. I got to talking to her at the AA meeting and it turns out she’s a producer. She’s been looking for a project, and I told her about my script. She asked me to get a copy to her. The best part is, I always keep a few in my car!” He laughed, shaking his head in amused disbelief. “She read nearly half of it during the meeting. Said it’s the very project she’s been looking for. ‘Searching desperately for,’ were her exact words.”     

“Oh my God! Uncle Charlie, that’s amazing!”

“The best part is, she offered me 20,000 dollars! And that’s just for the first half . . . HA!” 

“Wow! Uncle Charlie, I’m so happy for you."

  “Unbelievable, right? The day you arrive in town, I get my very first offer.” He smacked the open notebook with the back of his hand and laughed. “Looks like you’re my good luck charm!”

     He put his arm around me and hugged me awkwardly into his side. “Let’s go celebrate!  We’ll get some breakfast. My treat. You hungry?”

     “Yeah, starving.”

     “Well then, let’s get outta here.”

     “Alright,” I said and followed him to the door. “Wait. I’ll be right back. I’ve gotta wash my hands.” I turned around and headed for the bathroom.     

And from where he was standing, near the front door of the apartment, he yelled, “There’s soap in the shower!”