Foundations and Wings
“Oh my god, you’re so judgmental! What if we are not meant to be just one way. There are a million ways to live life, Dad! And your idea of purity is old fashioned and would mean I’m empty of experience. I’m not empty!” Annie yells from Charlie’s bedroom.
Lorenzo stands quietly in the dark hallway outside the open door and takes three short breaths before stepping inside the darkened room aglow in a blue hue from the enormous screen opposite Charlie’s mechanical hospital bed.
“Good Morning. Everything okay?” he calls out as he enters Charlie’s bedroom.
“Look what she’s wearing, ridiculous. Right Father?” Charlie says, watching him walk until Lorenzo stands next to Annie sitting in the white rocking chair beside the bed. Lorenzo looks down at her as she arches her back, showing him her full chest proudly. Across her baggy black t-shirt are the words, in white letters, The Future Is Female.
Father Lorenzo’s laugh surprises Charlie who makes a small sound before Annie folds herself back into rocking chair. “She’s not ridiculous, Charlie. The future, or maybe the present is female. Better, I think.” He feels Annie’s hand pat his arm and something tingles inside. Lorenzo sputters a tight cough and pulls away from her touch.
“Sometimes I think I’m going crazy sitting all alone here, every day. But these guys keep me connected to the world,” Charlie says with a satisfied grin on his gaunt, unshaven face. “Can’t believe there are idiots out there who want to repeal the Second Amendment.”
“You know,” Lorenzo says casually, adjusting himself in the soft easy chair at the foot of the bed. “In some parts of the world it’s not cool to have guns.”
Charlie turns his head in Lorenzo’s direction, levels a slanted-eyed stare and sucks his lower lip in with his front tooth. “That’s just liberal-horse-shit-hooey!” he spits out in Lorenzo’s direction. “I’m sick of all this ripping off the working man bullshit. We need our guns to keep us safe. Us against them.”
Lorenzo takes a deep breath and adjusts himself toward Annie on the other side of the bed. She shakes her head at Charlie. “You know Fox isn’t the only point of view. There’s a great, big world outside the scare-mongering-horror show you insist is reality.”
Charlie takes a deep breath and lays back in his bed. “I’m too tired to fight. Tell me something about you, I’ll listen,” he says a little slowly, and Lorenzo feels the worry build in his chest just before Dottie walks into the room with a tray piled high with homemade lemon squares.
“I made these this morning, or maybe last night. I don’t sleep much but baking it’s part of my therapy.” Annie laughs, reaching for a gooey yellow pastry. Lorenzo watches her carefully lick the yellow custard from her thin fingers and turns his head toward Fox and Friends to hide his shameful blush.
“I’m thinking of heading back to LA next week, I’m feeling better,” Annie says, startling Lorenzo to look back at her.
“Already?” Charlie answers, without lifting his eyes from the pastry Dottie positioned in front of him.
“I thought you missed the winter,” Dottie speaks up as she places her tray on the small round table next to Charlie’s chest of drawers. “You said you wanted to stay until Easter.”
“I thought I missed winter but, honestly, I’m cold all the time. I don’t think I can survive another month being cold.”
“Hooey!” Dottie says, shaking her manicured hand in Annie’s direction. “You have the soul of winter in you. Our people thrive in winter. LA has made you soft.”
“I’m out of the habit, I guess, of being uncomfortable. And I sort of miss all that controlled aggression in LA, things are so quiet out here.”
As Annie finishes, Dottie sits carefully on the soft arm of Lorenzo’s chair. He moves his body a little closer to her and feels something click between them. She is worried, like him. They know Annie’s grumblings about the cold is a façade, and they can see that Charlie is happier having her home. They wonder together, without sharing a word, why she wants to go back to LA.
“Never thought I’d like LA, and when we first got there I didn’t. We’d been struggling for so long, I thought we’d always just come back here after Nashville.” Annie stops and looks around the crowded bedroom, then at Charlie and then down at her feet. “But we met Khadijah in Nashville, and she convinced JP we needed to try making it in LA. She used to insist that even if I didn’t love the destination, life is really just about the journey. Bullshit,” she says without looking up.
“But people end up somewhere, they always do,” Dottie says quietly. Lorenzo touches her hand but what he feels his Annie’s sadness.
“Maybe these past twenty-years were an illusion. Delusion,” Annie laughs, startling Charlie from his lemon square trance. “But LA is real to me, it’s all I have.”
“Hey, Annie,” Charlie yells out in a voice of someone excited by life, a voice he hadn’t used in years. “Get me one of those.” Annie, Dottie and Lorenzo turn to watch a woman in a clingy magenta dress caress a black frame, the size of a small laptop screen. “That thing is hooked up to the Wi-Fi and you can send me photos from all the places you are, and doing all that crazy stuff you and JP do. Says there you can send photos from anywhere in the world. Technology is amazing,” he says with a goofy, boyish grin on his sagging, gray face.
“Of course,” she answers with a catch in her voice. “Just not so sure I’ll be doing anything interesting or going anywhere, that you’d want to see, you know.”
“Dottie, get me up,” he says gruffly.
“Of course,” Dottie says lifting herself from the oversized chair. “Do you want to get a cup of coffee in the kitchen, we could walk there together,” she says cautiously, but everyone can feel her bubbling enthusiasm.
“That would be good,” he answers. “Father Lorenzo, help me get up while Dottie and Annie get us some coffee ready.”
Lorenzo moves to Charlie’s side and watches Dottie and Annie move slowly past them into the golden light of the hallway. As the hem of Dottie’s pink skirt disappears from their view, Charlie grabs Lorenzo’s arm. He feels how weak Charlie has become. Father Lorenzo gathers his compassion. He is solid and grounded as Charlie sits up using his forearm, and together they turn his legs off of the bed. When Charlie looks up at Lorenzo like a trusting child, his own eyes fill with tears. His chest tightens and Lorenzo is caught off guard by his love for the old man.
“I can hold you up, like scaffolding,” Lorenzo laughs.
“Mmph,” Charlie says with a spark of respect and Lorenzo stands a bit taller. “Annie was JP’s scaffolding. She held up his world, and then he abandoned her when she needed him most. Says she hasn’t heard from him in three weeks. Why would he do that, Father?”
Lorenzo shrugs his shoulders but says nothing.
“My legs don’t work no more,” Charlie mutters as he places his swollen feet gently into the slippers on the floor. “I have no reason to get up, so I sit here all day. Every day. Just waiting to die.”
“Don’t say that!” Lorenzo says feeling the pressure behind his eyes swell into his head, his body tingling with dread.
“Dying happens every minute of every day,” Charlie says in his distinctly gruff way. “But I know it feels different when it’s your own ma or,” he pauses, “pa.”
Lorenzo nods, allowing his tears to swell his eyes. “That’s how I’ve always thought of you, Charlie.”
“I know.” He pats Lorenzo’s hand holding him up. “And I don’t mind you always calling me Charlie, I know it’s been a bit of thing between you and your Nona after your parents died. I never wanted you to call me Mr. McGrath, felt too formal.” Father Lorenzo nods. “That might be the most modern thing I’ve ever done in my life. But I was younger then. Now I’m so old I’ve become obsolete. And this world is going to hell in a hand basket.”
“You’d feel better if you stop watching this,” Lorenzo says turning his head back toward the shining screen filling the room with an eerie blue hue. “You know they are literally creating problems for the solutions they hope to create.”
“Wait, what?” Charlie sputters. “You one of them socialist commies too?”
“I love you, Charlie, but this station is starting to separate you from reality. I don’t see the world you think is out there.” Charlie shakes his head in tired disgust and Lorenzo knows it’s time to change the topic. “All I’m saying is that if you are going to spend all day in here, you should try to watch happier, hopeful stories about the world.”
Charlie doesn’t answer, but Lorenzo knows he’s done fighting when Charlie picks up the clicker and turns the screen off. “I know there are two sides to every story, and as my baby Maeve likes to remind me, dogmatic opposition is almost universally wrong.” Charlie smiles and nods toward his nightstand drawer. “Open that, please, I need a drink. No judgment.” Lorenzo nods and obeys.
“This is a strange and complicated world we live in, Father, and every person needs to experience what is right for them. But those socialist, hypocritical liberals are living in a world of bunnies and magical thinking. And you and your religious type are always looking for signs to explain the inexplicable. The truth is, I used to think that I was just a little more moderate. I used to think if I could just stop smoking or drinking or live smaller I could live forever, but who wants that? Drink is part of who we are, humans like it. We just like it, we need it to dull the pain,” he says before taking a swig from the glass bottle filled with amber liquid.
“But it is a health issue,” Lorenzo tries half-heartedly, enjoying Charlie’s company and not wanting to make him mad.
“This is the deal,” he says quietly, staring down at his feet planted solidly on the hard- wooden floor. “I’ll watch more happier stories, with you, if you can figure out to make Annie stay.”
“Why does she want to go back to him?” Lorenzo says, feeling the heat of anger rise in him.
“Going back to JP? Who knows. I could never understand anything that man was saying. But she loved him, so that was good enough for me. She was always so much better than that froggy bastard. But I guess she was entranced by the music. We all were.”
Maybe it was the music, Lorenzo thinks. But for him, when it started, it was about that chemistry that he couldn’t control. JP was mercurial and dangerous and then he made her laugh, after that long, terrible year. He transformed her. The music was for everyone, but the laughter was for her.
“She’s funny, my girl, but he took that from her too. I know I’m too comfortable sitting here all day, but I want to be better.” He takes another swig and hands the bottle back to Lorenzo. “You and me together, figure out how to make her stay.”
Charlie allows Lorenzo to look into his eyes and they are both overcome with emotion. Lorenzo leans over and kisses Charlie’s head, then helps him hide the flask under the soft, white pillow.
******
“There was a time in my life when I thought drugs were the problem. I used to think that smoking pot was why JP was so weird. I used to think he was better when he wasn’t smoking his beloved cannabis. In the beginning, I tried very hard to stop him. But before realizing how caught up I was in his upside down, magical mystery world, I had become his enabler.”
“What did I miss?” Lorenzo asks as they emerge from Charlie’s room into the brightly-lit kitchen, the percolating coffee filling the room with hopeful smells.
“My sweet daughter here was just telling me about her escapades as a late-night drug dealer.”
“Enabler,” Annie corrects Dottie. “Dad, you look better already just getting out of bed.”
Charlie smiles a tight-lipped grin in Annie’s direction as she settles next to him at the kitchen table. “Tell me more, I’m intrigued.” He laughs but then turns his attention on Dottie. “You look beautiful, Dot. Love that skirt.”
Dottie turns from the counter with tears in her eyes. “Thanks, babe. Nice of you to notice.”
Annie shifts her attention from Charlie to Dottie and then squarely on Father Lorenzo’s calm face. He shrugs and smiles. “Okay then. Where should I begin? I have so many stories of having to find a pot dealer in the towns where we were playing. But we played a few places so often I found locals who became part of our crew. My favorite was a guy named Dan.”
“That guy you used to hang around with the year you took off from MIT?” Lorenzo asks.
“Exactly, we hung out most of that year. My lost year, as I like to call it.” Annie laughs but Lorenzo can feel the tension rise in the room. “He was a friend of that guy Geri who was in my dorm freshman year. Dan used to hang out with us in the dorm and then with just me when I lived at Mrs. Mattaliano’s house that year I helped her with the kids.”
“I remember him,” Lorenzo says quietly, thinking of that skinny boy with a scruffy beard she spent so much time with in 1995.
“Dan came with me to one of JP’s first shows in Cambridge, and then he turned into a bit of a groupie. Sometimes he would meet us when we came to town with bags of JP’s favorite stuff. He loved the strains that smelled like fruit. ”
“I thought it all smelled like skunk,” Charlie chimes in.
“Oh no, cannabis does have a distinctive scent. But the buds are just like any other herb, filled with unique aromas. Different terpenes like lemon or pine, I’ve even started putting it in food.”
“Who knew,” Charlie says as he folds his right hand onto his shoulder where Dottie is standing with her hand on him.
“And over the years his game really improved. Back in the day he sold out of his apartment. It was a mess and it did smell. And it wasn’t great to have people coming and going at all times of the day. As his business improved he found himself a nice little storefront.” Annie smiles and looks serenely distant. “He could always hook me up with someone in the towns where we were playing. I’ll admit, it felt a little dangerous running around parts of town I probably shouldn’t have been in. But I met lots of interesting people and most of those people could make me laugh. Khadijah and I would laugh so much after some of our late-night escapades, she called it clarity through comedy.”
“Maybe that’s what you should call your talk for the Bagel Club, I think the girls could use a good laugh.”
“You’re going to talk about weed to the God fearing ladies at St. Catherine’s? Ridiculous!” shouts Charlie.
“Maybe,” Annie shrugs, refusing to be silenced by his crotchetiness. “I know the ladies were interested in having me talk, but I’m not sure. It was kind. . .,”
“Not kind,” Dottie interrupts, “we need new stories. If I have to hear Mary Fitzpatrick tell me another sad story about her childhood traumatized by nuns in Ireland I’m going to lose my mind. We need something funny, baby, and you’re funny.”
“But I’m going back soon, maybe I can stay a little longer. Just so I don’t disappoint them.”
“Great idea,” Lorenzo answers, wondering if this is all it takes to keep her from going back to LA.
“You know that my funniest stories begin with failure, but it can hurt to go that deep. Not sure if it’s such a great idea to make everything so public. But this is cheaper than therapy.” She looks as Lorenzo and smiles.
“Maybe you can infuse some treats, I think that will help the ladies laugh,” Dottie sings out before the room is silenced by Charlie’s anger.
“Infused what? I will not allow pot brownies intoxicate the ladies of the church. Father, stop them.”
Lorenzo says nothing but calmly keeps his warm smile on Annie’s face, trying to know what he should say next. Lorenzo feels like he is the only one sitting perfectly still while the world moves around and away. He watches Charlie steady himself and push down his frustration. Annie smiles an impish grin, when she looks at Lorenzo he feels like he’s on her team, again, and he likes it.
“Let’s hear what you’ll say to the ladies at the Bagel Club,” Lorenzo says.
Dottie nods her head and motions for Annie to stand and take her place before them.
“Okay, let’s see. I can start with, thank you for having me here today. My name is Annie McGrath and I’m excited to be back in Cambridge.”
“Do you need to use my last name, could be bad for business. McGrath Oil doesn’t need to be associated with drugs.”
“McGrath Energy,” Dottie corrects him.
“It’s my name, why can’t I use it.”
“Use frenchy’s name,” Charlie says.
“Maybe I can just say I’m Annie.”
“Perfect,” Dottie answers, silencing Charlie in his seat.
“Thank you Father Lorenzo for inviting me here, I’m not used to being the talent.”
“Hey Dottie, anyone home?” A voice calls from outside the open kitchen window just as two blue eyes and a crop of white hear look into the kitchen. “Honey baby, when did you get here?” the voice directs at Annie. “It’s me, Carol Mattaliano, the kids will be so sad not to see you! I was just playing cards with my Aunt Evelyn, next door. She can’t remember her husband died ten years ago but she still plays cards like a shark. Crazy what the mind can do.”
“Hey Carol, come on in, Annie is about to give us a show.”
“Love a show, is the back door open?
“The key’s in the flower pot, just put it back when you get in.”
“Thanks Dot, be right there.”
When Carol Mattaliano appears in the kitchen she embraces Annie against her soft chest, dewy tears in her eyes, and silently sits down next to Father Lorenzo. “So nice to see you Annie, honey,” she says settling down in her chair. “Heard you were back, feel like I haven’t seen you in a hundred years. I missed you on your last trip home, when was that?”
“2009.” Father Lorenzo says quickly. “I remember because I was in Rome and couldn’t see you.”
The room is silent for a beat too long before Annie begins again. “Thank you for joining us, I’m just trying out some new material for the Bagel Club at the church,” Annie begins. “So let’s see, where was I?”
“Your name,” Father Lorenzo reminds her.
“Yes, my name. My name is Annie but most of you probably know me as Dottie’s wayward daughter who married a musician and ran away from home.”
Dottie lifts the sparkly-red lighter to the white tip of the cigarette held between her teeth. “Don’t worry,” she moves to the window on the far side of the room, “I’ll blow the smoke out the window.”
“It’s true what they say about drugs and musicians and life on the road. My JP wasn’t much of a drinker but it did like his ganja. Pot. Cannabis. Weed. Devil’s lettuce.” She smiles and lets out a small breath. “I once said to him that I liked him better without the weed. Then we tried that. Turns out - I was wrong,” she laughs and the others join in. “Turns out that JP, well, he’s better a little bit high. So I did everything to make sure he had what he needed. That’s why Dan my man played such an important role in JP’s success.”
“That nice boy who used to visit at my house? He’s a drug dealer?” Carol Mattaliano asks.
“Yes,” Annie answers and watches Carol’s face twitch as she shakes her head with the news.
“He has quite the business now,” Dottie adds from her place by the open window.
“May I continue?” Annie smiles and looks at her mom. Dottie nods as she places her pointer finger against her red lips. Annie continues with a deep breath. “I thought my helping him get his drugs was saving us because we shared this secret, his secret. I was part of his club. Thought it would keep us all together. Turns out that wasn’t quite right.”
Annie stands still for a moment, her eyes adrift in space, trying to pull herself back into the story. When she lifts her hands to the sides of her face she lets her chin dip slightly and sighs.
“Finish your thoughts, baby, it’s good,” Dottie offers from her place at the kitchen window, her eyes never leaving Annie’s face.
No one speaks in the warm room but all nod to encourage her to continue.
Annie taps her right foot several times against the polished wood floor before she opens her mouth to speak. “Life is really about what we feel, not what we know. Because really, what do we know?” she begins. “But feelings, that was JP’s golden ticket, he understood how to make others feel what he wanted to give them. He said cannabis helped him get there, but I know that isn’t the whole truth. He always had that power, he just didn’t think it was useful. For his future. You know, his mama, Mama Sarfati, well, she’s always been a bit controlling. But she loves JP, I’ll give her that.” Annie stops and stares out at them. “This is absurd, I can’t do this. I’m not funny, I’m sad. Who wants to listen to a sad comic? I’ve become someone else,” Annie says quietly.
“I think comedy comes from sadness,” Father Lorenzo offers just as Carol Mattaliano leans into him and pats his shoulder to show her agreement..
“It’s funny, you know, how you can give up all that you wanted and then one day you don’t want it anymore. Or maybe what you wanted or what was yours isn’t, suddenly. But I used to love being funny. I liked nothing better than that feeling of making other people laugh,” Annie says without looking up. “But when I was with JP, I wasn’t funny. I was so far away from the person I thought I’d be, I couldn’t see her anymore. With JP and the band I learned to be cool instead of nerdy.”
“Why weren’t you funny?” Dottie asks, placing the end of her cigarette, a crown of red imprinted on the tip, in a small bowl of water by the kitchen sink.
“Too focused on our image,” she answers, a small catch in her voice “To be with him was to always be the coolest person in the room, not something I was used to. He had the music, the passion and I got lost in his world. I liked it, but I lost what I thought was me.”
“You were always funny to me,” Lorenzo smiles. “But maybe because I’m so boring.”
“No Father,” Carol Mattaliano answers quickly. “Your Sunday sermons always leave me with a smile.”
Lorenzo looks at her and nods before returning his attention back to Annie.
“JP knows how to make people fall in love with him, maybe that’s what happened with Khadijah.” She stops and says no more. She sits on the soft leather chair and places her arms across her face. “I know what happened, I can see it so clearly. Why was I so blind to it? He stopped seeing me and just expected me to be there for him. And I was. As he turned away, I turned inward. And Khadijah, well, she was, is, everything I wasn’t. They were like electrons sparking around each other while I created a home, softened the edges, made life safe so he could take chances and be something special. Just like Mama Sarfati wanted.” Annie allows her arms to drop to her lap and leans forward toward her audience. “Right from the start, that’s how it was. After we left.” Annie pauses and looks up to Dottie who is standing still and straight behind Charlies with a stern look in her eyes. Annie turns away. “He wrote that song on the drive to Nashville. Called it Right From the Start. We had nothing but the van he’d traded his car for and the money I’d earned that summer. When things got really tight, I felt angry. But JP had his guitar. I worried and he played. Then, on the night we met Khadijah. Or, really, Khadijah found us. I was packed and ready to come back to Cambridge.” Annie sits herself up and feels lost in the moment and unable to go on.
“Did you know Maeve will be home for Easter. I’m hoping to introduce her to Mrs. Fitzpatrick’s boy, Mike. He’s coming by tomorrow to fix the boiler Maybe he can help her give up the crazy life of hers,” Dottie blurts out to escape the awkward silence in the room.
“Don’t over pay that boy, and watch what he does,” Charlie says.
“Relax, be happy I’m taking care of it.”
“Mom! Maeve is a journalist, her life isn’t crazy. She’s independent,” Annie shouts out loudly and with too much conviction.
“She’s lonely,” Dottie says in a voice meant to end the topic.
“She doesn’t really need a man,” Carol Mattaliano pipes in.
“Hmph,” Charlie says. “Someone take me back to my room, I need to lie down.”
And just like that, it’s over. As Lorenzo rises to help Charlie back to his bed and reunite him with his friends on Fox News, Annie stands up from the worn leather chair and announces, “I’m going to see if I can delay my flight home until after Easter.”