Chapter 53
OZZIE
Ozzie paced the halls of the maternity ward at Mercy-Douglass Hospital.
His nerves were thinner than piss on a plank, and the thought that a shot of whiskey would calm him down fluttered through his head, but he dismissed it as he turned into the waiting room.
Against the wall was a Kwik Kafe vending machine, and his hands were shaking so badly that he dropped the nickel three times for the cup of coffee he tried to purchase.
On the television fastened to the wall was an episode of I Love Lucy, and the noise of Lucy and Desi’s shenanigans further irritated him. Ozzie was so wrapped up in his anxiety and agitation that he hadn’t noticed the man sitting in the corner until his voice reached him across the room.
“Where do you hide the booze so your wife doesn’t know how much you really drink?”
Trembling and startled, Ozzie looked up from where he knelt on the floor with the nickel in hand. “What did you say to me?”
The man released a hearty chuckle. “I always hid mine inside the toilet tank, behind the pump and lift chain. My wife would never look there.”
Dusting off the knees of his work trousers, Ozzie said, “I don’t know what you’re talking about, man.”
“My hands used to shake like that too. Worse was waking up drenched in sweat while shivering at the same time. I kept a fifth under the bed, within arm’s length, for those times in the middle of the night when the beast would demand to be fed.”
Every muscle in Ozzie’s body straightened. “Do I know you?”
“Name’s Joe.” He stood and took two long strides over to Ozzie and pumped his hand up and down. His grip was firm and his eye contact intense. The blue pullover he wore was bright and his twill pants were pleated.
“Ozzie,” he said, feeling dull in comparison to the man, who seemed to glow before him.
“Nice to meet you, brother. Let me help you with that machine.” Joe pulled a nickel from his own pocket, popped it in, and while waiting for the coffee, he asked, “Is this your first child?”
Ozzie didn’t answer.
“We are on baby number three. Praying Peggy gets her girl this time. We have two knucklehead boys at home, six and three. What are you hoping for?”
He thought of Katja, as he always did when people asked this question. He couldn’t bring himself to wish for another girl. “A boy.”
“Looks like you already had a few tastes today. Drink the coffee, so that when you see your family, you’ve sobered up some.”
Placing the cup to his mouth, Ozzie did as he was told.
Joe motioned for Ozzie to take a seat across from him in the gray plastic chairs against the wall.
“I had my first drink when I was nine years old. Down in the backwoods of Amherst County. My daddy used to make corn liquor. Bootlegging was how he kept a roof over our heads. All nine of us. I’d sneak in the shed when he was away making deliveries and have myself a belly full.
Till he caught me and tried to beat the black off me. ” Joe grinned.
Ozzie didn’t even crack a smile. This man was a complete stranger, why was he telling him his personal business?
“It started off as fun. Especially when I got good at the guitar and started hanging at the juke joints. I was only fifteen when I played my first show, down in Richmond. Have you ever been?” Joe asked but didn’t wait for a response.
“Man, I was more scared than a whore going to church on Easter Sunday.” Joe clapped his hands.
“But then one of the fellows slipped me a glass of bourbon, and I downed it. My nerves were gone, and I got up on the stage and played like somebody possessed. Got a reputation as the little fella who could hold his liquor and play like Bo Diddley. So I had to live up to it.”
Ozzie’s skin itched. As Joe went on to describe nights when he’d wake up and not be able to remember how he got home and who the woman next to him was, Ozzie realized that he could relate.
Days and nights were missing from his memory as well.
Though lucky for him, he had awakened only next to Rita, except on the nights she had banished him to the basement, which in the past few months had been more often than not.
“I woke up with the shakes and went to bed with the runs. It all became too much, and a deep sadness had strangled me till I didn’t want to live no more.
Ten years went by without me drawing a clean breath.
I lost my home, my woman, and only worked enough odd jobs to keep my mouth from getting dry.
Alcohol had become my master; it was the only thing that mattered. ”
Joe spoke with an honesty that resonated intimately, gnawing at a truth buried deep within Ozzie. A lump formed in his throat as a wave of emotions rose to the surface.
“I don’t know who I am anymore,” Ozzie choked out. “We finally got an appointment for a mortgage after trying for two years, but I messed it up. Drinking on the job. By the time I arrived, the bank had closed, and my wife’s been distant ever since.”
“Trust me, I’ve done worse.”
Ozzie looked at Joe. “So how’d you control your thirst? ’Cause it’s ruining my life.”
“A friend invited me to attend a meeting with him. I went and met men who had struggled with drinking just like me. I did what they told me to do. That was eight years ago, and I’ve been living a sober life ever since.”
“You mean to tell me that you haven’t had a drink in eight years? Don’t bullshit me.”
“Not a single drop. Best part is that I don’t even think about it anymore. It has lost its power over me.”
Ozzie didn’t know if he believed him. Then Joe reached over and covered Ozzie’s jittery hand with his.
“This isn’t who you are, brother. Let me help you the way my friend helped me.”
Those words opened something inside Ozzie, but he had trouble identifying the feeling. Was it hope?
“Mr. Philips?” called a thin nurse, dressed in white from head to toe, clutching a clipboard in the doorway.
“That’s me.”
“Your wife and baby are ready for you.” Her smile was reassuring.
Ozzie stood. “It was nice meeting you.”
Joe put out his hand and pulled Ozzie into a one-armed hug and whispered in his ear, “First order of business is to start with twenty-four hours. No matter what happens, don’t pick up that first drink.” Then he slipped Ozzie a business card with his telephone number on it.
The hospital room had two beds, and Rita’s was on the left, closest to the window. Beside her bed was a woven bassinet. On a slip of cardboard scrolled in cursive were the words “It’s a boy.” Ozzie held his hat in his hands, in awe of this tiny miracle. He had a son.
“Hey.” Rita’s voice was hoarse, and her hair had been brushed away from her face and swept into bobby pins.
“You did good, baby.” Ozzie touched her foot. “And you look beautiful,” he said, even though he could see in her eyes that she was beat.
“You see our boy?”
Ozzie stood over the bassinet. As he watched the child’s belly rise and fall, he couldn’t help comparing this moment to the first time he had laid eyes on Katja.
She’d been smaller and had twice as much hair, and her skin was so pale he remembered checking her features to make sure she belonged to him.
Throughout Rita’s pregnancy, Ozzie had wondered if it would be possible to love another child.
But when he lifted his son and cradled him against his chest, his heart burst open with more love than he knew was possible.
“I want to name him Maceo, after my uncle Maceo,” Rita said proudly. “If it wasn’t for him losing his life voting in Georgia, I wouldn’t have moved to Philly and met you.”
There was a loving tenderness in her eyes that had been absent for months, and it further unraveled Ozzie. Joy, sorrow, and regret clipped his words so that they came out staccato.
“Thank you. For giving me a son. I know. I have disappointed you. The drinking. Late rent and missed appointment at the bank. But…” He looked down at Maceo, and it was once again like looking God in the face.
His eyes crowned with tears. Joe’s words had been a revelation.
He owed it to his family and to himself to be better.
Rita beckoned him to sit on the side of her bed, then took her fingertips and caressed his tears. “I don’t want to raise Maceo without you, but don’t make me choose,” she whispered, her face wet. “I need you to come back to me, Oz. Be the man I fell in love with, booze-free.”
A surge of love, shame, and pain welled up inside Ozzie as he cradled the baby with one arm and Rita with the other. He didn’t know why he was being granted this second chance, but he knew that meeting Joe had set something in motion, and he couldn’t let it slip away.