A Million Little Pieces - James Frey [88]
I stare at the mist.
They’re not my benches.
He laughs and he sits.
Why you up so early?
I stare at the mist.
Couldn’t sleep.
Roy?
Among other things.
What are the other things?
Nothing I’m gonna talk about.
You sure?
Yeah, I’m sure.
Leonard stands.
Let’s go for a walk.
I stay on the bench.
No thanks.
Come on.
No.
Why.
I look up.
I don’t know if I can be seen with you in that sweat suit.
He looks at himself and back at me.
What’s wrong with the sweat suit?
What’s it made of?
He rubs it, smiles.
It’s a rayon/nylon/satin blend.
I laugh.
That’s the first thing that’s wrong with it.
What’s the second?
You got your gold watch on.
I love this watch.
And your silly glasses.
They’re Gucci.
I don’t care what they are, they’re silly.
He takes them off, looks at them, puts them in his pocket.
How’s that?
It’s better.
He smiles, motions toward the wood.
Let’s go for a walk, Kid.
I stand and we start walking and we find a Trail through the Wood. Leonard asks how I’m doing and I tell him I’m fine. He asks me again and I tell him I’m fine again. He asks me again and I tell him I’m fucking fine and he tells me that fine isn’t a good enough answer he wants to know how I’m really doing. I tell him I don’t know. He asks me what that means and I tell him I don’t know how I’m doing that sometimes I feel good and sometimes I feel something far less far far less than good. He says that if that’s what I’m feeling then I’m doing well and I should just keep doing and I’ll get better and my life will get better everything will get better and I laugh at him. He asks me why I’m laughing and I tell him I’m laughing because I don’t think that he as a coke Addict and a fellow Patient and a Fuck-Up of the First Order is in any position to give me advice. He laughs and he says let’s find a place to sit down, Kid. I got a story to tell you.
We walk until we find a bench along one of the smaller Lakes. It is a plain wooden bench that looks as if it has been carved from a single chunk of wood. Its edges are rough, its surface is uneven and like all of the benches at this time of day, it is cold. The Sun has started rising and shafts of yellow and white are burning away a mist. Floating sheets of gray ice are shifting and cracking, the crack like a gunshot, and icicles hanging from extended branches of Oak and Pine are dripping, the drip melting the cover of frost beneath. Though I am lightly dressed, I am warm. My heart is beating and I am surviving and I am warm.
Leonard looks out across the Lake. He is calmer than I have ever seen him, the edge of violence, control and power that he carries is gone. His hands are still on his lap, his breathing is deep and slow and his eyes are focused on something in the distance, though they aren’t really looking at it. His eyes are looking inside, reviewing, remembering, figuring out how to tell. Without moving, he starts to speak.
I told you how my Father died. How he got hit by a truck and killed. Before he died, as he lay in a Hospital bed, he took my hand and he told me that the only thing he ever wanted for me was that one day I be successful enough to play the Golf Course he mowed for fifteen years just like I was one of the Members. I promised him that someday I’d do it.
Leonard takes a deep breath.
I told you how my Mother died and how Michelangelo and Geena adopted me and raised me like I was their own. On top of raising me, Michelangelo guided me into his business. What that is isn’t important for you to know. What’s important is that he taught me to do it and he set me up in it. I took care of details for him and he watched over and protected me. An opportunity came up for Michelangelo and Geena to move to Las Vegas. They took it and I went with them. We did very well, very quickly. As Vegas was growing and booming, so were we. We had money, Houses, cars, whatever we wanted. It was all there, everything we ever wanted.
Leonard stops talking, stares at the ground. He takes a deep breath, looks up.
Then Geena got cancer. It was a bad cancer, cancer of the