Drivers Wanted (a novel) Read online

  David felt awful his mom would be troubled by some dark secret he wasn’t telling her. She urged him to keep trying to convince Marie that his daughter had a God-given right to know her father. She also encouraged him to pray about it and move back to Philly.

  Ivan King, a buddy since childhood, called from Philly a few days after Nicole had asked him for David’s number. David proudly told him about his new daughter and bemoaned how Marie wouldn’t speak to him. Nevertheless, Ivan shouted congratulations and had a suggestion.

  “Hey man, you want me to tip around Marie’s crib and snap some pics of your daughter?”

  “Hey, that would be cool. You wouldn’t mind doing that?”

  “Noooo man, it’d be fun. I’m curious to see your kid too.”

  But the more David thought about it, the easier it was to tell Ivan not to go through with it.

  “On second thought, Ivan, squash that idea. I’m planning to move back in a couple of months. I can wait ‘til then.”

  “Why squash it? Don’t you wanna see some new pics of your kid?”

  “Oh yeah, more than anything, but I don‘t wanna do things the wrong way. This is serious stuff…don’t do it, but thanks.”

  “Okay, okay. It’ll be good to see you bro’ when you get back. We’re gonna have to throw a par-tay, heh-heh. I’ll make sure I’ll have some Acapulco Gold and some Sensimilla buds saved up, you know, call a few babes over…do it like we used to, you know, heh-heh-heh.”

  David could see nothing had changed with Ivan. He didn’t want to dampen his spirit, but now hoped those dope parties with his old buddy had ended forever.

  Ivan had been David’s closest friend. As kids growing up, they lived on the same block in a decent neighborhood. They attended the same grade school classes, and did everything together ─ sports, scouts, summer camps, even Sunday school. Their family makeup was the same, both being the only child raised by single moms.

  Ray Thompson, another mutual friend who was in one grade higher, moved on the block when they were around eleven. The three were seen everywhere around the neighborhood. They started a band while in high school, playing a funky blend of rock and reggae.

  They were basically three good African-American kids who wouldn’t dream of getting into any serious criminal trouble. However, they were all together when they began drinking and smoking weed around the age of fifteen.

  ***

  After a week of knowing he had a child across the country, David poured his heart out in a letter to Marie and begged for forgiveness. He received no reply to it or the Christmas card he sent later.

  He tried not thinking about it, which worked sometimes, but there’d be constant reminders when he saw kids…kids with their parents, kids on TV, kids on the side of a public bus ad. He wanted to leave Los Angeles and move back to Philly. He wanted to be a ‘real’ father to his daughter.

  There was one problem. David didn’t want to meet his daughter as a drug addict. For the last two years, his daily dependency on weed had expanded with a strong addiction to pain pills. It began when he had a wisdom tooth extracted. The codeine pills prescribed by his dentist became addictive when used with marijuana. When he ran out of the pills, he found a dealer and pretty soon became hooked, like someone smoking crack.

  Chapter 3

  David had had one romantic relationship in L.A., a Hollywood studio set designer named Sheila Allen. She hailed from Connecticut and happened to be seven years his senior.

  She had lent him five-hundred dollars a while back so he wouldn’t get evicted from his apartment. Before she did, she politely declined David’s suggestion that they live together. They had been dating close to a year and mostly met at her fabulously designed bungalow in the Los Feliz section of LA.

  “Let’s give it a shot. It could be fun. I’ll be a good roomie,” he all but pleaded one night after he tried his best to send her to another galaxy with his love-making skills.

  “David…” she paused, looking satisfied and amused, “I don’t want to ruin our friendship…our relationship.” She began caressing his biceps. “My biggest fear is I won’t be the easiest person to live with.”

  “But how do you know unless you give it a try?”

  He was disappointed and had counted on her being agreeable to his proposal, the way Marie had been.

  She didn’t answer, but continued to smile at him. She had a pretty face like Marie Robinson, and like many Southern California women, sported a well-toned body from year-round exercising. They had met on a tennis court.

  David thought he could read some unspoken language. She had always filled his head with compliments on his attractive face and body, but her appreciation for him, he had begun to feel, didn’t go much deeper.

  He had kept his pill addiction secret from her until he confessed it a few months before. On that particular night, he was spaced out and had been calling her by another name. She seemed to accept that he had trouble getting over the girl he had left in Philly, but alarmed that he had another addiction besides pot.

  She wrote a check for five-hundred and gave it to him the morning after she nixed his plan for living together.

  “Thanks, I’ll pay you back.” he said with slighted appreciation.

  “David, I doubt that you can. Will you please try Narc-Anon? Did you lose the number I gave you a while back?”

  “No.”

  “Do you want me to call them and make an appointment for you?”

  “No.”

  “Baby, your situation with the pills is getting worse…you’ve admitted that. I care about you, I don’t want to see ─”

  “Yeah, you’ve shown how you care.”

  As soon as he said it, he knew his attitude was wrong. Why should she open up her beautiful home to a drug addict? He now felt foolish for asking her in the first place. To make up for his rudeness, he reversed his decision.

  “Sheila, I’m sorry, I’m sorry…I do need some help. Would you call them for me?”

  She made the appointment and drove him to the first meeting, sitting in on part of the counseling session. During the car ride home, David said he didn’t like the NA counselor’s recommendations and wouldn’t return. Sheila had no problem showing her irritation.

  “And here I thought you were serious about turning your life around.”

  “Yeah, maybe when I’m fifty, but I’m still young. You heard that man say I need to give up weed too. How the hell can I live like that?”

  “At the rate you’re going, you might not make it to fifty.”

  David didn’t reply to that comment, remembering how his alcoholic dad died young. He looked out the passenger window as they drove up Vermont Avenue.

  He looked back at her, admiring her stylish, bobbed cut that had just the right amount of light brown streaks. “I always thought you liked gettin’ high with me?”

  “Yeah, it’s okay to smoke a joint every now and then,” she shrugged, “but I certainly don’t need it…and that’s the problem you have. You’re dependent on it. Like the counselor said, you’re medicating your life away without reason, especially with that other stuff you take.”

  On weekends, she had smoked weed with him before they had sex. He felt confused as he pondered how she easily said she didn’t need it. How could someone simply take it or leave it? She looked at him, then reached over and massaged the back of his hand. Her silver bracelets jangled. He liked her designer’s taste in accessories, and wondered if that’s all he ever was to her.

  The NA counselor, Tony Sanchez, had spoken with them for over an hour. He challenged David to look at his life and address where he thought he was heading.

  “Where do you see yourself in another five years?” he asked.

  “What do you mean?”

  Sanchez waited him out.

  David didn’t like this psychobabble being directed at him.

  “Well let’s see…I see myself living in Bel-Air, no, make that Beverly Hills. I’m in my mansion looking across my infi
nity pool, wondering what I’m gonna drive today—the Bentley, the Jag, or the…Lamborghini. I’m also trying to decide where I’m gonna eat, MaMaison, Spago’s, or Roscoe’s Chicken and—”

  Sanchez broke in. “Tell me, David, do you see yourself getting high that day?”

  David’s fun bubble popped. He looked at the soft-spoken Sanchez, who had introduced himself as a former heroin addict. In David’s eyes, Sanchez had traded in his needle and drugs for a food addiction, judging from his wide girth.

  Looking away from Sanchez, David said, “Getting high is all I know. I guess one day I’ll get tired of it…I don’t know.”

  “Most addicts are tired of it. They just don’t know how to get out of the trap they’re in. Do you feel trapped by the drugs you’re taking?”

  “Yeah, I guess so,” David said, feeling he was giving Sanchez the answer he wanted. David thought he felt more trapped by the questioning.

  Towards the end of the session, the counselor recommended participation in a group therapy session the following night.

  David had been known to be a people-pleaser, usually opting to go along, to get along. He had difficulty saying “no” to people. He didn’t say no to Sanchez, but he didn’t go to the meeting. Sheila unsuccessfully tried to convince him to catch the next meeting.

  After that, they dated one more time. She began making excuses for why she couldn’t see him and their relationship quickly fell apart. He suspected she had another romantic relationship with a co-worker— someone she had said was just a good friend.

  He missed her, but the love he felt for her wasn’t the heart-wrenching kind—nothing like the deep connection he had felt with Marie. He now believed that, as attractive and smart as Sheila was, and as nice as she had been to him, no woman could ever take Marie’s place.

  ***

  He often tried to stop using drugs on his own, but didn’t have the willpower to get through a single day. Borrowing money from his charitable mom became embarrassing. It progressed to the point that his mother told him to come back home if he needed anymore so-called loans—she would buy the plane ticket.

  When he received the news that he had a daughter, it brought with it a new desire to clean up his act, more powerful than any NA counselor could instill in him. He became a regular attendee at NA meetings and gained confidence he could overcome his addictions.

  For his 1993 New Year’s Resolution, David quit his drug usage on New Year’s Day, but after two weeks had a relapse. He abstained again a few days after he failed, but couldn’t make it stick. He kept trying, however, regularly attending NA group therapy meetings. Around mid-March he celebrated one continuous month of sobriety and planned to move back to Philly in the beginning of April. He gave his job two weeks’ notice, and began looking for a reliable car to make the journey.

  Once again, another setback stymied him. It was always the headaches, depression, and anxiety attacks. The NA counselors warned that those withdrawal symptoms could be his nemesis.

  Determined, he kept trying. After three more months of abstaining, he planned his move in mid-July. He owed this major turnaround in his life to Narc-Anon and a higher power—his love for his daughter Adrienne. Every time he looked at her smiling face in the 5x7 frame on his desk at home, it gave him the will and a solid purpose to gain control of his life.

  David wasn’t sure if the move back to Philly would cause another relapse. He knew it was a possibility, especially if things didn’t work out well with Marie and his daughter.

  Chapter 4

  July 1993

  The initial revelation of his daughter existence had been ten months ago. David had now replaced drugs with getting in excellent physical shape and playing basketball or tennis every day. He had turned thirty-two a month ago and had saved enough money to buy a car and finance his drive back to Philly.

  He also paid back the five-hundred dollars he borrowed from Sheila. He drove over to her house and she introduced him to her female friend. Her name was Sam, and she looked to be in her mid-twenties.

  They had been drinking and once again he wondered, based on their coziness, if Sheila was into women as well as men. She had denied it in the past when she had praised attractive women in ways David thought was peculiar.

  He wished her all the best and she returned the sentiment, inviting him to stay and have a drink. He said he couldn’t. As he was leaving, she gave him a suggestive smile and complimented his new progressive appearance and attitude.

  He felt better than he ever had in his adult life, full of energy and confidence. A few months earlier he had cut off his long dreads. It wasn’t a big decision. He had planned on doing it for over a year. He began getting haircuts and the length became shorter each time. The shorter it got—the better he liked it.

  All his stuff was packed in his apartment. He would load up the used car he had purchased the next morning and take off.

  He called Nicole. She didn’t want to give up Marie’s new address and telephone number, worried her sister would be upset with her again. David used some gentle persuasion and Nicole finally gave in, giving only the phone number. David called his former girlfriend, hoping she wouldn’t hang up on him as soon as she recognized his voice.

  “Hi Marie, please don’t hang up.”

  “David?”

  “Yes, I have to talk to you.”

  “Where are you? How’d you get my number?”

  “I’m in Los Angeles.”

  “What do you want?”

  “I’m planning to move back to Philly, stay with my Mom for a while, get a job,” he said.

  Silence.

  “I wanna see you. I wanna see my daughter—see Adrienne.”

  He heard her exhale.

  “After what, five, six years?”

  “Yes, I mean, I’ve only known about her for less than a year,” he said, now nervous. “I’m hoping we can talk about it…a lot of time has passed…and I’m…hoping we can talk about things. It’s always on my mind.”

  She let out another heavy sigh. He knew she might hang up at any second and change her number again. She had always been a determined young lady, never anyone’s pushover.

  “When do you plan to move back?”

  “I’m driving back tomorrow. I should be at my mom’s place Sunday,” he said, noting a more agreeable Marie this time since she was actually talking to him. He wondered if they’d turned the corner.

  “This weekend?” she asked, a little alarmed.

  “Yes, does Adrienne know anything about me? Does she know I exist?”

  “No.”

  “My God!”

  “I mean, she knows she has a father. She’s at the age now where she’s starting to ask questions…you know,” she said, letting the last few words trail off.

  “How do you answer her?”

  “I struggle with what to say to her. At first I was so angry with you I planned to tell her you were dead or something. I mean, David, you really hurt me, you hurt me more than you probably realize, don’t you know that…well don’t you?”

  “Yes Marie, I do, but I never meant to hurt you, and I’m so sorry. If I could only change things I—”

  “Oh yes, if you could only change things, if only —”

  She began to cry, and that made David’s eyes water too. He knew this could get emotional. They stayed on the phone as nearly a half a minute ticked by, a few sniffles being the only sound.

  Marie said, “I shouldn’t transfer my anger towards you to Adrienne. She has a right to know…you. I’ve been pissed off at my sister for going behind my back and letting you know about Adrienne. Yes, I know she’s the one who let the cat out the bag, so you don‘t have to protect her anymore. Have you talked to her?”

  “Yeah, we…we talked an hour ago,” he said, knowing it was important to be honest now.

  “I know you did, because my number is unlisted. I could kill her.”

  “She loves you, Marie. I begged her for your number. She felt it was impor
tant to all of us to risk you being mad at her again. She told me that.”

  “Yeah, but she doesn’t know.”

  “Know what?”

  “That you fucked my best friend in the house we shared,” she said, jolting David. “That that’s why we broke up! I’ve always been too embarrassed to tell her, or my parents, or anybody. That’s the kind of shame and humiliation you’ve put in my life! If Nic knew the real you, instead of the one she thinks is so fucking great, she wouldn‘t have told you anything.”

  David was speechless. He agreed that if Nicole had known, he’d probably still be in the dark about his daughter. Hearing Marie use profanity also spoke to how raw the pain still was. He never remembered hearing her talk like that, except for that fateful night when she kicked him out of their place.

  “Call me when you get back,” she said. “Please give me some time to sort things out. I’m not sure how this should be handled, okay?”

  “Okay, and —”

  David then heard a dial tone.

  His heart sank. He had hoped the conversation would’ve continued. Yeah, she’d been reading him the riot act, but he deserved it. He thought about calling her back, but knew it would be a gamble. He wanted to say he had changed. The ‘real him’ had changed a lot.

  Looking out the window of his apartment, he wondered if it might be possible to be friends with Marie, and maybe more, since they now shared a daughter. The thing was, after they broke up, and after all these years, he still loved her. Well, he had never stopped loving her. He had made one huge mistake, that’s all it had been, one big colossal slip-up. And it came with a whole heap of self-resentment.