CHAPTER ONE
Worth
I woke to sensations of burning, each somewhat different but all equally unpleasant. I rather reluctantly dealt with the most pressing first, as I leaned over the edge of the bed and emptied my stomach into an empty pizza box. It occurred to me that one must give to receive and the box had just been rewarded with its end of the deal. I rinsed with whatever liquid remained in the glass on the nightstand, but it didn’t taste much better.
The second and third burning sensations seemed to emanate from the same source — the east-facing grimy window that brazenly spewed the hot morning’s sun into my eyes and heated the room, magnified by the stench that was my body.
I debated rising long enough to close the stained fiberglass drapes and decided it would not be enough. With a curse, I rolled off the bed, carefully avoiding the pizza box and headed in the direction of where I expected the bathroom to be. Sure enough, a little fumbling on the inside wall and the flickering gray light of an old, overhead fluorescent slowly shocked itself on. I could identify with how the old thing must feel.
I turned on the shower as hot as it could get, reasoning that, by comparison, the room would feel cool, but it was also experiencing a deflated morning and barely kept the goosebumps away. It wasn’t until I wrapped myself in the yellowish towel and watched a roach scurry down my leg that it occurred to me. Where the hell am I?
After using my finger and some putrid water to sort of rub my teeth clean, I rummaged on the floor near the bed until I found enough crumpled clothing to be allowed in public. As I pushed open the entrance door with the shattered glass, I was amazed once again that no matter how bad you felt at one moment, you could always feel worse. The humidity of the August morning was already in the upper ninety percent and hit me like a wall of water. I thought it might be more therapeutic than the shower I’d just had.
I found my cell still in my pants pocket and tapped for a taxi I kept on auto-dial. I was no novice at this. They knew me, by name and by face. The cab’s cool interior prompted me to doze off again as it headed toward the farm.
My father, Worthington LaViere, II — which incidentally made me Worthington LaViere, III, Worth to my friends or Worthless to those who knew me best — was waiting in the shade of the paddock, a mint julep resting in his iron-grip. We LaVieres were known for our ability to drink, and he was no exception. He emerged long enough to stuff a hundred into the hand of the driver and motioned him to drag me out of the back seat… again.
The grizzled driver was kind. My cheek was only mildly grazed by the mulch in the flowerbed Mother had lining the drive. Mother had flowers lining everything. It was the grace she exuded to counter my father’s far cruder tendencies.
I wondered how long I might get away with lying there, but my father quickly answered that question. “Get your ass up and in the house!” he snapped in a growl colored with decades of Cuban cigars and Kentucky bourbon. “I want you clean and presentable in half an hour. Jervis is comin’ by for cocktails and damned if you’re not goin’ to be sittin’ in the chair like the cock of the walk when he gets here. Hear me, boy?”
I avoided pointing out that anyone within three counties could hear him, reasoning that given the pounding in my head, restraint was the order of the day.
Not at my best for sarcastic discourse, I made it to my feet and staggered into the house and up the cherry staircase with the railing my grandfather had carved. I should be specific. My grandfather didn’t actually do the carving himself, he had it carved. We LaVieres were far more suited to giving orders than taking them… of which I was living proof.
I heard my mother’s voice down the hallway, her plaintive, carefully-cultured drawl asked her maid to bring her a tall glass of iced tea with two slices of lemon. Mother always ordered two slices — one to squeeze into the drink and one to decorate the lip of the glass. As I said, my mother exudes grace.
In honor of Dr. Jervis’ impending arrival, I chose charcoal dress slacks and a white Polo. A quick glance in the mirror exposed the circles beneath my ordinarily vivid blue eyes. At the moment, they looked more like someone had punched me. Perhaps they had? I couldn’t remember. I could only focus on one thing at a time while my head felt this muddled. At the moment, it appeared it would be two things — my father and Jervis.
I dutifully sat in the mulberry leather wingback and sipped a tonic water, with one lemon, while my father met Dr. Jervis at the door and ushered him into the study. My father’s boisterous voice and shoulder slapping put me in mind of a character in a Faulkner novel, and I wondered whether it was intentional. Everything my father did was done with great deliberation. That included his plans for my wastrel life, or so he regularly termed it.
“Worth, how are you, my boy?” Jervis asked as he came through the cherry-framed door, his hand extended. Why did I feel like the screw up sitting outside the principal’s office? I nodded and shook the hand, noticing the ring with the insignia. That, too, was deliberate. It was his class ring from Stanford University where he graduated years ago, with honors, as my father so regularly pointed out. He was now a successful psychologist with offices on the east side of Louisville in a building he’d personally designed. He was a man of essence; another expression my father was fond of using.
I listened as my father and Jervis swapped brags, each clearly only listening for a break in the other’s conversation until he could interject his own escapades. I watched the performance, for that’s truly what it was. It always was a carefully choreographed performance that allowed two men past their prime to feel as though they owned the world and were the only two who knew anything worth a damn.
I felt myself beginning to doze again. The lack of sleep, hangover, and tiresome performance lulling me away. “What do you say, son?” Jervis asked, looking at me.
“Sir?”
“I said, how about you comin’ on over to the office on Monday and givin’ us a look-see. Thought you might like to join me as a partner,” Jervis repeated. Behind him, my father’s head nodded his approval. Yet another set of lines from the performance.
I’d recently graduated with my own Ph.D. from Harvard. I could hardly believe the certificate Mother had so tastefully framed. I was a fully-fledged psychologist with a string of letters behind my name beginning with III and ending with various Ds. They weren’t so much an indication of how far I’d gone in school, as how far I’d stayed away from my father. As long as I pursued degrees, he stayed off my back and kept my wallet full. After everything was said and done, I had enough Ds to treat any fuckin’ head case who walked through my door.
I smiled and nodded, the combination of which multiplied the pounding still hammering my alcohol-soaked brain.
So it was agreed that I would stop in on Monday, which was enough to break up the pow-wow and let us pass through to dinner. This was strictly where Mother reigned and she was waiting, her long, pink nails impatiently tapping the side of her martini. I must have smiled at the appropriate times because there was a haze of smiles around me and eventually, Jervis left. I can just remember waving a casual goodbye with one hand as I ascended the cherry stairs and died in my room. My own room.