An excerpt from Chapter One of Rico Provasoli’s book, Please Don’t Tell My Guru.
Drowning men will see him.
~ Leonard Cohen
The fog horn a mile east of Portland Light blasted three times. A sodden thirty knot squall blew across Casco Bay; a four foot southwest swell crested spume, breaking on the rocks. Point Elizabeth, a swank township in southern Maine, had weathered plenty worse conditions, but owners of sailing yachts anchored there kept an eye on the developing storm. I slept fitfully with one ear listening to the wind whipping the stainless steel rigging on my boat. At 7:00 AM a marine band radio which doubled as an alarm clock squawked with a gale warning. I stirred, rolled over and re-set the snooze button.
I dozed a few minutes, my brain still foggy from a sleeping pill, then remembered my date with Deva, the attractive blond hired to paint my two hundred year old New England ship captain’s house. She’d planted some wild ideas in my troubled mind as I grappled with depression, insomnia, a peptic ulcer and the stress of living large. I’d promised her that I’d take a break from my life—two kids, wife, clinic, estate and crushing debt—and drive the pretty woman to her guru’s commune in Montana.
I tooled the Porsche through a heavy spring thunderstorm. Sheets of rain poured down as forks of blinding lightening whip cracked over miles of dark grey sky. As I turned onto the freeway I felt a sense of doom waiting for me at my clinic. I shrugged it off and made a detour to the Miss Portland diner where I’d agreed to pick up Deva for our road trip.
Deva was sitting at the counter, chatting with a muscular trucker flexing angry looking tattoos on his forearms, a Peterbilt cap pulled over his bloodshot brown eyes. He’d just handed a ten cup thermos to the waitress.
“Jes’ fill ‘er up, honey, with strong coffee for a strong hombre.”
I rolled my eyes as I sat next to Deva. She saw me in the mirror behind the waitress and squealed.
“Angelo Fratelli! I didn’t think you’d make it.”
“Well, seeing is believing.”
“Hey, why so gloomy?” Deva’s smile was as dazzling as ever.
“Hard days at the office. Insurance companies are squeezing my claims to a fraction of what they used to pay. I figured the good life would never end. And my wife left me. No biggie. Thanks for asking.” I wanted it to sound like a joke, but I braced to stop the tears. I’d cried enough.
“Are you ready to roll?” Deva winked, her curves seductive in orange jeans and a brilliant cashmere sweater she picked up in a thrift shop. She was dressed entirely in sunburst orange. Like Miss Sunkist herself, straight from the Florida groves. Even the bandana, tied to keep her hair out her jungle green eyes, was bright orange. Around her creamy, sensuous neck was a string of thick rosewood beads with a round photo dangling from the lowest point. The woman could have stopped traffic at a NASCAR race track.
Deva shouldered her burgundy canvas duffle bag, whispered a farewell to the trucker and started towards the exit.
“Let’s eat, Deva.” I couldn’t look her in the eye. “How about this booth over here?” I lugged her bag and settled in on one side of the table while I motioned her to the opposite side.
“I’m really not hungry. Steve, my trucker buddy, just bought me enough eggs and spuds to last me till Denver.”
“Well, how about a send off lunch to-go?”
“Angelo, what’s going on?”
I pulled a roll of hundreds out of my jacket and pressed it into Deva’s hand. “I can’t go, Deva. It’s not fair to Karen. But I want to buy you a plane ticket. And keep in touch. I want to know how you are getting along. Who knows, maybe I’ll join you, someday.” I looked out the window, keeping a watch on my Porsche.
“You’re missing out. There’s no easy way to cut loose, to break away. I thought you were ready. But I understand. Thanks for coming over. I could use the money, but keep it. Use it to buy flowers at your funeral.” She wiped a tear with the back of her hand, and stuck the roll of cash back in my jacket pocket.
“Look, I’m not your wild and crazy kind of guy. Sure, I’ve got problems, but the few weeks chatting with you over coffee has given me a fresh start, a spiritual shot in the arm. Please take the money—it’ll make good-bye easier for me.” I embraced Deva, tears streaming on our faces.
“Thanks, but I won’t be an enabler. Keep the money in an urn on your dresser so you can remember when you threw away a chance at rebirth. I gotta go.” Deva dragged her bag across the floor. She sat at the counter next to Steve, the trucker who’d been following our soap opera.
Deva ditched me, the weak-kneed thirty-two year old family man cresting a mid-life crisis, for a cross continental ride with Steve, who was nothing but smiles about a tumble in the back of his rig with a classy lady. As Steve carried Deva’s burgundy duffle across the parking lot to his truck, my chest and shoulders shook in emotional convulsions. I wept for the pain of losing Deva, the pain of my marriage, the pain of loving my kids but needing a few decibels less chaos. Deva waved, her smile a bit forced as she climbed up the stainless steel steps of the sixteen wheeler’s shiny turquoise cab.
I went to the men’s room to wash my face and pull myself together. My Neanderthal brow, searing blue eyes and wild beard had attracted women, but now I only saw an emotional slob, weeping like I was at my own funeral. I checked my Swiss watch; twenty minutes until my first patient would expect me to be the charming doctor. I blew my nose on a brown paper towel, ran my fingers through my curls and stood straight as I looked in the cracked mirror. I tossed the paper towel in the trash, scored two points and smiled weakly. The door opened and I stepped aside to let a burly man come into the small restroom.
“Morning, Doc.” The Soprano look-a-like seized my shoulder with a crushing vice grip. I shuddered.
“You know that Bibbie Padula is disappointed. Now he has to pay me to collect from you.”
“Mister…?”
“Just call me Arthur.”
“Arthur, this isn’t a good time. Tell Padula that I’m good for my debt, but my cash flow is down and the banks won’t give me any unsecured loans.”
“Let’s go for a little walk, Doc.” The guy, a giant dressed like a pimp on his way to a cocktail party, wasn’t negotiating. He dropped his grip from my armpit to a half nelson and walked me outdoors. I felt my rotator cuff strain as he pushed me against the garbage dumpster behind the diner. I started whimpering, tears and all.
“Arthur! You’re hurting me,” I wheezed. “Can’t we deal with this over at Bibbie’s?”
“Sorry, Doc. But I got my reputation to protect.” He clenched my wedding ring finger and bent it back on my forearm until it broke and then did the same to my thumb on the other hand. He whipped out a black silk handkerchief like a stage magician to muffle my screams. I had never known violent pain like this. My eyes wide with terror, I choked on the gag, shrieking louder than Andrea, my three year old daughter, could have in her worst temper. My shoulders collapsed and I wept. Arthur held me up, took the gag away and cornered me against the greasy dumpster.
“Doc, you gotta get ten grand to Bibbie in twenty-four hours and you owe him the grand he had to pay me to convince you to make good on your debt. You understand?”
I nodded wildly. Enough to give myself a whiplash.
“Good. I hope I don’t have to see you again under these circumstances. See ya.” He took three steps, turned, lowered his voice and said, “And Doc, even though I had to work you over, you still owe Bibbie the fifty grand.” He smiled threateningly then disappeared around the diner.
I took a few tentative breaths, gasping in the kind of agony the nuns said Jesus Christ had suffered to save sinners like me. I couldn’t believe the goon had just broken my fingers. I tried to make a fist with my two hands, and then doubled over in more pain.
I staggered like a sand crab towards my Porsche. Steve’s turquoise rig was still idling as Arthur wiped the sleeves of his linen jacket for any possible grease stains and opened the door to his Caddy convertible. Deva and her trucker were laughing in the truck cab. He’d put his arm around her.
Steve looked ecstatic with that about-to-get-laid grin every guy knows. His lust need not be disguised. It was his rig. Any woman riding with him could well expect his loving every time they pulled into a gas station or a rest area. Grease the wheels, baby. America depends on truckers.
I am definitely not a spontaneous kind of guy, but I couldn’t take any more. A hired strong arm had just busted up my hands, which now put me out of business. My wife had left me with the kids to her family’s beach house a thousand miles south, my nerves were shattered, my fortune was slipping away and the woman I cared about was leaving town with a letch.
I ran in front of the trailer truck as it pulled away from the diner, waving my hands in the air like a witch doctor exorcising devils. I thought Steve was going to drive over me, pretend he bumped a curb, and have his way with Deva about a hundred feet down the road. He blew his air horn three long blasts before he punched the brakes, jackknifing the rig into a screeching halt. The trucker swore with a vocabulary I’d never heard, his face a beet red like you see on guys dying of a coronary on the squash court. My heart was pounding like I had run three miles from a mugger, but I couldn’t let this creep take Deva for a ride. I’ve never done anything heroic, but fear and adrenaline drove me on.
I climbed up to the cab, opened the passenger door, and yelled like a bloodthirsty barbarian, “Motherfucker! Let her go!” He froze as I dragged Deva and her burgundy duffle bag to my Porsche. I threw her bag in the trunk, pushed her into the car and jumped the ignition. My broken fingers slowed me down, but I was crazed, ignoring the pain.
“Where to?” I asked, my heart in my throat. My eyes were red and puffy, my two hands mangled by a gorilla. I tried to smile.
“West! Go west young man.” Deva cried and laughed and cried as I pulled onto the freeway.
Featured image by redcharlie on unsplash.com
Please Don’t Tell My Guru
by Rico Provasoli
Independently published (November 2009)
314 pages
ISBN-10 : 1449591760
ISBN-13 : 978-1449591762
Amazon
Please Don’t Tell My Guru – reviewed
Comments are closed.