Interventions by Robert L. Penick

The intervention began as soon as he got home from work on Friday. They were waiting for him in the living room: Lois, his wife; Stinky and Blinky, his two teenage stepkids; and Nana, the grandmother. Nana had a nervous condition that prevented her from working but was not quite severe enough to receive disability payments. She had lived with them for the eleven years of their marriage. She, of course, was the one who opened the show:

“You’re a drunk, Norman, and not a good one. You go to work, then come home and dive into your liquor cabinet. It’d be different if you were a country singer like Hank Williams. At least then you’d be entertaining.”

Her statement was categorically false. Forty-year-old Norman Stompweather loved to work the New York Times Sunday crossword while sitting on the patio and nursing a Fleischman’s gin and tonic. Sure, there was more expensive liquor out there, but Fleischman’s was smooth. Money was needed for the kids’ orthodontist bills. After their adult teeth began growing in, each began to resemble wart hogs. Norman took on side work each tax season to cover the braces, retainers, fillings, drillings, and other dental ephemera. Thanks to his labors, the two could now be exhibited in public, where they would sneer, scowl, and be embarrassed by him. In short, he was an excellent, productive drunk and the best accountant in the state of Ohio.

We’ve digressed. Back to the intervention.

“It’s ridiculous,” Lois put in. “You’ve got no time for family activities. You’re either at work or online at some history website, or doodling on a napkin, or passed out in your recliner.”

Stinky and Blinky simultaneously began mumbling, and Norman could sense that theirs were not words of support. 

“That’s patently untrue,” Norman countered. “What about our trip to Six Flags Over Whatever? What about that epic Grand Canyon vacation?”

“Six Flags was five years ago, at least. And on the Grand Canyon trip, you stayed in the room and ordered Old Fashioneds four at a time from room service.” 

“They were heavenly,” Norman’s eyes fluttered. “There was something about the mixture. Was it blended or stirred? The smoky bitters balanced with the rich vanilla of the bourbon. Your average bartender doesn’t understand the basic science behind…”

“You’re doing it again,” Lois told him. “Talking about hooch like it’s a cure for cancer.” 

“It’s not a cure for cancer. It is, however, a cure for everything else.”

“This has gone on long enough. You’re turning into a sot. No, you are a sot.”

“And undignified.” Nana sniffed, then wiped her nose on her sleeve.

“Okay. I’ll finish off the Pappy Van Winkel bourbon tonight, then I’ll go on the wagon for awhile. Walk around the block a few times. Get back into shape. I played T-ball in elementary school. There’s definite athletic potential here.”

Nana smiled broadly, showing dentata that could use help of its own and said, “We poured out the Pappy Van Winkel. And the Jameson. And the other Irish stuff…”

When he awoke, he found himself in bed with a damp washcloth on his forehead. He took stock of reality, counted tiles in the ceiling, and listened to the television bleating from the living room. This was daunting, his ability to unplug from the stress and the racket stripped away with no warning, his security blanket yanked from his pudgy fingers. What if he wound up on the sofa night after night, plugged in, watching Judge Judy berate illiterates, then celebrities he had never heard of dancing to music that insulted his aesthetics. Then again, how bad could it be? His wife already dressed him in polyester slacks and nine-dollar polo shirts from Walmart. His mother-in-law berated him at every turn. The two kids, he sensed, would be openly hostile if only they could make themselves understood through their dental appliances. As it were, their mumblings seemed overtly aggressive. How bad could it be? To endure that run of ickiness without Bacchus holding an umbrella above his head? Well, he would find out, wouldn’t he?

He could do it, he was certain. Clear the cobwebs and survey the terrain. Sometime in the past decade, his vision had become opaque. His waistline had grown eight inches, and he now sported jowls like Porky Pig, C.P.A. The image presented in the bathroom mirror wasn’t flattering; turning sideways made it worse. There were gyms all over town. After comparison shopping, he’d found Body Double and began treadmilling himself to better health. To weigh less than two hundred pounds was a distant but distinct target.

Fast forward six weeks, and Norman had lost eighteen pounds. He used suspenders to hold up his trousers since Lois decided they would hold off on new clothes until he plateaued out. “No sense in buying clothes every couple of months,” was her reasoning. The regime increased: First, the treadmill, then the exercise bike, then the elliptical machine. Non-drinking Norman carried a nervous energy that drinking Norman never knew existed. Starting with twenty minutes of walking, he quickly moved to an hour, then two, then jogging. One day, a fit man around his age befriended him. 

“I’m Marty, and you look great,” the man told him. “When you first walked in here, you looked like a bean bag chair with a head. Excellent progress you’ve made.”

Marty had transformed himself after his wife left him for a woman in her Hatha yoga class. The story he related was exactly what Norman wanted for himself: Hope, progress, and transformation. Immediately, they became friends, surveying the low-calorie options at Panera Bread and playing six sets of tennis each weekend. More than anything else on Earth, Norman came to love the gym, Marty, and the inspirational music playing through his earbuds while he cranked away on the exercise bike. Coming home was cause for despair, to find his acquired family arrayed on the living room furniture like slugs, watching a television cranked up to twelve while shoving anything resembling food into their faces. Norman would shower and then read Fitness magazine before retiring. 

In November, tragedy struck. Morty got on an airplane, flew to Hawaii, and never came back. A year out from being a super fat-fatty, the Mortster was now an assistant director and tennis pro of a retirement community. Bereft, Norman placed a Craigslist as for a doubles partner and upped his hours at Body Double. Joining a speed-hiking club on Meetup, his schedule filled out.

Once his waistline had receded to thirty-two inches, he visited several consignment stores for a new wardrobe. The used clothing made him look like a social worker from roughly twenty years past: Pale blue oxford cloth shirts, khaki slacks, a couple of checked sport coats. 

“Whoever owned these clothes before is now either dead or fat,” Nana told him at the dinner table. 

“Or both,” either Stinky or Blinky (there was no real need to differentiate them) added.

“Who wants to go to Hawaii?” Norman blurted out.

“Serious?” Lois, mouth agape and showing a good portion of half-chewed pork chop, froze.

“Seriously,” he gently corrected her. “Maybe there’ll be a plane crash. Ha, that’s a joke. I can check with a travel agency for airfare. Marty might be able to advise on a hotel we can afford.”

It hurt him emotionally to make this offer, but he needed a break, and there was no chance they’d let him go on vacation alone. Celebratory shrieking commenced, and they all hugged one another (but not him). Stink and Blink reenacted the “Gabba Gabba” scene from the movie Freaks. Quietly, he picked up his plate and moved to the living room. Sitting on the sofa, his dinner before him on the coffee table, he questioned his common sense. He couldn’t escape if he took them, and if he stayed in Akron without a respite all winter, he was certain he’d go full O.J. Simpson on someone. A disagreement broke out in the dining room. Nana screeched unintelligibly, and the boys streaked through the room and out the front door, leaving it open. The November wind snaked around the room, ruffling the drapes. Norman thought of the Pacific Ocean, and the vision kept him warm.  

Fifteen hours from Cleveland Hopkins International Airport to Honolulu International, with a stop at LAX, wedged into the center seat between Blinky, who smeared noseprints all over the window, and Lois, who spilled over and appropriated a third of his seat—what Hitler would call his lebensraum. In the row behind them, Nana snored as Stinky used the back of Norman’s seat as a kick drum. Finally, they were deposited in Hawaii and directed to the rental car center. Whatever lassitude had overtaken his brood over the Pacific dissipated the moment they squeezed into the Prius. The car had the acoustics of an oil drum, and the noise his family generated filled his head with botfly larvae. Once they reached the hotel and their adjoining rooms, Norman made a call and proceeded to his rendezvous. 

Morty was waiting at McDonald’s, Diet Coke in hand.

“I was a fiend for their Frappuccinos,” he said. “Back when I was a super fat-fatty. Think of the irony here. We travel 4,600 miles, and we’re meeting at a chain restaurant.” 

“I may kill them all,” Norman told him. “Plan A is a gas leak. Send them into orbit while I’m at work. Plan B involves tainted pork.”

“Have you considered divorce? A trial separation? From what you’ve told me, you’ve been miserable since you got sober. You don’t want to go back to that, right?”

“I want to get away. To dissolve into the fog. Ship myself somewhere that isn’t a Three Stooges marathon.”

They took a long jog down the beach, Norman in his Bermuda shorts and New Balance trainers. It felt good, the sunshine’s warmth on his skin in late January. Cooling down with some light stretches afterward, Morty suddenly tagged Norman on the arm. 

“Just enjoy the week. The sun, the clean air, the blue skies. This place has a way of creating possibilities.”

Norman took this to heart. He hit the beach with Stink and Blink and nearly witnessed their dual drowning as they fought over a surfboard in three feet of water; endured Nana get horribly drunk at a luau and grope a Don Ho imitator; and got an hour’s rest on the lower level of a double-decker tour bus while the rest of his crew stomped back and forth upstairs. The third afternoon, he slipped off to the Honolulu Museum of Art and spent time in Goya’s Disasters of War exhibit. It was so perfectly quiet in the hall. Finding a bench, he sat down and nearly wept. Silence. If he sat still enough, he might cease to exist.

Hour Eighty-Three: The Camel’s Final Straw

They were at the Wok-Kiki Lunch Buffet on Ala Moana Boulevard. It had two-dollar signs in the restaurant guide instead of the usual three, and Norman needed to conserve some cash if they were going to make it to the end of the week. Lois had spent $200 on matching boogie boards that would do the boys absolutely no good back in Akron. Nana had deposited most of her vacation allowance into the g string of a luau dancer. Norman was, he realized, a walking ATM with, they thought, bottomless reserves. Added to that, they would not cease their endless stream of babble. Talk about the weather, talk about the history of the island, talk about anything besides celebrity news and gossip. Who was Kris Jenner, anyway? What had she done?

“Lois, the boys are getting a little rambunctious there. Could you get them back to the table?”

On the deserted karaoke stage, Stinky and Blinky gripped one another in headlocks and knocked over the microphone stand. Diners stopped eating to gawk at the performance. 

“Lighten up, Norman. They’re just having fun. You can be such a bore sometimes.”

“I don’t know why we put up with him,” Nana complained. “He was more fun when he was drinking.” 

Just then, a teenage boy with ten thousand dollars of dental work was launched off the stage and onto a table where a group of red-hatted senior citizens were eating lunch. He rolled off onto the carpet, barnacled with egg foo yung and chicken wings. Norman pushed his chair back.

“You guys wait here.”

Getting up, he strode through the restaurant, past the horrified diners, grabbing an egg roll off the buffet as he went. Outside, he got into the rental car and drove straight to the airport. On the way, he finished his dinner and threw his ringing phone out the window.

Seventy-two hours is a lot of time for someone with discipline, drive, and direction. Once back in Akron, he selected the wardrobe he was able to wear and packed it in FedEx boxes. The rest went into bags and got dropped off at a thrift store. He made a number of strategic emails and electronically transferred half of his meager savings into a new bank account. Loading everything he planned to keep into two suitcases and a carry-on bag, he left his ugly tri-level for the last time. His final stop was a buy-here, pay-here car lot, where he sold his Pontiac Aztek for four hundred dollars cash. The salesman gave him a lift to the airport, where a ticket awaited him. Marty had secured him a position as a bookkeeper for his retirement community. Norman’s jet would pass his family’s plane as they returned from Oahu. 

Hawaii was the last place they would think to look.