Chapter 46 – Divine Intervention

After the incident with my Healey in the rain and lightning, I slowed my drinking down. It didn’t last. My mom was living in the guest room, which she did six months out of the year—the other six months she spent at Susan’s house in Nichols Canyon. She had a dream one night—more of a vision really. She said she saw a mound of sand on the front lawn ten, maybe twelve feet high. The police had come to see about the enormous mound, they must have thought it was against some ordinance or I was planning to build without a permit. She told the police I was downstairs in the room under the house. There was no room under the house, only an old storm cellar, the kind they had in The Wizard of Oz where Dorothy tried to enter before the twister hit. I tried to explain to my mom that it was only a dream. She seemed to accept it until she asked, “What did you do with all that sand?”

Her mental state was getting me down. Her physical state was even worse—she was taking more pills than a pharmacy and had to buy a shoebox sized pill container to keep them organized. I began to drink heavily. There were times I would go to the liquor store, by a bottle of scotch, open it in the car, and keep it wedged between my knees. I couldn’t wait to get home. I saw the signs—I’d been here before. I was even hiding booze in the bushes and behind amplifiers, in places I knew nobody would ever look. I knew it meant trouble was just around the corner. It was like a scene out of The Lost Weekend with Ray Milland.

Donna, was pregnant with our third son (I didn’t know it was a boy at the time), when the obstetrician told us the baby had a high risk of being born with Down syndrome. I freaked out and said a prayer. “Please God— I’ll do anything in the world if you see to it that the baby is a normal, healthy child (I don’t know how I expected any child of mine to be normal, but I figured God knew what I meant).” Suddenly a voice like thunder on steroids echoed in my head. “STOP THE DRINKING NOW!” It was earth shattering. I knew I could have blown it off like a dream or an audio hallucination, but I didn’t.

I said, “Okay God, here’s the deal. I will quit the booze right now and I promise NEVER to touch another drop— but if he is born with any defects, any at all, I’m going right back and pick up my drinking where I left off.” I didn’t hear anything so I took the silence as a yes. That was December 8, 1998—eighteen years after John Lennon’s brutally murder at the Dakota. I liked the symbolism.

 I took every drop of alcohol I had in the house and poured it down the sink. I remember when my mom walked into the kitchen she asked, “Jimmy, are you drinking at this time in the morning?” I said, “No Mom, I’m never going to drink again if God makes good on his word.”  She was a little confused, but that was the norm.

When Donna came home from work I told her what happened. How I heard THE VOICE and all. I don’t know if she believed me but if it meant that my drinking days were over, it didn’t matter. Maybe part of the reason I made the deal was to show Donna that I had gumption, fortitude—that I could make a decision and stick to it. Knowing it was in the hands of a higher power, a power greater than I was, I had to comply. If I reneged on the deal, being the superstitious person I am, not only would I be breaking a solemn vow, but also something bad would happen to my child. It was beyond my own selfish ego. I didn’t really care what would happen to me as much as I cared for the life a loved one. It had to be that way for me to stop drinking and I knew it.

December to May passed quicker that I thought it would. Donna’s pregnancy seemed easier than the other two and I could be more help because of my sobriety. I got a gig playing steel guitar with Joey Fulco on bass, (the guy who I had margaritas with before I rammed my Healey), some twenty-something drummer and keyboardist backing up two teenage sisters, Ashley and Alexia. Joey and I, the elder statesmen of the group felt protective of the two girls, who were both very pretty in a dark exotic way—good singers too. Our first gig was in Lula, Mississippi and we played in a huge resort where one room was dedicated to country and the other blues. Unfortunately, our band was in the country room. Joey and I drove down and found the crossroads, gambled in the casino, but my favorite part was when we pulled over to the side of the road and picked cotton. Joey left the band and moved to Vegas with his wife and two kids but I stayed on for a few gigs. Their father was the manager, tour bus driver and bodyguard. He didn’t let any guys get within ten feet of his daughters.

On the way back from Columbia, South Carolina I found a yard sale and bought a stroller for the new baby to be and a strange electronic accordion for me. We were driving through East Tennessee when the girls wanted to stop by the Ocoee River, do a little rock climbing, and sun bathing. I was anxious to get home, so to pass the time I brought out my three-wood (I had taken my golf clubs with me and would play 18 holes in the morning and return to the motel before the rest of the band got up). I teed up a few balls and hit them into the river. Their father/bodyguard/manager got pissed off at me thinking I was trying to hit shots into his beloved daughters. I told him, “If I wanted to hit them they would be hit, but since I hadn’t gotten with fifty yards of them, I would say they are safe,” cocky bastard that I was. I knew I had to leave the band anyway since they were planning an extended tour and I had a pregnant wife at home who needed me. I would rather think they fired me for playing golf—looks better on the resume.

Now back in Nashville I had to find a replacement for my drinking. I became totally dedicated to GOLF.  In the early spring of ’99 I got a job as a greenskeeper at Nashville Golf and Athletic, a local golf course owned and operated by the cantankerous Mr. Charles Whittemore. It only paid seven dollars and fifty cents an hour but it allowed me to play golf for free on Mondays. An old Southern demagogue, Whittemore was a tyrant that ran the place with an iron fist and everybody at the course was in total fear of the man—everyone except me, that is.  I think he respected me for standing up to him. Now April, Donna was eight months pregnant and I knew I should quit the job and get something that paid a little better, but obsessed by Mr. Whittemore’s character, I was compelled to tough it out. He reminded me of the cruel, sadistic warden in the movie, In the Heat of the Night, the way he would stand over his crew in the hundred-degree heat rationing out water by the hour in tiny paper cups while he sat in the shade drinking lemonade. One good thing, he would come to the course after church dressed in his Sunday best and if he saw a weed on his precious green, he would get down on his hands and knees and pick it out. The guy did love his golf course—I could appreciate that.

I got an idea to write a screenplay. I would base it loosely on Damn Yankees, but in a golf setting. I had to stay on the job so I could really get a feel for his character—the Devil. That story eventually became Mulligan’s Tour. I will tell that story in a later chapter. It’s a good one, I promise.

I was getting really good at golf and had designs on trying out for the Seniors Tour (now called The Champion’s Tour) in four years time. I even bought a professional Jacobsen greens mower and planted a bentgrass putting green in my backyard. It was a nightmare because I could never leave to go on vacation afraid that if I didn’t water the damned thing it would burn up. I later switched it over to a Bermuda hybrid. I was dead serious about it.

On Monday, May 10, I was playing a round of golf—the only day of the week workers could play since the course officially closed for maintenance and whatnot. When I got to the seventh hole I got a call from Donna. She was breathing heavily and I knew something was wrong…or it was time. It was. Her water had broken and she was calling to tell me to come home and drive her to the hospital. She asked, “What hole are you on?” I said, “Seven.” She said, “Why don’t you finish nine and then come home.” That’s what I did.

I played the fastest two holes ever in my life and then rushed home. We got to the hospital around three p.m and I think we were in the same room where Daniel was born. There were no baseball playoffs or golf tournaments so she had my full attention. In the wee hours of May 11, 1999, a beautiful baby boy we called Morgan David was born. It’s strange how all three of my boys were born at two-thirty—Jonathan and Daniel in the afternoon and Morgan in the early morning hours. He was healthy and free from any defects that the doctor could determine and I was so ecstatic I felt like buying a saxophone and playing the theme song to My Three Sons. I knew my drinking days were over for good. I never went to AA, never had to. I was lucky—I had divine intervention. The deal was sealed and I would never welsh on GOD. Sixteen years later, I still haven’t touched a drop. Amen!