Can't Remember Dick part five

By Galaxy 1001D

"This is the place," Dick said as he and Sally drove their 1962 red rambler up to the large flat building. "This is where Mary is having her Alcoholics Anonymous meeting. Keep a lookout lieutenant."

"Okay, after I park the car, where do I go?" Sally asked.

"You can use that bar across the street," Dick pointed to the business in question.

"Right."

Dick entered the building and found a room with a lot of folding chairs pointing towards a podium, he scanned the crowed until he found who he was looking for. "Mary!" he waved as he sat next to her. "Fancy meeting you here!"

"Oh my God, are you following me?" gasped a horrified Mary.

"Yes," Dick smiled and nodded.

In the meantime, Sally entered the saloon and was assaulted by cigarette smoke, pop music that was over thirty years old, and smell of beer. She ignored the tables and booths and went up to the bar and looked for a seat, but all the barstools were full. Finding a stool on the corner where she could look out the window, she bent over picked the stool up, and flung the man sitting in it to the floor behind her. She then set the barstool down and took her seat.

"Hey there, can I get you a drink?" a man sitting next to her left asked.

"Sure," she shrugged.

The man ordered her a beer and paid for it. "So, what's your name?" he asked in a conversational tone.

"None of your business," Sally gave him a strange look. "Why are you still talking to me?"

The man frowned and left while muttering something that rhymed with 'rich'.

The man sitting to her right decided to try his luck. "That's tellin' him. I like a gal who takes charge."

"Why thank you," she smiled.

"You really are a beautiful woman and you know it."

"Oh yeah!" she snapped her fingers. "That's right! I forgot all about that! I'm a beautiful woman! He was hitting on me! No wonder he bought me a drink!" She laughed at her foolishness. "I am so out of it."

The man on her right didn't know if she was messing with him or not. "Uh, yeah, you sure are."

"I'm sorry," Sally laughed. "It's been a while since I've done this. I forgot, I'm the woman. It's all coming back now. Wow, has it been that long?"

"Um…"

She froze and sat up straight on the stool as her eyes widened as if sensing danger. "Don," she gasped.

"Sally," a voice growled behind her. Claiming the stool to her left was a short overweight potato shaped man wearing a raincoat, fedora and eyeglasses. His tie was askew, his general appearance appeared sloppy and rumpled, and yet he seemed to have a commanding presence that was hard to define. "Of all the gin joints and all of pool halls that an undercover police detective could stake out, you had to come into mine! I see you're back in town Doll-face, and still as heartbreakingly gorgeous as when I last saw you. It must be a combination of the booze and the nostalgia talkin' Angel, 'cause I swear you look just as beautiful as the day we met!"

"I can explain!" Sally gasped. "We asked for our new bodies to look just like that old ones! This one is brand new!"

"Save it Sister, when you and your family dropped off the Earth I thought something had happened to you. Nobody knew where you were. I didn't buy that story Denis Rodman pedaled about you all winning a contest for a second. I knew there had to be more, but now I'm not so sure. What happened Sweetheart, you run out of money?"

Sally affected a dramatic, one might say melodramatic pose and was suddenly talking in the same film noir machinegun patter Don was. "I got myself in trouble, Donnie-boy I had to leave."

"You could have come to me," he growled. "I know things didn't work out between us, but you know I would do anything for you. Come clean, what happened to you? I can take it. That harmless teddy bear you knew as Don Orville is gone Sweetheart. You may have broke my heart but you made me a man. You made me tough. You made me so tough that I made detective within a year of your leaving. So go ahead, tell me Angel. I've seen everything this lousy town has to throw at me, ain't nothing you got that I haven't seen before."

"I got myself in trouble Donnie, with someone I shouldn't have," she lied as she remembered the cover story to explain Tommy's youth. "I was drunk and I made a mistake. I'm too ashamed to go into the specifics but after all we've been through you deserve to know you're with a shamed woman." She looked away and placed her hand over her eyes while striking a dramatic pose before she peeked back at him and spoke normally. "Hey, are you paying attention?"

"Don't look now Sally, but those guys are up to no good," Don warned her. "Act casual. Do you see those two guys in raincoats who just came in the door? They match the descriptions of the guys who've been robbing places in this neighborhood. I mean, who wears raincoats when it hasn't been raining in weeks?"

"You're wearing a raincoat."

"I'm wearing a raincoat because I'm concealing a gun," he whispered as he opened his raincoat to reveal his pistol and shoulder holster. "If those are our guys, then they are too. Look how nervous that one guy is. Now look how they're separating and scanning the room. They're planning to hit this place."

Sally looked at them with a professional eye. "Head to the restroom, Don. That way, you can get behind that one. I'll handle the one by the entrance. It will be a classic pincer movement."

Don laughed. "That's my Sally, still the deadliest thing in the room!" he brushed his knuckles against her chin playfully before getting up and moving to the back of the saloon. Sally grinned and headed to the entrance.

The man in the back pulled a sawed off shotgun out of his raincoat. "Hands up!" he shouted. "This is a robbery!"

As the second robber near the entrance pulled out a shotgun, Sally pulled her shirt up to expose her bra. "Hey, look at my boobs!"

"Huh?" stammered the distracted gunman.

Sally pulled the shotgun out of his hand and hit him with the buttstock.

Don came up behind the robber and slammed his head against a table while jabbing his pistol against the side of the robber's head. "Police! Don't move, or you'll be chasin' your head down fifth street!"

Meanwhile across the street at the Alcoholics Anonymous meeting, Mary was standing before a group of people sitting in folding chairs. "Hello, my name's Mary and I'm an alcoholic," she greeted.

"Hello Mary," the group chorused. Dick pouted as he sat next to Mary's empty seat.

"Let's face it," Mary shrugged. "I'm an addict. It started to relieve the pain of growing up with my family, went to something to relax me to ease the strain of a career, and ended up being something to ease the pain of being over sixty and alone. It almost killed me."

The sad and worried expression on Dick's face was melodramatic.

"Just two weeks ago I was in the hospital with cirrhosis of the liver," Mary continued. "I was a dead dodo. There was nothing they could do for me. But then, somehow, a miracle happened.

Dick perked up, sitting up straight with a huge smile on his face.

"I don't know if it was God, or aliens, or a bunch of mad scientists with medical degrees working at the hospital, but somehow I got my life back. The doctors say I'm healthier than I've been in years. I look like I'm twenty years younger and feel forty years younger. I was given a second chance."

Dick nodded enthusiastically as he leaned forward in his seat.

"And that's what this group is," Mary continued. "A second chance. A second chance at life. What happened to me is a sign from above that no matter what I've done or how old I am it's never too late to start over. And that goes for all of you listening too. This group is your second chance. Just like me, you have a second chance. Whatever you do, don't waste it."

"Yes!" Dick cheered. "It's my second chance! I won't waste it!"

"Oh my God," Mary scowled. "What are you doing here?"

"Getting my second chance," Dick smiled. "I'm not wasting it!"

"That was very inspiring Mary," a slender woman clapped as she stood up and approached her, "and I see you've already inspired another new member to stand up and greet us. You sir," she gestured him to come forward. "Come up here and meet the group."

Mary frowned shook her head.

"Me?" Dick grinned. "Why I'd love to!"

Mary rolled her eyes and shook her head as she went back to her seat.

"So," the slender woman asked him as he came up to the podium. "Do you have anything to confess?"

"No!" Dick glanced around guiltily, his face turning red. "Nothing! I have nothing to confess!"

"Nothing?" the woman shook her head and smiled. "Nothing at all? Don't you want to talk about your addiction and how it's hurt you and the ones you love?"

"The ones I love," Dick repeated quietly. "Yes, I have hurt the one I love," he admitted. He stood behind the podium and looked at the floor, the mournful expression on his face was too sad for a funeral. "Yes, you're right. I believe I do have something to confess."

He took a deep breath and faced the group. "My name is Dick and I do have something to confess. I hurt someone. I abandoned her. After everything we've gone through I left her all alone with not even the memory of our love to comfort her. The reason she almost destroyed herself was because of me. I had to go. I… got into legal trouble and it took over thirteen years to work it all out."

He looked longingly at Mary. "When I got back the one I love had nearly destroyed herself. I managed to make it right but if it wasn't for me she wouldn't have been in that mess in the first place. I may have saved her life but it was because of me that it was so painful. Now she doesn't even remember all the good times we had together because I took them away from her."

Tears trickled out of Mary's eyes as she sniffed and wiped her face.

"Now I'm back and I just want to start over," Dick continued in a quiet voice. "I love that woman more than anyone else on the planet. She's the reason I worked so hard so I could come back. And even… if she doesn't want to let me back into her life again I can be happy that I managed to ensure that she could go on living in the first place. If she doesn't forgive me, I know that whoever she finds she will make very happy. The time I spent with her was the happiest days I can remember."

Mary blew her nose, making a loud honking noise.

Dick's voice was no so quiet that was almost a whisper. "So remember everyone, don't make the same mistakes that I did. When you have someone special, don't let your addictions and petty jealousies break you apart. Hold onto each other and support each other, and never take those memories away. Thank you." Bowing solemnly, he made his way into the group and sat next to Mary.

"Th-that was beautiful," Mary stammered as she wiped her eyes.

"It was all true," Dick smiled sadly.

"D-did you r-really s-save my life?"

"Yes," he nodded sympathetically. "No!" he roared suddenly, causing Mary and the others in the group to jump in their seats. "Save your life with advanced alien technology? That would be impossible!" His eyes darted left and right as he laughed nervously.