Tom Flanders
Another night, or maybe it's morning by now, parked on Folsom a couple blocks from the bay. It's cold tonight. The wind rushes through old Chevy's unfit seams. Not much traffic on the street. Some out on the bay. I love seeing the lights on the freighters, strung the length of the ship along either side. They only light them when pulling in or out of port at night. I wonder how many people have never seen these lights.
If you look closely you can see the sailors walking the deck checking to see that the load hasn't shifted from shoving off. Soon they'll go inside and shut off the lights, only venturing out once a day or so to recheck the load. They'll spend their days playing cards and dreaming of a person somewhere who they might have married if things had been different. That's what I would do I were they. I nearly went to sea once but chose the someone instead.
I look around. No one is in sight. The cops never bother me here. I'm not sure if they don't notice me or just don't care. Maybe they know I'm harmless. I reach behind me and pull a beer from the fresh six-pack. It takes several attempts before my frozen fingers manage to pry open the pop-top. The first taste is bitter and unfriendly. The second is no better.
I remember my first beer. It was in a bar called The Red Barn. I got the most expensive beer because I believed the ads that told me it was the favorite of cool and confident men and more importantly women. It was nasty. The next round I got the cheapest beer they had. If I was going to have to drink this foul stuff I was going to pay as little as possible. I didn't know that not drinking beer was an option. I still don't really know it.
I hold my breath and swallow the rest of the beer in a series of quick, painful gulps. After the moment of nausea passes, the warmness begins. The second can tastes much better. I think my body is starting to remember it's old friend.
I consider a third can. My buzz is incomplete. I know my limits though. A third beer and I will not be able to drive. I consider going home to finish my drinking. My wife wouldn't approve. Even now, long after she's gone, I feel her watching me. The memory of that disappointed stare.
At home my drug of choice is video games. Car racing mostly. I like to pretend that if I had the breaks when I was young I could have been a car racer. I know all about apexes and throttle steer and caster and camber and all the things you're supposed to know about making a car go fast. What I don't know is how to be faster than all the racers around me who know all the same stuff. In the games I'm always the fastest qualifier but never win the races. The other cars bother me. They seem so invincible. They have no fear. I know all the theory. I have the skills. But I fall short in execution. Yet I keep playing the games. Hour after hour waiting for the secrets to reveal themselves. Months of deep meditation in search of some kind of driving enlightenment.
I give in and have the third beer. I'll just sit here for a few hours till I sober up. By the time the sun comes up I should be ok to drive. The third beer has no taste but causes a pleasant burning sensation as it flows down my throat. It feels thick like maple syrup.
My wife hated my drinking. Her father was a nasty drunk. He did really bad things when he was drunk. I told her that I wasn't a drunk like him. At the time I honestly didn't know that I was lying to her. I can control my drinking as long as I'm not alone. It's when I'm alone, so alone that I can't look myself in the mirror. The drinking takes over, building greater the walls that keep the people away. The mark of Cain. They see that I'm unclean. They know I'm guilty. They see that I have sinned.
The fourth beer is buzz maintenance. I drink it slowly not wanting to get either drunker or more sober. Setting course on an even keel. The cold air seems disconnected now. I can feel it there around me but it doesn't affect me. It's OK, I don't think I affect it either.
I never promised my wife that I wouldn't drink. That I knew would be a lie. I promised her I would be honest about my drinking. I was. So many drunks promise their people that they won't drink. It's a way of not taking blame. You can apologize and be forgiven. It's much harder, if at all possible, to forgive yourself.
Before my wife died I thought about this time a lot. The time when I would be without her. It bothered her I think, me thinking about life without her. I invented dozens of scenarios, each one with me severing my old life completely and starting over fresh. When it happened for real I couldn't let go. Rather than severing I clung to every memory like a barnacle on the ships I watch. Her clothes are still in the closet. I still sleep on my side of the bed.
I was so afraid of loosing her that I began to mourn her while she was still with me. There isn't much I regret in life, even the bad stuff I've done. This was wrong. A precious object that I tried to preserve withered and died in its secret place. Instead of celebrating every moment we shared I hid like a coward behind a wall of excuses. The fear of the pain of the loss poisoned me.
Now I sit for hours on this street confessing my sins to the night till the sun comes up. This morning it is a beautiful sunrise. Not enough fog to block out the sun but enough to reflect the growing light across the sky. A rainbow spreads up and out of the horizon. The sun peaks out and swallows the rainbow in dancing red and yellow prisms across the sky. Then the heat of the sun dries the air. The colors fade as the sky brightens. For a moment I wish my wife were here to see this but before I can complete the thought... I don't know. I thought for a moment that I could let it all go. Like she was telling me it was all OK. But she isn't. This isn't her trip. It's mine. I'm the one who failed to celebrate her. I mourned her when she was here. I should celebrate her now even though she is gone. The words are easy to say, but not so easy to believe. I've said these words to myself many times in the last five years. The feeling never lasts.
It's been four hours since my last beer. I look at the last two sitting on the back seat but they hold no attraction for me. I leave them on Fremont Street at the feet of a sleeping panhandler. His cardboard sign reads, "Why lie! I need a beer!" I can almost hear my wife laughing as I invent for her the myth of the beer fairy. Then the laughing stops.