Stationary Wheels

I couldn’t believe he had actually hit me. Sure, he had been threatening it for hours as the empty bottles piled up…and I frankly deserved it, but still. I was insisting that I didn’t “buy” the whole “we’re made from carbon” thing. And I was saying this to an honest to god scientist: a biologist by trade who held a masters degree. I told this learned man that I rejected one of the most fundamental facts of being. So he smacked me. (I think he meant to actually punch me but the booze hadn’t let a fist form.) Maybe it was to force some sense into my melon, maybe it was just to shut me up. Here’s what I do know: I was 23. I was drunk (too). I was getting drunker. A friend I had known for years just hit me. We were directed to the nearest exit. I recall - to at least I think I recall - asking why we both had to leave when I was on the receiving end. The answer didn’t make sense right away: he was my ride.

We came together. Right? I drove? Maybe? I did! But only because he scooted over to the passenger seat when I walked up to the car. Well shit. I guess I was his ride. Good thing I was the more sober of us.

Soberer.

Soberish.

Word choice doesn’t really matter. Semantics be damned he slid into the driver’s seat of this Dodge. The make of the car was possibly the most ironic thing to happen since a carbon based life form insisted that life forms were not made of carbon. It had done a very poor job of dodging anything. Beat to hell but only a couple of years old, the car almost screamed LOOK AT ME! to every townie cop within a three mile radius.

“We need weed.” His declaration was the first full sentence he directed at me since the toned down MMA fight at the bar. Unfortunately at this time and place weed was a luxury. Pills were abundant (and almost overflowing from my pockets) but weed was tricky. Maybe it was glut of middle and high schools in the area, I can’t say. But finding good quality, easy pulling, seed free weed was a science. A lot of theory testing went into it. In our circles hypothesis was as apt to he heard as stifled coughing fits. Thankfully I happened to be riding with a scientist. He had already run all the tests, tested the conditions. He always found the best. We know it to be true but I would be doing a disservice to the scientific community were I to not peer review the results. Obviously. And peer review I did.

I pushed him over to the passenger side and lit up the ignition as he lit up the cigarette shaped hitter he produced from god knows where. He made no offer to share so, yeah, we’d still need weed. This is where things get a bit…hazy.

I shifted the car into reverse and he shockingly passed me the hitter. I inhaled hard. I shifted into drive. I pointed the car in the direction of - well, I didn’t know exactly. But I saw what I thought was a cop in the opposite direction so it seemed a good idea to go the other way. Stop lights flashed. Stop signs were blown. We didn’t stop. Or I didn’t. I inhaled every time the little metal cylinder found its way, unbidden, into my hand. All that thinking about pot was apparently for nothing as my friend - assailant? - produced more from seemingly nowhere.

There is a surprising variation of landscapes in midwestern suburban towns. This fact may not seem like a fact if you’re never driven around one at two AM, high, while a random bootleg of a popular jam band blared from the speakers of a late 90s Dodge while the alcohol from an hour ago takes another run through your bloodstream, transported by the various compounds in marijuana smoke, so you’ll just have to take my word for it.

Or maybe it was all the pot and booze fucking with me.

They’ll do that.

Regardless the pot was smoked. The terrain leveled and became a series of copy/paste strip malls and tract houses. I was smacked back to reality enough to get my bearings and take a right at Boughton Road. I had to get home.

Not that I wanted to. “Home” had morphed into little more than the place I kept my stuff. My shirts were there right next to my lowered expectations of women and relationships. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

I got from that right turn to my apartment but I couldn’t begin to tell you how. I’m fairly certain now, with almost two decades of hindsight, that the car was shifted into park with a ding on the left front fender and at least a dented rim.

“You good to get yourself home?” I asked my friend without a hint of irony. I knew he wasn’t but that struck me as a “him problem” as far as I could see. In lieu of a response he simply belched.

“Cool. Thanks for the insight.” I hope I said. I don’t know what I said but this seems witty and paints me in a little less harsh light so I’m going with it.

We attempted a screwy half hug thing across the center console. I had a fleeting thought regarding the logistics of a passenger giving a driver oral sex, something not attempted by yours truly since high school. Yeah. It was time to go.

I jumped out and slammed the door at the same instant he peeled out. I let my eyes come to rest on the middle window of the building. Behind that window lay the woman I was with. I hesitate to call it dating. It wasn’t that. Not exactly. We were just…with one another. She was there and I could only hope alone. But had she been all night? I’m not a gambling man but even I would put all my chips on “no”. The odds were always good in that respect. The score never changed and showed no sign of changing unless I made that change. After the year and half we’d been together I had yet to make that change. Instead I would change my environment (usually by hitting a new bar or at least new liquor store). And that’s what I did then.

I had nowhere to go. I had no money to go anywhere anyway. My car would have to suffice. I fished my keys from my pocket and stumbled to the drivers side of my 97 Chevy. You wouldn’t think it but a late model Chevy makes a lot more noise in the middle of the night than it does in the daytime. I wonder if she heard that.

I click on the radio. AM talk? Maybe NPR? Either way my attention was grabbed by a blurry movement in my rearview. The light is on in the window but that’s all I see. Then the building door flys open and two amorphous forms giggle and fall over one another. Guess that answers that.

The smaller of the two stands on tiptoes to kiss the taller one. Their hands go low, then high, then front, back, squeeze….

The only thing I squeeze is my eyes shut. When I open my eyes they will be gone.

They were not.

I closed my eyes again. When I opened them the stabbing light of day reminded me that I was still alive. My brain ached but not too much that it didn’t feel compelled to replay everything I had witnessed just before passing out through a gauzy lens. My nose told me something bad had happened to my engine, which makes sense if you leave it idling for five hours.

I got out of the car, stretched my legs, and walked toward my apartment. I knew what was in there. Luckily for her and our immutable one year lease I knew I had nowhere else to go.

Acrid Accountability

A 1967 Smith Corona Classic 12 typewriter makes a very unique sound. Solitary. Individual. Every type bar seems to create its own specific statement on the page. Of course this is literally what it does but there’s more to the experience than just imparting ink to paper via a slamming metal slug. It’s difficult to explain.

Here’s something not nearly as difficult to explain: the doors on a 2004 Chevrolet Cavalier coupe also make a distinct sound. Solid. Heavy. Definite. This is especially true when your girlfriend - the mother of you child - drives said car to her place of employment, exits, slams the door (THUD!), and hops in the passenger seat of her coworker’s car. The coworker is also known as the man she’s seeing behind your back. You’re not supposed to know but the sound of slamming metal gives her game away. The car may be a few miles down the road but you can still hear it; you can still feel it. Even if you can no longer feel much else.

Never mind all that for the time being. You needn’t worry about the entire situation not coming back to you in vivid color - mostly mean red and jealous green. It’ll be back. In fact it won’t actually go anywhere. It’s not like the twelve pack of Miller Lite is going to solve the problem. But, hey. It’s worth a shot. Or a chug. Or whatever.

It shouldn’t feel like this. You know it damn well. Hell, you’re not exactly pure and innocent either. The truth hurts but at least it’s an equal opportunity abuser. Where were you last night? Not at home. You went to work like you said but then after? Exactly. In a just world you would simply both acknowledge the situation, perhaps laugh at the irony, and part ways peacefully. But the world isn’t just and dammit you need a scapegoat. You also need to work on your gaslighting so this seems to be a great chance to do so. So crack that first beer and get to sulking.

Alright. Hold up. You came here expecting me to talk in the first person. Obviously this is all about me. It’s my memory and my hurt and my shame and my shortcomings. I best fess up to that. So here we go: the last time I knew it was the last time.

Everything so far is exactly correct. I have nothing but 4K, hi def, Technicolor recollections of everything. Well, everything until I was five bottles deep into that twelve pack. At that point things get a bit…cloudy. Memories become dull. Certainty is tossed out the window. I guess that’s as good a place as any to pick up the action.

Here’s the scene: a very low-rent one bedroom apartment that is home to two adults, two toddlers, and a baby. The toddlers were with their grandma. The baby was with her aunt. You already know where mom was. And me? I was slouched, as deflated as a 90s anti-pot commercial actor, on a futon covered in stains of baby formula and red wine. My legs were going numb from the weight of the typewriter on my lap. It had earlier been firmly planted on a tray table but that was now laying in shards on the living room floor. Did it buckle from the weight of the machine? Did I destroy it in a fit of ill-conceived and misplaced anger? Did I trip over it last time I tried to make it to the bathroom? No clue. I also didn’t care. I had booze and typing paper within reach so I would get along just fine.

I glanced down. The paper was already imprinted with text. The letters were only just beginning to blur. Experience taught me I still had a good 48 more ounces before haze gave way to blackout. I only had 36 more ounces in front of me. Good for the writing, bad for my mind. I was able to make out one line that had something to do with a roaring tiger and Beefeater gin. (Sadly this page is lost to time, which is a hell of a shame because who wouldn’t want to read about a tiger wasted on dry martinis?) I shook my head and continued typing.

Another empty bottle appeared at the side of my typewriter. It looked so noble. Empty but still solid on the outside. I thought about working that into the prose but my drunk brain never told my fingers. Instead it sent a message to my eyes. Look at the clock. I did. The second hand stuttered forward. Each tick wasn’t really a tick, but rather more of a scoff. The clock knew everything. It was there for all the fights, all the lies. It was witness to drunken sex and drug-hazed conversations. And it was there when she left, fresh from the shower, dabbed with the perfume I bought her for our anniversary days before. It was all so cliche. The clock knew where she was going. And now it was staring at me with a face somehow both blank and guilty and accusing.

Me too, clock. Me. Fucking. Too.

Silently another bottle joined his comrade to the left of the Classic 12. Caught by surprise I could only stare in confusion. As I moved my fingers from the keys I realized my fingers hadn’t been on the keys at all. At least not since the line about the intoxicated wildlife. Judging by the small tangle of paper in front of the bottles my hands had been busy tearing the labels. I never recalled doing this prior though I have always been known to find novel ways to distract myself from feeling actual feelings. I could only nod and concede that tearing labels is a far better reaction to stress than popping the pills from the prescription bottle that most certainly did not have my name on it.

My phone buzzed. Much like my emotional stability, texting was in its infancy. but also much like my emotional stability she took advantage of it to use for her own ends. This time it was gibberish; a bunch of unrelated characters that, to my mind at least, amounted to an admission of guilt on her part. After blinking hard enough to overlap my eyelids I saw that it actually said that she had accidentally fallen asleep at a “friend’s house”. Meh. Same difference really.

I threw the phone somewhere over my shoulder.

It landed with a thud somewhere over my shoulder.

Then.

A key slid into the lock somewhere over my shoulder.

The sun was rising somewhere over my other shoulder.

(I have a lot of shoulders when I drink.)

The knob turned.

And now I’ll address YOU directly. There are some things you need to know.

I smelled the cologne before I saw you. It commingled with the remnants of weed smoked not too long before to present me with what, to this day, I still refer to as “acrid accountability”.

You moved with such intent and purpose that the bathroom door was open and closed before the front door latched. Honestly I would have been impressed if I didn’t know full well what a bee line for the bathroom after a night out meant.

The shower started. You got in. You washed the scent of him and sex off you.

But he still hung heavy in the air.

At this point I know I typed something. It I just dissociated for a while. Really, either is possible though the latter is more probable. Not that it matters since the sound of typewriter keys smacking paper was replaced in my ears by the rattling of my heart. It was more than just a beat. It was almost ragged. Tracking the rhythm was pointless anyway. My attention was inexplicably focused on the thought of how many individual droplets were hitting your skin. How many would it take to wash away your sin? Did you even consider it a sin? Did you not believe in God because doing do would mean having to own up to your indiscretion?

Or maybe I was just overthinking it. And maybe I still am.

The water ceased. Your repeated fumbling and muted swear words escaped under the bathroom door and out through the vents, letting your poorly hidden truth take up residence alongside us in the tiny apartment.

You opened the door.

You dashed to the bedroom.

You locked the door.

I pounded another two bottles of MGD.

At some point the morning came and along with it an unforgiving amount of sunbeams stabbing at my eyes and aggressively jabbing at the base of my skull.

And there you were sitting in the chair across from me, a mug of steaming coffee in your hand.

“Good morning, sleepy head.”

You smile.

I blink.

You smile even bigger as you raise your eyebrows.

Did I simply dream it all?

But then I smell it, just barely, mixed with the scent of Folgers: weed. With just a hint of residual Axe Body Spray.

You smile.

I collapse back into the couch. It seems much easier than staring reality in her bright blue eyes.

What's In A Name

We were convinced that drinking highballs would in some way convey that we were not, in fact, alcoholics but rather sophisticated connoisseurs of drink. We bought highball glasses. (Okay, we stole highball glasses from the bar I DJed at but still.) We swiped his mom’s tabletop ice chest and tiny tongs she reserved for parties. We bought square ice cubes so they looked good while floating in the booze and mixer. We bought good whiskey and better gin, Canada Dry and New York seltzer. We were ready to look every bit the spitting image of the well mannered and suave men in suits we would see having liquid lunches at the restaurant he worked at. He even surprised me with a couple cigars. We were ready for the whole spectacle; prepared for everything. Except the repercussions. 

But really what else is new?

“He” was Mike. We had met about a year prior and ended up becoming close friends (and eventually roommates). He was several years my junior and not quite of legal drinking age but to my knowledge that’s never stopped anyone from developing a chemical dependency. If I could pick mine up at before puberty I figured he was already doing better than me. I would drive to his house most days. Drinking at bars cost money we didn’t have and since only I could get in anyway they were out of the question. His parents were also, oddly, always at “work”. They were rather straight laced so I’m sure nothing nefarious was taking place behind the scenes but looking back it is strange. More than that though it was welcome. There was little to no chance of him getting caught and it gave me a place to day drink that didn’t involve a basement or a public park and paper bag. 

We had inadvertently worked out a sort of elaborate, well choreographed set of motions when the decision was made to drink:

1) I call to make sure he is at home.

2) He tells me yes, but he would really like to take a nap.

3) I do my best Ferris Bueller and casually insult him until he emphatically slams the phone down.

4) I get in my car and head over anyway.

5) By the time I make the fifteen minute drive, he has opened the garage door, set up two lawn chairs with a small table between. The bottles of Tanqueray and tonic water glisten in the sun next to the tall expectant glasses brimming with ice. 

6) I park, get out of the car, nod to Mike. Before I’m even to my assigned chair my glass is full (more gin than tonic, as was also customary). 

7) I sit and reach over to the stereo on the workbench. Jazz, usually Dave Brubeck or one of the Marsalis brothers, gently wafts through the air, poetically mingling with the smells of stale exhaust and burnt oil.

8) In an act of prestidigitation I’ve never seen reproduced to this day Mike conjures two perfectly rolled joints. The contents of the joints however was always of questionable quality. Still, dope is dope and addicts can’t be choosers.

9) We sit, slowly letting the pot do its thing as we polish off the first round of G and Ts. (There will be more. Many more.) 

10) We drink too many ‘many more’s. We try to stand and get smacked down hard by the effects of our actions. We act surprised that we let it happen at all, let alone again! How could that possibly be?! Oh well. If we can’t stand we may as well sit and have one more drink. There was just enough ice for two more glasses - it was meant to be. Bottoms up! 

It seems somewhat convoluted but damn it if it didn’t work like a charm.

This particular story picks up right here. We’ve drunk all we could and smoked all we had. The sun had become a weapon the universe was insistent upon using against us. Our eyes burned. Our skin was warm, but that may have been coming at least partly from the inside out; the smoke was distinctly clouding the thoughts we were always certain were as deep and profound as any that would be revealed as we grew to adulthood. Of course we were in no hurry whatsoever to do that. What worse trapan one conceive than growing up? I stared into the sun (because drugs and alcohol up your IQ by fifty points obviously) and almost missed the vibration coming from my pocket. To the distinct relief of my retinas I broke my gaze with the sun and fished for the source of the buzzing.

“Shit bud! My mom just beeped me.”

“You know where the phone is. Go at it.”

I stood up. Well, that’s not quite true. I attempted to stand. The lesson of only one drink before hadn’t sunk in and the immutable laws of physics once again had their way with me. I leaned barely forward and gravity did what gravity does. I blinked, probably swore, and suddenly the driveway was a part of my face. I swallowed. Blood. And not just from my mouth. My nose had already began to leak between my lips.

I realized in that instant there was a large swath of my life where the only thin I had gotten used to more than nursing a healthy buzz was the metallic tang of blood. There was a slasher movie’s worth flowing from my nose and mouth more times than I can legitimately recall. The part I can look back on with the least amount of nostalgia is that I took that as a badge of honor. I was never one to get handovers so a little crusted blood on last night’s shirt was my proof to everyone that I was a drinker too! Look! I have proof! It may be a pathogen and possible biohazard but doesn’t that make it even better? No. No it does not. But luckily for you, dear reader, I didn’t know that at the time. Back to the story…

I got to my feet and went into the house. After stopping in the bathroom to clean up I called home. The ringing went on longer than expected. I sniffed at the rogue trickle of blood trying to escape my nostril. Finally my mom answered.

“Are you crying?”

“No. I, uh, just sneezed. What’s up?”

“Where are you?”

Fuck. She didn’t care if I had been drinking but she wasn’t too fond of Mike.

“I’m at friend’s house,” I said, hoping she’d leave it there. She did not.

“Mike’s, right?” She waited for a response. To this day I swear I heard her eyebrows raise and lower and she prepared herself for the incoming lie. I didn’t bother, probably because I was too drunk to think of a good one. Or too high. Or both. Yeah, probably that.

“Yup.”

She sighed so hard into the phone I thought for a moment we had a bad connection. I hoped we did so I could get off the phone and focus on the important things like where to score more weed and appear sober enough to buy more booze. Alas, she went on.

“Yeah. Well, you have to come home. I take it you forgot about the cookout.”

“Of course not.”

Fuck. Totally and completely forgot. “I thought it started at five.”

“Two. It started at two. I know you’re not a kid anymore but you will always do what your mother tells you to do. Now come home.” She sighed again, softer this time. “Barbara is already here.”

That sobered me up quick. I know it’s not really a thing, that’s it’s just the adrenaline flowing, but it certainly woke me up. Fuck. Barbara. I hadn’t seen her since the funeral.

Barbara was - is - my godmother’s sister. A family friend for longer than I’ve been alive. My godmother Crissie had recently passed away. It wasn’t exactly unexpected but it wasn’t something anyone was prepared for.

To say she was an important person in my life to that point (and beyond, as it turned out) would be the universe’s ultimate understatement. She and her mother, a tiny first generation Italian, adopted my family as an extension of theirs. We would visit their home several times a month, usually with sleepovers for us kids. We were loved by this welcoming and warm family who never asked for anything in return.

Crissie would lavish my sisters and me with vacations to Disney and Canada and take one of us on an Alaskan cruise. She would take one of my sisters and me eery other Saturday for a day of fun, shopping, and relaxation. I never met another kid who had a similar set up. I was insanely lucky to have someone like that in my life, so of course her passing hit me hard. So of course I hit the bottle even harder. And the bottle hit back.

I realized I hadn’t said anything in a minute when my mom, in her own ever helpful way, yelled into the receiver, “Come home now!”

I gently placed the phone down as though she would know if I had slammed it and would yell at me about disrespecting other people’s property later. I stumbled back outside.

“Yeah,” I said. “I gotta go.”

“Ha! We’re both too fucked to go anywhere.” Mike was wasted but always astute.

“Well, fucked up or not I gotta get home. Toss me my keys.” (Yeah, I know. No need to point it out.)

“I’ll come with you,” he said. He unsurprisingly swayed as he stood. “I’ll help cover for you.”

“Shit, dude. The only thing you’ll do is make me look less drunk, not not drunk.”

He shrugged. “Good enough for me.”

We got in my car and drove off without cleaning up or even closing the garage door. To this day I don’t know if he got in trouble for that. I assume not since we would be back to our usual arrangement in short order. I was also in a place where I just didn’t care to ask. In other words, I was a shitty friend. But at least I could blame the booze! (…at least for the moment.)

Let me put your mind at ease (or severely disappoint you): we made it to my house without incident. No bumped curbs. No lane drifting. No DUIs. I found a parking space, pulled in, and tossed the car in park.

“Watch your knees.” I reached over and popped the glove box. I fished out the jar of Jif. I could feel the confusion from Mike. “It’s an old trick my sister taught me. This shit hides the smell of pretty much everything.” I twisted the lid and scooped a lump with my index finger. “Here.” I pushed the jar to him. He mirrored my movements. “All better,” I said, smacking my lips and tongue. Mike just nodded and raised his eyebrows. “Let’s go.”

My parent’s house had a six foot privacy fence. I hated it when I had to help my dad paint it every other summer but now that it was obscuring my pathetic attempts to walk like someone who didn’t just down half a bottle of gin I patted it and whispered thank you as we approached the house. I’ll never know for sure what my gait was like but I’m sure I would have fit in well at the Ministry Of Silly Walks. We stopped at the gate to collect ourselves. We breathed into each other’s faces. We checked each other’s eyes. We mumbled words of encouragement to one another. Obviously none of it actually helped but you couldn’t have told us that at the time. I took a deep breath, immediately aware of the horridness of my scent. Too late to turn back. I pushed open the gate.

To say I was caught off guard would be an understatement. What I thought was just going to be a small get together of my family and few close friends was in fact something more akin to Woodstock. Okay, maybe just Lallapalooza. Regardless, where I had expected to see eight or ten people - tops! - sat thirty people in the backyard alone. I looked past the porch into the kitchen and saw more bodies. I said the only thing I could think of. “Fuck.” And for some reason, yet not exactly apropos of nothing, Heaven Knows I’m Miserable Now by The Smiths started playing in my mind. (“I was happy in the haze of a drunken hour/but heaven knows I’m miserable now…”)

I must have stopped short because the next thing I remember Mike rammed into my back. I stumbled, which I instantly appreciated. I now had a reason for my uneven walk: my friend had stepped on my foot. Perfect! Well, maybe not perfect but better.

“Hey, Bobber!”

Bobber. A nickname from childhood I personally feel I outgrew along with UnderRoos. It was out longtime neighbor. Someone who, once upon a time, used to change my diapers. I wonder what she’s thinking right at that moment. And what she’ll think when I start talking. Shit. Shit. Shit. This was stupid. Why did I come? Why didn’t I lie? Fuck.

“Hi,” I finally muster. I did my best to continue past her but she grabbed my arm. To this day I have absolutely no idea what she said or how long we were standing there. It doesn’t really matter, just understand I had already begun misplacing time. Thinking back I probably realized that but actively ignored it. Truth be told I was beginning to have more lucid realizations as to my real state. But all that did was make me what to drink more. Now, I know that as the disease of alcoholism. Then, I just thought of it as being a male in late teens/early twenties. Yet another example of how it’s often the most self-aware people who are also the most lost.

At some point my mom caught my eye and waived me over to her and my dad. Grabbing Mike’s arm I broke away from the neighbor and keeping my eyes as straight ahead as possible “walked” to the porch. I heard Mike say something about the bathroom and he broke past me; a small, half-assed wave to my parents as he went into the house. A flash of the last time I saw my parents repeated in my head. Drunk, high, untethered from reality. Consistency is good, right? I thought. I knew damn well it wasn’t but an uninvited smile crossed my face. Apparently - and thankfully - my mom took it as hers and returned a smile of her own. Could it be? Was it possible? Was I safe?

(Narrator: He was not safe.)

“Bob. Finally. Look, I’m sorry I yelled on the phone. I really shouldn’t have.”

Stupid narrator. I was going to be safe.

(Narrator: Nope.)

“But really?” She went on. “You forgot? I don’t buy that crock of shit for a second.”

(Narrator: As I was saying.)

“Yeah, well-“ An overly enthusiastic pat on my shoulder interrupted my thought - and thank god for that! I don’t think I actually had one to begin with. I swung around to see a friend of my sister’s, a person I didn’t think knew me well enough to be so excited for my arrival. And I thought that because I didn’t know his name. I was and am fairly certain we were never properly introduced. Or we were and I was just drunk. Yea. That was probably it. Either way I greeted him as the savior he was at that moment. I smiled big. I slapped his shoulder harder than he slapped mine. I realized I was probably overselling it so I dialed it back. 

“Hey man!” I said. Still no clue.

“Yo. Remember that girl I was telling you about?”

“Yeah!”

No.

“She’s here. Wants to meet ya.”

“Great!”

Fuck.

“Can I steal ya away?”

My mom cut in before I could answer. “That’s gonna be a no. Not yet. Go and find Mary. Bob will catch up when I’m done with him. Okay, Scott?”

His name was Scott. Thanks mom!

Scott smiled, nodded. As he turned my mom went on.

“So how drunk are you?”

Fight or flight? The choice was mine. And I chose to live. Where my mom was involved there were actually three options: fight, flight, or just cop to what she already knew anyway.

“I’ve been, uh, less drunk.” She raised her eyebrows. “I mean, not really in the day, but still.”

“That’s what I thought. Go inside. Pop is in the fridge. And eat something, for Christ’s sake.” She shook her head. “You know what I want to say.” In lieu of an answer I walked inside.

She was going to say the worst thing she could possible say. Something I’ve heard more than both my sisters combined. A phrase that could kill me before it was even all the way out of her mouth: 

I’m not mad. I’m just disappointed.

I’m sure other parents have said this but I can guarantee none have welded it with such acute precision as my mother.

I was surprised to be smacked by nostalgia when I walked through the front door. Not that it really sobered me up at all, which would have been nice, but memories came to me. The linoleum that screamed “Look at me! I am the 70s!” The poorly stained cabinets (though my dad tried his best). The new kitchen table that only recently replaced the cream and yellow monstrosity from my childhood; the one that held so many bowls of Saturday morning Cap’n Crunch and my yearly birthday cake. It was also where I first heard my mom utter that she “wasn’t mad” at my oldest sister. A distinct shiver ran down my spine. My mom wasn’t mad at me at the moment but she was obviously disappointed. 

I looked past the table to the dining room. Then to the left of the living room. No one was physically there but there was something. Ghosts of my childhood? I guess so, if I want to get poetic about it. In reality they were more like hallucinations. Not entirely unwelcome but hallucinations nonetheless. Mostly happy. Mostly warm. All comforting at that moment. 

Easter dinners and Christmas Eve dinners. Pumpkin carving over weeks worth of local newspapers and grocery store ads. Building forts under the dining room table. Opening Christmas gifts in that living room; so many packages we couldn’t sit down. My mom sat at the dining room table, silently sipping on her almost-Boston-style coffee, a thin smile peeking out as we opened gift after gift she spent the previous twelve months swearing we wouldn’t get.

I blinked. Reality poked at my brain. I took a step forward and another to the right. I was still in the kitchen but I was also in 1984.

The TV was in the same corner of the room. The Cubs game was on. My mom was watching with me on her knee and a Newport burning inches from my four year old scalp. I didn’t yet understand what “winning the pennant” meant but I’m a Cubs fan to this day and it’s all thanks to one memory, a few moments out of billions.

A vague picture began to overlap the one I was trying very hard to hold on to. My godmother - the reason we were all there that day - sitting on the couch. Sitting on the plush armchair. Sitting on the love seat. And always me, sitting with her; climbing up to reassure myself that she had not forgotten the little person in the blue Donald Duck sweatshirt. Of course she never would forget me but I couldn’t take that chance. She had been sitting in the armchair when she surprised my sister and I with a trip to Disney World. And again with another trip to Disney World. And another. And so many kind words and loving embraces and moments that came back to me all at once. It was quick. Too quick. I felt a tear fall and land on the brown carpet at my feet. It was soaked up like so many glasses of RC Cola I never fessed up to spilling. 

Fuck.

I hadn’t cried yet.

She had passed a few weeks before. We knew it was coming. There was a long hospital stint. She would smile and lie and say she’d be just fine. We’d lie and pretend to believe her. Was it more for her benefit or ours? Both. It wasn’t a quick decline but it was long enough to allow for a healthy process of emotion…if you’re one to process emotion. I am not. Not now and less then. I assumed I just didn’t “need to” cry. I had gone to the wake, the mass, the grave, the luncheon, all of it without so much as a quiver in my voice.to me at that

That was nice while it lasted.

The tears flowed. They gushed. They…all the other words for “deluge”. They soaked my cheeks as flashes of Disney World and random shopping trips and time spent relaxing and opening up to my godmother in ways I would never think of opening up to my parents. She was a parent to me. A bonus mom who never shared a last name but very much shared my heart.

The tears continued, silently, punctuated by a ragged breath and shuttering shoulders. No lamenting wail. No dramatic sniffle. Tears and breath. And I welcomed them with all the joy this sort of release could foster. Almost on cue a doorknob rattled and a door flung open. Mike was done which meant I had to be as well. He rounded the corner and saw me crying. He looked at me sympathetically.

“Suck it up, bitch!”

I had to laugh. I didn’t appreciate the toxic masculinity but I did appreciate the distraction. I wiped my face with my palms and looked at my friend. 

“The lady directly to the left on the porch is my godmother’s sister. I don’t think you’ve ever met her but I’m sure my mom will introduce you. Everyone else here, honestly…” I looked out the window. “I have no fucking clue.”

“So we’re good to go?”

“Not in the damn slightest. But let’s go anyway.”

I knew I was screwed before my hand touched the door. If I had known just how screwed I might have made a break for it out the back door and and not stopped running until I saw the Iowa border.

I could feel Mike’s breath on my neck. It mixed with the humidity and sweat already forming under my arms and in the center of my chest. I couldn’t actually feel his breath on my chest from behind me could I? Probably not but reality meant very little to me at that moment. As I recall now I was floating and breathing was optional. The first part of that sentence wasn’t true but the second part was. What good was breathing? It would only prolong my time there and betray my actions with every close quarters exhale. Mike stepped on my heel and I blinked and in front of me was a yard of people I was fairly certain had never stepped foot out of the Chicago and/or Cicero city limits. Some rang a distant and muffled bell. Others were a conglomeration of features my brain refused to arrange in any sort of discernible order. Did I know them? Maybe. Did it matter? To me? No. To my mom? Apparently.

“Honey!”

My mom was standing next to her sister, both with a smoke hanging from their lips. My aunt was a Virginia Slims girl, through and through. My mom’s Newport 100s looked minuscule by comparison. She approached me and her cherry fell, bouncing off my arm and singeing a little arm hair. My aunt didn’t notice. She advanced at me for a hug and seemed to have forgotten she was smoking at all. She leaned it and before I could react her cherry impaled my ear. I don’t know if anyone has ever died of Virginia Slim to the eardrum but I’m here to testify it’s totally possible. I jumped back, knocking into Mike (again) and sending him into the lap of my godmother’s sister. As I did my best to extinguish my brain stem a few bystanders (aunts and uncles?) helped Mike and his human cushion to their feet.

The commotion called. My aunt apologized profusely while she sparked a fresh Slim. The smell of burnt ear hair hung in the air. For a split second I was stone sober. Then someone in my periphery handed my an Old Style. My mom didn’t object (I was always her favorite). So much for that sobriety. 

“Well, I guess you’ve met now, haven’t you?” My mom was already over my trauma and addressing Mike. (I thought I was her favorite.) I squinted at my godmother’s sister. Barbara. A friend of the family as long as my godmother had been and just as loved. Again I froze. But this time I was totally lucid. Not sober, but fully aware of the importance of the moment. (Later, after attending a few AA meetings, I was told there is no such thing as a ‘functioning alcoholic’. I called bullshit immediately and this kind of instance was why.)

My life didn’t exactly flash before my eyes but several random moments did. Moments Barbara was very much involved in. Always there at family gatherings. My eighth grade graduation. My Confirmation. My high school graduation. Her mom’s funeral. Her sister’s funeral. And today, celebrating her sister’s life through tears of sadness and joy in equal measure. But me celebrating through the hazy fog of a hard buzz.

The moments began to slow, then fade, then disappear from my mind altogether. And with them went the name of the person. I realized the name was gone almost as quickly as my mom said, “Bob. Don’t just stand there. Introduce your friend to-“

And she said a name. I’m pretty sure. All I heard was a rush of blood to my head and the wah wah sound of Charlie Brown’s teacher. The blood went on rushing. I knew I had to say something. Words failed me. Breathing did too. Whatever happened to ‘liquid courage’? It seemed all I had was liquid forget-everything-and-look-like-a-dumbass-in-front-of-family-and-friends.

“Bob…” My mom repeated. This was at least enough to coax me back to reality. 

“Oh, yeah. Yeah.” I stumbled over my words like they were my feet after a few drinks, which was apt, all things considered. I went on.

“Yeah, Mike. You fell into our friend.”

“Yup. I sure did!” Mike thought this was the height was comedy. He was alone in this assumption. 

“Mike, that’s Crissie.”

The fuck up hit me immediately. Faster than immediately. The name wasn’t even all the way out of my mouth when my brain screamed You know it’s Barbara, dumbass! Don’t call her the name of her dead sister!

But I had. I had. And I wasn’t quiet about it. I doubt it’s true but I swear I heard every head on that porch whip around to gawk at me. I guess they were better at remembering names than I was. I heard more wah-wah behind me. My mom. 

“Bob,” she started in that tense but smiling voice every mother is handed upon release from the hospital with their first born kid. “Mike. Thanks for coming but I know you have to get going, right? Right, Bob?”

I love my mom. Even though I knew I’d catch hell for this later, I loved her for this out.

“Uh, yeah. Yeah. Right. Come on, Mike.” He hell in line more quickly than he had thus far. I lost count of how many times he stepped on my heels but we were back at the car before I knew it. 

“Fuck, man!” Said Mike. He seemed to be constructing another thought but I cut him off.

“‘Fuck’ is right! I really gotta stop day drinking so much.”

“You really gotta buy a fucking calendar.”

He had a point.

Post Script:

I never did end up catching hell for this. To my knowledge this incident was never spoken of again by anyone involved. That is, until my mom’s memorial service. 

Obviously the moment had been living rent free in my mind the entire time but I was confident no one else recalled one small second several years before. Ah, but nothing is ever really forgotten, is it? All you can hope is for time to soften hearts and add an inkling of humor to the memory. And sometimes time really delivers.

Barbara was saying some words at the lectern next to my mom’s casket. She paid a beautiful tribute then asked for us kids to come up and say some words. My sisters volunteered me. As I approved the podium Barbara pulled me into a gentle hug. Before she let me go she brought her face to my ear and whispered, “Her name was Chris.”

She winked. I smiled. Time delivered a worthy ending.

The Hat

For about three weeks in 1996 I wore a vintage fedora every day. 

That’s it. No story. Can’t even blame the alcohol. It’s just something I’m not proud of and felt this would be a good place to publicly apologize for it.

So if you knew me in 1996 you have my sincerest apologies for the whole trying to make the fedora happening thing.

Game On

Sneaking drinks at a hockey game is easier than you might think. It’s even easier when you have help. And it’s easier still if that help is your oldest sister. It was transcendent. Guys[ This is too stark of a tone/focus change!] were getting smashed on the ice and I was getting smashed on Bud Ice in the stands. I got to cheer on my team while steadily nursing my little buzz through the first and second periods. By the time the third started I could barely remember what sport I was there to watch. And it didn’t matter. The cup said Pepsi but the pungent and unmistakable scent screamed hops and barley. Twenty minutes later the game was over, someone won (maybe, probably), and I had to be helped to the car. There was a drive back home unless my sister mastered her skills of teleportation and for all I can recall she did just that. My memory begins to flash in coherent bursts of seconds and minutes at a time after we arrived home.

The first goal was to get out of the car. My sister drove a Beretta. It was a tiny and forgettable car when it was new and thus all but forgotten today. But I’ll never forget it. The flocked deep maroon interior still reminds me of wine. At the time I had only recently discovered wine and, while I was far from picky, I preferred red. I didn’t know anything about wine to be honest but if it was red, which is my favorite color as it happens, I would drink the hell out of it.[ Probably don’t need this sentence.] A few years later she would teach me to drive in that car. I would often hit a curb - hard - having had a few secret sips of vodka before the drive. This would come to be something of a theme. 

The smallness of the car fooled anyone in the passenger seat into thinking that the door would be light and easy to maneuver. That couldn’t have been further from the truth. Stone cold sober it was a door that weighed roughly the same as the Statue of Liberty. When drunk it was still that heavy but was also now just as immovable. Luckily my sister wasn’t exactly drunk so she attempted to help. She got the door open and I fell out of the car. Literally. Smacked my head into the arm rest, scraped it down the rest of the door panel, bounced off her shoe, and bounced my melon off the yellow curb. I didn’t register the pain - nor the blood that had started trickling at some point - but I clocked the yellow curb. I tried to warn her that she was parked illegally. I’m certain my warning was meticulously worded and clear as crystal. To me, at least. To her it probably sounded something like however njdikfhjiehfownjehnvniejdkcvnkdwo would sound if a vocalized by a screaming Muppet. Yeah, her car was in an impound lot before dawn.

But she helped me up and dragged me to the porch stairs. There was walking done at some point but it was all her. I barely remember my feet hitting the pavement. Maybe they didn’t and she just carried me, which is totally possible. She was and remains stronger than me. She slipped her arm off of my shoulders and walked up the stairs. She turned back and offered me a hand. To both our surprises I took all three in one long stride. I celebrated by letting out a very impressive belch. I didn’t throw up. Things were going better than expected. I was starting to sober up (just a little; very little) and reached for the screen door handle when my sister nearly broke my wrist smacking my hand away. It was a good thing she had.

My parents kept a strap of Christmas sleigh bells on our front door for the entirety of my childhood. They claimed at first it was because my mom wanted a little Christmas around all year long but later changed it to a rather transparent excuse of it being an added layer of protection against burglars. My oldest sister knew before I did that it was really just there to catch us. We were the criminals against whom the bells would work, alerting our parents to every late night misdeed we were stupid enough to attempt. I say attempt because the bells weren’t even needed most of the time. We kids were as dumb as any other kids but had the added handicap of not realizing it. Or we were just in denial. Whichever it was it worked against us. Hard. And the bells did too. That is to say they worked against me and my other sister. 

You see my oldest sister knew a trick. By that point I couldn’t count the times I heard her stumble up the three stairs to the porch well after midnight, meaning several hours past her curfew. She was anything but stealthy outside and yet she would never get caught. She would come in, quiet as a monk wearing a ball gag, avoid every creaky floorboard and squeaky hinge. And magically she would silence the bells. In all my years of listening to her stumble and whisper-swear as she approached the door I wouldn’t hear her again until the morning. There were many reasons she was my favorite but her wizard ways of transporting her whole self from the kitchen to her bed in the basement was certainly up on the list.

The question of the moment was: would that wizardry translate to me? I didn’t have to wait long for an answer. I stood back - of my own accord…or rather my inner ear’s accord since I couldn’t seem to steady myself - as she deftly opened the screen door and locked the pneumatic closer in place. I blinked. Before I opened my eyes again she had not only gained access to the kitchen but she was shoving the damn bells in her shirt and wrapping as much of it around the muffled tinking as quickly as possible. It was a sight to behold for sure. Even in my state I knew it was something I should note and keep in my mind for future use.

But of course I didn’t. I just belched again. She shot me a death glare. I followed her inside. She motioned for me to take off my shoes. I couldn’t tell what the hell she was getting at. She punched me in the thigh and smacked my feet. I understood. No I didn’t. I was still drunk. I wasn’t even going to try bending over. I mean I already knew how well being vertical was working for me so I wasn’t going to give gravity the opportunity to screw me over again. My sister gave us and whispered that she needed to close the door. I nodded and walked past her and straight up to my room. She was frantically whispering something as I was walking away but I didn’t really hear it. There was more booze in my room so that seemed a better place to be. I was halfway up the fourteen stairs before I realized I had forgotten one extremely pertinent detail: my dad slept on the couch. 

That thought will sober a guy up quick! My brain was still doing backstrokes in the Olympic swimming pool that was my skull but I was suddenly acutely aware of the fact that he was in fact on the couch, wrapped in his usual scratchy Army blanket he brought back from Nam (along with night terrors). I could see him from where I stood on the landing. His hair had only just begun to show signs of silver and my eyes were open so wide I easily could have counted every last one of them. I was living The Tell Tale Heart only instead of running at the old man I needed to get away to the safety of my own room. I stood for a moment or two longer, probably more. Then my sister finally rounded the corner slowly, oh, so slowly, as not to disturb the slumber of the last hurdle of a classic sneak in!

Wait. He was the last hurdle, right? Right?

Not exactly. 

My parents bedroom was at the top of the stairs. The door was never closed. My only saving grace was that my mom slept like the dead. If it wasn’t for the snore of a woman who had been smoking for more than 3/4 of her life you wouldn’t know if she had bought the farm or not. The light from the TV she slept to was flickering and making me more queasy. I could hear Trapper John, MD reruns with snorting gasps for air sprinkled on top in lieu of a laugh track. In other words, it was a totally normal night. 

My sister motioned wildly to get my attention and nudge me up the rest of the way to my room. I summoned the drive that propelled me up the porch stairs and was in my room in no more than eight long strides. Admittedly I didn’t count and I distinctly recall waking up in the morning with a nasty rug burn cascading from my knee down to my ankle on both legs so it’s possible I wasn’t as suave as I like to recall.

I turned on the light and heard my sister coming up behind me. She closed the door and swiftly smacked me in the back of the head.

“Be drunk but don’t be stupid,” she said. Wise words I would continue to ignore for a decade and a half. 

It was the first time she had been in my room in several months. She took a moment to survey the new additions: a Toni Braxton poster, a new 13 inch color TV, a stack of books, and a mini fridge. Of course it was the latter that caught her eye. She smacked me again.

“How the hell did you get that? Does mom know?”

“Of course she does. She’s fine with it I guess. She hasn’t said anything anyway.”

“You have booze in there, don’t you?”

Guilty as charged.

“I mean, yeah. But not only booze.” I cracked the door to show her. “See? Pepsi, too.”

“Must be nice being the youngest. Get away with everything.” Her head shaking was making me dizzy. “Okay. So do you have any food in here?”

I reached into the top drawer of my dresser and pulled out a handful of Twizzlers and tossed them at her. I went back in for a jar of peanut butter. At that her eyes lit up.

“Perfect! Peanut butter. Now you’re talking!” I had no idea what the hell was so great about it. “This is going to save your ass tonight and - well, you can thank me when you’re older and still alive because mom didn’t kill you.”

“Oh, uh, yeah. Thanks.” Still no clue what she was going on about. She sensed my confusion, which she did often. I was confused most of the time between birth and…right now.

“Peanut butter will overpower pretty much any smell. You can eat anything else before peanut butter and all anyone is going to smell is the peanut butter.” She was nodding like she was laying down some primo details. I was still in the dark. “You idiot. It always works for stuff you drink.” She gave me a second for the words to work their way into my brain, take root, and register. Slowly I nodded and as I began to smile she said, “There ya go. Better late than never. Here,” she handed me the jar. “Take a bit of it. And don’t brush your teeth. Just eat some of this and then go to bed. I’ll check on you in the morning.”

I tried to reply but my tongue was stuck to the roof of my mouth like a dog so all I was able to muster was a mooohkay and nod. She gave me yet another smack on the head, but playfully this time. She smiled, nodded to the fridge, and said, “Don’t drink that whole bottle of Tanqueray all at once. It smells like Christmas and there’s no way in hell mom isn’t going to notice that on you unless you have a fuckton more Jif. Good night.”

She slipped out of my room and I heard her lightly padding down the four flights of stairs to the basement. I considered what had happened that night. I got drunk in public and was coached by a blood relative on how to hide it not only now but in the future.

Spoiler alert for future Bob: the long term takeaways from that night that really stuck were: 1) peanut butter is fucking magic and 2) mom may know more than I thought so I had better watch myself.

Bigger spoiler alert: peanut butter is NOT fucking magic and I did not watch myself.

But at least I was drunk that night. And that was all that mattered.