—THAT’S A STORY FOR ANOTHER TIME

 

 

 

                                                            Once

 

At the end of the bar, a man sits crying with a stuffed giraffe on his lap. No one seems to notice.

The man three stools over is hunched like a sack of cement, his face seven shades of gray.

To my right, at the other end, a hipster who can’t be old enough to be here, is making out with a woman who could his mom. As they mash faces, the woman stares at me unblinking.

In the wash of gray air there hangs a web of something that feels like cruelty entwined with inescapable despair, like being caught in a fishing net well below the surface.

When I look over at the crying man, he’s gone. On his stool are three clumps of fluff and a plastic cartoon eye.

The psycho woman making out with the kid is still looking at me. Gawking really. Imploring.

I have my second trio of whiskies lined up on the hoof-colored bar top. I down the first, the second, wait thirty seconds then swallow the third.

I got out one Wednesday ago. Thought it would feel different, freedom, the razor wire-topped fence behind me for once. But there are all kinds of cells everywhere you go.

I hold up the empty shot glass, say, “Three more, please.” Then before he can squelch me, I tell the bartender, “Last ones, and I’m not driving.”

I haven’t been in a car since it happened. I can hardly stand to look at a car, especially if it’s parked, especially if it’s summer.

I’ve gotten good at noticing someone approaching from behind, but the buzz must be working because a blonde swings in beside me. “You mind?”

I nod, grunt. I don’t want to talk. There’s only one person I’d talk to, but she’s not here.

The waiter brings the triplets in one hand.

“You must be really thirsty,” the blonde says. She’s pretty in a plain, healthy way. I start to wonder what her story is, but catch myself. I don’t need another story.

When her drink comes, she tilts the glass my way for a toast and I don’t fucking want this, but I chink her glass and she says, “Cheers”.

“Wow,” she whispers, tipping her glass toward the kid and zombie mom, “they’re really going at it.”

“Look,” I say, “I’m not here to talk. I’m here to drink these drinks and then—"

But I don’t know what’s next. I truly don’t.

The blonde gets up and takes a small circular table in the back.

I’ve fucked up again.

I slug the triplets down and leave bills on the bar and start to walk toward the blonde, but what? What can I say? I was a father once? I had this amazing child, a toddler? It wasn’t my normal turn to take her? It was a sweltering day? Scorching hot? What kind of man forgets his child is in a car seat on a day like that? What kind of man doesn’t even realize it until—

And now I’m standing at the blonde’s table and things are blurry because of the booze and the tears and she’s standing and taking me in her arms, hugging my awful bones, whispering into the side of my neck, “It’s okay. It’s okay. Whatever it is, it’s okay,” and I want to believe her, this kind stranger, so I sob and bawl and she lets me, holding me like that, like maybe she’s seen this film before, like maybe she even trusts me.