He got up one morning, and she was gone. It was pretty unceremonious. He wasn't sure what made him get up at such an ungodly hour, and he felt like shit when he did, but there was her note hanging on the fridge, showing her knowledge of his apparent routine after a night of heavy drinking with the boys. To the fridge. For a beer. Just to take the edge off. After he read her note, he headed for the whiskey instead. This might require a little heavy drinking.
He checked for the boy, but didn't expect to find him and he didn't, the boy's room being empty; his things gone. That made him feel a little twinge. More than the note on the fridge. Then, he poured himself a drink, and settled back in the big easy chair in the living room of the tiny apartment. To drink. And perhaps to think, as unusual as that might be.
And he found himself thinking about life, which was even more unusual. And the more he thought, the more he drank. To wash away the fear that came with the thoughts. Fear that maybe it couldn't go on. That it might be over. That it had changed. That he had changed.
He sat in the big easy chair for quite some time. Until the bottle was drained and then some. The phone rang twice, but he didn't answer it. He wanted to be only with himself, and wanted nothing to do with the world outside.
It was near dark when he finally got up. Tired, but restless. He showered. Dressed in the usual black t-shirt and jeans. Brushed back the long graying hair and bundled it into a pony tail. Thought about shaving, but decided against it. Watched himself in the dresser mirror as he slipped into his denim jacket. Not bad, he thought. It could have been worse.
He made his way to the drinking establishment he frequented these days. The place was nearly deserted, so he drank alone. At the bar, with an apparent purpose.
It wasn't long, though, before others came. Because this was what they did. Sometimes they worked, but usually they sat and drank, because there seemed to be little else to do; nowhere else to go but here, or home to the nothing that was there. And along with the drinking, there was talk. About politics. Or about yesterday's drinking. Or about anything that crossed their minds. It was talk that led to discussion that led to argument that sometimes led to blows. That was the way it was here. You could be a philosopher, but you had to be ready to back up your words with action. There were bottles and battles; one usually leading to the other.
"So, she left you," one of the other regulars said to him.
"Yea," he answered, his voice firm and even. "She's gone."
"You're better off for it," the other said. "She was startin' to cramp your style. You told me that yourself just the other night."
"Yea, she probably was," he answered. "Was gettin' to be a regular pain in the ass." His voice stayed even and emotionless. He watched the whiskey sit in the glass.
There was a couple of moments of silence; perhaps a period of mourning at the failed relationship.
"You seem kind of down," said one of the women who frequented the place. "Like you're takin' it hard." Her voice was smooth and sultry.
"I was with her for six years," he answered. "I guess I was kinda used to her. She could be alright."
"Don't sweat it," said the first voice, re-entering the choppy dialogue. "There's plenty of fish in the sea.
"She's got my kid," he replied flatly.
There was a moment of silence while everyone remembered the blonde-haired, blue-eyed boy.
"Ya don't want kids," said a grizzled oldtimer, who'd lived this life so long he'd forgotten any other. "They just hold you down. They're a nuisance."
"I never had a kid before," he replied. "It was kinda nice."
"You shouldn't had kids," the oldtimer said.
"You're probably right," he answered.
And so it went for the regulars The usual drinking tales relegated to the future, forgotten for now, so a more immediate issue could be dealt with.
It was strange, he thought. Before they had married, she had been one of the regulars. That was why he had let down his guard and married her. After his first failed marriage all those years ago, in his other more respectable life, when he had sworn not to marry again. She had seemed different. Her first marriage had also failed and she seemed to have forsaken her previous respectable life, as had he. It seemed a perfect match, and, at first, it had been. She had continued to come to the bar, and his other drinking haunts, where they drank themselves into quiet oblivion, then staggered arm in arm back to their miserable little apartment, their humble, little abode, their home sweet home, and made passionate, drunken love, until they passed out in each other's arms.
But then the boy had come. He had been unexpected. She had sworn she'd looked after the birth control. But the boy had come. She'd stopped coming to the bar, even when he offered to get a sitter. And she started forever lamenting their meagre existence, saying it wasn't fit for the boy, not even satisfied on the infrequent occasions when he worked; always, it seemed, wanting more than he could deliver.
"Don't think about it too much," one of the regulars reminded him at one point.
He just lifted his head in a reflective sort of way, choosing not to answer. He wasn't really even bothering to drink all that much anymore. Mostly, he sat and chewed on a swizzle stick and looked into his drink. He may have been pensive, but wouldn't have known what it meant, so he was probably just thoughtful.
And mostly, while he sat chewing on the swizzle stick and staring into his drink, he thought of her. And he started to wonder what she had done to him.
This had been his life for as long as he could remember. Since right after he and his first wife had split up.
They'd been high school sweethearts. But he had liked the party life, and was not much interested in the working life; the life of regularity and responsibility. He had given it a go in the furniture factory right after high school, but didn't really think much of it. Just lasted long enough to get married. But he couldn't break the hotel habit, and a little downturn in the economy, and a layoff from the factory, gave him the opportunity to pick up a temporary labouring job on construction. And it wasn't long before he'd settled into the unemployment routine, with plenty of drinking and partying thrown in for good measure. She left him about three days short of their third wedding anniversary. He was in the toilet throwing up when she walked out the door. He had known he didn't care. And it was the truth.
He turned on the barstool to regard the rest of the bar. It was a fairly sparse night. A group of drunken young college kids; a few secretarial-type women over in the corner; and a few business-like type guys, who were wolfishly eyeing up the secretarial-type women, and were over by the door making animal-like grunting noises.
And there was a middle-aged couple, sitting quietly together, holding hands across the table, and looking into each other's eyes. He felt emotion wash over him for the first time since he had read the note; emotion for her. Perhaps hurt. Perhaps anger. He banished it before he could know.
"God, you're serious tonight," said the woman who had spoken to him earlier, Wanda, he thought.
He shrugged his shoulders.
"You shouldn't let it get you down, you know," she offered.
"I know," he answered. "It's not really. It's just that I had a rough night last night and she could have picked a better time." He knew he was lying, but he didn't feel much like discussing this with these people on this particular evening.
His comment seemed to prevent further discussion. For while it was apparently not acceptable to mourn the loss of a mate, it was to feel hungover and ill from a night of heavy drinking. He smiled ever so slightly as the thought skipped across the surface of his mind.
"There, that's better," said Wanda, beaming from ear to ear, happy that she had cheered him up, and she reached over and patted him in an upbeat sort of way on the back.
He smiled again to make sure he had rid himself of her.
He found he could not take his usual solace from sitting in the bar and drinking on this particular night. His thoughts continually returned to the empty apartment, and while he kept trying to tell himself that it was just the boy he was missing, he knew that wasn't the case. He heard the clamour of the others around him, and ignored them as they talked over and around him. He was not for their petty squabbling on this night, and found himself only annoyed when he overheard what they were saying.
And it was not long before he slid off the barstool, and headed out into the night. Knowing he would avoid the apartment, but also knowing he felt strangely out of place here in this familiar haunt. Feeling he had little reason to be in either place.
And he walked far into the night, until there was little left of it, and morning was dawning, peeking into the new day, which poised to reveal itself for all to see. He went back, of course, to the apartment, because there was nowhere else to go. And once there, searched out his bed, and sleep, where he hoped he could escape the feelings he had been having. Night had already passed as he laid down his head.
Sleep was fitful and came in fleeting glimpses that he struggled to sustain, but could not however he tried. So that for several hours, he existed in that world of half reality and half sureality, where nothing is concrete, except the grayness of the mind.
He had lapsed partway out of reality, but had not quite wholly vanished, when the phone rang. He wondered that he bothered to answer it, but found himself reaching from the bed, and awkwardly wrenching the receiver from Mickey Mouse's grasp.
"Hello," he said, as he struggled to return more fully to consciousness.
"I had to call," his wife's voice said. "It's Josh. He's been in an accident."
The words brought him bolting back from the remainder of the sleepiness.
"What? How?" he stammered.
He heard his wife sob into the phone. It seemed to cause him to collect himself; to place a better grip on the situation.
"Settle down, honey," he said. "You've got to settle down , so you can tell me what happened and where you are." He felt a sense of self assuredness, knowing that he needed to sound calm and in control.
"I'll try," she said in a not-too-convincing way punctuated with another sob.
"Hold on," he said. "Take some deep breaths or something."
She was silent on the phone and he paused briefly to give her a chance to collect herself.
"There," he said after the few seconds of silence, "you okay?'
"Yea," she answered. "I think I'm better. Sorry."
"Now, tell me what's happened," he said in firm even voice.
"Josh got playing on some playground equipment on the way home for lunch, and he fell off the monkey bars," she said, hurrying her words. "We're at Emergency at the hospital. I'm not sure how bad he's hurt. They 're just checking on him. I'd hoped to know something by now."
"They likely don't know anything yet," he said, trying to make her feel better. "They'll tell you if they know. In the meantime, try not to worry and hope that no news is good news."
There was a pause on the phone.
"Sorry for calling you," she finally said, interrupting it.
"Hey, he's my son," he answered. "You'd better call if anything's up with him."
There was another pause.
"I'll come over," he said. "I want to be there. It's probably nothing, but I should be there."
"That would be good," she said. "I could use some help dealing with things."
"You alright?" he asked. "You need anything?"
"No, I'm fine," she said. "A little company would be good."
"Alright," he said. "You hold tight; I'll be right over.
They said a quiet goodbye and hung up.
Emotion again started to wash over him. Perhaps hurt. Perhaps anger. Perhaps for the boy. Perhaps for her. Or, perhaps for himself. He knew his thoughts should be for the boy, who could be badly hurt, but he also knew that he might be losing who he was; that he might be in as much danger as the boy, and that he might also die.
He got ready quickly. Felt poor from all the drink and the lack of sleep, but pushed himself to get ready quickly. He called a cab and waited for it to come. It was an anguished wait, his head throbbing, his guts in knots, seething and churning. Stress. Tension. All the things he hated about life; about responsibility. But this was the time. He would have to be there. Although he could better head for a bottle, he knew he could not turn that way.
He walked quickly through the hospital after he arrived. Found her in the waiting room outside the Emergency ward.
"Have you heard?" he asked her, as he walked in.
"Yea," she answered, "the doctor was just out a while ago, and he said it looks like a broken arm and a bad bump on the head."
His first thought was that the woman had over reacted to the boy's injuries, but he quickly forgot that, knowing that she had been sincerely worried about him when she'd called.
"So, he'll be alright," he said.
"Yea, we'll likely be able to see him soon," she answered somewhat sheepishly; "I guess I got pretty excited over nothing," she added, seeming to know what he'd been thinking.
"Hey, I'm glad you called," he said. "I would have been awfully disappointed if he'd had an accident like this, and you didn't call. Remember, I'm his father."
"I know," she said, and there was an almost wistful tone to her voice.
He hesitated for a couple of seconds, then asked the question.
"What's wrong? What makes you say it like that?"
She looked over at him in a kind of shy sort of way, out of the tops of her eyes, hiding her face from him by its angle.
"I'm so mixed up," she started, twisting her hands together to show the uneasiness she felt.
"Why?" he asked, softly, with emotion. "What do you mean?"
"Last night I wanted you out of my life so damned bad, I ran for the door," she managed, "but, today, when I got the news about Josh, all I wanted was to be with you."
She stifled a sob, and without really thinking about what he was doing, he went to her and wrapped his arms around her and held her against him. She seemed to fit into every nook and cranny of his body.
"Hey, baby," he said softly. "It's alright."
"I just don't know anymore," she sobbed. "I thought I knew what I wanted when we got married. But , now, I just don't know."
"Hey," he said, pulling back away from her ever so slightly and gently tilting her head toward his, until he was looking directly into her eyes, "I've been screwin' you around."
Her eyes looked into him, seeming to see inside, seeming to tell her that he was sincere.
"It's true," he said. "I never thought I'd hear myself saying something like this, but I haven't been fair to you. I've been doin' my thing and not worrying about you. Hey, I didn't ask for the kid, but he's mine too, and I realized how much both of you meant to me after you left yesterday."
He pulled her close again, feeling her against him, oblivious to what might be around them; not caring whether there might be others who might see them so embraced in such a public place. Usually, something he would care about, but not in the here and now. All his caring was directed toward her.
Finally, they parted, pulling away from each other with the awkward embarrassment people feel when nothing, not even the physical, stands between them; when they have been as one.
"I'd like to try to work things out," he said. "Maybe make some changes."
She looked at him, perhaps with a wondering look in her eye; wondering if the sincerity remained.
"I know it's easy to say," he said. "And I know I've said it before, but I don't think I ever meant it before. Not like now.'
Even though they now stood a few feet apart, he again looked toward her so that she could see inside him, and he could show her how he felt. It was a hard thing. As hard as he'd done for a very long time.
"Will you help me, babe?" he softly asked.
She looked over at him, and he thought he could feel what she wanted.
"I'd like it to be better," she said, "but things have to get more stable. We've got to have the right environment for Josh. Kids can't have all that drinking and partying going on. And neither can I. I know we said there'd be no strings when we got married, and I'm sorry about the boy, but there have to be strings."
"Hey, don't apologize for the boy," he said. "I wanted him too, after you got pregnant. And it's been great. But I just forgot that kids need a little stability. And I forgot that their mothers do too." He smiled slightly as he added the last line, but it was a smile of tenderness.
"I'd really like for us to try to work things out, but you'll really have to make those changes if anything's going to happen," she said. "I can't go on living the way we have been. I need a home."
"I know," he answered. "I've got to get my shit together. I know it's a little late, but maybe I can still make something happen. I'm not exactly an old guy."
"No, you're not," she said, and she came over and kissed him gently on the cheek.
Later on, as they sat on the edge of the boy's bed, and watched him as he lay somewhat groggily, but with a trace of a smile on his face, he felt what he thought was a special warmth in the room, overcoming even the sterile antisceptic demeanor of the place. He remembered the previous day spent sitting drunk in the easy chair, and last night, in the bar, among the regulars, where there had been nothing.
He felt he knew little about the ways of the world, and he was the type of person who rarely wondered about such things, but he could not help but wonder at what had come over him in the last couple of days. The headache and the queasiness in his stomach were all but forgotten, only causing him momentary discomfort from time to time, and he felt comfortable to be here, with the woman and the boy.
He had promised that he would change things in the past, and he hadn't. And he made no apologies for that. And it might happen that he'd not be able to make them now, and that he would again fall into his old ways, and there would be disappointment and heartbreak. But, god, he would try. He saw that he felt something for someone; that he was not the singular creature he had seemed to feel. And he realized that it had not been the boy's accident that had brought him to this reality, but the note on the fridge. It had been an invitation for him; an opportunity to leave the forever party, the place where so many of life's souls come to abide, and so many are lost.
He must still find out where else there was and what else there was. But there must be more than the forever party. That much he now knew.