After work on Thursday, I slept all day – which was normal, since I worked until 4 a.m. Larry came home from work and I was eating my sautéed mushrooms and drinking Diet Coke. Other than some mustard and a carton of cigarettes in the freezer, though, our fridge was now empty.
“There’s no beer,” I said to Larry. “Let’s just go to Paul’s.”
Larry laughed. “We can’t go to Paul’s,” he said. “Not until I get paid.”
“Whattaya mean we can’t go to Paul’s? We always go to Paul’s!”
“Not tonight we don’t,” Larry said. “We got no fuckin’ money.”
“It’s 50 cents!” I said, starting to shriek a little. “We don’t have 50 cents?” I hadn’t considered that one draft would never be sufficient, and I wasn’t planning to share my one beer with Larry.
“We got nothin’ until tomorrow, when I get fuckin’ paid.”
“What about my fuckin’ money?” I asked. I cashed my checks and gave the money to him for rent.
“Your money’s spent, too,” he said.
This had never happened before. In the course of my lifetime, I’d never had no money for beer. And since beer was all that mattered in the world, I was at an impasse. I hadn’t gone a day without beer in a very long time.
“We have to have 50 fuckin’ cents,” I said.
Larry pulled the change from his pocket. “We have 28 cents,” he said. He threw the money on the table and sat on the couch. “You can have it.”
This was getting serious. “What about your credit card?” I begged. Larry carried a completely unused credit card in his wallet in case of emergencies. “I think this is an emergency.”
“We’re not using the fuckin’ credit card,” he said, laughing. He thought I was kidding.
I took another swig of Diet Coke from the two-liter bottle I was holding. “Okay,” I said.
“Okay?” he asked.
“Yeah,” I said. “I guess I’m going out without you. Somebody’ll buy me a beer.”
“You can’t fuckin’ wait until tomorrow?”
I was already putting on my boots. “No, I can’t fuckin’ wait until tomorrow.”
Larry turned on the TV and put his feet on the table. “Okay,” he said. “You better not fuck any of the fuckin’ guys who buy you beer.”
I didn’t answer that. I headed out the door for The Sharwood, within walking distance. The bar was dark and not terribly crowded, since it was a Thursday night. I walked in and sat down at the bar.
“What can I get for ya?” the bartender asked.
I realized quite suddenly that I should have come with Larry’s 28 cents. Maybe the bartender would have gotten me half a draft beer.
“I want a draft,” I laughed. “But I don’t have any money.”
“First one’s on me, then,” the bartender said.
“Thank you!” I said, genuinely grateful. I waited for the foam to die, then sipped slowly – but there was no need. Before I’d even finished my beer, some guy had refilled his pitcher and poured some into my glass. Someone else had ordered another one for me before I’d finished my second one. In less than an hour, I had a guy sitting to my left, another guy to the right, and I was playing pool with a few others.
I stayed for hours and got quite plastered with no money at all.
Best of all, I didn’t have to pay with my body. When the bar closed, I stumbled home alone.
I passed out in my clothes next to Larry, who was sound asleep.
In my head, my life was slowly becoming a hell. Instead of getting happier and growing up, I felt like I was regressing: sad, empty, and feeling more alone than ever.
Larry and I fought regularly, usually at night. He worked all day, and I slept all day, and I never wanted to let him sleep when we got home from the bars. For some reason, Larry didn’t seem to have any interest in staying awake with me.
I didn’t understand this.
I didn’t understand why Larry didn’t feel compelled to explore the meaning of life, or analyze our relationship, or contemplate what happens after you die, or compare and contrast religious ideals, or discuss the various career paths I might want to take, or contemplate the meaning behind Pink Floyd’s The Wall, or talk about suicide methods, or create art out of cigarette ash.
These are the things I wanted to do when I got home from the bar. Larry, who had been up since sunrise, wanted to sleep.
So I would philosophize alone, writing poetry in the margins of take-out menus and scrawling animated stick figures on napkins and creating elaborate spirals in table dust. I felt like the only person in the world who was still awake.
I considered night “my time.” But I felt so incredibly lonely. Bonnie was in college with new friends, and everyone I’d known previously had moved on with their own lives. All I had was Larry, and we weren’t exactly friends.
I felt locked inside my own private cocoon, with no idea why I felt imprisoned while insisting I was “free.”
My overall mission in life was to maintain a feeling of apathy that was so strong that I would never know pain. Sometimes in my apathetic misery, I’d slice at my wrists with a razor blade, flirting with the idea that I could disappear.
I wasn’t getting what I wanted from the world, and I wanted someone, somewhere, to know that.
Then I’d wake up every morning realizing that, no matter what had happened the night before, my agony had reappeared. I woke up hungover but highly conscious of my own distress.
I could never identify why I had so much mental anguish.
But I needed to find some way to squash it. On work days, I drank copious amounts of Diet Coke and chain-smoked cigarettes. During my four-day weekends, I would start with a cigarette, then Diet Coke – as much as I could consume – then a trip to the bathroom (sometimes to vomit), then back to the fridge for a beer.
If the beer was gone – as it often was – either Larry was walking into the apartment with a 12-pack or I was on my way to a bar. I rarely went an hour on the weekends without putting alcohol into my system.
And then, slowly, the pain would dissipate.
I believed that all I needed to do was drink, and write, and create, and play the guitar, and sing, and dream … and eventually I’d magically become the person I was meant to be. I didn’t consider visualizing my life in five years, or setting goals, or making plans, or taking any action steps.
To be honest, I didn’t know what I wanted to become, unless you count “rock star.” I just knew that what I wanted to become was not what I had become.
And I was starting to realize that whatever I was becoming was not what I actually wanted to be.
Simultaneously I had no idea who – or what – I was.
Larry and I were driving home from Linda’s one night after his band had been playing. I’d spent the majority of the night talking to Ronnie. I was drunk and buzzing on a bit of cocaine Ronnie had provided as well.
“I wanted to sing tonight,” I slurred at Larry. I wasn’t even sober enough to stand upright.
“I wanted you to sing,” Larry said. “Don’t you fuckin’ remember? I asked you after the first set!”
“Asked me what?” I did not remember the first set or anything thereafter. I was beyond wasted; I was obliterated.
“You were too busy makin’ eyes at that fuckin’ guy to answer me!”
Making eyes? I didn’t even know what that meant. And I didn’t remember any guy except Ronnie. “What guy?”
“You know exactly what I’m fuckin’ talking about!” Larry huffed. “Don’t play stupid with me!”
Play stupid? I really didn’t understand what he was saying tonight. “I don’t know what you’re talking about! And I’m not stupid!”
“You are fuckin’ stupid if you don’t fuckin’ know what I’m talking about!” Larry bellowed. Suddenly he careened off the road, sliding a bit in the snow before screeching to a halt.
“What the fuck?!” I yelled at him; I’d nearly dropped my cigarette.
“Get outta my car!” he screamed. “Get the fuck out of my fuckin’ car! You can fuckin’ walk home!”
It was the dead of winter and freezing cold outside. I did not want to get out of the car, so I just sat still. But I couldn’t keep my mouth shut. “Fuck you!” I said.
“Fuck you, ya fuckin’ cunt! Get outta my fuckin’ car!”
I got out of the car. My teeth chattered before he even pulled away.
I was wearing my leather jacket but no gloves; as usual, no underwear or socks. I hadn’t planned on being outside in the snow, nor had I expected to be outside at 3:00 in the morning.
I started walking, having absolutely no idea where I was going. I just shuffled along. When I reached a spot under an overpass where the snow hadn’t fallen, I sat down on a curb. I supposed I could sleep there, but it was awfully cold. What if I froze to death overnight?
I really didn’t want to freeze to death; my parents would hate that.
My parents, I thought. It’s warm at my parent’s house. I looked around and saw light in the distance. So I got up and started shuffling again, aiming for the light. I walked for a much longer time than expected.
It turned out to be a convenience store – with a payphone outside. I checked for change. Nothing. So I dialed zero.
My mother picked up the phone.
“Collect call from Kristen, will you accept the charges?”
“Yes.” Click. “Kirsten?”
“Mom? Larry left me on the side of the road and I’m cold. I just need a place to stay for the night.”
“Where are you?”
“I’m at the CoGo’s in Turtle Creek.”
My mother covered the phone with her hand while she talked to my dad. I waited, too drunk to think.
“Daddy’s coming to get you,” she said. “Stay there.”
I stayed there. I didn’t have anywhere else to go.
My dad picked me up and drove me to their house, maybe 10 minutes away. We didn’t talk much.
I passed out immediately.
When I woke sometime in the afternoon, my mom drove me to Pitcairn. We didn’t talk much either.
Probably they both just saved my life. I hope I said thank you.
After our rollicking good time on New Year’s Eve, my date with Edgar the school bus driver wasn’t quite what I’d envisioned.
Larry was working, so Edgar and I went out to lunch. My disillusionment started when my ride arrived: a Chevy Citation with a broken handle. Edgar had to open the door from the inside.
“Where’s the bus?” I asked.
Edgar did not laugh. “I don’t drive the bus to lunch,” he said.
I must have been completely ignorant about such things, because I’d imagined our date to include sex on a school bus.
Instead we just headed off for a regular date.
“Well, tell me all about your job then!” I said excitedly, hoping for details about powering such a monstrous vehicle.
Edgar did not even smile. “Well I drive to a couple of schools,” he said. “The kids scream the whole time.”
“But you love it, right?” I asked, a bit confused.
“I guess,” he said. “But I have to get up really early so I’m kinda tired.” I didn’t know if Edgar meant he was tired now, or he was tired every day. Maybe both.
The conversation did not get better. Edgar had no passion for his job, which made me wonder if maybe I should be driving a bus, rather than dating this bus driver.
{This consideration was a serious clue to a relationship pattern I’d developed, but I completely missed the clue.}
“Isn’t it fun to drive all those kids around?” I queried.
“Hell no,” he said.
Edgar and I went to an Italian restaurant, one that was fast and cheap. Edgar didn’t laugh or smile the entire time we were eating, didn’t seem to understand when I was making jokes, and he didn’t talk much about his job, even after I showed a renewed interest in the kids.
We had exactly one glass of wine each, which is utterly useless for an alcoholic. What good is one glass of wine? It ignites the MORE MORE MORE! urgency, but fails miserably at creating any kind of fun romp afterward.
I also mistakenly believed that, because Edgar was younger than Larry, we would have a lot in common.
“What kind of music do you listen to?” I asked. “Who’s your favorite band?”
“I dunno,” he said. “I don’t really listen to music.”
Then he stopped talking again. Edgar didn’t talk much about anything. So we ate in silence.
We’d had such a good time on New Year’s Eve. How did I miss the incredulously boring nature of the man across the table from me?
I felt guilty eating the food Edgar provided. I hadn’t thought to bring any money; Larry always paid for everything. I wasn’t used to going on actual dates.
And this particular date made me want to stop dating forever. By the time we were done with lunch, I was ready to go home – with one exception.
“Should we do a line before we go?” I asked. Edgar had supplied me with an immense amount of cocaine on New Year’s Eve; maybe that was the element we were missing.
Edgar didn’t even hesitate: “That was just for New Year’s Eve,” he said.
“Okay,” I said, still trying to act chipper. “That was a really fun night.”
Edgar grunted, “Uh-huh.” He didn’t seem even slightly interested in our wild night together, and he certainly wasn’t interested in our lunch.
So it was a short, very quiet ride back to my house. I never saw the school bus driver again.
Since doing cocaine on New Year’s Eve way back in 1984, I longed to thoroughly and exceptionally enjoy the last day of the year. I didn’t know how to make it happen, but I believed that New Year’s Eve had to be special.
I didn’t want to go to a bar and see a live band, like we always did. I wanted to do something different, something special, something fabulous and unforgettable. The memories I planned to make would last me till my dying day. On the last day of 1986, I wanted to party. I wanted to blast loud music and dance until the sun came up and drink champagne and do lots and lots and lots of cocaine – just like I had two years earlier.
Unfortunately, this was not the lifestyle I now lived. Unless Bonnie came to visit, which was rare, I had absolutely no friends, and all of Larry’s friends were ancient. And no one in my biker circle understood my voracious appetite for cocaine, nor could they afford it. Cocaine was ridiculously expensive.
So when Larry said, “Leo’s friend is having a party” – and assumed we were going – I got very excited.
“Can we get cocaine?” I asked immediately, hopeful.
Larry laughed. “We don’t need that shit,” he said. So we went to the party without any cocaine or champagne, a 12-pack of Miller Lite tucked under Larry’s arm which, I believe, he drank entirely on his own.
There was no dancing. People were sitting around on couches; the television was on. Whole groups of people were walking in and out of the back door, seemingly just wandering. Music was playing and there was a keg out there.
It wasn’t what I had envisioned, but it would do.
I was in a carpeted hallway – and in line for the bathroom – when I met Edgar. He was young, my height, with jet-black hair and dark eyes. As we stood next to each other waiting, we eventually started chatting.
Edgar was a school bus driver – a job I had always wanted to do, since I loved driving and I loved kids. I was fascinated.
Edgar said, in his monotone voice, “Let’s go out to eat. I can tell you all about it.”
I didn’t hesitate: “Yes!” Here was a guy whose job I respected! Never mind that I actually lived with Larry.
By the time the bathroom opened for me to go in, I took Edgar in with me. We made out against the sink for so long, our hips had sink indentations.
Then Edgar took out a container of white powder and started spreading lines on the sink. Why had I been wasting my time kissing this man? He had cocaine!
We did a few lines, kissed a little more, then went out to rejoin the party. Larry was used to me disappearing and suspected nothing – so whenever Edgar nodded at me from across the room, I knew it was time for another trip to the bathroom.
I called my mother the next day. “I have a date with a bus driver!” I told her.
I wanted her to be proud of me, trying to make something of my life. She’d always thought I should be a teacher; I figured dating a bus driver was the next best thing.
She never said a word about me cheating on Larry. In fact, no one did.
With the holidays upon us, our fighting temporarily quelled, Larry said, “Let’s do the Christmas run!”
“What’s a Christmas run?” I asked. I did not enjoy running.
“You’ll see,” he said. “You’ll fuckin’ love it.”
We had to get up very early for the “Christmas run,” and we had to wear chaps. Chaps were Larry’s solution to cold weather. They actually only covered the fronts of our legs. Maybe they deflected wind. Maybe. Like our boots, thin leather gloves and black jackets, chaps looked really cool and were equally inefficient.
Anyway, we dressed as warmly as possible in mid-December, and headed out on the Harley. We didn’t drive far before pulling into in a giant parking lot crawling with motorcycles. We putted around the lot carefully, since bikes were haphazardly parked and bikers were strolling about. Finally we parked, hopped off, and used the port-a-johns before hopping back on the bike.
All of the engines seemed to start at once – loud, Harley roars echoing everywhere as we ambled into the procession. At the exit for the parking lot, just before we roared onto the highway behind the other bikes in parade-like fashion, we were stopped by a guy surrounded by giant boxes labeled “TOYS FOR TOTS.”
Larry waited while the guy reached into a box and pulled out a three-foot-tall teddy bear.
“Here ya go, young lady!” the man said.
Apparently I was getting a bear.
Ahead of us, the motorcycles had formed two single lines, bikers pairing up like lines of ants. We hopped into a spot and stayed in our line, slowly and carefully so as not to knock anyone off their bikes.
We rode and rode, over hills and through valleys, slowly in that long motorcade, me hanging onto my teddy bear and enjoying the scenery. My ears hurt from the roar, my head pounded from my hangover, but I was fascinated with what was going on around me. I’d had no idea there were this many motorcycles in all of Pennsylvania.
“Do I get to keep the bear?” I yelled to Larry.
“Nah, it’s for the kids!” Larry yelled back.
“What kids?”
“It’s for charity!” Larry yelled back. I still had no idea how riding with this bear helped charity, but I tried to emotionally detach from my new furry friend.
We putted along through small towns, where families sat in lawn chairs waving, watching us go by. I waved back. In addition to holding the bear, that was my job.
Finally we pulled into a hospital parking lot that was big enough to accommodate all the motorcycles. As we pulled into the lot, we tossed our toys into boxes that looked exactly like the boxes from whence they’d come.
We slid around the new parking lot for a minute, Larry admiring the bikes and complimenting people on their engines. He stopped and lit a cigarette without turning off the Harley.
“Let’s go get breakfast,” he said.
“Okay,” I said. In spite of my hangover, I actually felt hungry. It was the first day in months that I hadn’t started my morning with a beer.
We pulled out of the lot and headed out of the city to find pancakes and chocolate milk.
I don’t remember doing anything else for Christmas that year.
The Thanksgiving episode shone a brief spotlight on what my life with Larry was really like.
Up until then, I’d believed I had the best of both worlds: a family who loved me (and allowed me to watch our dog) and a boyfriend who satisfied my every desire: a safe place to sleep and eat, a semi-functional gigging band in which I could sometimes sing, a boom box to play my favorite music, and enough alcohol to completely anesthetize me 24 hours a day, seven days a week, for the rest of my life.
But watching Larry chase my beloved childhood poodle down the street caused something inside me to snap – a veil lifted and I lost my already errant feelings of security.
I saw Larry in a new light for the first time. I suddenly recognized that the man I was dating wasn’t actually a beacon to freedom. I was dating a highly fallible human being. Whereas I once trusted him with my life, I now doubted him completely.
I didn’t know the man I thought I knew. And I couldn’t believe in this new guy.
Larry scared my dog – my tiny, short-legged, aging brown poodle – for absolutely no reason. Who does that? What kind of person does that? What would make Larry turn his rage on a helpless animal?
Larry had always treated me with so much kindness – and I’d always believed he had a kind heart. Now I wondered: was Larry actually an abuser?
I flashed back on the “instinctive” black eye that I’d gotten for my drunken misbehavior. I’d written that off as a “mistake,” something he’d never do again. I blamed myself for slamming the car into park during an otherwise pleasant drive. And I reasoned that, since I didn’t remember being hit, Larry could have lied to me – but he chose to be honest.
Because Larry was a good guy. He wouldn’t lie to me.
But on Thanksgiving, I entered into my tiny stockpile of evidence: one traumatized dog, shaking and afraid, and a neighborhood full of strangers who saw us as the white trash we’d become.
Maybe Larry wasn’t the savior I’d believed him to be. Maybe he was some other kind of person entirely.
And if he was, what could I do about it? I couldn’t change him; he was old.
I’d left my family – twice – to be with him. Bonnie was my best friend in the world but she was at the University of Akron now, with new friends. I couldn’t move in with her there, and I sure couldn’t wreck the lives of any of my college friends, who hadn’t graduated to become full-time alcoholics.
And I couldn’t go back to my parents while continuing to drink – certainly not comfortably.
And I definitely wasn’t going to give up alcohol.
So, unlike in Florida where I blamed my environment, I started to blame Larry for the way I felt.
But I couldn’t leave him. I was stuck. For the first time, I realized I was stuck living with Larry.
Yet it took me a very, very long time to figure out why.
The holidays rolled around, my first after college. My parents went away around Thanksgiving, which was my greatest reason to give thanks. Not only did I not need to stay sober on Thanksgiving Day – an agonizing thought – but my parents asked me to watch our poodle, Mocha, while they were gone.
I was getting a dog!
“We can trust you to take care of her, right?” they said.
“Of course!” I said. I loved dogs more than I loved anything else in the world, and I loved Mocha more than I loved all other dogs. She was the treasured family pet, my bright light from childhood. I was thrilled that she’d be coming to stay with me.
Mocha was a very easy dog. She was older, relaxed, and required only basic care. She slept next to me on the couch as I drank and smoked – things she’d never been around. Our yard was a small square behind the house that couldn’t be reached without a hike down the block, around the slum building and through a locked fence – so Mocha got walked instead of “let out” every day. I’d stroll down the streets with her, me hungover and/or drunk, Mocha perky and happy to be outside.
These were happy times.
On Thanksgiving day, I woke up around noon as usual. Larry was in the kitchen with a tea towel tucked into his jeans, like he was in a sixties sitcom.
“I’m ready to cook the turkey!” I said, lighting a cigarette and grabbing the two-liter of Diet Coke.
“It’s already in!” Larry said, smiling. “We even have stuffing!” He showed me the empty box.
This felt wrong. I was raised with a Mom who did all the cooking, including on holidays. It seemed only right that on my first Thanksgiving with Larry, I should make the turkey.
“What do you mean it’s already in?” I asked. “It’s my job to make the turkey! I’m supposed to make the fucking turkey!”
“The turkey takes a long time,” he said. “You weren’t up yet and ….”
“But it was my job!” I screamed. “It’s our first Thanksgiving and I am supposed to make dinner!”
I had absolutely no idea how to cook, but I continued to scream at Larry until he started to scream back. We screamed and tossed things around in the kitchen until I finally stormed out the door, furious.
Mocha ran down the stairs and out the door with me. The noise terrified her; we both needed air.
But Larry followed furiously in his clunky boots, yelling: “You fucking bitch!”
Mocha and I were standing on the cobbled-brick street in front of the house when he arrived – fuming and out of control.
“YOU’RE NOT FUCKING LEAVING ME AGAIN!” he screamed, spoon still in hand.
Neighbors came to their doors and windows to witness the Thanksgiving commotion.
Hearts ruptured as Larry aimed all of his rage at my poodle. “FUCK YOU DOG! FUCK YOU STUPID FUCKING DOG!” He stomped after Mocha, his giant boots booming on the bricks.
I watched helplessly as Larry chased her down the street in ten thunderous strides.
“LEAVE MY FUCKING DOG ALONE YOU FUCKING ASSHOLE!” I screamed at him.
“Fucking dog,” Larry mumbled, slamming himself back inside.
Mocha had skittered off into a neighbor’s yard, safely away from the mean man with the boots.
I found her quickly, trembling and traumatized. Mocha and I sat on the curb for a long time, me petting her, calming her, calming myself.
While I found Larry to be alluring, like a speck of gold in a muddy creek, and I loved the music he put into my life, I had not one iota of respect for his job, his choices, his behaviors, his past, or his way of life.
I was extraordinarily seduced by the confidence of the man who became my surrogate husband and father. I found Larry to be extremely attractive, and I was fascinated by the blue-collar world I’d never seen. But Larry and I had not one millimeter of anything in common, and I had no interest in him as a person. I never thought beyond what he could provide for me in my 22-year-old desperation to live “independently.”
In my head, I was living a free and easy biker life – hair flowing in the wind, arms outstretched to reach the sun – able to do whatever I wanted to do, whenever I wanted to do it. That’s why I went back to Larry. I believed in the dream I thought I was living – and Larry continuously reinforced that dream. He never wanted anything beyond the simplicity he’d attained.
Sometimes we’d ride on the motorcycle on a warm day and the sun would blaze and the ice would melt and I would think, Yeah, this is IT!
And sometimes I’d be wet and hungry and sick and flopping all over the back of the bike because I was too wasted to sit upright and I’d think, I just want to fucking die.
But in my head, I only remembered the sunny days. I thought it was always summer and was surprised when the morning was cold. I was disappointed when it rained, which happened frequently in Pittsburgh, but remembered prior days as though they’d been full of carnivals and cotton candy. Every day, I’d wake in complete agony, head pounding, throat parched, and head straight for the fridge, and grab a beer as though my life was one continuous picnic.
I’d become convinced that my life was glorious. I thought I was beaming. I thought I was happy.
In reality, I was living next to a slum in a degenerate town teeming with derelicts. I was filthy to the core – barely clean enough to show up to work. My entire life revolved around the consumption of alcohol. On weekends, I had no reason to get out of bed except that there was a cigarette to light, a beer to crack open, and a dark bar into which I could crawl.
Other than those happy-hoo-hah moments when cocaine appeared, I did nothing other than sleep and drink beer. On a big day, I drank a few shots of root beer schnapps, or petted a dog on the street, or bought a carton of cigarettes, or a pizza with mushrooms. Sometimes I choked down a pickled egg or bought a candy bar at the gas station. That made it a big day.
There was absolutely no connection in my mind between my alcohol use and my behavior. Deep-down in the core of my soul, I believed that everyone wanted to live the way I lived.
And eventually, after months and months of living where and how I was living, drinking myself daily into oblivion, listening to everyone talking about freedom, believing that I was living my dream … I started to believe I belonged where I was. I began to feel at home, to find my place, and fit right in.
I was staring into the mirror in the morning, stupefied; I’d never seen such a thing.
My left eye was swollen and the outside corner was red, hot to the touch. A puffy flap of skin under and around my eye made it hard to see, although my sight seemed to be unimpaired otherwise.
Larry walked in as I was staring into the mirror.
“Did I bump into a wall or something last night?” I asked. “Look at my eye!”
Larry glanced over and shook his head. “You’ve got a black eye.”
“It’s not black! It’s red. Or pink. Maybe I have pink eye!”
“You’ve got a black eye,” he said again, and walked out of the room.
I followed him. “How would I get a black eye? Did I get into a fight or something?”
“No,” Larry said. “Wanna go to the VFW?”
Football game! Beer all day!
“Yeah!” I said, and forgot about my eye. We drank all day.
By Monday, my eye was no longer red and puffy; it was bruised and black and blue and purple. Touching it made me wince, so I didn’t touch it. But I stared regularly into the mirror, baffled.
“What happened to my eye?” I asked Larry again on Monday night.
“You fuckin’ know what happened,” he said.
“I don’t fuckin’ know,” I said, “or I wouldn’t keep asking.”
“You fuckin’ know,” he said.
I did not know.
When my colleagues asked me at work, “What happened to your eye?” I responded, “I don’t know; I was drunk.” Everyone thought that was funny.
I laughed along, since it was the truth.
I didn’t drill Larry with questions, nor did I pester him. But I mentioned the black eye questioningly at least every couple of days, hoping that Larry would finally acquiesce to my request for information.
One day, when the black eye was almost completely gone, I said, “I sure wish I knew what happened to my eye. It’s so weird!”
Larry – who was chewing on a bite of sandwich at the time – swallowed and stared at me. Hard. He put down his sandwich and said nothing.
“What?” I asked.
“You really don’t remember what happened, do you?”
“No!” I said. “I don’t fucking remember! Do you know what happened?”
“Yeah, I know,” Larry said.
“Then why won’t you fucking tell me?”
“Because I hit you,” Larry whispered, as softly as I’ve ever heard him speak.
“No you didn’t!” I said.
He swallowed again, this time choking back tears. “I hit you,” he said. “You put the car into fuckin’ park when we were driving down the highway. You don’t remember that either, I guess. And I just … it was a reflex. I couldn’t stop myself.”
“You hit me?”
“Yeah,” he said. Then he picked up his sandwich, took another bite.
“I remember putting the car into park. I probably shouldn’t have done that.”
“You’re fuckin’ right you shouldn’t have!”
“But I don’t remember you hitting me. How can I not remember you hitting me?”
“I don’t know,” Larry said. He was chewing like normal now, no regrets.
“Huh,” I said. “I had no fuckin’ idea what happened.”
“Well, now ya do,” said Larry.
I was more interested in the fact that I had no recollection of the punch than I was interested in the punch itself.
