Wednesday Nights

I’ll never forget the first time I saw you. 

From the minute I laid eyes upon you, it was like I already knew everything there was to know about you. I didn’t, of course.

How could I have known?

I was sitting at the bar, like I always do around 8 o’clock on a Wednesday night. It’s my chosen hour because there are fewer people to deal with than on the more popular weekend nights, and the Wednesday clientele are less likely to try to make my drunken acquaintance. There were maybe three or four other people at the bar, all of us sat as far apart from each other as possible, as if we were fearful of catching the plague, and a couple of folks drinking pints at the tables, watching baseball on the grainy TV. And, oddly, you, dancing alone on the stage in the back.

You were a terrible dancer. Jerky movements, off-beat shimmies, clumsy swaying. Your arms reached overhead, groping for the disco ball three feet out of your reach, your weight shifting so far up your toes that I felt sure you’d fall over. I thought that you must have been drunk, or baked, or something low-grade like that. I didn’t care. To each their own, as long as they don’t bother me.

I wanted so desperately to look away, to ignore you. But I couldn’t. Something about you kept gnawing at me, something irrepressible. I had to understand you.

And you gave me plenty of time, because you kept coming. Every Wednesday night, 8 o’clock sharp, there you were. Straining against gravity, reaching skyward, head tilted back, eyes closed. Twisting your core like one of those balloon men outside of a car dealership. Pure bliss. I think I was jealous.

What brought you here? Why were you like this? I had to know. So I began to construct your life story from every detail you gave me.

Shiny flats, translucent black stockings, pencil skirt, navy blue blouse, gold earrings. You came right from work. Some corporate job, surely. Let’s say finances. You were a successful exec at some nine-to-five, managerial-level. The life of the office Christmas party. You must have been a legend.

Silver ring with a big gemstone on the ring finger of your left hand. Married, of course. Pretty young, maybe early thirties. Probably a photo of a kid or two in your wallet. Happy family, house in the suburbs, white-picket fence. You came here to let loose. It’s your only opportunity. Nothing wrong with a few drinks after work. To each their own, as long as they don’t bother me.

You, though. I secretly hoped that you would. I secretly imagined that you harbored the same dreams about my life as I did yours, that one day you would sit down next to me at the bar and share them. Who was I, to you?

I’d like to think that I’m a pretty observant person. So, naturally, most of my assumptions held some degree of truth, I’d discover. But I’m not very imaginative. I couldn’t see everything, couldn’t fill in the gaps.

I couldn’t see the needle marks on your arms, which must have been concealed by the flashing kaleidoscopic lights of the disco ball every time you groped at the ceiling, baring your forearms for all to see and ignore. Were you trying to show us? Were you trying to show me?

I couldn’t appreciate just how remarkably off-balance you were, constantly shifting your weight from one foot to another, catching yourself with quick lunges and back steps. I just assumed you were drunk at a bar, which is normal. Which is fine.

I didn’t know that with every hop, every sway, every lunge, that your friends and family were slipping out of your life, drowning in the muck of corporate alienation. I could have known, but I failed to imagine. Or, more acutely, I guess I failed to ask.

So it came as a complete shock to me that you didn’t show up on the dance floor one fateful Wednesday at 8 o’clock. I didn’t have to wait for the next to corroborate my worst fears. You showed up in the paper the next day.

Twenty nine years old. I was off by a few years. Married, two kids. Bingo. Beloved boss at a corporate job. Pretty good so far.

Drug addict. That’s what killed you. That’s what I saw every Wednesday at 8 o’clock, in combination with the booze you bought from the bar. I fell a little short, here.

How could I have known? How could I have known that you needed help?

That’s the question that plagues me, now, every time I take a shower, every time I board the bus, every time I stare up at the flickering LED lights at work, every time I try to fall asleep. Every time the cracked leather of the barstool sighs under my ass as I take my station at 8 o’clock on Wednesday. Every time I turn to study the dance floor and you’re not there, swaying in the lights, head lolling back, eyes shut in blissful apathy. How could I have known?

Maybe I could have been more observant. Maybe I could have exercised a little more imagination.

Maybe I could have gone up to you. Maybe I could have introduced myself. Maybe I could have gotten to know you.

Maybe I could have asked, Are you ok?

Maybe I could have been a little more human.

But that’s not my responsibility, I remind myself. I’m just some asshole sitting at the bar, warning strangers off with my red-tinted glare. That’s what assholes at the bar do. We don’t talk to each other.

It’s no way to achieve absolution. So, some Wednesday at 8 o’clock in the future, when I see a new person stride up to the dance floor and strike a faltering pose, I try something different. I walk up to them. I say hello. I ask, How are you?

I take some responsibility.

I’m sorry.