The Drifter

There were more stars over head then he could ever remember seeing in the night sky before, but then again he couldn’t remember much of anything since he’d left San Antonio. The thought of that comforted him and he smiled. He reached into his pack and pulled out a half empty bottle of cheap whiskey and he took a long swig straight from the bottle. He quickly returned it and continued his slow march down State rd. 89A.

At least he new where he was going. Might not remember how he had managed to get this far but he did have a destination in mind and that dogged determination carried him through despite his almost continual black out. The alcohol kept grief and pain from completely breaking his fragile hold on reality. He couldn’t allow himself to start to think. He absolutely had to keep his mind sedated to the point of total oblivion or taking another step would likely become impossible.

Of course, no matter how much booze he drank he could never really erase the memory that was chasing him away from everything and everyone he’d ever known. He knew what he had to do. He’d known what he had to do for a long, long time he just hadn’t had the strength to do it. Now his drinking wasn’t just a bad habit, it was no longer just some problem to be discussed with his loved ones, always reassuring them and himself that it wasn’t so bad. He had repeated that lie over and over until now he was faced with no where to run and no where to hide from the truth. His drinking had to be stopped. He truly believed that it was also the only thing keeping him alive and moving toward this crazy intention.

He had gone to rehab three separate times and over and over again he had picked up white chips at meetings of Alcoholics Anonymous, thinking how much better life would be if he would just stay sober. He’d gone to the front of the church during invitation many times and had had so many people pray over him; beseeching the heavens to remove this affliction that so easily took control of him and poisoned his soul so completely it was as if all human characteristics left him and a demonic monster took charge. He struggled to accept the blurry memories of so many horrible rage filled nights he’d spent demanding something or another and often cruelly torturing someone he loved and blaming them for it all.

He drained the last fifth of the bottle in a vain attempt to ward off the thought that quickly followed that admission of his nature. His family was better off now. No more would they be forced to suffer at the hands of a demented sadist who blamed them for all his own misdeeds. If you treated me better I wouldn’t have had to cheat on you. If you weren’t always complaining I wouldn’t have to drink so much. I let you manage the money for a reason you know how bad I am with it so if we’re broke it’s your fault. Quit crying. I didn’t hurt your arm. Come faster next time and I won’t have to grab you like that. Shut up! Shut up! Shut up! Shut up!

On and on the records played inside his mind forcing him to relive all the misery he’d caused his wife and son, while they were alive. Now that they were gone from him forever the realization that they were finally safe struck him like a bolt of lightning and the alcohol mixed with the over powering emotion made him stop and retch the bile substance of his stomach contents onto the highway roadside. He was shaking, still far to numb to shed a tear but a fear had gripped him and beads of sweat were welling up on his forehead as the nausea continued to wash over him in great waves.

“Lord please not yet. Let me get to Sedona and find a nice place to sit. Lord please…Help me.”, He pleaded with the desperation of a dying man.

He fell to his knees and continued his prayer in silence even within himself, because in the face of his horror he was at a complete loss of words with which to beseech the creator. God knew everything and every single thought he had seemed worthless in the light of his truth. God had saved his wife and son from a life of pain and suffering and had chosen to leave him alive, now knowing the truth. How he longed to return to that ignorance. How he wished he had never seen himself in the light of the truth.

Still nothing had changed yet. The truth couldn’t save the lives of his wife and son, nor would sobriety. He had sworn off driving and immediately embarked on the type of bender only a true alcoholic could manifest and only a man protected by many angels could survive. He’d started out walking four or five sheets to the wind down I35 towards Austin, Texas. He’d woken up in the New Braunsfels Jail only to be released in the morning with a ticket which he’d promptly thrown down on the highway in complete disregard for his future life in society. Nothing mattered but his vampyric thirst for that pernicious nectar of the demon gods. A liquor store near the highway provided him with two liters of Kentucky Deluxe for less than twenty bucks he’d stay drunk for two days. A friendly man with a beard and an old beat up pick up truck picked him up and carried him to Austin. He’d said no more than two words while the bearded man babbled on and on, not a single word landing in the befogged mind of the drifter.

He awoke again in a jail, still in Austin, this time with an assault charge and a resisting. He was told he been tazed twice and that it had taken five officers to finally subdue him. Another vagrant drunk was the victim of the assault had a fractured orbital socket and couldn’t remember how the fight had begun either. He was thoughtful enough to refuse to press charges and being that the conflict was between two dregs of society the judge promptly threw out the case and the drifter was back on the streets. He’d lost his bottles or drank them both, most likely the latter. He’d stay drunk on the streets of Austin sleeping in Zilker Park or where ever he passed out till one day he awoke in a moving bus.

He discovered he’d met some really nice marijuana farmers on there way to Eureka, California and they informed him that he was going to get out at Flagstaff, Arizona and make a spiritual pilgrimage to the Chapel Rock in Sedona and that he was going to have a spiritual experience and give up the devil’s water once and for all. They were all so positive and happy for him he hated to tell them he was hopeless and that he couldn’t last five minutes without atleast four or five shots. They informed him that he wouldn’t shut up about it the day before and had convinced them to drive out of there way just to help him get to a location that was still another 9 hour hike to the place he had claimed he wanted to go. His plan had been very detailed. He didn’t want to admit to them that he couldn’t remember a thing and was having serious second thoughts. It was too late to back out now, he thought. Maybe a power greater than himself and king alcohol was really at work here. He’d never even heard of this Sedona place so where did he get all these wild ideas and exact locations. He briefly wondered if the hippies were sending him on a trip, but decided not to worry about it. They seemed to be sincere about the inconvenience along with having an honest desire to help him and they were way to stoned to bamboozle him into going on a spiritual journey just for meanness. Still he wondered who had given him the idea. A little chill ran up his back thinking that God was somehow orchestrating all this on his behalf.

Now he’d been walking the entire night and at his sluggish pace he still had a few hours till he would reach the road to turn on to get to Chapel Rock and he had just drank his last bit of whiskey. The eastern horizon was beginning to show the first signs of the approaching dawn. He was so completely exhausted, but the cold, crisp night air and maybe the vomiting seemed to have sobered him up a little. He decided right then that he was going to go on with out getting more alcohol and maybe God really had a plan for him at Chapel Rock. It was just to strange to not be real he thought and then he suddenly and unexpectedly cracked.

The tears began pouring down his face as his entire being was racked with such painful emotion as he had never known. His beautiful, sweet angel of a woman and his happy, clever boy were gone and he was responsible. They deserved so much better and he deserved death by torture. He suddenly wished he had the strength to kill himself but he knew that he was to much of a coward and even an infinite amount of self hatred and sadness wouldn’t change that. How had he gotten here? Why hadn’t he heeded all the warnings? Why hadn’t he cared about all he had held dear and loved? There were no answers. The past was a grave and from where he was buried he failed to see any possibility of life in the future.

The sun had begun throwing rays of light into the heavens and as he walked down Chapel Rock rd. the light blinked on the horizon before it peaked it’s face above the natural rock sculptures that grew up from the earth all around him. He had the strangest sensation that he had stepped out of the world and without a doubt this was the most beautiful sunrise he had ever seen. As the landscape revealed itself before him he suddenly had the oddest feeling. All the pain that he had felt inside himself was suddenly gone as if it had never existed in the first place. The pain he’d carried in his mind for so long to excuse his every horrid action was a lie and it was gone. The very real pain of the loss of his wife and child came to him in a whole new way and he knew as if it was spoken to him in his mind it was love. He felt their love for him, even now, even after all his sins coming through the veil that separated them. He cried with unbridled abandon and his tears landed like big rain drops on the dry dusty ground. He stood transfixed. He was in the presence of God and all he felt was love. He fell to his knees in utter amazement, because it defied all the beliefs he held of himself. How could they still love him? How could he have been so completely blind to the truth and how in God’s name could he be deemed worthy of this mercy and this love?

The sun was high over head when he finally shook himself from the amazing peace and completely foreign sense of contentment he had been gifted in that moment. He knew life would never be the same again. It was his responsibility to go on, to carry this gift with him with humility and gratitude and to never forget the reality of the love he now knew. He turned back toward the world from which he’d come and walked forward with a new hope and a strength of which he knew without a doubt he could take no credit.