A Strong Drink

“I just need some time to think about things.” 

It was the last thing she said before driving away, the sun having not even risen. They call it a trial separation; it should really be called the first step of divorce. I guess that isn’t entirely true. The moment you wake up next to a stranger who also happens to be your wife, that’s the first step. All my breath leaves me at once in an exhaustive sigh. I’m too tired to cry, too tired to sleep. Autopilot engaged — hold on Houston, it’s malfunctioning. I’m all the worn cliches and tired love songs wrapped up into one moment. Mostly, I don’t feel anything.

As I turn to go back to my now empty house I notice my neighbor quietly sitting on his porch. Great, I think, a witness to my downfall. It seems fitting.

“Morning,” I half heartedly say, beginning the walk to my new solitude, eyes cast downwards.

“Morning.” His greeting is clear in these early hours. Now, I’ve never met this man — our schedules are such that we’ve never overlapped — but I feel a certain kinship towards him. In that single world I recognize my own pain reflected.

I look over to where he’s seated, his features obscured in the low light. “You okay, mister?”

“I’d say about the same as you,” he pauses a moment. “Care to sit and watch the sun rise?”

Before I can decline, I realize my feet are already taking me towards him. Arriving at his porch allows me to see him in detail: mid-70’s; a well worn face belying life experience; sharp piercing eyes with a calm intensity to them. He gestures to the seat next to him. I take it.

There is a silence shared between us that is comforting, like two people that have known each other all their lives and don’t need to fill the spaces inbetween. Odd, that feeling, since I know nothing of this man. Overthinking it shatters the illusion; I have a sudden anxiety to fill that silence.

“Did you…” I trail off awkwardly, embarrassed.

“I did. Is she the one?”

I give it a moment of honest consideration before responding. 

“I don’t know.” 

“You do. Love is easy, son. You just know. We think the world complicates things, when it is us who complicate the world. Being in love and loving are two different things.”

“What’s the difference?”

“Being in love is like taking a bath —” we both give a slight chuckle at his analogy “ — sometimes you jump in and the water is perfect. Over time it cools down or heats up until we’re either sick or burned. This is the most dangerous: since it started perfect, we seldom realize the shift in either direction; it’s too gradual to notice. Other times we jump in and it’s too hot or too cold in the beginning. We decide to either walk away or make conscious adjustments to get things just right.”

At that moment, the sun crested the mountains in the distance. A brilliant, blinding light enveloped us and I had to shut my eyes. It forced me to visualize my marriage and reflect. 

A grin stole upon my face as I was able to open my eyes. “I doubt women would like to have their love compared to bath water.”

His face — older in the new light — took on a younger aspect as he laughed in earnest. “No, I suppose not.”

“Are you married?” The moment I spoke, I knew I had misstepped. 

“I was” the youth in his eyes clouded. “Fifty-one years. She passed away after a couple years’ struggle with cancer.”

“I’m sorry.” I didn’t know what else to say.

“It’s okay. I’ve made my peace with it. We had a good run, as they say. I’ve done a lot of living and I’m ready to move on.”

“Is there anything left you still haven’t done?” I don’t know why I asked. It seemed reflexive, like it was drawn out of me.

I saw the sun beaming in his eyes, like a searing fire. It was a wonder that he didn’t blink. I had a moment of thinking that he wasn’t there at all. “Only one thing.” He said it so softly that I thought it was my imagination.

Without another word, he rose from his chair and slowly walked inside his house. I was compelled to follow.

****

“Care for something to drink?”

“Water would be fine. Thanks.”

The old man shuffled off and I took in my surroundings. The house was sparsely furnished, uncluttered. Overall it appeared quaint, although not exactly lived in. My eyes scanned back and forth, an odd feeling at the back of my mind. It finally dawned on me: there were no pictures anywhere. 

“Here you are.” 

I accepted the water graciously. Taking a sip, I decided I would ask. 

“You don’t seem to have any photos up anywhere.”

He sighed, “Too many memories.”

“Bad?” I blurted out, unable to stop myself.

He shook his head. “Only good. Come. Let’s sit by the window.”

The old man took up his position in a wooden rocking chair and I eased myself onto a couch nearby. We were positioned such that he was facing slightly away from me while I observed him directly. This felt intentional somehow.

He took a drink of his own water, gathering his thoughts. “No, only good memories. I was married fifty-one years, can you believe it?”

I shook my head. Honestly, I couldn’t.

He laughed slightly at that. “Not a single argument in all that time. Sure, we had our disagreements, but we worked through them. Arguing is about division; working — even from opposing views — is about building. She was truly a remarkable woman and I couldn’t tell you for the life of me why I was fortunate to know her, let alone marry her.” His eyes glazed over with tears.

I realized what he had was something that I’d never experienced with my own wife. If I got divorced I would lose her, sure; his man appeared to have lost himself. “How did you two meet?”

“Drive-in movie. She was one of the attendants, clumsy as they came. I was drawn to her immediately.” His voice sounded young, enthusiastic. “See, she couldn’t get the roller skates down that she had to wear. It was a busy night and she was all over the place delivering concessions. She didn’t have time for small talk, so I decided to order one thing at a time and have her constantly at my car. You know, see if I could make some headway.”

“And did you?”

He laughed. “No! Poor thing was so irritated that I’d spent all my money and had a car full of snacks. My date didn’t seem too pleased either.”

“You were on a date!”

“Yeah, and I’m none too proud of that, although both of us knew it wasn’t going anywhere. Still, it was improper of me to have divided my attention so.”

“What happened next?”

“My date wanted to go to the bowling alley — that was the thing to do then — more to be seen rather than participate. I didn’t have any money though, so I ended up dropping her off at home.”

“You went back to the drive in, didn’t you?” I smiled knowingly. 

He smiled back. “I did. She was just getting off work and was about to walk home. I could see being on skates all night really did a number on her and I offered to drive her home.”

“And?”

“And she saw right through. Told me so, right then and there. She accepted anyway, but made it clear there would be no funny business. She only lived a five minutes’ drive away.” His gaze grew distant, lost in the memory. “We ended up talking for hours that night, parked right outside her house. When she left, she kissed me on the cheek. When she was gone, it felt like waking up — when those first moments of confusion are lifting, the dream fading.” He closed his eyes and drew in a loud breath. “Fifty-one years.”

Water became tea; tea became coffee; coffee became sandwiches; sandwiches turned to whiskey, all the while his memories poured out to me, a lifetime’s worth of experiences. Traveling the world and seeing the sights; the cherry blossom trees of Japan; the sprawling ruins of South American natives; an elephant ridden in India; a flu scare in Thailand. The more common, yet no less significant: promotions in work; their marriage in a small chapel; the buying of their first home; the loss of their first child before it was born; the birth of two healthy children later on; those children having children of their own.

There was a healthy beauty to this man’s life. It had been lived well and fully; honestly and with feeling. The human experiences we all share — love and loss — were no less significant being that he was a stranger. There was an honesty to it that was humbling. I wanted to live my life as he did. 

“It was all a lie,” he said.

****

We now sit on the back porch, the sun low on the horizon. Our glasses have been filled with strong drink and an intense silence fills the air. The man next to me might as well have been carved from stone. I remain quiet. He will share in his own time.

His stare remains vacant. “Do you believe in God?”

The question catches me off guard. “I...I don’t know. I guess I’d like to, but I’m not sure.” 

He nods slowly. “I used to. Suppose I might still, although not in one that actually cares about us. More of an absentee father — he means well, but mostly he leaves us to our own devices. I think it’s more of a karmic system, balance.”

“That still sort of falls in line with religious dogma; good versus evil and such.”

“Yeah, but I think we have the concept all wrong. People use it as a write off: ‘That guy did this, but later that will catch up to him.’ It’s backwards logic to justify inaction. I think people do terrible things and then go on to lead terrible lives. The balance is in their own life, not the scales of the world.”

I couldn’t see the point to the philosophical turn and I said so. He grew quiet again, taking a few pulls of his drink as if to steady himself. “You’ve only lived here a couple years, isn’t that right?”

It was.

He motioned with his glass towards the woods out back. “You ever hear of what happened in those woods?”

I shook my head, took a drink of my own.

“Doesn’t surprise me. People forget. The world moves on.” He took a sip. “A little boy was murdered out there, shot dead. They said it could have been a hunting accident, but seeing as no one came forward to admit it they kept it as an unsolved murder, mostly for the family’s sake. Somehow it’s supposed to be better to them that way, like there was a purpose or intention behind his death, rather than a goddamn shame.”

There was clearly a purpose behind this story and I wasn’t ready to hear it. I asked the only other thing I could: “What happened to the boy’s family?”

“Lost themselves in their grief. Sold most everything to pay for an ongoing deadend investigation. The wife died in her late 30’s of a heart attack; husband shot himself shortly after.”

“That’s terrible.”

He nodded. “It is. They paid for their extreme joy with extreme sadness, like waiting for the shoes to drop when things feel like they’re too perfect.”

“You can’t entirely believe that, can you?”

He didn’t answer, at least not immediately. He took a few more drinks, his glass nearly empty, and stared off into the woods. “It was a deer I’d been tracking,” he began softly, “my wife had gone out of town to visit her sister and I thought I’d do a little hunting, maybe make some jerky as a treat for her return. My bullet must have passed within a half an inch of that deer’s head — I’ve spent countless nights up inspecting my rifle’s scope and it was a fraction of a degree off.”

He finished the last of his drink in one big swallow.

“I was a coward,” he continued. “I saw what was left of that boy and could only think of what I’d lose, not what I’d just taken. I buried my gun, lied to my wife, lied to the police, and when that family whose house you now live in came knocking on my door, I lied to them, too. I kept waiting for my secret to be my undoing, and you know what happened? Nothing. Not a damn thing. My life only got better and better. Sure, maybe the kid would’ve grown up to be a serial killer and I did the world a favor. More likely he would have just been an average guy trying to do his best in this mess of a world we’ve made.” 

“After my wife died, I thought of digging the gun up and shooting myself with it. Sort of poetic justice, don’t you think?” He looked at me and smiled grimly. I didn’t return the smile. I no longer knew why I was here. “A bit dramatic though, and there was part of me that was worried about the mess I’d make for whoever would have to clean up afterwards. Plus…” he trailed off, blinking several times as if he’d forgotten where he was. 

“Plus…” I prompted. He only blinked some more, coughed once. “Plus, you had to unburden yourself. Make your confession.”

“There’s that,” he said softly. “I don’t expect to see God when I die, and if I see the Devil it will be deserved. I’m not seeking absolution or even forgiveness.” He coughed a few more times. “It just felt...wrong, that the knowledge die with me.”

“And so you burdened me with it? I could turn you in! You should have had the courage to do that yourself!” I was on my feet now, shouting, bewildered.

He smiled weekly. I noticed a thin trickle of blood run down from the corner of his mouth. “I should have, you’re right. You might not agree, but as horrible as it is, it takes its own courage to go through life keeping that secret. It eats away at you every day; every good moment is awash with the feeling of being unworthy. Maybe I was.”

“What did you do?” I looked at him in horror, the trickle of blood becoming a stream. The light was already fading from his eyes.

“Call me a coward or call me courageous —” He had a coughing fit. “ — but I’m tired either way. You’re in charge of my secret now. Do with it what you will.” He had another few coughs, exhaled softly, and faded away into the seat of the rocker. The sun set at that moment, suspending me in darkness as I tried to adjust to the change.

I was left with a choice.