***
This guy I knew in high school, Tyler, has been trying to invite me out for the past couple of weeks, and I’ve been making excuses. He was never a close friend. And the last thing I want is an interrogation about what I’ve been up to for the past few years, especially from someone as dull as Tyler.
I’m being kind of an asshole. Tyler was always a nice guy.
I went to the beach to shower this morning after another night’s sleep in my car. Jason had gone to work, so I had nowhere to go. I made my way onto the sand—at first just checking out the waves, wishing I still had a surfboard. Then I’m walking up the shore.
I’m shuffling along, pretending to look for shells whenever an old, leathery-skinned retiree passes me by, when I get a text from Tyler: Party tonight?
This time I say yes. It gives me something to prepare for. Maybe I’ll stop by the liquor store, or go buy some weed. Get off this damn beach.
Thinking about the party tonight and smelling the salt air, feeling the sand under my feet, I get excited for some reason. And I’m thinking about that girl in white from a month ago.
I’m at the liquor store, about to pay for a bottle of rum, when I think about how much time is still left before the party. I grab a cheap six pack as well and head back to—you guessed it—the damn beach. Because where else can I go drink alone? A bar? I guess I’m too proud. Though of what, I couldn’t tell you.
A six pack of light beer isn’t much, and I have to exercise a little discipline to not open the bottle of rum. My buzz is gone long before the sun sets, and I’m eager to get to Tyler’s house and start drinking.
“Alex! What the fuck is up?! Finallydecided to come out! What is that, rum? We got plenty but could always use more.” Tyler’s already drunk when he greets me at the door.
The house is right off the causeway on the mainland side, on a retreat of land that contrasts with the gated golf-course communities further inland. The property is about three acres of empty-keg-strewn grass, sprawling all the way out to the brackish water of the river. Woods made of pine and palm form a broken border. The orange brilliance of a bonfire marks the center point.
“Come on, bro. You’re doing some shots with me.”
We head toward the kitchen where there’s a bar counter already littered with bottles and cans and shot glasses.
“Here, I think this one’s clean. No, wait. This one. Hey! Lindsay! You wanna do a shot with us?!”
I follow Tyler’s gaze and see a girl with dark hair seated on a couch, talking with two other women. “No thank you!” Lindsay yells back over the music. “I’m fucking drunk already!”
“This is my friend Alex!”
“Hi, Alex! I’m Lindsay!”
I laugh. Loud music is perfect for drunk people. It gives them an excuse to shout. “Nice to meet you!”
“Alright, you ready? One, two, three.”
Ugh, vodka. “Dude, there’s like a thousand people here,” I say, after I’m done grimacing. I look around at the empty bottles decorating the living room, the kitchen. I think about all the kegs I saw on the short tour Tyler gave me. “You guys do this often?”
“We’ve partied here almost every weekend for, like, six months. Ever since me and Lindsay moved in. Most of these people, I know . . . pretty well. Friends, friends of friends. You know some of them, too, I think. It’s been fucking awesome.”
“It’s a nice place. A lot of room to yourself.”
“Yeah. But how about you, man? I haven’t fucking seen you since before you joined the Navy. You just get out?”
[Haha.] “Nah, I’ve been out for a little over a year now.”
“Oh yeah? I thought you had to do four years, or something.”
“Not me.”
“True . . .”
“Man, it looks like you guys are having fun here.”
Tyler smiles, says, “Always! Let’s get wasted and talk about the good times, brotha. I haven’t seen you in years.”
I start to go for the bottle I brought, but Tyler reaches over me and grabs the vodka again.
“Hey! Lindsay! Come and take a shot with us!”
“No! I’m wasted, babe!”
Tyler pours the shots, spilling some on the counter in the process. “She’s not wasted.”
We’re taking shots and bullshitting, and it seems like Lindsay keeps looking at me oddly. I chalk it up to coincidence. She’s probably just thinking, staring through me. But then I catch her for a third time, and she leans over to say something to one of the other girls.
Some guy walks up and says that it looks like there’s about to be a fight out front. While Tyler goes to regulate, I grab a beer and head out back where most of the party seems to be. The vibe inside’s getting weird.
I’m seeing some familiar faces, but none that belong to any friends.
The light of the bonfire fades as I make my way through the scattered cliques. Soon there’s more trees than people, but I keep walking. I can hear the sound of gentle waves breaking ashore. Then even the trees are gone, and I find myself at the edge of the river.
I pick up a rock that’s not very flat and try to skip it. The splash sends a nearby heron flying.
It seems like at every party I’ve ever been to, I always end up in solitude at some point. And this time it happened right away. Maybe I need to leave.
My dad used to be the same way. He’d invite people over for a barbeque or something and then disappear. Then we’d find him out in the yard, pulling weeds. Or in the garage, busy with some project. His only addiction was to working with his hands. Not really a bad addiction to have if you ask me, even if your guests find you strange.
The moonlight glimmers across the black surface of the water, beaming a line straight toward me, it seems. A line that I can trace back to the barrier island. To a place that’s there waiting for me. I have some of my guilt stored there. Some shame. So that I can roam less burdened.
There, is my single greatest failure.
I know I can’t sleep in my car forever. I can’t keep walking the beach during the day, waiting for Jason to come home.
I drain the rest of my beer and turn back toward the house. Away from all that.
On my way over, I think I see someone I know by the bonfire. If it’s who I think it is—
“Yo, Alex.”
I turn and there’s someone sitting in a lawn chair with his hood up and a beer in his hand.
“Mike?” [Hahahahahaha.]
“Yo, I think that’s Shannon over there. She’s friends with Tyler’s girl.”
“Oh fuck, man. For real?” I pull an empty keg deeper into the shadow cast by the house, as a seat. “Here. Now turn your chair toward me. Please.”
Mike laughs. “You think she’s still mad?”
“Dude, you don’t get it.”
“You’re good. It’s too dark here. What happened with you guys anyway?”
“I just spent too much time with her. Told her I wasn’t looking for anything serious, but . . . It was my fuck up. Look, she’s kind of vindictive when she’s drunk, and Tyler and Lindsay don’t know about all the bullshit with me.”
“Who gives a fuck, man?”
“I do. I think I’m gonna leave.”
“What?”
“Yeah, I’m gonna go. Good seeing you.”
Just as I’m about to open the back door, Tyler bursts through it.
“Alex! There you are, buddy! There’s a drink inside for you.”
“Alex?” a girl’s voice says from behind me.
Dammit.
“Hey, Alex. How have you been?” Shannon asks. Her arms are crossed, with a red solo cup in one hand.
“Been okay, Shannon.”
“Oh shit, you two know each other?” Tyler asks. “Let’s all go take some shots.”
“I—”
“That sounds great,” Shannon interjects.
I’m about to say no and give Tyler some excuse so I can leave, but they’re already heading inside—where I seem to remember setting my keys down with the bottle of rum I brought. I have no choice but to follow them.
“Alright, one shot each,” Tyler says. “What should we toast to?”
“To old friends!” Shannon says, looking at me, and then we down the shots.
“Listen, Tyler—”
“Tyler, did you know Alex is a heroin addict?”
“Huh?”
“Yup, he’s a junkie. And a cheater.”
Tyler just raises his eyebrows and looks first at me, then Shannon, who is still staring at me.
“Shannon, I never cheated on you. Even if I had, we were never really dating.”
“Right. You just used me while it was convenient and then left me for . . . what, exactly?”
“. . .”
“Coward. Well? You gonna say anything?”
“I left you for drugs! How’s that? I left you for me. I left you because I should have never been with you in the first place. I wasn’t trying to be the kind of man you wanted or deserved. I’m sorry—for the third time. I was an asshole. A piece of shit. But I never once lied about who I was, or about what we were. Why would you care about someone like that?”
Shannon shakes her head. She looks at me with ang— . . . pity.
Fuck me.
“Yeah,” Shannon says, “you told me with your words what a piece of shit you were. But with your actions . . . I guess I thought you were something more than what you said. Take care of yourself, Alex.” And she walks back outside, toward the bonfire.
“Tyler, thanks for the drinks. Keep the rum. Lindsay, it was nice meeting you.” I grab my keys off the counter and leave out the front.
I’m just about to get in my car when I see a figure jogging toward me in the dark.
“Yo, Alex! Wait!”
Mike. “What’s up?”
“Can I get a ride, bro? My buddy drove me, and he’s not ready to leave yet.”
[. . .]
Fuck Tyler’s parties. Forever.
“I don’t know, man. You should probably just wait for him.”
“Please, dude. I don’t have any boy on me. I’m not trying to ruin what you got going.”
“Alright, fine. Get in.”
At least his house isn’t very far. We get there in only a few minutes. I say, “Alright, bro.”
“Man, she was pissed.”
“Yeah, she must have been drunk. It all was my fault, though. I should have seen I was just looking for a crutch. Nobody had to get hurt.”
“You want some of my audio equipment?”
“What?”
“You can’t record guitar or anything live with it, but you were always asking me to teach you how to make electronic stuff. You’d just have to buy your own software. And speakers. I sold some of the stuff I had.”
“Dude, I’m not buying any of that off you.”
“I wasn’t asking you to buy it.”
“What? Just—what?”
“I gotta be out of the house by next week. Parents finally gave up on me. I got somewhere to go, but . . .”
“It’s a trap house?”
“Pretty much.”
“Tell them you’ll quit. I did it, man. You can, too.”
“They’re done giving me chances. They’ve seen me fuck up too many times. Seen me come out of jail, a halfway house, rehab, and relapse every time. They’re done.” He pulls out his pack of Newports. “I might be done, too.”
“What do you mean?”
“I don’t know, man. Nothing. Addiction just fucks with your head after a while.”
It seems obvious, but only those who have been consistent users for some time can understand just what he means. “Mike, you don’t have to live that way. You can quit.”
“Then what? I have nowhere to go except places where drugs are involved.” He tries to get a cigarette lit and drops it. “I should have never got a degree in audio production. That was stupid.”
“No, that idea was fine. You should have never started dealing again at your parents’ house.”
“Yeah . . . I know.”
“Whatever, man. I know how easy it is to fall into an old cycle like that. We live in the past.” Addicts like us . . . A bunch of self-made cripples. Chasing the sweet side of a completely bitter nostalgia. “You’re gonna get killed because of it, or go to jail. It’s cliché but you know that’s true, right? We all do if we follow that path long enough.” I’m preaching like I’ve been clean for years.
“Yeah . . . we’ll see, I guess. Anyway, hit me up if you wanna chill.”
I’m about to say something, and then I say something else: “Get back in the car.”
“Huh?”
“Actually, go inside and grab some of your shit. You can stay with me for a little while until you figure out what to do.”
“Stay with you? Where?”
***
The young man was having a dream, sweating there in the back room of his mother’s single-wide trailer. Frances was being loud in the kitchen. His mother was on edge.
Empty. Oblivion. Infinite.
Frances was asking the mother how much longer her son planned on staying there. The mother sat in the chair next to the curtained entrance to the back room, facing Frances.
Infinity goes on forever, the young man dreamed stupidly.
Your son!
Fuck you!
[You.]
He awoke to shouting, dehydrated and delirious but no longer drunk. He came out and faced Frances for a few moments in stony silence, then stumbled out into the sun.
***
ns 15.158.61.54da2
