Wasted

(For a newer draft of this story, click here.)

It's hot and there's a guy with an awful clean hat making eyes at the waitress. He looks foolish. 'There's people who nobody knows. Not knows. I mean never even heard of,' my friend says to me after I've had my fifth or sixth. This comes out of nowhere so I ask him, 'what?' I can see he doesn't like me having to ask. I tell him I'm sorry but I can't always connect his dots.

'My ma's got this little piece of the newspaper,' and he holds up his hand to show me the square like he’s fixing to take my picture, '-looks like it's from the first edition of the Post—and she’s got it framed. S'on the desk in the back, next to the lamp, so's ev'ry time you flip on the light it’s right there to be seen. She says it’s her way of livin’ on and don’t you dare move it or so much as touch it. I seen her dust it and she doesn’t care for dusting.’

I'm lost and wonder if it's the beer. Did I miss something? I can't stop from grinning and feel bad for it. 'She had the best blueberry muffins in the whole wide state of Kentucky back in 76 and that paper's the proof.' I check the score which is small even on the big screen. I stare. We're losing and I tell myself it’s not our year. They have no heart and are spoiled worse than kids. I hear him go, 'She won best muffin in the State Fair back then and so they put the recipe in there with her permission. She didn't like givin' it away but said it was the only way to get in the paper so it’s what she did.’

This is big for him. Do right by your friend I say in my head. I look at him straight. 'It's so she knows she’s been heard of. Known.' His hands are fat and have a lot of hair between the knuckles. His fingers are pointy on the ends. They're putting out a Marlboro.

'What is?' I say. He gives me a cross look. People get loud and I figure we are losing more.

'Keep up, boy. The piece of paper in that frame. The recipe. You heard me?' I never catch him touching his glass. I only see it full and empty.

Right I say and shake off the cobwebs.

'But that’s all she’n ever done. A little somethin' on the back page of the local section—about three inches square—more than… thirty years ago.' He laughs but not at a joke. 'That takes all. That's her whole deal in a teeny square. All her life. I seen it the other day and it got to me.' I've heard him say this all before. He doesn't like it here and wishes he were somebody else. He speaks good but can’t remember when he's drunk. I can remember but can't speak good. 'Not much to show for. Makes me sad. Some others cut it out back then. Most of 'em went in the trash. She don't even bake 'em herself anymore. Arthritis.' He takes out his rag to dry his face off because of the sweat. 'And that's it. That’s her part. What she’s gonna keep givin' to posterity.' My head gets real heavy all of a sudden and I nod.

'And that's more than I've got to show for it. In my…' He cracks open a peanut and dumps it in his mouth. 'whole life I've ne'er been in the paper or radio. Don’t even bother 'bout the TV.' I see a piece of peanut hit the table and stick.

I tell him I haven’t been either but he maybe didn't make it out. I learned before I'm not always talking as clear as I think I am. He's worked up and I can't help. I close my eyes but face him still. 'I dunno a single solitary thing that ever happened in the state of Idaho. I don’t even know what you call 'em. The people from there. Idahoers? The whole cursed state 'cept for its name in yellow on every bag of taters you buy at the Piggly.' He's quiet except for the gulping. I think it's funny timing but don't let on. 'Wiggly. Surely there’s been more that happened there than some spuds getting picked. Nothing wrong with picking taters. Not what I mean…' The table rocks and I look to see he’s leaning heavy on it. 'And I'm not just talkin' 'Merica, neither. I'm talking 'bout the whole wide great big world, yesterday, today, and tomorrow. All of it. The rest of it especially. What do you know of it really? Not the book stuff, the explosions 'n messes or fights, I mean the people and what they been through. Where they been. There's so many people that been here we never known and never gonna know. All the secrets inside people. I got secrets inside nobody knows or wants to. And they do, too. All the kids wantin' to go their own way, have their own piece or be another one to get up on the moon, growed up to sit behind a desk and think about other people’s little trifles—the sortsa things hangnails are but because it's on some big shot’s hand it needs special care. It gets me down in the dirt every time.' He pours himself another.

My head's spinning and I’m struggling to follow his drift. He's been blowing in a great many directions. I want to lie down and rest for a spell. He seems hurt bad for all his fine talking. He is smarter than me. I think smarts is mostly trouble. He's busy thinking while he works I can tell. I just stare and try not to. I look close at things. I really feel them.

'Why's bein' known sucha thing?' I say. There's cotton on my tongue and I'm scared I’m talking funny.

His eyes get bigger like he’s looking forward to biting into what I served. He wipes his mouth way up on his forearm. His glass hasn't a drop in it again. 'Cause it takes a weight off your shoulders. Ya feel easier bein' known. You can breathe.' He looks at me like I get him, but I don't. 'Isn't that what you wanted from your parents through all that cursin' and rebelling you did way back when? Isn't that what your wifey gives you such grief for with all her arm-crossin' and toe-tapping? It's being known we're after and I just haveta face I'm a not and never goin' to. Doesn't that make you mad?' He knows I'm not mad about it so I don't bother. I tell him people don't know so much but he just frowns.

The rest of our Schlitz is gone somehow. Like on cue the lady with the jean skirt shows up and asks about another pitcher. My friend takes it to be an instance of mind-reading and cannot resist the offer. I tell him I'm out of cash and he waves his hand at me like it's nothing. He's nice like that.

I swirl what's flat and warming in my glass and try to straighten out. The room is not moving but it is to me. I think that I need a swig of water and a little shut-eye. But I fight it because my friend is in a bad way and will pay the ball game no mind. He has a point and I got to round it off I tell myself. I put my finger in a puddle on the bar and trace it around in circles. I hear him burp a little. I laugh and excuse him because he asked me to. I tell him he's a gentleman. His cheeks are rosy and look marshmallow-filled when he smiles now. He nearly tips over reaching into his pocket but he's still all-there up top. He puts money on the table so's not to forget. I'm trying hard to find something to say.

The pitcher returns sudsy down one side. She's in a hurry. I feel bad for her. Her legs don't look so hot but she's trying to make them work for her. There's a squiggly tattoo down her calf that makes it look lumpy. I think of mashed potatoes and want salt on my tongue very badly. Peanuts are nearby. I settle. Then it hits me. 'Are you sad about not knowing or not being known?'

He says, 'I'm not sad. I'm mad,’ which he makes pretty with the flick of his lighter mixed in. The cigarette waggles between his lips and looks like its scribbling a message in the air. I lose what I was going to say. The next words I get are, 'mostly being known I guess. I'm old and got nothin' left. I'm all dried up and have nothing to show for it and never are gonna have. Nobody looks at me.' He tugs hard on his beard. I think I see a hair fall down until I lose it in the shadows of his shirt. 'I'm just like everybody else. Everybody else that I’ve never known and can't.'

He looks more sad than mad. He's said most of this before. We’ve been friends a long while. I knew him before he was married and divorced and even before tried his luck selling. He's drinking. I'm putting words together carefully. I feel on to something and try to concentrate. I stare into the corner. I'm thinking hard of how to tell him what's really wrong here. I want to tell him why it's not such a mess. No such thing as secrets really. I nearly fall over watching the ceiling fan spin. My stomach isn't right. It gets in the way. I say 'water' to no one in particular. I miss my chance. He starts up talking again and I feel trapped. All I can muster is in my stuck inside my sloppy head. I want to be sober so that I can be a good friend. I don't want smarts but only some way to calm him down.

There's a racket nearby that gives me a start. Someone yells 'To hell with it!' and slams something heavy on the bar. Everyone else gets quiet and turns to see. We feel better when we see it's just one of those glasses with a handle.

I want water but louder and the waitress hears and asks about the fuss. 'There's no fuss. My friend here just is thirsty and needs no more booze.' He's right. She comes back. I slur my thanks a little but she smiles. She knows what I mean. The water goes quick.

A fly hops along the rim of our half-filled pitcher. I can see it rubbing its hands together. It's greedy. They're excited about dirt. They can't leave it be. Do they get sick? The natives start in yelling at the TV and my friend's gone quiet. He crumples his Marlboro into the ashtray and blows out what left in him fast. He says we should get going and I nod. I say sorry as I get up wobbly.

Correspondence 3

(For a newer draft of this letter within the completed series of letters, click here.)

Dear Sophia,

I knew the limitations of your forgiveness from the outset. I did not, however, presume it would be so easy to come by. For all of your kindness, I remember you could be quite stern. I suppose that is my last memory of you. You swore never to "grant succor to a louse" again, I believe. (Which I must say was an apt description of my behavior.) I am glad you decided to break that promise for me and I hope to make it evident that I have begun to change--though it really is just a beginning.
I have needed a priest or priestess for a while now, and am in such a fragile state that I must take the opportunity. I am a pariah now. All the circles I used to travel in have gotten tired of me. The loops opened long enough to cast me and and then closed back. Consequently, I have spent more time in solitude than I am accustomed to. I cannot discern whether my sadness if from loneliness or from learning for the first time what poor company I am. Either way, I spend as much time in my preoccupations as my occupation, the rest being lost to sleep or stupor.
As an upshot, I can at least articulate my greatest fear (or my most pervasive one, as the rest can somehow be translated into it): I am afraid that I am not the person I think I am. In the recesses of my mind, I am perpetually disappointed with myself. I have the gilded luxury of considering the nature of that disappointment in the confines of my quite apartment. I have concluded either (a) I always fail to perform at the utmost level I am capable of or (b) I am not capable of the utmost I think I am capable of, which is to say I am not the person I think I am.
This whole description is vague and though you may let the details fall away, I would be further guilty before the judge if I suppressed important information. A case in point: I sell high-end entertainment devices to people who probably won't know how to use them when they get home or won't have enough time to enjoy them because the very reason they can afford high-end entertainment devices is because they are scantly at home. Whatever the case, I do not like my job. I tell myself that it is good to have a job and good to make enough money to pay my bills. I consoled myself with the belief that, were I living in a different time or born into a different family, I would be doing something much more distinguished and attuned to my capacities.
If only that was where the story ended! There comes to mind a recurring suspicion like a dripping faucet in a quiet house: what if the period and my lineage were altered? Would I still be mired in mediocrity? What if I chronically overestimate my own worth and ability? What if this life I'm living really is the best I can do? And so I arrive at my fear of not being the person I think I am. When I was younger and let down by my performance, it was easy to say, "But what does it matter now? I am not there yet, but someday I will be." Such consolations are out of reach now. Vain people cannot long survive in the awareness of their vanity, you know. It requires constant self-deception, which I am having great difficulty in maintaining. I cannot endure the likelihood of my misplaced confidence much longer. To be vain is more pardonable than to be living in vain. At least vanity entails ignorance. To be knowingly living in vain--for that there's no excuse. I think I am simply a worthless man with a conception of worthy men. Worse still, I think it's too late to alter course. What can I, a non-entity, do? All of my actions amount to nil. All that nothing can do is nothing. To be average after so long considering yourself exceptional is to be a living privation. But enough.
I know your task as a priestess is not one of repair (that is for the confessor), so I have no illusions about what is to come of this. I bring it to your attention as much as mine. I am relieved to pour out these over-fermented thoughts and am further grateful for your lent ear.

Honestly,
Alan

Correspondence 1

(For a newer draft of this letter within the completed series of letters, click here.)

Dear Sophia,

I frequently wonder why it is we are the only creatures with the power of introspection. Humans, for all their aptitude for second-guessing and regret, are to be more pitied than all the other animals. While others my shriek and cry at the commencement of a torturous death, we contain volumes of woe so unspeakable as to never be uttered. Have you ever considered how much guilt we have put into the ground along with our ancestors and how the great majority of it never we breathed to a confidant?
Some of us know our own shortcomings and others never know them. Most are prone to only have presentiments of thorns in our side that never let us get comfortable. As I have gotten older and time has put a distance between myself and those events, I have gained a greater awareness of my own thorns. None sticks further than the one you placed there as a memorial to my misdeeds against you. It has not let me forget, though you, I pray, have long since forgotten me.
I cannot quit this remorse and though you have never known me to be anything but immature, I swear this apology is ripe within me. Forgive me, please, for what I did and forgive me too for conjuring up faded recollections. If I could rest, I would not take the risk of upsetting you now. I am glad to finally name my discontent and to make it publicly known, even though my audience is singular.
Whether or not it is possible for you to grant me clemency, I know not to interrupt you again.

Honestly,
Alan