Five More Days Here?

I had made it an entire day without drinking.

For me, at the time, that was no small accomplishment, and I went to sleep that Friday night in late June with a small sense of an emotion I hadn’t felt in some seven or eight months,… pride. (“Holy fucking shit, John! You were proud of yourself for going a whole twenty-four hours without consuming alcohol? Boy, your standards are pretty fucking low, aren’t they?”…. Why, yes. At the time,… actually, yes they were.) And I decided to adopt a new mantra,… “Baby Steps.”

Before I had gone to sleep, I talked to my wife on the phone more than once. I told her that I didn’t understand why the fuck I had to be separated from her and my home and my dogs so that I could assuage my mother’s trepidation about my current state of mind and general instability and moroseness. And,… much to my surprise,… she actually agreed with me. “I want you home, too, baby. Why can’t we just talk some sense into your mother and get her to bring you back home tomorrow morning?” she asked. Sounded like a great idea to me. My wife had used that Friday night to release some of her pent up emotion by going to her friend’s house for a barbecue and some laughs. She deserved that momentary diversion—I had been a literal shitbag to her for the last several months (I was actually a walking bag of shit—I have pictures. They’re not cute. Except for this one of me and the puggle, Sheldon. But that’s only because ANY picture with him in it is cute.) Anyway,… the point is,… she seemingly wanted me to return as well. I had told her on that Friday night before crashing that I’d talk to my mom in the morning and then put her on the phone with my wife, and we’d see if we couldn’t convince her to bring me back. My wife even offered to drive down and pick me up herself.

However,… mom was having none of it. She explained to me that she was doing what she was doing for my benefit. She still wasn’t entirely convinced that I shouldn’t be committed to a hospital facility for observation for the next few days. That was her first inclination, by the way. When she had arrived the previous day it was her intention to take me straight to a place where trained professionals could keep their eyes on me. The only reason she agreed to put that decision on hold was because I had agreed to be taken down to her house as an alternative—of course, as I related in my last chapter, I reneged on that agreement as soon as we had gotten in the car.

However, as my wife and I had planned to do the previous night,… I talked to my mother and asked her if she would at least agree to speak to my wife on the phone because I believed that my wife’s opinion might sway mom into a different conclusion. Mom agreed. (YES! She’s going to talk to the wife, and the wife is going to persuade her to let me go home! The wife is going to tell her that, together, she and I could actually beat this thing and get me back to where I needed to be without any inconvenience to all three of us! It’s going to be two-against-one, and mom will have to cave to that, right? This is going to work!)

And then,… it didn’t. Instead of the wife convincing the mother, the exact opposite happened. Somehow my completely rational and thoroughly well-intentioned mother’s rationale influenced my wife’s, and brought the wife around to her way of thinking. By the time my mom handed the phone back to me, it was two-against-one, all right,… just not in my favor. I had to resign myself to the fact that I wasn’t going anywhere. ("Okay,... relax, John,... Baby Steps.")

I was going to be comfortable there, my mother assured me. There would be anything I needed within arm’s reach. There were books to read (I had brought my own anyway,… “To Kill a Mockingbird,”… At least it wasn’t “The Bell Jar.”…. Although I had read that the previous week—here’s a tip gang: when you feel like you’re going crazy, don’t read books about people who are going crazy,… or “Slaughterhouse 5,”… which I had also read last week.) There were over three hundred DVDs in the closet in the office—some of them still in the shrink wrap. There was a grocery store and a pizza joint a half-mile away at the corner.

And,… there was a development she needed to talk to me about. She was going to turn seventy the following week. Her husband Hap (who I mentioned in the previous chapter) was seventy-something. Resultantly, most of their friends were creeping up in age as well. My mom told me that one of their closest friends, who lived in Illinois, was scheduled to have gall bladder surgery the following week. He was very nervous about the procedure, so he called them to get some perspective. They spent nearly an hour with him on the speaker phone the previous Thursday night. Hap could speak to him from the point of view of the patient because he had already endured gall bladder surgery. My mother offered him comfort as a result of her having been in the medical field for most of her adult life. The friend hung up the phone feeling much better about the prospects and actually was “looking forward to the surgery,” according to mom. Then,… sometime in the night before the sun came up on Friday,… he died,…. Massive stroke. Irony sucks!

My mom has a dog. A black miniature schnauzer named Tiger. They named him after Tiger Woods as Hap is a golfer and a huge fan of the sport. (Of course Tiger-the-dog had been neutered as Bob Barker implores all pet owners to do, and Tiger-the-golfer had not been,… although probably should have.)

My mother bought a miniature schnauzer the year after one of my older sister went to college. She had left the house with only my mom, my twin sister and I there. So mom got us this dog. We named it Calvin after the designer’s name on the back of my mom’s jeans she wore when we picked him up. Calvin was a nervous wreck most of the time. He would shake and quiver for minutes at a time at the slightest hint of something irregular or out of the ordinary in the house. If a stranger came over, he would have tremors until they left. He was a fucking weirdo of a dog. But he was only the second dog we had ever had in my entire childhood. We had a mutt named Brandy when I was a toddler, but I didn’t even remember her,…. So I took to this bundle of nerves as no teenager ever had. Old Fucking Yeller wasn’t loved nearly as much.

Tiger was altogether different. Calvin had been grey—Tiger was black. Calvin was about thirty-five pounds—Tiger was barely over twenty. Their faces didn’t even bear much resemblance toward each other…. And Calvin had been OUR dog—Tiger was THEIR dog. (I love my two dogs,… I’m not so wild about other people’s dogs.)

Anyway, the point is,… Mom and Hap were going to have to fly out the next day (Sunday) to go up north for the wake and the funeral….. I’m not religious at all. In fact, I’m an atheist. I don’t get the whole point of religious rites and services like wakes and funerals. When I’m done, burn me the fuck up and spread me out somewhere you think I might have liked being: the beach, a serene mountaintop with a view, a sports bar stool within eyeshot of the two or three biggest HD flat screens,… whatever…. But mom and Hap, who were very close with the departed, felt compelled to go and pay their respects and to help his wife through what was surely a terrible time in her life.

And my mom asked me,… “will you please stay here and take care of my dog for me?” (“Wow! You’re flying out of town and entrusting the security of your pet to a bipolar man with a drinking problem who’s getting absolutely no relief from his medications? You’re fucking crazier than I am!”)

“I guess,” was all I could come up with. I wasn’t very excited about anything at the time. ("Baby Steps, John,... Baby Steps.")

The bottom line was I wasn’t getting home until Wednesday at the very earliest now. I would have to drive them to the airport the following day and go back and take care of their dog, who reminded me not in the least of my own dogs or my childhood schnauzer. Now I fucking hated Tiger. Little motherfucker was keeping me glued to this house for the next five fucking days. He’d be lucky if I didn’t kick him around the golf course out back.

And then there was this,… the quickest route to the airport in Tampa is to drive over that Goddamn Sunshine Skyway Bridge, through St. Petersburg (PASSING WITHIN THREE MILES OF MY OWN FUCKING HOUSE) and over the Howard Frankland into Tampa.

But there was no way around it that I could ascertain. In return for me agreeing to dogsit for four days, I would guarantee my own freedom, in at least the immediate future, from the specter of hospital commitment and confinement.

Also,… my daughter, who until just this past Thursday had been spending the majority of her summer vacation at my house, was available for and willing to come back with me down to my mom’s house. There is a pool there and neat new places to go out to eat. There’s a shopping center just across the highway. She didn’t need any of that inducement. She has told me often that I am her best friend. Now,… I’m not so ignorant or arrogant as to believe that entirely,… but I’m not so cynical as to believe that there isn’t at least a little bit of truth to it. My kid was going to come back with me.

Saturday morning turned into Saturday afternoon. Normally, I would have lunch and a beer or two to wash it down. My mother made me a ham and turkey sandwich,… and gave me a Diet Coke. (Diet Coke sucks shitbags.) I had ten or twelve hours to go until I could reasonably expect to get any sleep that night. I had to find something to keep me occupied until I could get away from that fucking airport and pick up my kid. ("You can make it 'til then,... Baby Steps.")

I put on my sneakers and went out for a walk.

Next time,…. You Can’t Go Home Again.