thought drunkenly. Nothing ever changes. By seven o’clock Darren was getting along toward sloppy drunk, so he downed another tall Coors and finished off the job. Then he heard a knock on the front door and he got up and staggered over and opened it. There stood James with a woman that he introduced as his wife.
Well, crap, this is all I need! Darren thought. He said, “Just a minute.” He walked quickly over to the chair and reached for the remaining beer. As hurriedly as he could he walked to the refrigerator and shoved it in, box and all, slamming the door loud enough to wake the dead. He had not expected James to show up with his pastor wife! In fact, since he hadn’t been invited, Darren didn’t expect him to show up period. It irritated him that James had pulled a surprise visit, but he put it off to bad manners.
“Come on in,” he said.
His wife looked around the room as Darren’s wife came down the hall to see what was going on. Darren and James made the necessary introductions. Then Darren and James went into the kitchen and sat at the kitchen table, while their wives talked in the living room, getting acquainted with each other as only women can.
Frappin’ women can just get acquainted just by looking at each other. Not like us men who got to circle one another awhile. Frappin’ women just look at each other and read one another’s minds fer cripes sake, thought Darren. At least that’s how it always seemed with his wife.
He tried not to appear drunk, but his voice slurred and he knew it. What a night! He thought to himself as he did his best to keep up the small talk.
After a few minutes, he noticed the two wives heading down the hall. Crap, they’re gonna gang up on me! Darren thought, as he sat and smiled drunkenly at James.
After about an hour of this foolishness, all Darren could think about was having another beer. But he knew he didn’t dare with his religious guests lurking all over the house. Crap… they might be all over tha county, Darren thought drunkenly. They might even be a swarm of’em! He just kept smiling foolishly as James yakked on about something or other.
What he didn’t know was that their wives were in the bedroom praying for his deliverance from alcohol and dope. Then James’s wife came back into the living room with Darren’s wife in tow, and said, “James, we’d better be going.” She gave James a no-nonsense look, and James got up to go. It looked to Darren like they were in a rush to get out of there.
Of course, as they headed toward the door, James had to once again invite the whole bunch to church on Sunday. “Well, crap. Who invited them in the first place?” he muttered after the door was closed.
Man, I feel weird! he thought, as he watched James flick on his headlights and back out of the driveway. I got to go and get something stronger to drink!
He staggered out to the Olds, spun her around, and headed toward the local liquor store, about six blocks away. He knew he was drunk, so he drove the back streets to avoid the main drag. He bought a bottle of Jack Daniels, and drove home the same way he had come. When he pulled into the driveway, he had already downed half the bottle.
He staggered into the kitchen, plopped down at the table, and started chasing the whiskey with a warm beer he had missed beside the second-hand easy chair. He wondered if the pastor had seen it sitting there. He drank awhile and got up to go to bed. He weaved his way out of the kitchen, and then the floor of the living room came flying up and attacked him with a whack upside the head.
“The nerve of that crappin’ floor,” he slurred drunkenly. He lay there trying to figure out how he had gotten so horizontal when the floor was standing up just a minute ago, and then his lights went out.
The next morning about eight, Darren awoke with a screaming headache. He got up off the floor, staggered into the kitchen, and plopped down into a chair, rubbing the side of his head. He wondered how he had gotten on the floor. He sat there rubbing his head a few minutes, and eventually the pain settled into a dull ache.
He walked over to the sink, took down the instant Folgers, slopped three teaspoons of coffee grounds into a cup, and ran it full of hot water from the tap. He walked back over, sat down at the table, and took a sip. He pondered the dirt under his fingernails and stirred the contents of his mug.
After a few minutes, the strong coffee began coursing through his bloodstream. He sat there awhile longer, and he suddenly realized he was feeling better than most mornings after a dance with Jack Daniels. He looked out the window at the early morning sunshine. It seemed even brighter than usual. Must be my eyeballs, Darren thought.
For some reason, he suddenly remembered that the owner of the Red Rooster had been after him to paint the kitchen of his house, and he thought, I’m gonna go down there and paint that kitchen for the bar bill I owe. I don’t feel like drinkin’ today neither. Crap with the beer, I’m gonna mow the yard too.
Darren got up from the table, walked over to the refrigerator, and took out the last tall can of Coors. He pulled the top off and poured it down the sink. Disbelieving, he wondered, What’em I doing pouring out my beer?
His wife walked into the kitchen. She just stood there looking at him with those eyes of hers that were always filled with sadness.
I hope she don’t start in, he thought. Before she could say anything, he said he was going to paint the kitchen for the guy who owned the Red Rooster. He gave her a passing smack on the lips as he walked out the door, putting on his dirty, tattered, paint-spattered cap.
He loved his wife deeply, and had ever since they first met. He was 21 years old and still in the military when they met and married, and he knew she loved him. He also knew his drinking stood between them, and it made his heart ache when she looked at him and he was forced to see the hopelessness in her eyes.
He drove the mile and a half down to the tavern, parked his car, and walked through the ridiculous-looking red door. There were no customers in the place. The owner stood behind the bar washing glasses in steamy water. Darren stood at the end of the long bar.
The bartender mumbled, “Mornin’.” He reached for the tap with one hand and a glass with the other, and in one swift, fluid motion he started drawing a beer for his best customer. Darren threw up his hand to stop him. The bartender released the lever at half a glass and looked quizzically at Darren.
“You still want your kitchen painted?” he asked without sitting down at the bar.
“I sure do,” replied the bar owner. “You wanna paint it today?”
“Yep,” replied Darren, and the bar owner slid the keys to his house down the bar.
“See you later,” he said, as he scooped up the bar owner’s house keys and walked out the door.
“Lock it up when you leave!” yelled the bar owner through the already closing door.
“Yeah, yeah,” Darren said, but the door had already closed.
The house was just a few blocks away. Darren worked steadily through the morning and finished about one o’clock in the afternoon. He felt well except for the fact that he hadn’t eaten all day. He drank copious amounts of cold water from the faucet as he worked that morning, and it cleaned out his system.
He gave the kitchen one last appraising look, then locked the house and drove back to the tavern. He slid the keys down the bar to the owner, who again reached for a glass with the same practiced gestures, but again Darren threw up his hand, stopping the bartender at half a glass.
“Thanks, but I gotta go. Are we even on the tab?”
“Sure, see you later,” the bartender said, as he went back to wiping the bar that was already clean. However, he didn’t see Darren later; in fact, he never saw him again.
Darren went back home, managed to get the creaky old lawnmower running, and mowed the yard. Eventually he stopped at the back door and shut the mower off. It gave one last pop, then died. He walked into the house, sober for the first time on a Saturday sinc
e he couldn’t remember when.
His wife came up and kissed him square on the mouth. That was her way of checking for alcohol on his breath, and he knew it.
She turned and walked back toward the kitchen where she was fixing a supper of steak and potatoes. She never could cook potatoes worth beans, he thought. He was raised in the south, but his wife was California-grown, and they had returned to California when his hitch was up in the military. To his way of thinking, there wasn’t a person ever born in California who could fix fried potatoes the way he liked them.
He had to admit though, it smelled good as he walked to the sink and filled a glass with cold water. He stood there and chugged the whole glass straight down. He couldn’t get over how different he felt that day, as he plopped down in his second-hand easy chair. He looked around the room at the worn, tattered furniture, which was all they could afford. “Crap! I never noticed before how beat-up this place is,” he reckoned as he surveyed it.
That evening, the kids could sense that it was safe to stay in the living room, so long as they were careful around their dad. They lined up on the couch, watched TV, and stayed quiet.
His wife gave him a few of her thinking