Memories rush to me like oncoming traffic. A fragment here, a vague recollection there, one place tied to another by coincidence. All colliding headlong onto me, and all I can do is kneel down, cradle my face in my hands, and hope the impact doesn’t hurt too much.
I’m eleven and my father is slowly leaving the world. He was one of my anchors, one of those grounding forces you don’t appreciate until they’re gone. He contracted a horrible liver disease and went prematurely- not due to anything he ate or drank, but due to bile buildup. I’m holding his hand, it looks more weathered than his body, for some reason the extremities always do whenever death is imminent.
He turns toward me, outside the Manhattan skyline drones on, a bustling, active world that doesn’t take note of his departure. His eyes are rheumy and he blinks twice, then croaks:
“Keep going. No matter what, keep going.”
He takes a few final breaths before my mom comes into the room, puts her hand on my shoulder and escorts me out, and then goes back to check up on him. Silence.
I’ve been in Denver a year and I see her on the stool, drinking alone. Thick leather jacket to protect her from the blizzard outside, we’re in Lions’ Lair on Colfax and I rushed in here to clear my head after a long day at the lecture hall, lesson on the Limbic system delivered by an aged professor in her seventies. Too reserved and dusty in there. Looking for some grit.
So here I am, low ceiling and neon lights, opaque glass windows up front and the central counter. I absentmindedly toss my coat into the leather booth and slide in, bartender asks if I want anything. The place is mostly empty, there’s an inclement weather advisory and most people with common sense have chosen to stay inside next to their radiators and wait it out.
“Tequila with lime.” Sharp nod, he turns around and pulls out a little bottle.
“I’ll have some,” she says, and he pours two glasses. She grabs them, slaps a ten on the counter from her purse, and brings them over.
“Here you go.”
I’m amazed, because during my time here nobody has interacted with me like that. I assume maybe it’s some old Colfax custom I’m not privy to yet, an arcane signifier, that you order the same drink as someone else for no particular reason. I don’t know what to make of her, and with that comes intrigue, and intrigue brings promise. I get a strange feeling of warmth from her, it radiates around her head, a blooming fuchsia.
“God, I hate it here,” she remarks, off the cuff. “Fucking fake. All fake culture. It’s a Potemkin village, that’s what it is.”She picks out the lime and squeezes it, sets it aside on a napkin, absentmindedly stirs the ice cube around with her lacquered nail.
“Absolutely right,” I say. “You have a point there, you’re completely justified, I get you. Talking sense. Nobody is willing to talk sense around here. Where you from?”
“Here,” she says. Hadn’t expected that.
Thirty minutes later, I’ve convinced her to come to my apartment with me for a nightcap, we’re going at it and screaming like rabid dogs and she has me pulled on top of her, my apartment has good heating and I get this weird notion that we’re in a fishtank, that there are weird beings drifting on the frigid winds outside the window, watching us for unknown reasons, witness to our unified initiative.
She proves to be another anchor, a solid weight, another well-defined chapter in my life. This is to be expected- she’s a well-defined person. She has goals, she’s on the cutting edge and has drive and fervor. These are unpredictable times, full of optimism and economic upturn, she’s studying at Auraria and I’m at CU, I take her to the hot dog stand on Evans weekly and it’s her favorite thing ever.
“Where were you all my life?” I ask her a year after we meet.
“Here. I was here all along. Just waiting for you.”
I want to believe it.
It’s our wedding in 2015 and we’re all decked out, everyone we know is present to see us off in the next chapter of our lives. My family has flown out from the East Coast to be here, my mother and older sister and little brother are arranged in a line to the left and they’re throwing a shower of rice at us, my mom’s shouting strange sobriquets in Italian, something about not forgetting what you have.
Seven minutes ago I was in the dressing room, taking one final look at my tuxedo in the mirror. My heart was racing, I wondered if I should have taken some of the blood thinner I was prescribed at the time. I’ve always been sickly, although thankfully that isn’t a particular issue anymore. At the time, however, it felt like being choked.
My rate returns to normal levels, though, when the curtains open and she’s standing there with the bouquet in her arms, she throws her arms around me, completely rapt to be in my presence, and we venture out onto the carpet as the organist strikes up.
The minister is wearing full getup, rectangular spectacles and the Catholic robe, he reads slowly and eloquently, smiling at both of us in turn, taking his time to let us savor the moment, to envelop ourselves in this memory. I look out onto the huddled crowd which has assembled to watch our union. I wasn’t aware we knew this many people combined. It makes me feel important, though. Makes me feel as if I’m worth something.
I’ve never felt such power before.
It’s 2018 and I get the phone call. It’s brief, to the point, my sister doesn’t mince words and she doesn’t waste my time, because she knows I have lots of patients to deal with in the next hour and every second I’m on the line is a second I could be helping.
“Yeah, that’s fine. Sorry I wasn’t there to see her go. Love you.” I hang up the phone.
There’s very little reason for me to return anymore.
Tracker tips his cap to the storyteller as he concludes yet another chapter.
Absolutely riveting. I just can't avoid listening in when you tell your tales. So little has actually happened out of the ordinary so far in your story, but I can't help but feel a building apprehension about your protagonist's situation. You are quite the artist.