sweetly.
I hope it was Berry, he thought. Crawford reached up and brushed Dorothy’s hand off his shoulder and jumped from the bed, clicking off the TV.
Yes, it’s long past time that I get Berry for all that humiliation he dished out to me over the years. This is a good thing. Paying him back will be a triumph for me.
“Honey?” Dorothy asked, “Are you thinking too much again?”
“If you’ll excuse me, I have some notes to look over.” Crawford hit the eject button and yanked the tape from the VCR.
“It’s really late, Jim” Dorothy said, a skeptical look on her face.
“I won’t be long,” he said, storming out of the room and slamming the door.
Dorothy knew it was a lie but she was too fed up to do anything about it. Let him drink himself to death , she thought as she got up to put on her pajamas.
Crawford threw the notebook on his desk. It didn’t contain a single word. Crawford’s inclination toward pen and paper was a product of his brief Alcoholics Anonymous days. He didn’t take notes during the many meetings he attended. It would have been ridiculous to write down anything said by members during their tearful “sharing.” He just scratched little pictures of things, which relieved his nervousness slightly while he was fighting his thirst for drink. Tonight it wasn’t helping. His mind was too distracted.
Regret. Accomplishment. Disappointment. Arrogance. Guilt. Embarrassment.
Dorothy. Phil. Lee. Cal. Jenny.
Fucking Happy Pappy.
Booze. It always came back to booze, especially with those sets of stressors.
Crawford put the mysterious videotape in a small VCR that rested under an even smaller TV. He hit the rewind button then stop.
“You’ve also stated you had a problem with alcohol.”
“That’s right.”
“And it was worse than that, wasn’t it?”
Look at that patronizing nod. Bitch. And I even wanted to bang her after that .
Crawford stopped the tape.
He wanted a drink. He always wanted a drink, but it was approaching the hour when it really got tough. The craving time was as reliable as the nightly news, and so was the struggle that followed.
Every night, when he was “on one” (and some nights when he wasn’t), a heated debate occurred inside his head, one that needed to be resolved prior to the liquor stores closing at 2am.
It took him back to Texas, to his teens, to the lakes and country roads where he used to spend Saturday afternoons drinking two-dollar twelve packs with the Cherokee boys who were always up for it. It took him to California, to his undergrad years, when he could drink a fifth of rancid bourbon and not be paralyzed by a hangover the next day. It took him to his early twenties, to his first European trip, downing wine with a bunch of Algerians in southern France, or drinking ouzo with a bunch of old fisherman in northern Greece. But the best years to remember — and therefore the worst for his condition — were the ones just before he got married, his graduate school days. Oh, yes, when his closest buddy Cecil occupied a small lake house that could have been in the middle of nowhere but was just an hour’s drive from his alma mater. When a variety of alcohol — beer, wine, spirits — was always in great abundance. When young women came out in droves and he could ignore them until he chose not to. When John Coltrane and Shostakovich and Miles Davis and Bartok and Frank Zappa and Stravinsky and the Rolling Stones and (of course) Dark Side of the Moon accompanied conversations of philosophy and politics and theater and literature and sex and life and death and (of course) mental illness. And when he could take walks by the lake and enjoy a peace and quiet that, like a good night of lovemaking, was best appreciated in contemplation.
All those wonderful memories made a good argument for surrender.
Then…
The rebuttal. Ugly words like responsibility , duty and cirrhosis popped into his mind — vain, ineloquent attempts to keep him
I hope it was Berry, he thought. Crawford reached up and brushed Dorothy’s hand off his shoulder and jumped from the bed, clicking off the TV.
Yes, it’s long past time that I get Berry for all that humiliation he dished out to me over the years. This is a good thing. Paying him back will be a triumph for me.
“Honey?” Dorothy asked, “Are you thinking too much again?”
“If you’ll excuse me, I have some notes to look over.” Crawford hit the eject button and yanked the tape from the VCR.
“It’s really late, Jim” Dorothy said, a skeptical look on her face.
“I won’t be long,” he said, storming out of the room and slamming the door.
Dorothy knew it was a lie but she was too fed up to do anything about it. Let him drink himself to death , she thought as she got up to put on her pajamas.
Crawford threw the notebook on his desk. It didn’t contain a single word. Crawford’s inclination toward pen and paper was a product of his brief Alcoholics Anonymous days. He didn’t take notes during the many meetings he attended. It would have been ridiculous to write down anything said by members during their tearful “sharing.” He just scratched little pictures of things, which relieved his nervousness slightly while he was fighting his thirst for drink. Tonight it wasn’t helping. His mind was too distracted.
Regret. Accomplishment. Disappointment. Arrogance. Guilt. Embarrassment.
Dorothy. Phil. Lee. Cal. Jenny.
Fucking Happy Pappy.
Booze. It always came back to booze, especially with those sets of stressors.
Crawford put the mysterious videotape in a small VCR that rested under an even smaller TV. He hit the rewind button then stop.
“You’ve also stated you had a problem with alcohol.”
“That’s right.”
“And it was worse than that, wasn’t it?”
Look at that patronizing nod. Bitch. And I even wanted to bang her after that .
Crawford stopped the tape.
He wanted a drink. He always wanted a drink, but it was approaching the hour when it really got tough. The craving time was as reliable as the nightly news, and so was the struggle that followed.
Every night, when he was “on one” (and some nights when he wasn’t), a heated debate occurred inside his head, one that needed to be resolved prior to the liquor stores closing at 2am.
It took him back to Texas, to his teens, to the lakes and country roads where he used to spend Saturday afternoons drinking two-dollar twelve packs with the Cherokee boys who were always up for it. It took him to California, to his undergrad years, when he could drink a fifth of rancid bourbon and not be paralyzed by a hangover the next day. It took him to his early twenties, to his first European trip, downing wine with a bunch of Algerians in southern France, or drinking ouzo with a bunch of old fisherman in northern Greece. But the best years to remember — and therefore the worst for his condition — were the ones just before he got married, his graduate school days. Oh, yes, when his closest buddy Cecil occupied a small lake house that could have been in the middle of nowhere but was just an hour’s drive from his alma mater. When a variety of alcohol — beer, wine, spirits — was always in great abundance. When young women came out in droves and he could ignore them until he chose not to. When John Coltrane and Shostakovich and Miles Davis and Bartok and Frank Zappa and Stravinsky and the Rolling Stones and (of course) Dark Side of the Moon accompanied conversations of philosophy and politics and theater and literature and sex and life and death and (of course) mental illness. And when he could take walks by the lake and enjoy a peace and quiet that, like a good night of lovemaking, was best appreciated in contemplation.
All those wonderful memories made a good argument for surrender.
Then…
The rebuttal. Ugly words like responsibility , duty and cirrhosis popped into his mind — vain, ineloquent attempts to keep him
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