Quietly, In Brooklyn

Tired from drink, his eyes closed as they wandered from bar room to bar room. Sleepwalking, huddled with the rest, he carried on unaware of where he was going or how he’d make it there. His mind stayed with him but his body seemed to follow its own path, so that he remained within himself but was conscious of very little other than the space in his head. He blinked—and they were in a new bar. And with it, all memory of the previous spot, earlier conversation and earlier action, was gone. New places needed to be conquered tonight, he knew, and more drinks needed to be ordered.

When his eyes opened he gathered in the dark, black room before the lids closed again. He settled in feeling warm and comfortable. He made his way to the bar alone, the first to lock the tender’s glance, and ordered a drink. He shut his eyes and took the drink quickly, eager to feel more of the drug effect, thinking, but not quite hoping, that it would liven him up a bit. Gathered now with the others, he ordered four more drinks, keeping one and sharing the rest. Everyone laughed and enjoyed the drink.

His party slid around the room, spilling their drinks and talking too loud. He sunk into his chair, ordering another quick drink then one other. Drinking each successively, he felt his head swimming and eased slowly from an upright position to one in which he slowly hunched forward, finally to one in which only his left arm held him up on the bar, grasping his own hair for balance. A flash from earlier in the night popped into his head. They were sitting cross-legged in an apartment, enjoying several different highs. He smiled and thought that it might be best to make the transition from strong drink to steady, decent beer.

The beer he could sip alone. He watched his friends and even spoke with them when they found the bar, laughing with them about anything they chose. But mostly, he sipped his beer and thought about its taste. The first beer was bitter: rich in hops, an amber glow, and sharp flavors. He enjoyed it and knew it to be a worthy drink, but it didn’t fit him tonight. He finished the ale quicker than he wanted, laughed to himself about his decision then ordered two new drinks. This beer would fit, he decided, and the rich, black flavor confirmed it. The beer was subtle, drinkable, but strong. Few could handle it right now, but he grabbed the extra he had ordered and handed it to a friend who joined him to the right.

As others passed back and forth from the bar proper to the rest of the room, they were kind enough to often pat him on the back. They were checking on him, attempting to pull him away from the dark spot and back into the rest of the world. They laughed about his perceived mood and appearance, thinking that either he was not enjoying himself or that he had already drank beyond an enjoyable night. Neither was true, so he responded to the pats with smiles and laughs and, “No, no, I’m fine.” He opened his eyes and followed the pack as they left the bar, not forgetting to leave a tip, back out into the grey streets of Brooklyn.

Conversation

I feel like dying.

That was all it said on the page. Really, it was a slip of paper. He expected a book-- reams of pages in uneven, sloppy, and possessed prose. But, aside from thinking for a few moments, it took her about three seconds to properly express to him how she felt… in just four words.

She couldn’t say it aloud. She was better at expressing herself on paper, she said. He pushed her on this, but finally agreed. Write it down, he said.

“I feel like dying.”

He read the words on the piece of scrap to her and she nodded so that it seemed like she herself hadn’t even written it. She merely acknowledged that, concerning how she felt, it was very much true. By avoiding the verbal recognition, she pretended these words weren’t hers. But they were.

“How do you mean?”

She sat silent as his brain cocked and laid out multiple readings of her statement. It was a habit of his to unpack words like this. It caused him to over-think and to second-guess almost anything he ever read or heard. In this case, though, the habit came in handy as he had to start somewhere.

She was still silent. “Do you feel as if you are dying?” was his first question.

No response. He waited then moved on. He felt like a private investigator or a judge. Judge felt like the wrong term to him, but this is what he felt like. His second question, “Do you feel like what you imagine it feels like to be dying?” was, too, met with silence.

He felt strange. He had no idea what she meant. He felt any of these might be true, but that he was straying from her intent, questioning her psyche, and causing her to become upset.

Finally, “Would you like to die right now?”

It took a few moments just looking at her before he even expected to begin waiting for an answer. Then, matter-of-factly:

“All of them, maybe.” This with a shoulder shrug and a tear logged glance up and out the windshield. It was the first time she ever let it out, it seemed. Like she had never even come close before this one moment.

He held the slip of paper above his lap and began to softly cry. Not loud enough to hear, not wet enough to see.

“I’d like for you to be happy.”

And as she stared out the windshield, breathing slowly and swallowing when she could, he added:

“And I’d like to be part of the reason why you are.”

He may have caught her off guard now as she may have caught him similarly, moments ago. She still had no words. He felt he had his, but lost them as he opened the car door and stepped out of the passenger’s seat. They avoided him, still, as he opened the door of the car parked next to hers and stepped into the driver’s seat.

He placed the key in the ignition and turned it over, all the time testing out the tint on his window. He couldn’t see her so he pressed the button down until she understood to do the same.

She was putting on her jacket, finding comfort in her seat, and settling in to the realization that he thought she was crazy. He didn’t, for one moment, ever think she was.

She looked at him, and he felt the chance to speak one last time.

“I love you,” he said. But, he rushed the words and mushed them into one “uluhvewe.”

She smiled, moved her purse, and he drove away.