I love fall. The smell of the fallen leaves and the preview of winter’s chill as the wind rustles them about always makes me feel like endless possibilities abound over the horizon.
It doesn’t always work out that way. Usually the leaves decay, and nothing happens. Not always, but usually.
I began my trek home bolstered by a bit of liquid courage. I was warm despite the bite in the air. We were in the midst of our first Alberta Clipper. I didn’t mind the cold. It would help me both think and help clear my head.
Seventeen blocks. It would have been a decent hike completely sober. With all the twists and hills, I was in for a workout. I normally avoid exercise, so there was a good chance someone might find me in the morning keeled over from a heart attack.
I made a mental note to begin an exercise regimen the next day. I would blame my lack of actually doing it on the alcohol. Just another excuse in a rather long line.
I passed the local homeless huddled beneath the freeway overpass. I knew any change sent that way would likely wind up going toward a bottle or possibly worse. It was not uncommon for the police to find one or two overdoses a week half frozen in their own excrement and vomit. No, the walk wasn’t through a pleasant part of town.
I did what most people do when presented with a sight they’d rather avoid. I studiously avoided their stares and pleas as best I could while occasionally breaking down. Humanity can be tough on the soul. I assauged my silent guilt with the change when the moral burden became too great to bear.
It helped clean out the cobwebs. Buy a 40 ounce for someone down on their luck, have a thought. Logically there wasn’t a connection. Screw logic. I needed answers.
I hadn’t let either Kevin or Ernie in on what had occurred. They each had their own baggage. Friends avoid weighing other friends down if they can. I’d bring them in on it once I’d worked through some of the details. Maybe I wouldn’t. Situational morality in a nutshell was my bread and butter.
Red of face and panting like I’d just won a hundred hard dash, I began to recognize the familiar backdrop of my neighborhood. The smells of cooking and the bark of a dog or two out for its evening business welcomed me home.
I still hadn’t clarified my problem. I barely even understood the problem itself.
I’d gotten the house after a terrible accident wound up leaving me reasonably well off. It wasn’t my fault, and poor Kevin had paid for it with his legs. He’d never walk again.
I didn’t have the money to hire a lawyer, so I sought an ambulance chaser. It turns out he was pretty good at his job. I received enough from a sympathetic jury to live comfortably, and Kevin received untold millions for having to live his remaining days in a wheelchair.
It wasn’t worth it. I still have nightmares. Kevin passes out drunk nearly every night. When he sleeps over, the screams shake me to my soul. I doubt he knows he does it. I can’t even imagine what goes through his brain when he’s unconscious. I hope I never have to.
Home again. Reasonably sober. Heat a necessity. I wasn’t dressed for the walk. I should have called a cab or an Uber. Exercise my ass. Safe in the cocoon of my house, the exercise regimen gets filed under bad ideas.
There is nothing appealing in the fridge, and I don’t feel like takeout for what must be the tenth night in a row. Peanut butter and crackers it is. Perrier to wash it down? Heck no. I’m a tapwater kind of guy. Thank God I don’t live in Flint. Those poor saps never knew what hit them.
Munching on crackers is mindless. It gives me time to think. Why would someone I hadn’t seen since childhood show up at my work and ask a favor of me? It made no sense. I hadn’t even been close to her when we were kids.
I thought back to earlier in the day, playing the whole scene over in my mind.