Purgatory Blues (2013), page 5
The first thing that Andy did was go over to the bar and down a fresh beer, then he took another one and made his way outside to the parking lot as fast as he could. He wanted to avoid anyone that would inevitably pester him to talk. He didn’t want to have to deal with the pats on the back and the hundreds of different interpretations of what they thought about the show. They wouldn’t understand what it meant to him and he didn’t want their thoughts to be the last thing he remembered about the night.
Andy leaned against a wall, far from the sporadic gatherings of people who were spilling out of the building in front of him. He watched from the shadows, quietly sipping at his beer. It wasn’t long before Jack found him and brought him another.
“Not bad for our first gig back”, Jack said as he passed the bottle to Andy.
“Thank you for doing this for me”, Andy said sincerely.
“It looked like you needed it”, Jack replied.
They both turned toward introspection then, enjoying their beer and the view of the masses exiting the clubhouse. Andy sensed that the wheels in Jack’s mind were turning. It was as though he wanted to say something, but he was trying to figure out how to bring it up. It was an awkward energy that filled the air, but Jack finally spoke.
“So, what happened with you today?” he asked casually.
“What do you mean?” Andy asked, honestly confused.
“Back at the pin”.
Andy laughed, “I took a shot, I guess it didn’t go the way I planned”.
“That’s it? Nothing else?” Jack asked, prompting Andy for more.
“Yeah, that’s it, unless you know something that I don’t?”
“You could’ve died out there today”, Jack said and then paused in reflection, he turned to face Andy and continued, “look, I’ve never known you to do anything like that. You don’t make a move unless you’re a hundred percent certain of the outcome. So I’m asking you, tell me what happened out there today. I’ve never once seen you roll the dice like that, and this is me you’re talking to”.
“What do you want me to say man?” Andy asked defensively. “I took a shot and it didn’t pan out, that’s all. You’re reading too much in this”, he said…almost suggesting that Jack was being paranoid.
“Whatever man”, Jack said, turning around to walk away, “that’s the kind of shit people do when they don’t give a fuck”.
“Yeah, well, maybe I don’t”. Andy said the words almost under his breath before he threw his empty beer bottle over the wall. They both heard it smash on the other side before Jack turned back to Andy.
“What did you say?”
“Nothing”, Andy said and looked away.
“No, I heard you, I want you to tell me to my face”, Jack said, walking back to Andy with purpose.
Andy leaned close to Jack’s face and raised his voice, emphasizing each word, “I - said - that - I - don’t - give - a - fuck!”
Jack’s face turned to a mask of anger and he pushed Andy hard enough to slam him up against the wall. “Are you trying to kill yourself? Are you?” he shouted as he shoved Andy.
Andy pushed back, “don’t be so fucking dramatic, I’m not trying to do anything”, he said, as if to imply that if that were his intention, it’d have been long done.
“Then explain it to me”, Jack said as he shrugged and stepped back.
Andy took a deep breath and shook his head. “What happens after tonight huh? When I go home there’s no wife, no kid…there’s just a whole pile of empty! There’s no tomorrow to look forward to, nothing that I want anyway. My whole life is gone. I’m not looking for a cliff to jump off man, but if my time comes, I’m not afraid of it. I’m not afraid of it anymore. You need to have a reason to want to live…and mine’s gone”.
There was a moment of silence while Jack struggled to understand what had happened to his friend in all the time they’d been apart.
“Then you’ve lost the plot brother, big time”, Jack said, pushing Andy back with his index finger.
“Is that so?” Andy asked with his trademark smug grin.
“Listen to me”, Jack said, grabbing Andy by either side of his jacket, “a man without fear is a man without hope. Elsa is dead and I’m sorry about that, but what you haven’t caught up to is the fact that you are still alive. You still have a future ahead of you. It can be here or it can be anywhere else you want it to be. The first thing you have to do is stop feeling so fucking sorry for yourself and start trying to move on. There’s a place for you here if you want it, there always has been”.
“How’s that?” Andy asked as Jack let go of him.
“We haven’t had a Vice President since I took the gavel”, Jack said, “that spot was always meant for you. I was just waiting till I thought you were ready”.
Andy didn’t know what to say, he didn’t know if being with the club again would come close to filling the void in his life. He just smiled, in a flattered sort of way.
“Look, I’m going away for a few days to visit some of our other friends in the north. Why don’t you hang around a little bit and try to reconnect with everyone, see if everything fits. When I get back then we can talk about it a little more seriously, okay?”
Andy didn’t want to say no to Jack, he didn’t want to disappoint him. He was offering him a way back and it would have been nothing but an insult to deny him. “I’ll think about it”, was the best he could offer.
“Good”, Jack said and slapped Andy on the head. “They’re probably closing up inside now, take the spare room tonight, I’m going to say my goodbyes and get out of here. I’ll see you in the week”, he waved to Andy as he walked away.
Andy sat on the ground and finished the beer that Jack had brought for him. Soon the parking lot was empty aside from the few club members who’d left their bikes overnight and got rides home with friends. Andy slowly picked himself up and strolled back to the bar, it was deserted when he arrived.
He took a beer out of the fridge and sat down at the counter. After wiping down a clean spot, he pulled out the second of his two eight-balls, having finished the other one earlier in the night. He took out roughly a gram and began chopping it with a business card that someone had left on the counter. The room was silent except for the “tak-tak-tak” noise of the cardboard hitting wood. She was so quiet that he almost didn’t hear Melissa walk in to the room.
She was tall, almost as tall as Andy. In his memory she was the kind of girl that any man would want on the back of his bike. He remembered her long jet black hair…as straight as the fine edge of a blade, legs that just kept on going, crystal blue eyes like a Mediterranean ocean and an ass you could bounce a dime off of. He’d always said that Melissa had a smile that could break your heart if you couldn’t make her yours. She was in blue jeans, her riding boots and her leathers.
“Good set tonight”, she called out as she walked across the room, “the crowd sure was surprised to see you up on stage again”, she said as she sat down next to Andy. “Got one of those for me?” She asked once she’d noticed what he was doing.
“It felt just like putting on a pair of really old shoes”, Andy said in his gruff voice while he chopped the cocaine, making a bad attempt at humor, “comfortable in all the right ways”. He made seven lines and then absently handed the card to Melissa.
“I was watching from the back”, she said, “I didn’t know if you’d want to see me or not”.
He reached over the counter, pulled out a straw from a little container and used a pair of nearby scissors to cut off a small piece that he handed to Melissa as well. Thankfully, they were wide straws and not the kind where you needed to use two or three together to get a decent sip. He picked up a couple of shot glasses and a bottle of tequila, pouring two shots before setting everything on the counter. Melissa, meanwhile, had half of a line.
If Andy were a little more sober he’d have wondered why Melissa was even partaking with him in the first place, she’d never been a fan of drugs even when Andy did it recreationally years prior. But, he wasn’t thinking about any of that just then, he hadn’t even been able to look at her yet. All he knew was that she was there, he didn’t know how he’d feel if he made eye contact.
“Good stuff”, she said and passed the straw to him.
Andy took the straw and had a line of his own before sliding a tequila shot to her and having one himself. Melissa picked up the glass wordlessly and had the shot. He took a gulp out of his beer to wash down the tequila and they sat there together in silence.
After a minute she walked behind the counter and pulled out a cider for herself from the fridge…Andy kept his eyes on his beer the whole time. When she’d sat down again, Andy poured himself another tequila.
“I see you’ve become good friends with our fine selection of beverages”, she said, trying her hand at levity. Andy knew better though, what she’d really meant to say was “when did you start drinking so much?”
“Well, these days I’ve got a better reason than most”, he replied.
After more uncomfortable silence Melissa decided to open up. “I came to the funeral”, she blurted out and suddenly paused, looking for the right excuse to her follow-up. “There were so many people around you, I didn’t want to intrude. It was a lovely service”.
“Thanks”, Andy said, still keeping his eyes on his beer.
Melissa reacted to the discomfort by pouring another two shots of tequila. She pushed one over to Andy and drank hers down without hesitation, then had the other half of the line. The quick influx of substances to her bloodstream had given her courage, she decided to forgo the small talk and get to the point.
“You know, it always bothered me that you never asked me why I did it”. She said the words looking right at him, but he’d yet to turn his head.
“Why you did what?” Andy asked. He knew what she was referring to, but he wanted to hear her say the words, he thought he’d earned it.
Melissa on the other hand didn’t want to have to taste the admission, but she knew that she might never get another chance to learn the answers she so wanted. “Cheated on you with Allen”, she said quietly, the words dripped with guilt. She stared ahead at her drink and a long silence followed before she added, “it’s like you didn’t even care why”.
Andy drank his tequila before he answered, “after it was done I didn’t think the reason mattered all that much. It’s not like any explanation would make it okay, it was done, who cares why?”
“I care”, Melissa snapped at him, “I honestly thought that doing it might finally make you notice me, but even that didn’t work”.
“Notice you?” Andy said and laughed sarcastically. He finally turned to look her in the eyes. She hadn’t changed a bit. “I shared my bed with you every night…how was I not noticing you?”
“I loved you”, she said and looked away, “I still have feelings for you, I always will but…you didn’t love me the way I loved you”.
Andy felt his bitterness dissolve slightly at those words. For some reason he could never be angry with her, which is why he didn’t confront her about her infidelity all those years ago. He focussed his anger on Allen, because Allen could take it. He took a deep breath and exhaled loudly, it was something he found himself doing often in uncomfortable conversations. What was strange was how frequently he found himself having those kinds of talks.
“That was a long time ago”, he said, “and I was a different person. The truth is I don’t even know what I felt back then. All I know for sure is it’s not the way I felt about Elsa, that was something else”.
There was another long silence. This wasn’t a conversation that they’d be having under any other circumstances. It was almost as though fate had conspired to bring them to this room, under these conditions, at this precise moment.
“She must’ve been a hell of a woman”, Melissa replied, “I’d like to have known her”, she said as she put her hand on his.
“She certainly was”, Andy said with sadness in his voice, “she certainly was”.
“Tell me about her”, Melissa said, hoping to cheer Andy up.
“It’s kind of hard to put it in to words”, he said with a smile on his face, remembering Elsa. “There was just something, a kind of a spark that she had. She infected everyone around her with it. She could make the most stupid, ordinary thing seem exciting, you know?”
“Uh huh”, Melissa answered with a smile.
“Every day with her was like living in a Saturday morning cartoon and we never fought”, Andy said excitedly as the memories came flooding back, “I mean, there would be a perfectly good reason to have a huge argument about something but somehow we never did. She’d fix everything and by the end of it I’d be there thinking it was my idea and she’d laugh and tell me how she made me do something I didn’t want to do!”
“Yeah?” Melissa chimed in.
“Nothing ever seemed like a big deal, there were never major decisions to make. I mean, there were, but they weren’t difficult to make. It’s like when we were together we knew exactly how things were supposed to be. There was this invisible plan that just kept unfolding in front of us. I woke up every morning with so much energy…I quit coffee! Can you believe that?” Andy said through his laughter.
“Now that’s something!” Melissa said with a chuckle, “you used to be a five cup a day man”.
“I know!” Andy said, opening up and gesturing with his hands in disbelief. “You know I’d never have thought I’d ever get the chance to get into writing full time and it wouldn’t have happened without her. She made it seem like it was supposed to be that way and that I was just delaying the inevitable. I was writing for months and she’d come home and even if she was tired she’d pretend that it didn’t matter. She never made it difficult for me, you know? I mean she knew that I was working through my own thing. She…” Andy looked for the right words and went on, “well, she never held it against me that there weren’t two salaries coming in, even when times were tough, she never asked me to stop. We’d make dinner together, we’d laugh, we’d make love…and you know when the book did well and everything…well I thought it was the biggest fluke ever, she just smiled and said ‘I told you so’, like she knew the entire time”.
“Maybe she did”, Melissa said, raising her eyebrows.
“Maybe”, Andy said softly. Suddenly the excitement was gone and his mood turned toward a darker avenue.
He poured another two shots of tequila, “here’s to Elsa and Andrew junior”, he said as he raised his glass, “wherever they are”.
“Andrew junior?” Melissa asked after they’d both drank their shots.
“We’d just found out that we were going to have a boy, we didn’t talk about names or anything, but I thought that’d be cool”, Andy said, his eyes glazed over slightly as the emotion welled up in him.
He quickly took another line and poured another two shots of tequila. Melissa sat quietly while Andy worked. She hadn’t known about Elsa’s pregnancy and couldn’t think of a single thing to say that would make it better. Andy passed Melissa the shot, “you know what I still don’t get”, he said before he and Melissa drank their tequilas, “I don’t get how so many things had to go a certain way to make things happen the way they did”.
“What do you mean?” She asked, starting to feel the affects of the alcohol.
“Elsa’s doctor moved her appointment to the one day where I was doing a book signing that month. It was the only free spot she had in the week so we had to take it. I wanted to cancel the signing to be there, but Elsa insisted that she’d call me right after and that I had to meet my fans. She took the whole thing so seriously”, Andy paused and shook his head before going on, “so, anyway, it’s time to go and she gets to the garage and finds that she’s got a flat tyre”, he stopped again, this time to light a cigarette, “she calls her friend Marjorie to take her”, Andy stopped a third time, lost in thought.
“What happened then?” Melissa asked, too tipsy to stifle her curiosity.
“They’d just left the gynecologist’s office and Elsa calls me to tell me the news, she was so excited”, a hint of a smile crossed his face at the memory, “she had just enough time to tell me that I was going to have a son”. He downed what was left of his beer before he spoke again. “They said the brakes on the truck failed, that bastard plowed through them and three other cars, but they were the only ones that went off the bridge trying to avoid him. I heard her scream before the call cut out”.
Andy tried to maintain a strong front, but inside he was falling to pieces as he visited that scar in his mind. Melissa stroked his back in that way that people do when they have nothing to say and don’t know what else to do. Andy didn’t mind, he knew that she was only trying to be compassionate. She couldn’t possibly comprehend his grief. He didn’t think anyone could.
“I’m so sorry”, Melissa said, almost moved to tears as well.
“Shit happens I guess”, Andy said and smiled through the pain, pretending to be brave.
“How’ve you been doing?” She asked after a moment of silence.
Andy chuckled to himself before answering, “you know, I haven’t talked about this stuff with anyone and you’re probably the last person in the world I thought I’d be having this conversation with”.
“It’s not so strange”, Melissa said and stroked his cheek. “We were together for years before you and Elsa. I think it makes sense that you would share this with the other person closest to you”.
“I suppose so”, Andy said with a half smile, “well, it wasn’t easy in the beginning, I must’ve locked myself in my apartment for a few weeks. Now it seems like I’m hardly ever there, it’s just been one distraction after another. I’m still sleeping on the couch, I hear a lot of people have trouble with that when they lose someone, it’s hard to be in bed without them”.
