I Hate Everything

I never have been able to find out who the man was that sat down beside me at McCarson's Pub that night. I've stopped in there from time to time, hoping he'd be there while at the same time hoping he wouldn't. I'd like to find out what ever happened to him. I wonder if he knows he sure did affect what happened to me.

I was just sitting there on a stool in the dark, smokey bar. It smelled like beer and cigarrette smoke, and, every now and then, cheap colgne and cheap perfume. I wasn't concentrating on anything particular--too much to concentrate on to focus on one thing. I must have been sitting in a daze for a while because when I finally snapped out it, the man that had sat down beside me was glancing at me expectantly, waiting for me to speak to him.

I was in no mood to talk to anybody, especially not some drunk stranger. He looked like hell hit by a hurricane. I guessed he was probably a little older than my father. His hair, beginning to gray all over, was greasy and going in a million different directions. It seemed like he'd tried to fix it without having taken a shower for a day or two or without having slept for that same amount of time, like he'd tossed and turned in bed then tried to cover the mess his hair got into by slapping on cheap pomade. His clothes looked like they'd made the sleepless journey with him. His white-collar shirt was a nice shirt, but it hadn't been ironed, and it had stains on the front of it from the ketchup he'd spilled on it at some burger joint along with stains from drinks he'd also dripped. The same went for his suit.

I noticed he wore a wedding ring when he looked down and moved it around his finger with his thumb and pinky. I concluded he must be a business man, come out for some convention. He'd probably tied one on and gotten in trouble for it with the little woman. He'd probably answered a call from her while he was drunk and got caught. That's why he was here, I thought. He'd been told not to come home, and, since he was banned from his house for a few hours anyway, he'd come into this bar to eek out a few more doubles.

He was drinking whiskey as fast as the man could throw it at him. When I picked up on that, I decided that my former theory that he was waiting to gain entrance to his house must be wrong. No man would be stupid enough to sit there and try to get drunk as fast as he could then run home.

Uh oh, I thought to myself. I knew this man. I'd been this man. This was a man with a marriage problem. And apparently, it was a dilly.

He kept looking over at me. A couple times he opened his mouth to launch into a sad babble of what was happening between him and the misses. It was making me uncomfortable, so I tried to ignore him. I'd watch the jukebox or nurse my beer or count the bottles on the shelves behind the bar. It wasn't that I didn't feel sorry for him. I just knew there was nothing I could do to help him, and if he started talking about it, it would only upset him. Boy, did I know.

After he'd gotten the message I was no good for a chat, out of the corner of my eye, I watched him take out his wallet. I figured he was paying for his drinks and leaving, and I felt bad for brushing him off when he was so down.

To my surprise, he didn't leave. He just sat and stared at his opened wallet as he drank. He almost looked like he was going to cry as he held the wallet in front of him and squeezed his glass. I still didn't want to get him all worked up by asking him if he was okay and I still didn't want to have to try and listen to a drunk yell at me about some problem, so I tried to think of a way to distract him from whatever it was that was on his mind without having to converse with him. I don't know if you know what it's like to try to talk to a distraught drunk, but, trust me, it ain't a rousing conversation.

I didn't get to think very long before I screwed myself over and blew it. Something fell out of his wallet when he tossed it down on the bar to throw back the last of his most recent drink, and I stupidly picked it up for him.

As I put it in his hand he said, "Thank you, bud."

Great. Now I was his bud. "You're welcome." I turned my head to try to escape the emminent conversation, but it was no use.

He held what I'd retrived in his hand. I had glanced at it naturally, and it was an old picture of himself with, presumably, his wife and two kids. I heard him give a little snort of a laugh and his would-be tears hardened. "What's your name, son?" he asked me. His voice was quiet and had a raspy tone and a far-off quality.

"Michael."

"Married?"

"Well, yeah. Yessir." This was technically the truth.

He smiled at me. "Do you have any children?"

I gave a nod. I didn't feel like talking to him about myself any more than I felt like talking to him about himself.

He didn't pick up on that. "You know, I hate this bar, and I hate to drink."

That did some good for catching my attention. "Really?" I said. By now I half-way wanted to know why he was in the bar, like a bad movie that you start watching then can't stop watching until you see the ending.

He nodded and took a drink of the whiskey that had just been brought to him. "But, on second thought, tonight I think I hate everything."

Such a blunt statement kept me shut up. There was really nothing to say to that. "Really?" Yes, I had just said that in answer to his last statement, but it was all I had.

"I hate my job, and I hate my life." He continued to look at the photograph. He leaned over some and showed it to me. "Those are my two kids. If it wasn't for them, I'd hate my ex-wife, too. I probably should just throw this thing away, 'cos she's the reason I'm feeling like this."

Again I searched for something to say to him, but there wasn't anything coming out. "Well, uh...what happened?" He obviously wanted to talk about it, so I didn't feel rude.

He shook his head. "Left me. I know I should move on and start over, but I just can't get over her leaving me for him." He shook his head once more as he looked down at his wedding band. "I hate everything."

"I...I'm sorry," I offered lamely. Believe me, there's not a thing in the world you can say to a guy in his condition to help him.

"That one bedroom apartment where I get my mail," he continued, "is really not a home. Matter of fact, it's a prison. A prison with a swimming pool and a parkin' lot view. Man, it's just great," he said with sarcastic enthusiam.

I could feel where he was coming from. Hotels are like that, too, as are empty houses. I didn't offer another insipid reply to him because I was drawn in farther than I wanted to be. Mindless replies that I had been offereing now felt too wrong to even fake.

He continued. "I remember teaching my kids to swim. Building snowmen with them in the back yard. Taking them to their first days of school. Hiding Easter eggs with them. I don't have many memories like that, but the ones I have, I have to hold on to. Now I hate summer, winter, fall and spring. I hate everything."

Once again he looked down at his wedding band. I felt somewhat unnerved as I looked down at the tanline where mine had once been. A long silence followed and I kept fidgeting. I twisted my beer glass around, smoothed down my hair, cleared my throat, tapped the barstool with the tip of my boot. All that time he just stared into space as I had been doing when he first came in. It scared me. I'll admit it: I was terrified.

"Will you excuse me just a minuet?" I asked him.

He nodded and I went to the phone booth in the back. I called my house as quickly as I could. Every ring made me loose hope that someone would answer.

Finally she answered, and I said what I needed to without preamble. "Babe, I'm comin' home and we're gonna work this out." It took a lot for me to say that, but it felt like someone was literally shoving me in the back to spit those words out. I said it in almost a panic.

I didn't wait for her answer. I didn't need to. I didn't give a damn what she said or what she thought about what I'd said. I wasn't going to return to the state that man was in ever again.

I walked back up to the bar and threw a twenty down. I looked at his drooping, lifeless eyes before I said, "Thanks. Thanks for everything."

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