The winter wind blows wicked against us on the wide boardwalk. Asbury Park is frigid this February midnight.
We went to the film festival in the afternoon, then dinner at the bar to catch up. Sitting at the bar is comforting, so adult. Quick service, cold drinks, attention. Pancreatitis stopped my drinking a year ago, but I still go; I thrive in tavern life.
It’s been two years of broken promises to connect for him and me. Seltzer water for me, eight White Claws for him. I talk about my future, he talks about the past.
After a while walking on the boardwalk, he can’t go forward. He is now fourfive steps behind me. Cha-cha dancer steps, side to side. His chest is a sail, and this bitter wind pushes him back, then back again.
He falls – smack on his backbone – and his feet wriggle in the air. The Jack of Hearts is on his back, hands buried in his coat pockets, squirming like a turtle. Is he bleeding? How did he not whack his head?
A few feet above us, his angel appears. She stares down at me. Me? She seems pissed. Funny, this is my first angel.
I pick him up and push him, like a grocery cart. He leans back, abdicating his ability to walk himself. He is light and graceless as a busted cardboard box. He’s always been a small guy. The two cancers have hollowed him.
“I don’t drink anymore,” he said. The throat doctor demanded that. I know; I was there that day in Philadelphia. “Just a few pops when people are in town.”
Near the lobby elevators, we meet my friends. We all talk about the film festival, dinner, and breakfast tomorrow. He is chirping nonsense, and it’s hard to hear him. Throat cancer has swiped most of his voice.
People lean in. I keep my arm around his shoulders, but he slips straight down, out of my grasp.
The group is shocked. A friend asks, “Should we call an ambulance?” And I laugh and say, “No, no, he’s fine. He’s just small and can’t drink like he used to.”
Justlikethat, I am struck. What a Fool I am! I feel like an Abused Housewife or the Delusional Spouse. I stopped alcohol a year ago. Thirty years of drinking memories engulf me. It has always been this way with my best friend, my drinking partner.
Missed work, lost cash and cars, waking up in yards, sleeping till afternoons. Sometimes I fell, sometimes him. We’d laugh and laugh and learn nothing.
Nothing’s changed; just me.
A security guard sidles over and lifts him. With the guard’s arm around his shoulder and my arm around his waist, we sway into the elevator. His feet touch the floor, but we hold him up. He is saying something.
In the elevator, I ignore the angel just behind me.
On the eighth floor, we three toddle down the hall, inside the room, to his bed, and we drop him. He unfolds, sinks into the mattress on his back, and stares at the ceiling with closed eyes. The guard leaves.
I don’t turn on the lights. Out the window, I watch the waves on the beach and trash blowing on the sidewalk. The window is cold against my cheek.
His angel is on my bed. She glares and beckons for me to sit.
“I see now I’ve been part of this problem,” I tell the angel. “He doesn’t listen to the doctor, to his wife. I’m done enabling him.”
“Helping and protecting those we love; that’s what we do,” she says. “We’ve been with the two of you since you were kids.”
“He doesn’t hear me. He says I’ve found religion. Hell, I chose life,” I said. “He’s not listening to anyone. “I’m done. You’re the angel; I’m out.” I get under the covers, slide on my apnea mask, and I’m fast asleep.
Now that I’m sober, I can see his angel. I see how this works now. I didn’t know he had an angel. I guess I have one, too. I bet you never see your own guardian angel.
I’m sure the two of them spent the rest of that night catching up.
–By Tom Sakell