Self-Esteem
Page 35
Trips to the Liquor Store
by Jim Crawford
There are countless things that an alcoholic forgets from one year to the next, from one day to the next, even from one hour to the next. There are many friends and lovers he once knew — many of whom he drank with — that quickly drowned in recollection in the sea of his alcohol-drenched brain. He also forgets the lost jobs, the lost money, and the lost time. But one thing the alcoholic never forgets — or rather, remembers better than anything else — are the liquor stores he used to patronize and the all-familiar paths that led him down to those grimy places of drink. When I was in high school, it was a wretched convenience store where a guy named Kevin (a friend of my sister’s boyfriend) gladly sold me four-dollar cases of generic beer just to make jokes about how I would also need to buy toilet paper. When I was a college student of 20 — using a fake ID card that read “MEDICAL IDENTIFICATION” — it was a convenience store across an empty field from my shabby, two-bedroom apartment that I shared with a frequently absent roommate. In those days I didn’t even have a car, but I didn’t care. A six pack of the nastiest, cheapest brew and a pack of generic cigarettes were just three dollars and a five-minute walk away. When I lived in Nevada, it was the Liquor King, a mega store for the supply-conscious alcoholic, complete with membership cards and shopping carts. In the West Village of New York, it was a small deli owned by Middle Easterners who cheerfully sold me 40-ounce bottles of malt liquor for a buck and a half. In Los Angeles (my adult home for the longest period) there were many: Happy Time Liquor, Mayflower Market, and “Rock and Roll” Ralph’s, just to name a few. It’s painful now to think of the things I could have done, the people I could have called on, and the places I could have traveled to when I ventured on those many thousands of solitary trips to the liquor store. It’s painful now to think of the price I paid to make my miserable life okay, to get through one more night, to convince myself I was still there and still alive. It’s painful to think of the damage I did to myself when I returned from my daily trips, eager to wash all the bad stuff away. But more than anything, it’s heartbreaking to think of how much I succeeded in destroying so many memories — apart from those of the avenues that got me there.
Crawford closed the dictionary and gently put his fingers back to where the keyboard would be.
But none of it really happened that way. No, it didn’t.
That’s just the way the story wanted to be told.
Yes, it is.
“It is?” Crawford says. “Who said that?”
The clock on the wall stops ticking.
Listen to me.
“Who’s there?”
I am that I am.
“I am what?”
I am not happy with you, James. There will be no Eden for you.
“Who are you?”
I’m your heavenly father.
“You are…” Crawford gasps. “God?”
You have worshiped the unclean one. You even called him your father.
“No, hey, you misunderstand. That Pappy guy was no father. He was just…”
I commanded that you shalt have no other Gods before me!
“Before you?”
I have filled you with terror so that you would know that I am the Lord!
Crawford gasps once again.
The devil showed you all of the splendor that evil can bring. You are now a follower of the devil.
“I am weary from crying for help. My throat is dried, which is why I feel like a drink. I can’t see anything clearly, My Lord.” Crawford paused. You are My Lord, aren’t you? He leans forward. “Lord?”
Crawford listens. Lord, are you there?
Silence, except for the clock on the wall.
I wasn’t behind this Happy Pappy business. Was I Lord? Was I just…
“Was I?”
“Yesssssiiiiirrrrreeeee!”
“Dr. Watkins, the patient just cried out.”
“I’m coming.”
The End