The Guardian
It was the regular Wednesday night meeting crowd at the Lutheran Church. Wednesday night is a busy meeting, like every drunk in town wants to check themselves out before the big drinking days. That’s why I go, so that on Thursday when I get the yearning for quarter draft night at Frogger’s, the meeting is still fresh on my mind.
I sat in my normal spot, towards the back. All the regulars were there too. I nodded at everyone as they noticed me, a recent development in recognition of my consistent attendance and recent six month pinning. Inside my coat I clutched that six month chip.
In the front were the new people; one disinterested looking young guy who had the person at the door sign a slip of paper, probably for a DUI mandatory visit. Beside him was an ageless looking man, he could have been anywhere from forty to sixty. but probably on the bottom end of that range and just looked like hell from ten or more years of hard drinking.
I knew the look.
I was that bad, but I quit before the disease began to eat me away. The disease had taken hold in him. This man crossed the threshold of alcoholism long before, and hit the door running.
He turned around to examine the rest of us. His eyes wouldn’t completely focus, but there was something behind them, shades of a strong will. His movements were slow and deliberate, the turning of his neck, the smoking of his cigarette. It was obvious that he was still a little drunk. That was okay, it was certainly not the first time someone had lumbered in with half a buzz on, or even a full one. If we fell off the wagon every time we got a whiff of alcohol on somebody’s breath these meetings would be empty.
The first hour was spent listening to more details of a newcomer named Annette’s third divorce. Then an old steel worker that insisted you call him Whitey talked about his wife’s illness. Her breast cancer recently had come out of remission. I felt bad for Whitey, a terribly nice man. He sat right in the church pew as he spoke, talking to the wood of the pew in front of him, knuckles whitening as he went on until it seemed he would crush the hard Oak.
Then it was time for the new ones to speak. We make them speak the first time they attend, whether they like it or not, and they had to do it on the platform, so everyone can see them. The young one was first, he spent about a minute explaining to us that he didn’t belong there, and then got up and sped out of there like he’d been at a leper’s convention, signed slip in hand.
Two other regulars winked at each other, ” He’ll be back.”
His counterpart did not even leave his seat until the church door had fully, slowly, closed behind the boy. He made his way to the podium, deliberately, every move carefully considered, like some slow drill ceremony.
He pulled a high backed stool up behind the podium and sat down, rested his hands on each side of the stand, then looked out at us. His eyes were slow to focus, but piercing. The smugness that I usually felt when the new people were forced to speak, usually embarrassing themselves, diminished to shame, seeing the pain in his clouded eyes.
He smiled a winner’s smile. The alcohol drained from his expression. “I hope you folks don’t mind if I sit down. I figure that this may take a while, and I don’t trust my bum knee to hold me up that long.”
He paused and lit a cigarette, sucked in one powerful drag and set it in the ashtray, “I guess I’ll dispense with the formalities, My name is Ray….”, he paused while we all greeted him back. “…and I’m an alcoholic. I drink every day. I can’t even remember the last time I simply fell asleep. I pass out. During the day I work construction. I never drink on the job, but the labor keeps my mind occupied well enough. It’s only at night that I drink, when my mind is not occupied.”
“I guess this is something you hear all the time. It hasn’t always been this way. I used to have a life, a wife, a baby, a house, a dog, a mortgage. Before you think I’m just making up my own little country song, I’ll make the point that I drank back then, but only occasionally. Let me also say that I didn’t lose any of it because of drinking.”
“The drinking came later.” His voice grew steady.
“I married Sarah when I was twenty and she was eighteen. She wasn’t pregnant, but the both of us were so eager to get on with that little storybook life that we had our little boy Tommy less than a year after our marriage. We were the first in everything among our circle of friends, first married, first baby, first to buy a house. We were a really cute little couple. I remember being happy. I remember being in love. Those are the memories that I don’t want to lose.”
He stopped and looked out above us, gazing at images that must have spun around his head like mobiles, nearly palpable enough for us all to see.
His wife. His home. His child.
His voice was solemn as he continued.
“Sarah was my high school sweetheart, and she played the homemaker very well. She cooked and cleaned, took care of the baby, and always mooned over me when I got home.”
“I was working at Sears then, in the assembly department, and though putting together bicycles and lawn mowers all day is not the worst job I’ve ever had, it turned out to be the worst paying. Money was always tight. By the second month in our new house Sarah wanted me to let her baby-sit for the extra cash.”
He sighed.
“I can honestly say that I was against it from the beginning, although for purely selfish reasons. I didn’t want to come back from the store to a house full of children, yelling across the living room, always under foot. Still, I caved in without much of a fight. Sarah was very hard to fight with, she was so sweet and so persistent, and had a way of shaping her face into a heart and fluttering her eyebrows that won nearly every argument outright. She said she already had a few people asking her to watch their kids and that all she had to do was make some phone calls and we could get out of the hole.”
” The next week she had four new little faces running around the backyard and the house when I got home. I found that I didn’t really mind the noise. She had mostly three and four year olds. All I could do was laugh as they kept my Sarah running back and forth. It wasn’t always nice, of course, but I got used to it. I’ve got to admit too, the money really helped.”
Ray took the cigarette out of his mouth and looked up at the ceiling, exhaling and sighing at the same time, eyes squinting to slits, squeezing back tears, but there was no weeping in his voice when he continued.
“Everything was fine for a couple years, except for the…, you know, regular little problems young couples have to deal with. No money despite it all, long work hours, it seemed that the two of us were never able to relax at the same time. We still managed enough to have a little girl we named Charlotte, after an Aunt on Sarah’s mother’s side.”
” Then, there was an accident at the house one day while I was working.” He swallowed so hard that I thought his Adam’s Apple was made of real fruit.
” There was a little girl named Allie, three years old and close enough to Tommy in age that the two of them ran together like regular little injuns. They ran back and forth, in our yard, and the neighbor’s yards if Sarah didn’t watch them close enough.”
He shrugged, grinned, ” That was my boy. Always playful.”
” Only problem was the neighbors who lived on the west side of us, two freaked out young nobodies that rented out Mrs. Titus’s place after she had to move to the rest home. They had a Rotweiller, and they thought it was cool to make that dog just as mean as they could. Unfortunately, they were good at that, and that hound was the meanest dog I’ve ever seen. They kept it tied up out back, except on weekends when they would take it away, sometimes it would be wounded when they rechained it to the tree. “
“If I’d seen those two children walking across that yard, I would have set them both in chairs for the rest of the afternoon, but I was working, Sarah had just run inside to change baby’s diaper.”
” Instead of coming out snapping at the two as usual, this time the dog sat and watched them, until they got inside the reach of it’s chain. Then it pounced on them like they were prey.”
” When I got home the police were still in the backyard, circled around a couple of bloody rags that were once Allie’s pretty white dress. One of the Nobodies was arguing with them about taking the dog. The dog died at the pound three days later. Allie died before she even reached the hospital. Tommy only took a few scratches from the dog, but he didn’t sleep for three days. It was longer than that for his mother.”
” Sarah wouldn’t talk about it at all, until the first time she had nightmare. I woke up with her fingers digging deep into my chest. Her face was buried in my neck and she was gasping for air in terror. I turned on the light beside our bed, sat up and wrapped my arms around her shaking body while she came out of it.”
” Never in my life had I had seen her frightened like that, fear was drawing the breath right out of her. I began to tremble along with her. ‘ What’s wrong?’ I asked her. ‘ What’s wrong?’ “
” Sarah was NOT the type to be disturbed by bad dreams.”
He paused long enough to light another cigarette, then continued, blowing out the first bit of smoke anxiously. ” It was a dream. She described the whole thing to me. She’d been walking through a playground full of children, each child completely engrossed in the various and seemingly infinite pieces of playground equipment.”
” At first she was walked alone, and then suddenly there was an older lady beside her. She was wearing a print dress and board rim glasses. Sarah said that her first impression of the woman was that of everybody’s sweetest Grandmother, but she walked and gestured with a strength and aggressiveness that age should have taken away.”
” The woman did not say a word for a long time as they walked through the playground. Instead, she patted the children on the head while they ran from one piece of equipment to another. The old woman stopped after some time, still not speaking but gesturing towards one particular group of children.”
” On an intricate climbing structure made of logs, was little Allie, intent on conquering it, paying no notice to Sarah or her companion. The lady let Sarah watch Allie play for awhile before she spoke. ‘ I try to give them what they want, to make it easier. They call me Aunt Maddie. All of these children were brought here early, and though it may seem they are happy, they will not see their mother or fathers for a very long time, if at all. They won’t be allowed to search for the secrets of life, love, happiness, marriage or have their own children. They have been cheated in the most heinous way!’ “
” Then the lady stared straight into Sarah’s eyes, matronly smile turning fierce, ‘Including sweet little Alyson there.’ “
” Sarah started sobbing, with no effect on the woman. ‘ There should be two souls here for everyone of these children to die, the child’s and the one that was supposed to be taking care of them, You.’ The woman pointed a thick finger at Sarah. “
” ‘You were the one responsible for that child’s life when it was taken away from her! Your negligence destroyed her and I swear that if you let another one slip away the same fate will befall you that awaits those who hurt my children intentionally. All children belong to me and I give you a second chance only because you have some of your own to care for. Care for them and for all others, or you will lose them and everything else.’ “
” Aunt Maddie left. Sarah watched the children play for some time until she began to find something un-nerving about the whole scene. The echoes of their little feet and hands, working around the equipment was getting louder, distorting, until sometimes Sarah thought she heard whole tortured sentences put together in the creaking and thumping sounds around her.”
” A five year old boy climbed to the top of a sprawling Oak and pulled out his pocket knife to carve initials. As his knife dug into the wood a scream erupted that only Sarah was able to hear and blood that only she could see seeped from the wound. “
” Then she woke up. She never talked of any other dreams, but many times I would wake up in an empty bed and find her downstairs with a pot of coffee.”
” She lived in fear from that day on. To watch her baby-sit was painful. A lioness, wincing if they slipped or even dropped a toy, sprinting across room or yard to catch them before they finished a fall, regarding each approaching vehicle or person warily. In the morning as I left for work, there was fear in her eyes, fear that this might finally be the day that she fails again.”
” She never truly relaxed again. She would check on the children two or three times a night as they slept. She started smoking, and lost fifteen pounds off a frame that was never fat. I could see her ribs for the first time. In every other aspect she was still my Sarah. At night she held onto me with all the love we had built our life around.”
” Three years later, our little Charlotte was finding her running legs, and I was starting to worry about letting children play in the front yard. That summer, it was ‘74, they widened the street in front of our house and traffic almost doubled. We were on a street that led to a cluster of factories. I promised myself and my wife that I would put a fence along the sidewalk that summer, but never really got around to it.”
” Our little Charlotte and her partner, a boy named Randy who followed her around like a big sister, were playing in the back. They snuck around the house while Sarah was busy corralling another toddler. They did not get far before Sarah saw them, but it was far enough for Charlotte to play her absolute favorite game in the world. ‘ Can’t Catch Me.’ She bolted to the street with little Randy behind her, right between two parked cars. The two of them appeared on the street exactly three feet in front of a semi-trailer.”
Tears brimmed in his eyes. He stopped long enough to wipe them away.
” The Police called me at work. The drive home was long despite my doubling the speed limit. I got there in time to see two small bodies being closed into ambulances, faces covered. A police officer took me aside to tell me they were dead. Twenty feet away, a vicious looking truck driver bawled. I was beginning to get a little unsteady myself, but instantly I was worried about my wife.”
” The Policeman directed me to her, ‘ She’s inside, and very upset, but her aunt told us that she would calm her down until you got here.’ “
” ‘ Who?’ I said, not even waiting for the answer before I started for the house.”
” Tommy met me at the door. ‘Dad! Dad! I think that woman wants to hurt Mommy.’ I didn’t even have to ask him what woman. I rushed past my boy for the very last time into the house. I found her in the kitchen, hanging from the ceiling fan I’d proudly and securely fastened to a ceiling rafter two Christmases before. Her body was still swinging but she was dead. I looked at the table that she’d pushed aside, and the chair she’d stood on. “
” I never saw my boy again, except in dreams. He simply disappeared from the front yard of a house in the midst of three squad cars, a crying truck driver and a crowd of gawkers. There was a big investigation at first, but after a while the urgency of finding him seemed to abate. Then he was old news. Nobody ever saw him again, or Aunt Maddie either.”
” But I see her every night. In my dreams. When I used to dream. Kicking a chair out from beneath my dazed wife’s feet. Taking my boy’s hand and leading him away. I found a way to eliminate the dreams.”
Ray pulled a small flask out of his jacket, murmurs spread around the room as he put it to his mouth and drank. He swallowed and then looked at us apologetically
” I’m sorry about that. I really don’t talk about this very much. It’s shaken me up all over again. If you just let me say my peace, I’ll get out of here, and I promise not to wave my little flask under any of your noses.”
” I drink to push the dreams away, wrapping the alcohol around my consciousness even while I’m asleep. I drink because I can’t stand a world that could do what it did to Sarah, for what? Being a bad baby-sitter? I drink because I am afraid that one night Aunt Maddie will come for me. I tell myself that it probably isn’t too bad for Sarah, that she might love being around those children. I can accept that there is a hell for people that harm children, but I can’t accept the fact that my Sarah belongs there, not ever. “
