He felt like a baby being birthed, or like what he imagined that might feel like, being pushed, forced out of a narrow birth canal to be squirted out with placenta and blood and water into the nasty ruthless truth of this sordid world.
He woke up in a grain field beside the highway, the long, tall golden grain stalks lightly bending in the early morning breeze, making a little rushing sound which reminded him of wind running through trees when he’d backpacked as a youth. The highway was empty except for the occasional rumble of what sounded like eighteen-wheelers pummeling the road, the loud, angry gears shifting. The red dawn was rising up just barely above mountains in the distance, streaking the fields with gold and red rays like God were coloring a picture.
Lying there, gazing up at the deep gray sky slowly morphing into a hazy cobalt blue, he inhaled as much air as he could and, in a relaxed and yet exhausted manner, breathed out. His head pounded, thumping against his tingling ears. He heard his heart lazily thudding against his chest like some vitriolic secret. Realizing all of the sudden that he was completely naked, his soft skin cold against the raw earth and dirt of the field, he groaned and sat up into a sitting position. He felt like a baby being birthed, or like what he imagined that might feel like, being pushed, forced out of a narrow birth canal to be squirted out with placenta and blood and water into the nasty ruthless truth of this sordid world.
It all came back to him in a thunderclap. He’d been hanging out with Liam and Derrick, his two best friends. They’d been drinking, of course. Heavily. At twenty-four he was already what many called an alcoholic, though he didn’t know if he believed in the concept of “alcoholism.” It seemed like a convenient excuse for bad behavior, a victimhood ploy. Oh, I couldn’t help myself, I’m an alcoholic.
For years now he’d been blacking out when he drank. Not every time but too often. He played it off, of course, even when his friends grew concerned, but the truth was it scared the shit out of him. He sometimes woke up with strange women in strange beds, sometimes in different neighborhoods or, twice, even different cities. Where was he now?
A phalanx of motorcycles roared past on the highway, like massive steel roaring insects—it was getting brighter now, red daylight streaking across the cobalt sky like glorious, cosmic blood from a heavenly murder. He recalled drinking at home in Chicago with his two buddies last night. That sketchy place everyone told white boys to steer clear of deep in the South Side. Whatever. He’d been born and raised in Chicago and knew the city like the back of his hand. His family went back four generations in Chi-Town.
Think, think, he coaxed himself. A breeze rolled through and he shivered, suddenly realizing how cold it was. Goose pimples covered his body. His arms and hands were slightly trembling.
Ok, he said out loud, refocusing. Liam and Derrick. That shitty bar. Ah, yes. Then he remembered the shots, many of them. Jim Beam? Jack Daniels? Then a girl’s face appeared to him, older and big-nosed, her cheeks covered in freckles, glasses, eyeing him steadily from her seat at a table across the room. Talking to her. Words exchanged. More drinks. Sloppy making out. Then stumbling out of the bar and his buddies seemingly gone and the woman there yet not there and then he recalled briefly, spasmodically, being at his apartment, and then just him, loaded and drunken-sleepwalking his way for some reason towards the highway.
Then it was mostly a blank. A puzzle. A sallow conundrum.
Yet there were moments of partial recollection. A ride with a big-rig for a while. Then a blank. Standing aside the highway again, somehow with no shoes. Two men in a Jeep picked him up and looked at him with terror. Then driving once more into the mysterious, vaguely hostile night.
He’d woken up ten minutes ago, in this field, buck naked. Where the fuck was he? Where were his clothes?
Meticulously, he got to his bruised knees and then stood up, a sudden sharp pain jetting down his crackling spine.
Gazing around in a full circle, his eyes feeling red and teary, he squinted against the hostile sun. Fields of golden grains which, with the red sunlight looked almost like fields of fire, as far as the eye could see, except for the empty, eternal highway stretching along one side, at this moment empty.
He looked down at his tiny, shriveled cold penis, an odd appendage he cared nothing for in this instant. He was sore all over. And starving. He desperately needed water. He coughed, spitting up dry saliva. His emotions were all over the place, from fear to rage to sadness to mild skepticism to shock and even awe. He’d really done it this time, hadn’t he?
There was no other choice. He walked towards the road and, picking a random direction, he started achingly walking, shivering in the cold and raising a thumb for a phantom ride.
The sun rose higher and it thankfully became warmer. It was late April. No cars drove by for twenty, thirty minutes. Finally some eighteen-wheelers did. None stopped. One honked. He saw the puzzled, shocked look on one driver’s face. But no empathy. No true caring. Then two men on Harleys roared by and stared at him in disbelief as they passed, slowing down but not stopping.
At last, about 45 minutes into his directionless, aimless, pointless walk—there was clearly nothing around—a black shiny Chevelle which appeared close to brand new and had fully tinted windows passed him going his direction, slowed and, at last, pulled off onto the wide shoulder by the grain fields and stopped, cutting the loud engine.
For a moment nothing happened. No one emerged. He kept walking, cautiously, towards the stopped car. What on earth could people think of him, this random skinny white guy naked walking along the side of the highway in…God knows where.
Then the driver’s massive shiny black door opened and out stepped a tall, muscular Black man. He wore large dark shades concealing his eyes. His hair was close-cropped and hawk-beak-black. His neck was thick. He wore a black T-shirt and brand-new blue jeans which looked expensive and trendy and had purposeful torn holes in them. Fancy motorcycle-style zip-up boots, black, completed the futuristic, asinine look. The man’s dark tanned arms bulged with muscle out of the thin Black tee. He seemed like a security guard or a bouncer or something. He might have been 35, maybe 40.
In a quick motion he tore his shades away revealing hazel, inquisitive eyes. He gaped at the naked man and said, seeming genuinely confused, “What in the Sam Hell happened to you, kid?”
“It’s a long story.”
The man looked him up and down in one fell swoop. “Yes. I can see that.”
“Do you have any water?”
The man kept ogling him for a moment and then reached into the bowels of his car and yanked out a large plastic water bottle. He tossed it into the air to him and, surprising himself, the boy stepped forward and caught it. He undid the blue cap and glugged for a very long time, feeling the man’s eyes on him, his throat undulating as he took in more and more water. It was better than having an orgasm.
“Thank you,” he said, out of breath now, water splashed all over his mouth and chest, sloppy. He felt sated. He felt savage and primal, like some ancient tribal member.
“Here,” the man said. He opened his massive shiny black trunk, rifled around for a minute, and extracted some yellow sweatpants and a Chicago Bears jersey. He handed them over. Greedily, grateful, the kid threw the clothes on.
“Sorry, no shoes. No underwear.”
“Any food?” the kid inquired hopefully.
“Sorry.”
There was a silence and then the driver said, “So what happened, man? Where are you heading?”
Feeling his heart thudding and his ears tingling with embarrassment and shame, the kid said, “I blacked out. I don’t know how I got here. I live in Chicago. Where are we?”
The man appeared shocked again. “Were you in Chicago…yesterday?”
“Yes.”
The man smiled, grinned widely, suddenly explosively laughing, hands planted on his knees. “My white brotha, you are a long way from home!”
Swallowing, shaking his head the boy said, “Where are we?”
“We’re about 40 miles outside of Columbus, Ohio. Close to 300 miles southeast of Chicago.”
“Jesus.”
“Jesus can’t save you now!” He laughed again.
“You’re from Chi-Town?” the boy asked timidly.
“Born and raised,” the man said proudly.
“Me too.”
“Well alright then,” the man said.
Another silence and then the man said, gesturing with his hand, “Get in, son.”
He quietly, sullenly walked around the car to the passenger side, waiting for the man to reach across the seats and unlock the door. He climbed in and sat in the deep, low leather bucket seat. A crucified Christ hung from a gold chain dangling from the rearview mirror. The stench of one of those lemon Christmas trees stunk and competed with the rancid, obvious stink of cigarettes.
He closed the door.
“I’m Daryl,” the driver said.
“Roger.”
They shook hands.
“Your hands are freezing,” Daryl said, pointedly.
“Sorry.”
Daryl turned the heater on full blast. The engine was now roaring like a drunken lion but they were still just sitting on the shoulder.
“What was it you blacked out on?” Daryl said.
Roger shrugged. “Booze, man. Beer, shots. The usual.”
“You ever done this before?”
Roger tilted his head, looked away. “Not this bad.”
Daryl sighed, smiling once more before finally looking away and facing the road. He shifted the gear. Then he rumbled onto the highway and soon they were moving at 90 miles per hour heading west towards Chicago.
After half an hour of awkward, tense silence, Daryl said, “You ever think you need help?”
Roger, nearly asleep, warm and happy in his new moving cocoon of safety, looked across the car at Daryl and said, “Help with what?”
Daryl shot out a loud, startling laugh like a shotgun blast, slamming his palm against the dashboard. “Man, you are some kind of comedian, aren’t you, kid.”
“Not really.”
Becoming serious Daryl said, “Help, dude, with alcohol. Drinking. I mean clearly you gotta major problem.”
“I’m fine.”
Daryl looked over to make sure Roger was kidding but, seeing that he certainly wasn’t, he said, “Are you telling me you don’t think you’re an alcoholic? You went out in Chicago last night. Got wasted. Blacked out. And woke up alone, naked, in a field it would seem, outside Columbus Oh-fucking-hio, 300 miles from Chi. And you don’t think you’re a drunk?”
Roger now felt vaguely like a fly caught in a demon spider’s web. But there was this…or else outside. This was preferable.
“Yeah,” Roger said. “That’s what I’m telling you.”
Neither of them spoke for a couple minutes. Just the sound of tires rolling along road. Roger gazed out the tinted window and saw the passing, endless golden fields. He couldn’t think. He missed his parents whom he hadn’t seen in almost nine months. He missed his old friends.
Ever since he’d dropped out of the University of Chicago junior year—age 20—he’d been restless and uninspired, just working his shitty job at the restaurant serving tables, going to crappy, sketchy dive bars, hooking up with random women, barely surviving. He hadn’t told his folks he was leaving school; he just left one day. He’d been studying Ancient Athenian History. His plan had been to become a history professor, probably at U of C. But then everything had changed. He’d started drinking too much. Hated everything and everyone. Had stopped taking his ADD meds and his antidepressants. Only Liam and Derrick were really still in his life, and they’d been getting more and more concerned.
“Listen, man,” Daryl said, cracking his reverie in half like breaking a hard clod of dirt into a million fragments, bashed against a stone. “I’m sober. Haven’t had a drink in almost 13 years, man.” He glanced over at Roger, all the humor gone, serious now. “I was a fucking train wreck, man. In and out of jail. My wife divorced me and took our two kids. I was getting into random fights at clubs and bars. I even got stabbed one night.” He pulled up the lower part of his black T-shirt exposing a three-inch-long mottled brown scar.
Daryl sighed with what sounded like legitimate exhaustion and exhortation. “It’s such a better life, kid. I’m telling you. Sobriety changed everything. Alcoholics Anonymous became my family. I’m remarried. I’m in my kids’ lives again. I have a good relationship with my ex-wife. I run my own successful business. I own three cars. Shit, brotha, life is good. Better than good. Better than I ever could have imagined. But,” Daryl continued, raising his long, spindly index finger. “It’s not the external shit but the internal that matters. I have a spiritual life now. I have a God. I feel connected to a Higher Power.”
“Listen,” Roger said, trying to maintain cool and calm. “I respect your sobriety, but can we just drive in silence. I’m tired. I can’t think straight right now. You know what it’s like.”
Shrugging, Daryl said, “Alright, brotha. Fair enough. But just know: It’s only gonna get worse. Life can be very, very different. I promise you.”
~
Some seven hours later—they’d stopped for food—Daryl pulled off the highway in Chicago and they were back. They hadn’t spoken in hours. Fields upon fields of fire had passed. Mountains. Busy and lonely highways. Music from the stereo, first Marvin Gaye and then Biggie Smalls and finally some old Tupac before switching, oddly, to The Who, the famous 1960s British rock band. They both sang to Baba O’Reilly.
At last Daryl pulled up along the curb in front of Roger’s tiny studio apartment. He cut the engine.
“Thank you, Daryl. You’re a very kind man. I owe you, big time.”
Daryl reached across and opened the glovebox. He pulled out a business card, slick, black and white, shiny like his car. It had his cell number in thick gold.
“You ever change your mind and wanna get sober…call me,” Daryl said.
“Alright, man. Thanks. I will.” Roger pocketed the card.
Roger opened the door, got out, stood there eyeing Daryl. “Thanks again.”
“Take care of yourself, Roger. Be good.”
“Always,” Roger said, foolishly grinning.
“Take care,” Daryl said, gesturing with his hand.
“Adios.”
Roger shut the big shiny black door with a loud metal clang. A moment later the Chevelle was pulling away from the curb, then it mixed with street traffic and was gone.
Feeling relief and also a mix of sadness, Roger, in Daryl’s yellow sweatpants and jersey, remembered he had no wallet, no money, no apartment key. He opened the little gate and walked along the paved walking path cutting through the front yard. He knocked on the door of his landlord. Mr. Pendleton opened the door looking annoyed and confused. Roger lied, saying he’d been mugged and therefore had no wallet or keys. Mr. Pendleton seemed to believe him. He loaned Roger cash and gave him a spare key to his apartment.
Roger walked around the block to the liquor store. He bought a pint of Jose Cuervo. Before he even reached his apartment building he started drinking. By the time he climbed the three floors of stairs and unlocked his door he was already feeling warm.
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