The Hollow Men - Episode 38
Drew isolates himself, experiences a breaking point, watches the stars fall from the sky, and has an epiphany.
Last week in Episode 37 of The Hollow Men Uncle Bill explains why he moved to west Texas after World War II, a few beers are drunk to end a strange day, Drew’s Mom makes some changes and Drew and Sam drive back to Austin.
The Hollow Men is the second collection of not quite true tales of Texas. If you have recently subscribed and like to read things from the very beginning feel free to start with The Cold Days of Summer, the first collection of not quite true tales of Texas. Each episode of The Cold Days of Summer and The Hollow Men contains a link to the previous and next episode so you can easily move through the story line.
The Crack-Up, part 3
I had fallen a little behind at school and spent the next week catching up. But I also drank every night to forget, to forget what had happened, to forget what hadn't, just to forget. Some nights it took a lot to forget.
I kept to myself for the rest of the month. I used the excuse of being behind in my school work, having to finish my thesis and getting ready to defend it in November to stay away from everyone. Sam was my only friend besides alcohol during this time.
I managed to stay sober during the days and was actually in great shape for my thesis defense by Halloween.
To celebrate I started drinking. Each ring of the doorbell that night I gave the trick-or-treaters their treats and myself another drink. By 11:00 pm I had finished a liter of good J&B Scotch plus two six packs of Coors Banquet beer. I was looped, that’s for sure. Halloween was over, no ghouls left, no candy either, all that was left was the night.
Sam wanted out one last time for the evening. I walked out with her into the backyard. She began her final patrol of the fence. I looked to the stars. The light pollution of Austin hid many of the stars from my drunken eyes, or was it the scotch? I thought back to the summer and the town of bent trees and the stars there.
Oh, God, the stars. The stars above me began to fall from the sky. They lit up the night as they streaked to the ground. They set me afire and I screamed into the night as the flames roared around me. I tried to run but instead I stumbled, fell onto the lawn, into the flames. I covered my eyes from the night fire. Sam trotted over to me, sniffed my face and lay down in the flames next to me. Then everything went black.
I opened my eyes to a thick dark fog. Sam was gone. I was alone. I was still drunk and I rose clumsily to my feet. I looked around and all I could see was the fog. Then off to my right I saw, perhaps sensed, a red glow in the fog. Faint the glow was, it bobbed, slightly reminding me of something I had seen before but with the scotch settling in my system rational thought would be difficult at best. What was it? What did the red glow remind me of?
Memories flooded my mind and I couldn’t tell the real ones from the drunk ones from the imagined ones. It was all fucked up and so was I. I was in no shape for a powerful dream, an enlightening dream, a teaching dream. But, we don’t get to decide when power finds us, when a moment of enlightenment comes or when it is time to learn, all we can do is the best we can and try to make something of it.
I was reminded of Thursday mornings in Micro Economics at Odessa College, of painful Thursday mornings after Wednesday quarter beer night, of way too many quarter beers to be up at 8:00 am listening to a lecture drive us into an early grave. Back then the world would hurt until noon, until the booze sweated through me and my mind could stand the glare of the Odessa sun. Thursday mornings in Micro Economics showed me I could think with the worst of hangovers, that I could think when there was so much alcohol in my body that after too few hours sleep I was still drunk. I forced myself to think, to bring back the memories of the red glow, and the memories rushed at me like a damn freight train, with its bright lights blinding me to the night.
I was seven years old, cursing my Dad and God in the night in the backyard of our house on 11th street. All cursed out, damned to the world and not caring, I turned around and I see the red glow, of my Dad smoking a cigarette in the living room, watching me through the picture window. Earlier this year I was in that same backyard with my Uncle Bill, and I saw that same red glow, this time Uncle Bill was smoking as he told me that I was going to speak right at my Dad’s funeral.
That red glow, bobbing in the fog, was a cigarette. I watched it as it moved up and down, up to someone’s mouth, when for a second it glowed brighter in the night and the fog. I watched it as it moved down, in a slight arc across the chest until it stopped down by the waist. Someone was there, someone smoking a cigarette was there, but who? God, it hurt to think, I would much have preferred to pass out in the fog, I didn’t care if I woke up or not, the dark was better than what was going on right now. But I didn’t have that choice, not in this dream and I knew it. I had no choice but to go on along with the dream and see what there was.
I started to walk, no, not walk, I started to stumble drunkenly toward the glow. It was slow progress. I fell down at least twice, maybe more. Who the hell knows? I was drunk and I was paying for it this night. Time passed and I did make my way to the red glow and as I did the fog began to clear.
Fifty yards away two men stood under a monstrous oak tree. One was my dead friend Tommy. The other was my Dad. Socks was nowhere to be seen. I stopped for a minute and wondered if I should go any further. I wasn’t ready for this. I tried to wake up, but the booze had me. I was so deep in it, so drunk, that there was no way in hell I was going to wake up, at least not for awhile. I didn’t have a choice, I was stuck in this world and so I started walking once again.
I walked under the shade of the tree. There they were, Tommy and my Dad, no more than ten feet away. Doing our best Remington imitation my Dad and I stared at each other, each waiting for the other to speak first. I waited the longest.
“That is no way to deal with pain, son.”
“Your Dad’s right. We had our time. We’re dead, you’re not. Get on with it, get on with living.”
I didn’t have anything to say to this, at least nothing intelligent. Instead I spoke like so many drunks before had spoken when they were confronted with their drinking.
“Hell, I’m all right. Just had a little too much tonight. No problem, man, no problem.” I said this in my coolest voice and sounded utterly unconvincing.
“Son, you’ve been drunk ever since you left Odessa. Shit, I didn’t know you cared for me that much. I would have preferred you show it in a little different way, but, hell, you take what you get, you know?”
His words took me back to another time, when the Odessa sky had dropped golf ball size hail, large, hard and fast enough that the hail broke the windshield of my Dad’s truck, the truck that I had driven for years, the truck I still drove. After he finished cursing he told me that in West Texas that “you take what you can get.” That day, we needed the rain and even though it came in such a destructive way, we accepted it.
Tommy had to have his say next. “Drew, I know it hurts. But you’re alive. We’re dead. This isn’t the way to deal with this. Hell, if this is the best you can do, don’t deal with it at all. Just forget us and go on with life. We don’t want to be remembered like this. No one does.”
“God damn it! That’s not what this is about. Sure, I miss you both, but damn it, I lost you both a long time ago. Tommy died, but, you, you, we gave up on each other, we lost each other a long time ago. There are days I don’t even remember you. I’m not drinking because of the pain. I’m just drinking. Damn!”
“Drew, I regret a lot of the things I did and didn’t do with you. But your Mom and I always wanted the best for you, you have got to believe that. And this, son, sure has hell ain’t the best. It may not be the worst, but it sure as hell ain’t the best.”
My legs quit on me, and the world rose up to meet me. I must have blacked out for a moment. Next thing I know I’m sitting on the ground, legs splayed in front of me. The world was whirling around me, spinning around like I was at the center of it. Sounds began to whirl in the air and I was sick, sick, sick. I threw up on the ground in front of me, long and hard, over and over for what seemed like eternity, until there was nothing left in me. I was empty and the pain ran through me, pouring out of my fingers, my joints, my knees, my head. God, it hurt. Then the sounds rushed into me hard and loud and I could hear everything. I could hear the wind, the leaves rustling, the sound of my Dad inhaling his cigarette, his heart beating, Tommy’s heart beating, my blood pulsing through my body, and the dogs.
The dogs. Socks was not alone. He was out there, out beyond my sight. I could hear him running. I could hear him barking. I could hear him cutting through the grass, running hard, then cutting one way or another, and running hard again. Another dog was running with him, a bigger dog, a faster dog. I could tell. I could hear the other dog’s paws striking the ground, the paws striking the ground harder and louder and more frequently than Socks’. The other dog was fast, a lot faster than Socks. I knew the other dog. I had heard him run before.
I turned to Tommy. “Who’s Socks running with? I think I know that dog.”
“You do. You know him.”
I somehow managed to stand up and I looked out into the field. I saw Sock’s running and dancing, trying to keep up with a gray blur, a gray blur that would run ahead, then make a wide turn and come up running behind Socks then past him again. I watched them run and play and as I did old memories came back of a Weimaraner named Kaiser.
“Damn! That’s Kaiser, that’s Kaiser.”
My Dad looked at me in a slow, sad way and said “Yes, son, it is.”
I called out Kaiser’s name. He stopped, turned and looked at me, sniffed the air, then shook his head and started running again.
I knew he heard me, but it was like he didn’t care or didn’t know it was me. I called his name again. This time he stopped, looked in my direction, tilted his head to one side as if he were pondering something over. Then Socks came running at him, nipped him at his heels and ran off. Kaiser gave me one more look then turned and ran after Socks.
I was starting to get angry. What the hell, didn’t my damn dog hear me calling him? I called his name again, whistled and made a clicking sound with my tongue and cheek that used to always bring him back.
Again, Kaiser stopped, looked in my direction, lifted his nose into the air, like he was trying to catch my scent. He tilted his head again, this time like he was confused, like he was trying to remember something, but couldn’t quite. Soon he got tired of trying to figure it out. He barked once at Socks then tore off after him.
“God damn it! What the hell is wrong with that dog? Why the hell didn’t he come to me?”
“Son, there’s nothing wrong with Kaiser. There’s something wrong with you. He heard you, he smelled you, but he didn’t hear and smell the Drew he knows and loves. He heard and smelled something else. The stench of the scotch and your pain masks your smell. You’re not the Drew he knows.”
“What the hell is that supposed to mean? He didn’t smell the Drew he knows? Damn it, I’m the Drew he knows.”
“No, you’re not. Not right now, not in this condition. Kaiser smelled the booze, he smelled the pain but he couldn’t smell you. He doesn’t know you, not like this.”
That was it, I was pissed off. “I don’t understand this. He doesn’t know me? That doesn’t make sense.”
It was Tommy who spoke this time. “Yeah, it does, Drew. It makes all the sense. You just don’t want to hear it right now.”
“Son, right now, you’re not right. You know it, deep inside. That’s why you’ve been drinking so much. Like I said earlier, that’s no way to handle pain. When you’re like this, you’re not Drew. Kaiser doesn’t know you. I don’t know you.”
That staggered me.
“Go someplace else, son. Maybe someone there will still know you.”
The fog rolled in hard and fast and I was washed away in its wake. Tommy and my Dad watched as I was washed away.
I opened my eyes and I was back in my yard. The night had passed, the sun had risen. It was a bright day but not too warm. Sam was lying by my side but once she saw I was awake she stood up, and licked my face. I felt like hell, but I was alive and I was back in the world. I was someplace where someone knew me.
I pulled myself to my feet, felt the sun and the booze and the day and the night and every god damn thing in the universe crush down on me in one fast crescendo of pain and noise. I heard a voice say “Everyone lives for a reason. Everyone dies for a reason. There’s always a reason. Might not be a good reason, but there’s always a reason.”
I didn’t have a very good reason for living that day, but there it was.
I didn't drink that day. That's the day I went stone cold sober. It was a little difficult, just a little. Had a good case of the shakes that afternoon and I didn't feel good in any way until late that afternoon. It was one of those bad hangovers, the kind where nothing is right, no amount of aspirin will take away the pain, you can't sleep, but you don't feel good enough to do anything of any value, so you do nothing, because that is all you can do. Finally, around 4:00 pm, after the shakes had taken their toll I felt good enough to eat something. I drove over to What-a-Burger, ordered a cheeseburger, large fries and iced tea for me and a double burger for Sam. I brought it back to the house and we ate in the back yard. With each bite I felt more alive. By the time I was done I felt almost human, but I was tired, exhausted. I forced myself to stay up to 11:00 pm, then fell fast asleep and slept hard until 8:00 the next morning. By then the alcohol was out of my system and I was ready to deal with the world again. Sam and I went out for a light run. The pain of running reminded me I was fully alive and that being alive felt damn good.
Author’s note: The chapter in this week’s episode was originally called “The breaking point” but I decided to rename it to “The crack-up” a more obvious tie back to earlier chapters/episodes (Episode 20, Episode 22, Episode 23) in The Hollow Men.
Next week in Episode 39, Drew completes his Master’s degree, receives a gift from his Mom, reconnects with Mark, Kate and Jack, and returns to Odessa for the ten year reunion of the Odessa Permian High School class of 1976.
You warned me there would be more tears. Memories of the days that made no sense.