By Erica Driggers
I blacked out again Friday night. Did too many shots with Sean, the twenty-five-year-old Texan I call Midnight Cowboy. He told me he’s looking for a girlfriend, that he’s lonely. He said he met a woman his age he thought he had a connection with, but she never returned his calls.
I said, “What age range are you looking for?”
“I’ve dated women ten years older than me, even more. I’m looking for someone I can talk to.”
Everybody’s talkin’ at me, don’t hear a word they’re saying.
His chocolate puppy eyes must melt their southern hearts.
He said, “Do you guys want to see the Joker movie with Joaquin Phoenix? I have a ticket to see it at four o’clock tomorrow in Pooler.” I said Gerald and I weren’t sure.
Gerald was my boyfriend at the time. He’s eighteen years older than me. We met at a grief support group three years ago.
“Lemme buy you a shot,” Sean said.
“Okay. I’ll have a bourbon.”
Sean asked for my phone number so he could text me the details of the movie. We left the Island Sports Bar for the Catfish Bar, our local haunt.
The Billy Joel song “Vienna” was playing on the jukebox. When will you realize, Vienna waits for you?
I remember Gerald grabbing his car keys and leaving me at the bar, saying, “I don’t like you hanging all over this guy.”
I texted my friend Mark to tell him Gerald had once again abandoned me. I do not remember hanging all over Sean, but I know he bought me that first shot of Ten High. I’m old enough to be his mom. I told Sean my late husband was twelve years younger than me. I didn’t mean it to be a come-on. I’m not into him.
LeAnn, the bartender, helped me to the bathroom because I could not walk. I don’t remember this; Gerald told me the next day. My body felt like a rubber doll, numb and spongy, not at all mine.
I don’t recall how many shots were poured after that. I can’t drink more than one: They make me sick, but I drink them anyway. I threw up again into the gravelly dirt on the passenger’s side of Gerald’s car. I don’t remember this. Gerald told me the next day. When we got home, he had to undress me. Not in a sexy way, but the way you do for a sleepy-eyed, cranky child. I don’t remember this. He said I kept saying, “I need to get my bra off.” I don’t remember that. I know I hit my head hard on porcelain because I feel the bump. Gerald said he couldn’t hold me up. He’s a little guy, 150 pounds max, and he had stent surgery on Tuesday.
I fell into the tub, he said. I remember the thud; it felt like it was happening to someone else. Luckily I have a hard head. In high school I was running up the staircase to class and accidentally set off the fire alarm with my head. It didn’t even hurt. I remember the popular girls in their short uniform skirts gawking at me like I was a circus freak.
I am not proud of myself for getting sloshed, for disobeying the signs and letting it continue. I want to stop sometimes, but I don’t. The craving always returns. I have bruises I don’t remember and cuts on my shins.
Three years and five months ago, my husband Lorin and I were in a car accident en route to our new home in Savannah, Georgia. We were going to start a new life, far from the madding crowds of New York City.
It happened in Yemassee, South Carolina on I-95, an hour north of Savannah, at approximately 9:30 a.m. He was driving, eyelids fluttering. We had been driving for fourteen hours with no sleep.
I said, “Please pull over, you’re falling asleep.”
He could not do all-nighters.
He said, “I’m fine, Sweetie. You take a nap.”
We both fell asleep. I woke up in time to see the silver oil tanker truck in front of us. My last words to Lorin were, “Turn left!”
We rolled down a hill for what seemed an eternity. As we did, I was thinking, We’re going to be injured, and our cats might all die, but Lorin and I will be okay.
I pushed the passenger side door open with all my might. I ran to Lorin, who was lying in the dirt, head turned to the right, one knee bent as if he were running. He looked intact. Dark blood trickled like a sick faucet out of his nose and one ear.
A nurse in pale blue scrubs appeared. I said, “Wake him up! Please!”
She gave him mouth-to-mouth and CPR. She looked at me with wet eyes and said, “I’m so sorry. He’s gone.”
“No, wake him up!”
Our two fattest cats, Sylvester, a Norwegian Forest, and Bernie, an orange-and-white tabby, were struggling to get up, as if they had no legs.
I wanted to comfort them too, but I had to stay with Lorin and wake him up.
I raised my eyes to survey the landscape: Tall pines, our possessions on the grass and in the road, scattered like refuse. It looked like the scene of a plane crash you see on TV, the one where no one survives. A ghastly, sunny September day. This was supposed to be the second happiest day of our lives. We were going to celebrate my birthday today, which was three days earlier.
Lorin was thrown from the car and died instantly. The coroner said the cause of death was blunt force trauma to the head and chest. I got off with no serious injuries, only bruises and scratches—the kind I get from falling in the bathtub when I black out.