Swedenborg 23

Frank opened the apartment door, dripping water.

 

Jack was sitting on the couch, drinking from a tall glass. He looked startled, and slightly drunk.

 

“I…I…I,” he stammered.

 

“Why did you run out on me like that,” Frank snapped.

 

“I thought you would just sleep with her.”

 

“You didn’t ask. I was stuck in this rain.”

 

“Sorry, I just assumed.”

 

“Don’t assume things about me. And what are you drinking? You have to get up, and you know what drinking does to you.”

 

Frank walked over and grabbed the glass out of his hand and sniffed it. Whiskey.

 

Jack looked guilty, then angry.

 

“You have no right,” he snarled, reaching for the glass.

 

“I’m your friend. Aren't you going to AA any more?”

 

“I was," he said softly. "The group I was in broke up because of fighting.”

Jack had begun going to AA while in college after nearly flunking out his senior year due to too many missed classes due to being drunk or hungover, and several drunken incidents. Frank was there for many of them, including the night Jack had staggered on to the stage during a concert, and telling the singer - who later in his career won several Grammy's - that he couldn't sing.

 

“There are always other groups. Get to bed. I’ll make sure you’re up in time.”

 

Jack blinked.

 

“I, I was scared,” he said quietly.

 

“Scared?”

 

“Of you. Liza. I’ve never seen anything like it. You were, a monster."

 

He’d felt like one, Frank admitted to himself.

 

“We can talk about it in tomorrow. You need sleep, and I need to get out of these wet things.”

 

He helped Jack walk to the bedroom. As Jack stripped, he checked the room quickly for any alcohol – as he’d done many times before when they were in college.

 

Jack fell into bed. Frank pulled a sheet over him.

 

“I was scared,” Jack mumbled as he drifted off to sleep.

 

So was I, Frank thought. 

 

He turned off the light and went to his room to get the wet clothes off. He was shivering violently.

 

I’m just cold and wet, he reassured himself.

 

He felt like he was being watched again. He turned suddenly.

 

A sudden glimpse on the edge of his vision. Eyes glowing in the dark? Or his imagination?

 

Nothing there when he looked directly.

 

He sighed.

 

He knew he would not sleep for a while no matter how warm and dry he got.

 

He went about the apartment searching for more alcohol, trying to keep quiet so Jack would not wake up. Trying not to think.

 

He found little – a few bottles here and there that looked as if they had not been touched in a long time. Probably Jacks’ roommates – it looked as if Jack had been sticking to the program.

 

He had one last place to look.

 

Cautiously, he made his way up the stairs to the tower. He went up into it, and looked out. The rain had slackened, and he could see some of the lights of the city across the valley. He looked at the darkened area that was the woods he had traveled through. Liza’s place was somewhere out there. But from here, everything looked safe and distant.

 

This isn’t so bad, he thought. Just as long as I don’t look directly down. Don’t think.

 

He searched around the tower room for any stashes. He found nothing obvious.

 

Finally he sat in the captain’s chair that Jack had somehow managed to get up the narrow stairs.

 

He remembered his mother.

 

As a small boy he had watched her many times search the house for his father’s hidden alcohol. She often found bottles, and poured the contents in the sink. He remembered the smell of it – strange that the memory of the smell should come back so strongly.

 

His father had eventually stopped drinking, but his mother never ceased periodically searching. Just in case.

 

He drank little himself. An alcoholic father. Two alcoholic grandfathers. At least one alcoholic uncle and several alcoholic cousins. He did not want to tempt the odds.

 

The few times he had drunk – as on the night he met Jack – he found it difficult to stop.

 

He thought of his father. His father’s words had helped him that night. He could thank him for that.

 

Maybe that’s why his father liked Jack so much, he wondered. Maybe he’d seen a kindred spirit.

 

In fact, his father had hired Jack to work summers in the family shop. Jack needed the money after his own father had cut him off due to his college, his major, and his lifestyle.

 

Jack proved a natural – more skilled than Frank had ever been. Frank had even once warned him, “Watch out. My dad wants to adopt you.”

 

Yeah, Jack was the son his father had always wanted.

 

Jack showed up drunk at the shop one day later that summer, nearly injured another worker when he wasn’t careful with a saw, and Frank’s father had fired him.

 

Maybe if I’d been a drunk dad would have appreciated me more, he thought. The elder Mr. McCarthy still talked fondly of Jack.

 

And at least his father had not cut him off after he chose history, Frank thought. He’d reluctantly accepted that he had to follow his own path.

 

He looked at his watch. Another hour to wake Jack.

 

He cautiously went back down the stairs to the kitchen, and started the coffee maker. Then he went to his room, got his laptop, and returned to the kitchen, where he tried to start writing.

 

He failed, He knew he was trying to avoid thinking about what had happened. The woods. Liza’s house. He shivered.

 

Had she drugged them? Was it all suggestion or some kind of mind trick she played?

 

He had to talk to Jack and ask him what he saw.

 

He thought of the face. He thought of Liza. He could be there now, with her, forgetting all this. He thought of her body.

 

No.

 

He was no prude. But he senses it wasn’t a good idea to start thinking that way. He was too good at getting himself in trouble that way.

 

Dad has his addiction. I have mine.

 

His watch beeped. Dang, I might never get this paper done.

 

He turned the computer off and went to Jack’s room. It smelled of sweat – and drinking.

 

Jack was snoring loudly.

 

“Hey, Sleeping Beautiful,” he said loudly.

 

Jack did not stir.

 

“Jack!”

 

No reaction, other than continued snoring.

 

He shook Jack, gently at first, then forcefully.

 

Jack opened his eyes.

 

“Shower,” Frank commanded. “You have to go on.”

 

Jack blinked and thickly, “On?”

 

“Radio. You have a shift to do. Get a shower. I have coffee ready.”

 

“Have I been drinking?”

 

“Yes. We’ll deal with that later. Get in the shower, or I’ll start it for you now,” he added, holding the glass over Jack’s head.

 

“You should be a mother,” he groaned.

 

“I’ve been called that.”

 

Jack joined him in the kitchen a few minutes later, still dripping. He poured some coffee, loaded it with milk and sugar, and drank half of it quickly.

 

“I gotta find a meeting.”

 

“Yeah.”

 

“I didn’t do anything stupid?”

 

“Besides drinking? No.”

 

“I know it’s no excuse, but I was scared. I’ve never seen anything like that.”

 

“What did you see?”

 

“It’s all kind of foggy. It got strange. But you changed.  Liza changed.”

 

“How?”

 

“You. You were like a warrior. I kept thinking Etruscan. Brown, and big. And your eyes.”

 

He drank more coffee.

 

“It’s like your eyes were burning through me. Like the eyes of a god. And your voice was different. Harsh. Angry. Powerful. I thought you wanted to squash me.”

 

“I don’t know what happened. I felt powerful, but in a bad way. I think I said some things. Sorry.”

 

"It’s okay. The whole thing was weird. But you see why I don’t like to go to Liza’s place. There’s just something strange there. Hey, but I thought you’d be with her all night.”

 

“I wanted to, I think she wanted it, too. But I was scared that if anything happened I’d never get away. Weird. That’s what I was thinking. Like I’d be trapped.”

 

“I gotta get to the station. But we have to talk more.”

Pax et bonum