I Was Not Attractive Company When I Drank
Keeping on Nodding Terms with the Man I Used to Be
“I think we are all well advised to keep on nodding terms with the people we used to be,” Joan Didion once wrote, “whether we find them attractive company or not.”
One of my more notable encounters with the person I used to be took place three years ago today, on the evening of September 6, 2021. He was not attractive company.
I returned, with my dog, from our final walk of the day just before dusk. Leash in hand, I trailed Caesar, a little rat terrier rescue, as he approached the entrance of the building where we lived, a 15-story high rise in downtown West Palm Beach.
After scanning the fob to unlock the front door of the Montecito, I nearly stepped in a pool of coffee, the cup still spilling and spreading the pale brown liquid wide over the ceramic tile. It trickled down the grout lines still further, with just the right amount of cream for whoever intended to drink it. As I stepped around and over the puddle to open the door, I heard the voice of an unfamiliar woman. Into her phone, she pleaded for an ambulance as she paced the sidewalk.
As I entered the lobby, I saw my neighbor from down the hall, frustrated, doing his best to prevent a neighbor from further down the hall from falling to the marble floor in front of the elevators.
The latter, alarmingly intoxicated, was bleeding from his forehead. Moments before, he walked headfirst into the front door that I’d just entered. The pane of glass got the better of him.
He looked insanely drunk, but I smelled not a hint of booze. Whatever he ingested to achieve such a stupor, it was not alcohol.
I watched this pallid man, about 15 years younger than I was then, struggle until he escaped the grasp of the much larger and stronger man, and he fell to the marble floor, this time banging the back of his head. Painful even to hear, the thud of his skull followed the impact of his body.
Let’s call him Chris. The larger man continued trying to protect Chris from himself. Chris continued trying to stand on his own two feet. Barely able to lift his torso from the floor, over and over, he fell on his ass. Although the neighbor felt bad for him, and obviously wanted to help, I could see the disdain in his eyes as he looked to me, hoping I would jump in and take the problem off his hands.
Amazed to find myself in this serendipitous moment, knowing that God picked me up by the scruff of the neck and put me there to show me these last few degrees, or minutes, or seconds, of a full circle, there was nothing for me to do but hand the leash to the doorman and look dead in the eyes this person I used to be. The larger man left him in my care and went back to his own apartment.
He tried over and over to escape my control, as he did with the man before me. All he wanted was to get to his feet and on that elevator. After several failed attempts to stand, he resigned himself to crawl through the door as I stood there, holding it open with my foot.
Unaware of his blood covered face, he insisted he was fine. He pleaded with me to let him loose; to let him go back to his apartment. He just needed to sleep, he said.
From the looks of him, I could see how bad this could get. I knew if he fell asleep in this state he might never wake up.
He persisted, trying to free himself from me until, eventually, I convinced him to be still. I insisted I would not allow him to go anywhere until he had medical care. I did my best to calm him, holding my open palm on his shoulder as the doorman locked the elevator in place. There I left my hand until the police and paramedics arrived and took him away on a stretcher.
Caesar and I stepped off the elevator at the ground floor a couple days later, as Chris entered that same front door. I saw in his eyes he had no recollection of our other encounter when the medics carried him off to an ambulance. Part of me wanted to tell him what happened. But he had a spring in his step that told me he was back to doing whatever he had been doing before.
I knew better than to bother. So, I just nodded. He nodded back.
That was three years ago, and precisely 25 years before that, I was the one so lost, and so outrageously drunk. I was the one who had to be subdued at the golden hour on a Friday evening. I was the person who passersby looked down upon, in disgust. Only people who can’t help themselves get so pitifully drunk. I was the one who couldn’t help himself.
I could never forget feeling so helpless.
My body remembers.
The mere thought of uttering those three words summons a tide of tears. It rises from my heart, passes through my throat, and settles uneasily behind my eyes.
My body remembers where the tears come from, and how much it hurt to be in such a place.
My body remembers how it felt to be that person, so terrified and helpless. He was not attractive company.
My body remembers how much it hurt to be him.
My body remembers.
It remembers to remain on nodding terms, so I might never become him again.
A humbling post and posture: to remain on nodding terms, kind of the opposite of a wink. A true seeing or mirroring.
Years ago a friend posted that she had woke up in the hospital with black eyes. Later she mentioned that she had black out drunk fallen.
A few years later, she had divorced her husband because he kept bugging her about drinking.
She lives in Mexico now. I hope she's OK.
https://marlowe1.substack.com/p/just-one-more-time-the-stories-of