She held her head high when she poured the shots into the double-glasses, as if to let it be known that she did not belong in here with the rest of us. Her hair, brown and on fire with natural streaks of strawblonde, had grayed since I’d been here five years ago. She had bags under her eyes from seeing too much, yet the high protrusions of her cheek bones took years off of her. She could have been thirty, although in reality she was pushing fifty.
“What can I get for you, darlin’?”
She did not recognize me. It was, on the whole, as I would have expected and what I wanted. Still there was a small explosion of disappointment in my heart. But, I kept my poker face.
“Double shot of whatever’s on special.”
She gave me a look of pity, like I should have known better. It pleased me to know that I could have been a regular at the bar. My home had been quite some distance from here for a long time now. It’s all relative, I guess, but I’d moved to Salem at least around the time my father started shooting up heroin or probably a little bit after that and I’d grown up with the tendency to end up like him, much as I hated the man.
“No specials tonight.” She eyed me, with suspicion.
More disappointment. I could have been an outsider, then. I feigned awareness, tried to save face.
“I know. Tequila please.” I hesitated, but to hell with pretension. “Two doubles.”
Her eyebrows raised. “You know that’s four shots?”
I was doing it again. Standing out. But the feeling that being completely fucked up gives you when you can’t even remember who you are or what you haven’t done with your life had too much of a hold on me, so I threw caution to the wind and handed her my last four one dollar bills. Prices were one thing I hadn’t forgotten.
Before she turned around to replace the bottle of alcohol on the shelf in front of the mirror I had downed my purchase. I saw disgust and a bit of pity on her face; behind her in the mirror I saw myself. Skinnier than when I’d last been around. My hair strung with grease, skin unhealthy white. You will not be able to snort cocaine for three years and not look at least a little off. My mind wandered, and I found myself remembering.
He did the heroin, beat her senseless, and passed out for the next nine hours. My mother had blood dripping down her cheek from where her eye socket had been fractured. Crimson tears that explained the situation. She hid her face from me when I walked into the kitchen. I should have said or done something. At least pretended everything was ok. I remember drinking so much that night that I blacked out and threw up the next morning until I felt sure that my stomach lining would rip out and be expelled through my mouth.
She was still looking at me.
“You gonna be alright, hon’?”
Such a loaded, hypocritical question.
But, she’d held her head high when she poured my shots, and it made me think that maybe the man was finally dead.
“Yeah. I’ll be fine.” I got up from the bar and turned to walk out. My back to her, I wished I would have been capable of sympathy enough to shed a few tears. But I had a way of not doing the right thing at the right time.
That my mother had failed to recognize her own son made me feel validated. Things had come full circle. I was still the one walking away, leaving her there, but it’s not like she was going to stop me. And if only I could match her tears, I guess that’s what I thought would have been poetic.
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