Garret Waugh

            Don had not been much of a drinker when we were teenagers. He was more comfortable as the one who made sure that we were all taken care of; bringing us glasses of water, snacks or even a ride home in his clattering Honda that was older than he was. Off he would go through the traffic-laden streets near our homes in Brooklyn, moving slowly, patiently, without a honk, without a sudden slam on the breaks, without anything but a patient determination to make as little impact on the dense streets as possible. He would make sure that we were safe before he drove off into the late night, towards his own home and bed. He got in trouble more than once for breaking curfew with his midnight taxi services, but he would do the same again if it were required.

            It wasn’t until after college that he began to drink in earnest. We remained friends throughout all those years, though our lives had taken different turns. The advertising firm where he worked was a happy hour kind of place, and he began to drink with his co-workers in the hope that he would move up in the company through office politics rather than merit. He wanted to be an account manager for some of the sexier products – vodka, cologne, or cars – instead of managing route PSAs for the health department.

            This worked. By the time that we were both in our forties he was nearly head of his firm, answering only to the founder’s son. He drank just enough to stay on this side of alcoholism. He preferred classic drinks, Martinis, Old Fashioneds, Manhattans or even just a simple scotch on the rocks.

            He sipped them always in a state of silent repose, never grimacing from the rolling burn, glistening amber liquids pouring slowly out of fine-cut crystal tumblers. His limbs were perfectly suited and well-oiled to the task of moving a glass to his symmetric and rich mouth with their perfect white teeth as his well-crafted body – only slightly paunchy from middle age – sat on a leather stool. He made eye contact while drinking, which unnerved me. His eyes looked like sapphires when the golden light of our favorite bars reflected off the rows of glasses into them.

            Because of this habit of his – and it was a “habit,” not an addiction – it did not surprise me when he asked me to join him at O’Dell’s on Bleecker Street. I had been to O’Dell’s before with Don. O’Dell’s faced the main street proudly, its mahogany façade embracing the sidewalk without the pretense of a stoop. Inside was more of the same. The bars, tables and chairs were of rich wood – perhaps cherry or walnut – polished to a high shine that reflected off the golden lights gleaming bright against the clear glasses.

            We sat at the bar. They had glasses for every type of alcohol: wine glasses, tumblers, high-balls, mule-mugs, flutes, martini glasses, Glencairn glasses, snifters, and a neat row of shiny metal shakers, ready to be pressed into use.

            Don sat there, humming that tune to himself that he always did. It sounded so familiar to me, but I could never quite place it.

            He was handsomely dressed like always, a crisp blue suit that was fresh from the cleaners and a starched white shirt without a tie. He wore shiny cordovan leather loafers. I noticed that he had a new haircut and wore his engagement ring on his left hand. When they first got engaged, Audrey had bought a plain gold band for him, claiming that if she got to wear a ring saying that she was taken, then he had to have one as well.

            Don and Audrey were so well-suited for each other that I marveled how they hadn’t gotten together sooner. He was classically handsome and was the perfect solid-and-silent type off which Audrey could build her flamboyance. I remembered New Year’s Eve a few years ago when we had gone to a party together. My date and I were dressed in classic black, as was Don, but Audrey had stood out in a vibrant red off the shoulder dress with a high side slit, stilettos and chunky costume jewelry. She had danced that night, and I marveled at how she could in those heels.

            Don was drinking when I silently approached him at O’Dell’s. I have a way of creeping up and startling people, so he jumped and choked when he saw me. I sat down and ordered another one while he was still catching his breath.

~

            After our second drink he finally started to talk about why he had wanted to see me in the first place.

            “It’s not easy to say,” he started, “but I’m going to leave New York.”

            My eyes widened and I looked at him. Don was New York. He had grown up in Jamaica, Queens, and had lived in Bensonhurst until he moved into his little one-bedroom on the Upper West Side near Audrey. New York City without Don was like New York City without the Statue of Liberty.

            “I want to bow out,” he continued when I didn’t say anything.

            “What does that mean?”

            “How can I explain this in a way that doesn’t make me sound like I’m insane?” He paused and chose his words carefully. “When was the last time that you saw grass?”

            “Huh?”

            “I mean it, when was the last time you saw real, luscious grass that was green and fragrant and sweet and cool?”

            I couldn’t remember; it was March in New York City.

            “And trees,” he said, “stretching out into the distance. I mean real trees, not the piddling ones that they plant on the sidewalk here that never really grow, or those trees that grow out of cracks in asphalt, but big, strong maples and oaks. Real trees.”

            “I guess when I went to Albany last year.”

            “I bet that was the last time you saw a mountain too. Some small purple peak in the distance. Was it even a mountain?”

            I don’t think I bothered to look at the horizon that much. I didn’t say this, but, in winter, the trees in Albany were not that impressive either.

            Don must have read my mind. “That’s just it,” he said, “Albany shouldn’t be getting into the country for us. It should be somewhere real, somewhere deep. That’s what I want. I’m not happy here.”

            I barely understood him, so I nodded.

            “I’m not happy,” he continued, “and I haven’t been in a long time. I love this city, but it’s too much. Everywhere you look there’s something – restaurants, ice cream, beer, pizza, piercings, groceries, tattoos, porn, delis, laundromats, dry cleaning, some place where Walt Whitman took a piss.”

            “That makes you want to leave?”

            “It’s because it’s too much. The options are endless but I’m not. I’ve taken in all I want and I’m full. I’ll be happier with less.”

            “So, you’re leaving everything behind?”

            “There’s a bit more to it, but yes.”

            “Where are you going?”

            “I don’t know yet. Maybe Tennessee or Kentucky or even West Virginia. I think there will be less there.”

            “And what will you do when you get there?” I asked. “You belong in West Virginia like you belong on the moon.”

            “Clean their boots, run their errands, blow their samovar.”

            “Be serious,” I had no idea what he was talking about, but it was probably a reference to something. “What will you actually do there?”

            “I’ll take a step down and work remotely. It’s not that hard. I want to find a nice place up in the mountains. Someplace where I can see the stars and the trees – real trees – and not just buildings and streetlamps. I want to marvel; I want the smell of pine and crisp cold sunrises. I don’t want artifice and this feeling like I’m drowning. Even this,” he gestured towards his drink, “I feel like everything in this city is geared towards a cocktail. I used to love it. It’s what you do before dinner, at dinner, after dinner, maybe even at lunch, what you do with colleagues, friends, dates, even nights at home. They pick you up, put you down again, make you right until they make you wrong. Hell, I can’t even meet you, my oldest friend,” the very beginnings of tears were starting to form in his crystal blue eyes, “without having a cocktail. What does that say about us?”

            “That we’re a couple of lushes?”

            “See, I can’t write things off with a simple statement like that and be fine with it. I want more. It seems like all we do is dream here. There’s always something next, something beyond what we have. We dream of more and then when we get it, we keep dreaming of more. I’m tired of dreaming. There’s no end to it.”

            “What about Audrey?” I asked. I liked them both, I liked them together. Audrey without Don was like New York City without Don. She seemed like an appendage of his. He was the wood, and she was the flaming red and orange fire.

            “That was the part that I was hoping you could help with.”

            “How so?”

            “I need you to tell her why I can’t stay, why I have to leave. I’ll die if I stay here.”

            Don was usually not prone to histrionics before, so I was inclined to humor him, even though I sincerely doubted that he would die if he stayed here.

            He continued, “I think she’ll understand it better if it comes from you. I can’t speak plainly about it. I can hear her now; I already tried. I’ll start talking about how I want the sunlight in the morning, and she won’t understand why that’s important. She’s too busy thinking about what Martini tastes like. Then I’ll get wrapped up in explaining what I mean and the conversation will be finished before I’ve even said what I want to say.”

            “So, you want me to tell her that you’re breaking up with her?”

            “It’s not even that I’m breaking up with her – I’m leaving her and leaving this city. There’s a difference. Break up implies that there is something breaking, something shattering into a million pieces. Leaving is different. It means that something is going, that it has already separated and just fading off into the background, off to where it should be. I’ve already begun to leave; she just can’t see it.”

            I was in no mood to debate semantics with Don, even though I could see his point.

            “Don,” I took a drink, “don’t you think that it’s a bit cowardly for me to break up with – or leave – your fiancée for you? You’re asking an awful lot of me. I don’t think that it’s right. I think that you’re better than that.”

            “If I’m a coward, then I am a coward; so be it, I am. If you don’t want to do it, then you don’t have to. I just thought that she’d understand better from you in that plain, matter-of-fact way you have that I’ve always envied.”

            “I don’t even know why you’re doing this, not really, so how could I tell her?” I asked.

            “Do you remember two years ago on New Year's Eve?”

            I was starting to get a little tired of Don’s roundabout way of saying things, but I nodded yes. I did remember.

            “It’s like that evening,” he said, “we were dressed up and looked wonderful. Audrey wore that red dress. She looked beautiful; I could feel everyone looking at her and me. I wore a tux. But that’s all there was to it – appearances. We went out and danced and had champagne when the ball dropped and pretended like we were thrilled. I don’t know about you, but I wasn’t thrilled. I couldn’t help but have the feeling that it was all artificial. Audrey and I danced that night, but I might have just as well been dancing with a Barbie doll. A cold, wet fish. More worried if her necklace was on straight, if her posture was good, then actually being close to me. There wasn’t any passion, no feeling, no romance.”

            “Have you told her any of this?”

            “I’ve tried. That’s why I asked you to tell her – just tell her why I don’t want to stay, either in this city or with her. They’re one and the same. There’s no feeling or romance or spark. I tried to tell her, but I couldn’t make her understand. She just pooh-poohed me and said that we were fine and then changed the subject. It happened again and again.”

            “Then what would happen?”

            “Usually? Sex,” he said.

            “And that’s why you want me to tell her.” I nodded

            “That’s about the size of it. I can’t face her again. She’ll understand better if it isn’t from me.”

            “I don’t know, Don. It doesn’t feel right somehow.”

            “Will you at least consider it?”

            I sighed. Don had helped me out through more than a few tight spots. “I’ll think about it,” I said. I hated the idea, but it was too hard to say no.

            “That’s all that I ask.”​

~

            Don drove me home that evening. He could handle alcohol better, after all, and he had sobered up as we went on talking, switching to ginger ale while I continued to have one after another. He paid the bar tab for the both of us at the end of the night.

            We talked until late, more about why he intended to leave, but I don’t think that I ever came any closer to understanding. The brick walls of the bar were starting to grow blurry and Don’s monologue with it. He was leaving, he said, because he felt nothing but despair in the city and wanted to watch the sunrise, day after day, in the mountains. To see the first rays break over crested peaks, feel the majesty of it. “You don’t get that in the city,” he said, “the sun just kind of comes. You don’t notice that it is getting light out until it has already happened.”

            I wasn’t sure I knew what he meant, but he did, and that was all that really mattered.

            As he drove me home, we mostly sat in silence, but he kept humming that same tune that he always did. I could never quite place it, even though it sounded so familiar. Yet there was still something about it that I couldn’t quite grasp.

            As he pulled into my place, I asked him. “What is that song? It’s so familiar.”

            Don looked at me and, without the slightest bit of irony, said, “Castles in the Air.”

            Suddenly it all made sense.

            “And castle walls just lead me to despair,” I said and, in that moment, I knew I would do what he asked, and that I’d need a few drinks to do it.