Staying Home

So there I was flicking through the channels on a Friday evening. Law & Order had a re-run I’ve watched forty-three times, the Biography channel provided a violent rundown of Robert Blake’s decrepit life, and when I finally settled into the E Channel to see Jenny Jones kill a gay man by association, I realized that there was a group of people living a very different life tonight. This wasn’t unlike the Christmas mornings in Michigan when I was a kid. I saw this group springing out of their work places and into an evening filled not with sugar plumbs and candy canes, but butter-filled wines and delicacies laden with confections and sauces that accented the evening of talk and emotions.

I envisioned conversations stripped of stress and worries only to be replaced by breath burdened with alcohol, eyes heavy with the effects, and hearts filled with expectations and finally the hope of Monday’s new contract. I could hear the clinking of plates as a faceless servant responded to the interrupted requests by the group for more of the same. The fleeting thoughts of the next morning were quickly drowned with another swallow of the butter, and the swirl of the sweets, which now brought the discussion up another notch to the feelings stage of the evening.

I turned the channel. Nothing. Walking out onto my porch I light my 20^th cigarette of the day and begin to understand the tear between my business partners and settling into a new life as a father.

The group has hit the frenzy and peak of the evening. With a meal complete, they sink into the dessert portion of the evening. This is truly the lighted hallway to truth. Sambuca is ordered and the savory flavor coupled with the promise of a burning sensation triggers the mind that more pleasure is quick to follow. Love and the loss of it now take center stage. Very few words are spoken about the desires and clouded hopes that have come from the heart to the mind, to speak of this would reveal much too much for this group, and for me this is where it belongs – somewhat torn.

Smashing the smoke out and promising to never light another hits me hard. The insidious lie is not just what I do, but a truth that it is who I am. I shut the door and can hear the group’s crescendo of the evening plateau.

The tears come behind the façade of a laugh. Not one of the tender people around that table pretends not to share it. The real laughs come shortly after and that is why they come together, stay together, and know they will succeed together. The calm approaches and another round is ordered with the strike and infusion of a topic that brings all of them back to a second wind that makes more promises for the night and their lives. Bathroom breaks and cell phone calls are much more regular, yet completely expected and accepted at this point in the night.

The clash and sting of both the television’s light and my absence tonight from the group heeds confusion and an emotional clash of my own. Sambuca…….

The evening’s stay at this house of escape slows. Some of the group wants to move on to more heightened avenues of flight and some of the others are unable to take the pleasures that wait for them there. The group stands and mulls about with hesitation to leave their den. Each has their own destination and it’s with trepidation and the knowledge of what lays tomorrow that only slightly motivates them to go home. The night has delivered its promise, and all hope for another to bring them further and extend the night. But tonight, tomorrow is looming, and the prospect for Monday still flickers hope for each. It’s been a good night and there’s always and forever the same tomorrow.

I’m interrupted by the cries of a baby. With self-pity and disappointment I abandon the thoughts of the group and go upstairs. I pick my crying Lael up. She looks me straight in the eyes as children do and us grown-ups have learned to avoid, and says dad-ing. As she buries her head in my shoulder and goes back to sleep, my all and anything about me goes away and I know I’m home.