Days of Wine and Madness

Days of Wine and Madness

By Kathleen Petrowski

The bottom dropped out the day she finally left her husband. The tears wouldn’t stop, they were as unrelenting as his abuse. How could she love a man who was so obviously glad to get rid of her, she was nothing more to him than a burden, a responsibility, a toy for a while and then…nothing, he felt nothing and ridiculed her for feeling anything. She drove 223 miles not sure where she would sleep that night and when it got dark. She felt sort of lucky to find a motel with rooms for $39 a night. She had bought a bottle of gin and a flavored seltzer to help her wash it down so that she might drink enough to not care for the rest of the night, it worked.

When she had seen the marriage heading toward a precipice, she started stashing cash, selling anything she could find, a sterling salt and pepper shaker that had belonged to his mother or grandmother, she wasn’t sure which. It brought her $20. She managed to get most of his collection of LPs out of the closet and to a dealer down the street. Another $100. She had not cashed her last 3 paychecks, another $1400. She remembered the safe deposit box at the bank and that there were 4 gold coins he had bought. She knew what he paid for them, about $1000 but had no idea where she would sell them. She packed her car with every necessity she could think of when she left and when she wasn’t mourning the death of her marriage, she tried to make a plan.

When morning came, she was not ready to leave and where else could she go for $39 plus tax. The room was dark, smelled of mildew and the only amenity was a TV that received nothing more than basic cable. She had a box of her books with her, but she couldn’t concentrate on anything she read, she didn’t have time for that, this was no vacation. After she reserved the room for another night, she saw a stack of newspapers in the motel office and opened her change purse to pay the attendant. “It’s on the house” said the attendant, barely looking at her swollen eyes. She couldn’t eat but she wanted another drink…no, she needed another drink and found a liquor store and bought more gin…a bigger bottle this time…and two cans of seltzer. She went back to the motel pour a drink in her plastic motel-quality cup and opened the newspaper. Going straight to the back she looked for an apartment, as if the money she had would get her into one, but she spotted a room for rent, right up the road in this town that had mostly nothing. It was mid-November, and she punched the number into her cell phone. The room was $500 a month, no utilities, no laundry, no kitchen privileges but she did get WIFI. That was cheaper than the motel, so she met the homeowners, an elderly couple at the house and they showed her the tiny room that was on the corner of two converging routes, the only main roads to anywhere and one of the few traffic lights in this miniscule town. When she went to pay the couple with cash, they informed her that there was also a security deposit of the same amount. This meant finding a job the next day if possible, so she combed the newspaper again and found a job listed in bold letters HOME HEALTH AIDES NEEDED, LIVE IN. She called and was told to be there at 9 the next day for an interview. She was hired in 40 minutes but there were no “Live In” positions available, perhaps after Christmas. She bought a pizza that night for $12 ate a piece and put the box in her car. It had to last her 8 days, so she saved the crust for the next morning’s breakfast.

They gave her 3 patients but her first paycheck would not come for 2 weeks and it would only cover one week. This made no sense to her, she was dizzy with thoughts of the day-to-day work, sleep, eat, work, repeat so she asked no questions. The position was earning her $9 an hour so that was swirling in her head. The agency would not allow for fuel but she did get paid traveling from place to place. She was not a nurse, this was not a requirement, so she fed the clients, bathed the clients, and talked to their parents or children depending on the case. One man was over 400 pounds and had to be lifted in a hydraulic lift to be sponged bathed by her. She kept telling herself, ‘forget this part of the job is a human body, a 400-pound male body; you are washing a soft machine like a car’. Another patient was a 90-year-old woman who weighed only 80 pounds, but she also had to washed…in the shower. She could not lift this woman, she could not lift 80 pounds of dead weight, but the daughter was compassionate and helped her to get the mother onto the shower chair 13 feet from her bed and using a telephone shower head she was able to wash and rinse her wrap her in a towel and, again, with the daughter’s help, got her dressed in a clean gown and back in bed. The third patient was the easiest, but no patient was easy. This one was a teenage boy who had a trauma to his head due to a car accident which was his fault because he had been mixing drugs and alcohol. He didn’t speak clearly enough for her to understand but only needed someone to feed him wipe his face and hands and spend two more hours watching TV with him.

She was physically and mentally drained that first day and when she arrived back at her rented room and undressed, put on her terry robe to walk to the bathroom to shower she had a head full of shampoo a body fully enveloped in Zest the water stopped, just quit. It was one of those water saver nozzles and it had given up the little bit of water it was giving her to start with. She stood there, 9pm full of soap and what was she supposed to do, should she see if the sink had running water? But while she stood there, ready to bawl her eyes out, the water magically appeared! Quickly she rinsed and that’s when she noticed that the water had an orange tint to it, however, it was wet, she rinsed, brushed her teeth, went back to her room and slipped into a clean pair of panties and a t-shirt. She turned on the radio next to the bed and found a clear station. Golden oldies. What was with all the tear-jerking romantic songs? “Me and Mrs. Jones, we got a thing going on…” Then an ad for a free dating site. Why did she do it, why did she jot down the website, but she did, and she turned on her laptop and pulled up the meat market online. She answered five questions, gave herself a codename, and briefly gave a description of herself posted a photo that actually looked healthy since she probably lost 15 pounds since the day, she left her husband, not even a week ago and immediately, at almost 10pm she started receiving replies. She was reading them, each one more sleazy than the last and thought to herself ‘Why the HELL am I doing this?’ It wasn’t entertaining, it wasn’t even the slightest bit interesting, plus she was so busy working and she was tired and becoming a gin hound…no good could come from this! However, there was one man, recently divorced, who had no children and did not talk about getting her number for phone sex. She told him that she had to leave for work early in the morning and he asked if she would be online the next night. “Possibly” she said, but I must shut down now. “Okay, Abby, I’ll look for you tomorrow night. Sweet dreams, have a good day at work.” She finished her gin and seltzer and went to sleep.

She could not get her husband out of her mind, tears welled under her sunglasses as she drove to the first client house, her 400-pound paraplegic. All day she tried to think of what horrible thing she could have done for her marriage to dissolve, her husband cursing her, slapping her, calling her worthless, a bitch, a stupid idiotic bitch. And her just keeping her mouth shut wondering when he would stop, just like standing in the shower full of suds waiting to see if the water would come back on.

She ate her slice of pizza and thought about how much money was left, she’d count it when she got home but first, she had to hit the liquor store for more gin and seltzer. She bought the cheapest gin in the biggest bottle and this time bought seltzer in a large bottle. If she squeezed the plastic bottle of seltzer, maybe it would be less likely to lose its fizz but even if it went flat, she didn’t care, she thought numbing her brain would help her stop thinking about her husband, sometimes it did, a little, sometimes she cried even more, after all, she was allowed to turn the tears full-on once she was in her rented room. The old couple didn’t bother with her, she could cry all night, not that it would help.

She showered in rusty water, went back to her room, got back in bed, turned the radio on and her laptop. Again, the ad came over the airwaves “Lonely? Don’t be! www.yblonelytonight.com” She as “Abby" went back to the site, signed in, and there he was, like a stray cat at her door begging for a morsel of attention... Tim. “I hope you’ll get this tonight; I hope you’ll come back to the site and I hope that your workday went well.” No ‘What are you wearing?’ or ‘What do you like to do…in bed?’ with a smiley face. So, she talked to him. He wanted to know what she was doing for Thanksgiving and she told him that one of her client’s families had invited her to spend it with them and she accepted. Tim said that they must like her to invite her to join them on a holiday that, for the most part, only includes family. She told him that they didn’t have much family and they were happy to have the extra person. He asked about Christmas, she said she didn’t know, she had a sister who lives two hours away, maybe she would spend it with her sister’s family but couldn’t be gone too long because of work, maybe just Christmas eve and then back Christmas day. It was at that moment that she realized that she wouldn’t be living in the rented room for Christmas, at least she hadn’t planned to. Suddenly she felt panicky. Where would she be? She still wasn’t making enough money for rent and she couldn’t afford groceries and didn’t have a place to put them anyway. Her car, thank God for cold weather, was her refrigerator.

The days moved too slow and too fast all at the same time. The rented room with the rusty water was cheaper than the motel. Her lack of calories and nutrition started to make her look anorexic. She didn’t have a full-length mirror but when she investigated her face in the bathroom mirror, she could see that her face looked drawn and she was out of pizza so when Tim asked her if she would just meet him for dinner, the night after Thanksgiving, she said yes. When he gave her the name of the place she lied and said “Yes, I know where that is” but she had to look it up. Now she had to find something to wear. She had pantyhose that she’d never opened but only a pair of black flats that were worn thin, maybe that would be a good thing, maybe he was short. She had a black wool skirt that had moth holes, but they were quite small and just near the top of the skirt where he surely wouldn’t notice, and she could come up with a top…a black turtleneck, it might hide her lack of weight. She had a black tuxedo coat and, because she loved scarves and everyone seemed to remember that at Christmas or her winter birthday, she found a blue paisley from India that fit the bill. If she had remembered to grab jewelry during her exodus, she had no idea where it was but she did find one gold bracelet which she decided not to wear because of her dishpan hands. She had eyeliner but no lipstick. This, she decided would be a first and last “date”.

She left super early so that she would be early enough, she didn’t want to be late. She had butterflies in her stomach which could have been the byproduct of near starvation. She arrived half an hour early and went to a bar a few blocks away to get a gin and tonic to calm her nerves, then another to give her the confidence she needed to arrive. She had a barrette with rhinestones pulling her bangs back which were much too long…she estimated 4 months since she had had her hair styled. And forcing her shoulders back she entered the restaurant. “Do you have a reservation?” the hostess quipped. “Well, yes, I’m meeting someone.” “Name?” “Tim” she said, almost hoping that the hostess would tell her that there was no one under that name and she could leave, nerves intact. “Yes, Tim does have a reservation, your table is for 7:30. You are a bit early and he hasn’t arrived. Her stomach sank, maybe this was a ploy, a trial run and he wasn’t coming after all. No matter, her appetite had dwindled, it didn’t matter if he didn’t show up. “Would you like to wait in our lounge?” said the too young hostess. “No thank you, I’ll come back.” The hostess gave her a perplexed look and a slight eye roll and told her “Whatever you wish, I’ll let him know if you miss each other.” She went outside. It was cold, crisp, but without any wind it was refreshing. She noticed another couple outside smoking and for a moment she wished that she too were a smoker. They seemed sexy, like an old black and white movie under the gas lights. She was looking toward the sky which was mostly blocked by city lights, the moon was three-quarters full and she was looking up mesmerized by it. She looked at her phone, still 8 minutes until she was supposed to meet Tim when suddenly she heard someone say “Abby?” At first, she didn’t think much of it but then realized that Tim would be looking for Abby, not Claire. She turned to him and he smiled a most sincere smile. She put out her gloved hand and said “Yes?” to which he responded, “I’m Tim”. They exchanged the typical niceties and he said, “Our table should be ready soon.” They walked in and were seated by a blazing fireplace stocked with real wood, not gas, and candles on the table which she hoped covered a multitude of drained features and pale skin.

Tim smiled and when the waiter arrived he handed Tim the wine list. “Do you like wine?” Tim said. “Yes”, she answered. Tim said, “I don’t usually order Merlot but this one from the Sonoma Valley is particularly good. Do you think you’d like that? Unless you have another choice of course.” “I think that will be fine” she said so Tim ordered a bottle, when it came she sipped it sparingly, after all, she had just had two gin and tonics less than 40 minutes ago.

“What made you check out the dating site?” Tim asked. Claire, known to Tim as Abby, took a sip of her merlot which was like heaven compared to the crap she had been drinking medicinally, “The radio. I was listening to the one clear station I could pull in and after a sappy love song they sprung the ad. I had never looked at a dating site before and I have to tell you, I was ready to delete my profile…” “But you didn’t” Tim said. “Well, no. But I was going to until you sent me a ‘gaze’. I don’t know anything about you, but you did not seem like the others. I felt like I was in a singles bar and, well, not what I expected, but then, it was free so I thought ‘how bad can it be?’” “Real bad” said Tim “Really, really bad.” Tim arched his eyebrows. It was quiet and the waiter came to take their orders. “I’m sorry” said Tim, “we haven’t looked at the menus yet.” “Not a problem, that gives me a chance to point out the specials for tonight.” The waiter pointed out the Pan Seared Scallops in a Fennel Puree, the Salmon with a Citrus Glaze, and the Surf and Turf which was a filet mignon and lobster tail. “I’ll give you a couple of minutes to decide. “Great” said Tim “thank you.”

“Whatever your heart desires, Abby” “Hmmm?” said Claire, forgetting for a moment that she was Abby tonight. “Oh, yes, thank you” she looked at the menu and didn’t see prices, then she looked at Tim and said “Everything looks so good, it’s hard to decide. Is there anything you’d recommend, Tim?” “I’ve never been disappointed here; I think we should start with an appetizer. Do you like oysters? They make the greatest oysters Rockefeller.” “Oh yes, love them! I lived in South Carolina for a few years and used to go out at low tide to get pry them…” she thought she might sound too low class, not that she was in a category of any sort of wealth. Tim chimed in “Really? That sounds like fun, I’ve never done anything like that. Did you cook them or eat them raw?” Claire laughed “I tried one raw, it was not for me. I love to cook but a bunch of friends would get together at the beach, dig a hole, get coals going and put a sheet of steel over it, throw the oysters on and cover them in burlap to steam them. It’s an ordeal but it was a party and it was fun.” “I am impressed, Abby!” “Don’t be, the guys did most of the work.” Claire smiled and they both laughed. “Well, I think it sounds ambitious and fun!” “Yeah.” said Claire with a bit of melancholy in her voice and thoughts “It was a good time.” “Sounds like you miss it.” said Tim. “I do.” she said, “But I’d like to think I could do it again.”

The waiter came back, and Tim told them that they would like to start with the appetizer and then give their order. “Have you decided?” Tim asked Abby/Claire. “I love salmon and haven’t hadn’t had it in a while” said Claire. “Excellent choice! I’m going for the seared scallops.”

It had been so long since Claire had eaten a real meal, let alone a gourmet dinner like this one that she had to pace herself. She had one of the oysters Rockefeller and it was divine. She could not let herself have another because she was already feeling full and there was no way she would touch the bread. Tim, however, talked her into the second one. “I’m afraid I’ll put too much of a dent in my appetite and I am excited about the salmon. “Women” Tim said jokingly. Claire wondered what he would think if he knew that she had to stretch a pizza over 8 days.

The dinner was perfect and the conversation was substantial considering they were strangers. After they’d finished Tim noticed that Claire had eaten the salmon but truly little of her roasted vegetables and polenta. “Do you want a box? You hardly touched the rest of your meal.” Claire thought she’d appear desperate but then decided that she might not see Tim again anyway, after all, it was an enjoyable evening for her but who knows, he might not be interested in seeing her again. The waiter boxed her leftovers and God bless him, even the bread basket and butter! Claire was going to eat well the next couple of days!

“Do you work weekends?” Tim asked. She didn’t and he asked if she’d like to take a walk in the square. Now he started to open up, ask questions, and she was not sure how much information she should give him. Too much would scare him and too little might sound too secretive but if he was going to ask questions Claire felt that it was her right to ask questions too. Yes, she was separated, newly separated, no children, no pets. Had she wanted children? Yes, but he didn’t, and he didn’t want the responsibility of a pet either. Tim worked as an independent contractor and had worked hard to get where he was, started with nothing but had watched his father work so hard as a carpenter for other contractors and decided that he would also work hard, but he would also work smarter. He had a good crew, dependable, except for one. Tim came home unexpectedly and found that member of his crew in bed with his wife. He told Claire that he could not believe how stupid he was, how could he not have known? He also had no children because his wife could not carry to term and after the third loss got her tubes tied. Now it was Claire’s turn. “Abuse.” Tim stopped touched her shoulder and said, “I’m so sorry, no one deserves to be abused.” She looked at him and saw the sincerity in his expression. Claire would not go into her flight from the last abuse, she just said she left abruptly one night when she had realized that it was never going to stop. He got older, less physically abusive, but the verbal abuse was daily and felt almost worse; it was never going to stop. That was all she could say about it, for now, she told Tim she really had a nice evening and was thankful that she trusted him enough to see him. “No work for either of us tomorrow, how about breakfast tomorrow morning?” Claire smiled “Yes, I would like that.”