Dreaming to Drown

“Here you are.”

Fire formed in the gray-bearded bartender’s eyes as he put a glass of whiskey down in front of his patron. His posture was firm and willing—a stark comparison to the man with rounded shoulders sitting at the bar.

The patron’s neck jutted out as he reached for the drink, like a weary crane. Enough that a passerby might believe he was concealing something inside of it.

“Pick it up, put it down, me and my brothers—all eager to drown!” The old bartender lit up in excitement, though it wasn’t clear why.

“Not exactly…” The man replied.

“Oh, but we all are!”

“Who?” He snapped, clanking his ring against the glass. “Who is so eager to drown?”

The patron’s tone was sharp, easily agitated at the end of a long day.

“Yes, yes… We all want to live.”

The man smirked and took a sip of his drink.

“But for some, staying alive is just a means to an end. A façade, protecting their deepest, darkest desire….”

“Which is?”

“Well—to drown of course!” The bartender cackled loudly, his counterpart’s blood pressure rose.

“Oh, fuck off.”

“Strike a nerve?”

“No.”

“Resistance is a trickster. It is all knowing, all consuming… Tis the shadowy force that knows you better than you know yourself. Every hope, dream, and ambition. It sees your fears and hears your lies and understands them both deeply.”

“John, give it a rest.”

“It plays on them. But even more than that, it plays on your desires, Paul.”

“Like my desire to drown?”

“Ah—so I did strike a chord!”

“Not a nerve, not a chord. I’m just trying to keep the plot here… Assuming there ever was one.”

The man had been a regular at the bar for the last month and up until that point, his conversations with the bartender had remained transactional. John was there to provide a professional service to him and nothing more. Yes, a heavy dose of relief and nothing more.

Paul was embedded with a manufacturing client three miles away from the bar and the one or two… or three whiskeys his way back to the hotel, was his delight at the end of the tunnel. When he first started traveling for business, he called his wife every night, but that ritual had quietly been sunset.

Madeline.

Her name, then her face passed through his mind’s eye and he took another sip. It had been three days since they’d spoken and two weeks since he saw her.

Warren was 60 miles away from the Cleveland airport. Just far enough to validate staying in a hotel for two months, instead of making the trek back and forth to New York on the weekend. The distance made it easy enough to rationalize and explain away, so he did, knowing full well that the commute to and from CLE was not why he sentenced himself.

No... It was an invitation. Yes, with open eyes and a growing emptiness in his heart, he dared to welcome more space into the growing divide.

She saw this and hadn’t taken kindly to it. Madeline wasn’t emotional about it, actually, she was rather frank. Like her words were spoken from a place of obvious practicality—they echoed in his mind, while he stared down at his drink. I miss when you missed me.

“You know, Paul. You are not alone in it… We are surrounded by prisoners. Especially here, in a town like this.”

“I’m not from here.”

“But you came here for a reason, brother!”

“I did… For work. And I’m not your brother.”

The bartender smiled at him and put two shots down between them.

Paul stared back at him, desperate to appear reluctant, then reached for the glass.

“Thanks, John.”

Still smiling, John lifted his shot glass and tapped it delicately against Paul’s. Impressive finesse for a big fellow.

“Brothers in arms, bonded by spirits, with an eye on a better tomorrow!”

“Fucking hell man.” Paul said with a grin disguised as a smile. “Alright… I’ll bite—finish your monologue.”

“Thank you—though I will point out, it is you who has elected to make this a monologue with your lack of good faith participation.”

Paul rolled his eyes.

“Anyway… Fear of failure can be paralyzing… but it is just one flavor. How about that pit in your stomach when you are holding in a lie? Or the prickling anxiety that you will look like a fool that surfaces right before you hit send or let the words on the tip of your tongue escape—those are equally intimidating.”

“I’m not scared to fail or look like a fool. I am here to do a job and I am doing it well. I closed over $1.2 million last year and took home $315K.”

“No comment on holding in a lie? Anyway—that is quite a sum. Yes...That’s grand… But it cannot insulate you from the truth. Not entirely... Because while fear is a natural entry point, the friction you feel is not seeping in there. Not directly at least. It is smarter than that. It won’t waste its energy holding you under, not when you are eager to drown.”

“Here we are—back at square 1. Would you land the goddamn plane already!”

The old bartender’s face fell flat and he became deadly serious.

“Look, Paul. I’ll tell it to you straight. Your resistance is not building its nest in your fear—"

“My resistance!” He interjected. “I never said anything about experiencing that… I actually didn’t say anything at all. I just ordered a goddamn drink.”

“Brother… It has its roots in you.”

“Where?”

“It is not in your fear of failure or that you might look foolish, but of your desire to experience happiness.”

“Happiness...?”

“Yes. A fully integrated happiness. The money doesn’t make you happy, it helps you keep score.”

“I definitely like the money.”

“We all like the money, the same way we are all eager to drown.”

“So because I make money—I am eager to drown and can’t be happy?”

“No one said you can’t be happy. I have merely observed that something inside of you doesn’t want to be and you won’t stop lying about it.”

The two men locked eyes. Paul took a sip of his drink, took $100 bill out of his wallet, laid it down, and walked out.