Guilty As Charged

The phone rang too early in the morning. No, it was actually 11 am, but he still didn’t care to open his eyes after a drunken night. His head was hurting too much. He fumbled around his nightstand for his phone and finally grabbed it. Ugh, only one percent of the charge left. Forgot to plug it in for the night once again.

It was his ex ringing, which wasn’t a typical occurrence. She had left him years ago due to his alcohol binges, but they had a son together, so sometimes they were still forced to cross paths at family events. Calling this early in the day was still highly unusual, so he felt a bit worried. He accepted the call. “He passed!” she screamed, and then the phone screen turned black.

What? “He passed?” Oh my God! What does this even mean? Why did she sound so emotional? He didn’t have enough time to catch the context but thought of the worst possible meaning, of course.

He jumped out of bed and ran around looking for his phone charger. It was nowhere to be found. Had he left it at that bar where he was spending hours getting wasted and trying to write something of essence? Did that pretty blonde he was chatting up grab it on the way out?

He rushed across the lobby to his neighbor’s place and knocked on his door hoping to charge his phone there. Jack was always home, but that morning he must have stepped away. Or maybe finally drank himself to death or something.

Trying to shake off the negativity, he headed back home, to get online on his laptop and Skype his ex, but seemed like he had rushed out without his keys, and the door slammed itself shut.

He groaned and ran downstairs to the building manager’s office, almost spraining his ankle on the way. He barged into her room limping and with tears in his eyes, hungover and disheveled.

She was an old friend of his wife’s and knew the whole story, so she always treated him with disdain and sarcasm. Seemed like that day wasn’t an exception.

“Congratulations,” she exclaimed, when he asked for a spare key. “You must be really proud.”

What kind of sick humor was that? “I have no time for this. I need to get back into the apartment and charge my phone to call Mary back. Something happened to Tom!”

The manager’s eyes almost popped out of the sockets. “Jeez! Of course, something happened. Maybe you should express a bit more interest in your son’s life instead of getting hammered and pretending to be a writer. He passed his bar exam! You didn’t know???”

He grabbed the key out of her hand and walked back upstairs. He felt so much pride, he wanted to pour himself a drink and celebrate his son’s achievements. Well done, kid, for picking a much better “bar” than your old dad…

Instead, he opened the fridge, took all the booze out, and dumped it into a garbage container under his kitchen window.