Like I Said

Here I am—on the wrong side of ‘I told you so,’ facing a proposition that I’ve long dreaded. Life can be so simple. It should be. Planning for a new life before your own has found a foothold is foolish. And without that destination, what are you doing? Ensuring that someone is there for you always? To fill the void that mother left?

Sorry. I don’t mean to be sour.

It’s just… Here I am… On the wrong side of an ‘I told you so’—from one of the grandest assholes I’ve known.

He looked me dead in the eyes and chuckled.

Tuned him out, I tried, but we both knew.

“You haven’t a shot, handsome.” He snickered.

“A taste of beautiful pain. Sweet dreams… Nightmares? Something like that…”

“You are higher than me. Especially if you think… Well… You know.”

“Higher than you I may be. But here’s my defining moment—”

“Your problem is not moments—and to think that ‘defining moment’ is any more than a horrific oxymoron is foolish. Such words… Broken dreams and false promises… Defining moments.”

“Scoff away. But the line in the sand means something.”

“It is arbitrary…”

“You’re goddamn right it is. Because my decisions are not guided by a storybook—nor is it governed by the shriveled-up creep in a robe. So, I decide. And I take responsibility. These are MY CHOICES. Which is more than most of you can say.”

“What are you lashing out at me for?”

“Eyes closed, you laugh at the darkness, this is no different.”

“Chill out, Moses. I’m just busting your chops. This ain’t love anyway.”

“If this ain’t love, then nothing is.”

“Have faith.”

“Hang limp.”

“Exactly.”

When the sky is cold and the soup is warm. I will find you. Nothing matters—or everything does. Which absolute it is—I’m not sure.

He asked me what I was staring off at. I tried to ignore him, looking off, brushing off each poke and the subsequent prod. It went on and on and on. Until I snapped back at him. A forearm across the chest. He swung back, next thing I knew, we were on the ground, rolling in a huff like Taz himself. With his knees dug up in my ribs, he looked me in the eyes something wicked.

“What do you want?” I screamed.

“Well… Would you look at that? He is alive! There is some fight left in that dog.”

I opened my mouth to speak, but the words were not equipped to fight the truth in his words, they were not ready to stand up to his test.

The time wasn’t right. Because it will never be.

You choose, she chooses, maybe we even choose. Or He tells you. Or they tell you He said to. There are many options, but falling isn’t one. Timing it is not either.

He helped me up and threw his arm around my shoulder, walked me up toward the dusty, old wooden bar top.

“Two whiskeys, please.”

Warmth filled my chest. The emptiness softened. Nothing had changed—just how he told me it’d be. Just how he told me we’d be.

I sank into him and through two eyes I saw it... the unavoidable reality that had been staring back at me the whole time. Defeat ran through my veins.

"Together," he said, "We will go far."

"But... At what cost?"

"Any and all."

"I knew you were going to say that shit."

"That's because we decided on it together, lest you forget."

"Things were different then."

"Stop lying, you know what we know."

"So... What? That's it now? Walk the line until I topple over?"

"No surrender."

I looked at the sliver of a man hiding in the reflection, jammed between the liquor bottles. Single whiskey glass resting in front of him, looking troubled in a way that only a first-rate, first-world chump would be. Unfulfilled, closed off, wanting more.

Needing more.

He took a pull of the whiskey, then another, brown turned to crystal. He got up, took a long look around, and exhaled.

"Right as rain..." He mumbled.

His eyes glazed over. He put a $20 bill on the bar and walked out.

To the bartender's surprise, beneath it, he found a small polaroid, two smiling faces living through better days.