Why Waste Good Beer?

Why Waste Good Beer?

Sometimes, for no apparent reason and completely without warning, a picture comes into my mind. I am reading a book, The Strange Case of Doctor Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, and suddenly, I see myself from above, the ceiling perhaps, in my granny glasses, reading out loud to George. We are both quite grey. I am kneeling on the carpet by his slippered feet and I place my head on his lap and I feel his broad hand stroking my hair so gently and with such affection, that I want to cry. But it is not real. And I awake from the daydream with a start, several paragraphs down the page, Robert Louis Stevenson’s words quite lost to me, even though his writing is flawless.

George and I made our pact on a Wednesday afternoon. We were stretched out on the dock, sunning and necking like teenagers, basking in the warmth of our union, happy for the early autumn reprieve. Now and again a canoe would float by but for the most part, we were quite alone. We liked it that way.

George’s long dark hair was already showing a few strands of silver but on that day we were ageless. Immortal. Without boundaries. All you need is love, that sort of thing. We weren’t hippies, we just thought that way.

“Dying must be the loneliest thing,” George drawled. His tongue was somehow thicker when he was on the edge of discovery or the verge of creation. I felt a poem coming on.

“It doesn’t have to be,” I said. “I will die with you if you ask.” I sensed him weighing my offer against the unthinkable alternative. Separation. It hadn’t occurred to me quite yet, that one of us might die or even get sick.

“When the time comes,” George said, “I hope it’s sudden. No warning. Just here today, gone tomorrow.”

“We could have a double coffin,” I suggested lightly. “There’s a gorgeous irony to that. Always touching, never feeling. Even your beloved Edgar Allan would approve.” George rolled over and placed a hard kiss on my lips.

“Okay,” he said. “But what if I die tomorrow, or next week? That wouldn’t be the same as if we live to be ninety, would it?”

“Odds are, we’ll be ninety.” I swatted at a fly. “How about fish and chips for dinner?”

“Fish and chips?” George clutched at his heart and puffed up his face. “Trying to kill me right now?”

“That’s not funny,” I said. George squeezed my hand to apologize.

What is funny though, is how things can change in a second. George was still George, the lake was still green, the squirrels were still chasing shadows in the trees. But something had changed. I could almost smell the future. A dreadful mossy smell, like old linen.

Our dock was the smallest on the lake. It was well sheltered though, more private than most. George stretched and yawned. We sat close together, admiring the cabin and of course each other.

“There’s a couple over there watching us,” I said, patting down my clothes and straightening my hair. “They must have wandered down from the highway.”

“Where?” asked George with raised eyebrows. He looked over his shoulder and scanned the landscape. His shirt was open. He was vain in a delicious way.

“Behind us. A couple. They’re arguing, I think. See how her arms are crossed?”

“So, let’s give them something to watch,” George said. A wicked smile lit up his angelic face.

“Why not?” I rolled onto my back and waited for the oncoming rush of adoration. Oh yes, I adored him all right. His beauty was superb. His strength was limitless. Well, almost.

The diagnosis was a shock. Tests and more tests and waiting and treatment and lost work and finally George was in our bed alone and I was in the next room, sleeping when I could sleep, but mostly awake and wondering when it would happen. An invisible ribbon held us together. I could feel George pull and tug when he needed me. I wanted to be useful. I wanted to help, to share his burden.

George’s loss of memory was more disturbing to me than any physical transformation he underwent. It took away all the things we shared. It was as if our history, just like our future, no longer existed. It was a dirty trick. George couldn’t remember the first time we’d kissed, the day we bought the cabin, the poems we wrote. Some days, he couldn’t remember me.

“How will you do it?” George asked. We floated on the dock and the dock floated on the lake like a magic carpet. “I will use a gun if you go first.”

“I will use pills,” I said.

“I’d like it to be fast. No room for error.”

“I’d like it to be gentle. A kind of sleepy end. Nodding off. Dreamy. Drifting like a red balloon into the ever-after.”

George’s hand under my shirt felt dry and warm. We hung suspended there, by the sheer beauty of our commitment. He must have sensed something, I suppose.

“What if it goes all wrong?” he said. “What if you vomit up the pills or if you are found before you die and revived?”

“Then I guess I’ll take the second train,” I said.

Of course, I wouldn’t allow him to die alone. I would go with him when and wherever he went. We were tied together by more than just gold rings or a wedding cake. I knew it then, and I know it now.

Do you, Mr. Hyde, promise to die at the moment of my death? For loyalty. For love? Yes, Dr. Jekyll. I promise I will die when you die. Perhaps I will hang myself. Or better yet, I will refuse the serum and just allow myself to disappear into the vast collective goodness. Goodbye evil.

We didn’t have any children. Sometimes we talked about it, but for whatever reason, there was no pregnancy. That would have changed things, I imagine. Children would have kept us alive. Well, one of us anyway.

Then one day George no longer had any idea of who he was or where he was. I sat in our pickup for a while and listened to the radio. I cried for a bit. I went to the drugstore for prescriptions. I thought I might dye my hair. It would be nice to look a few years younger. George was two years younger than me. It wasn’t fair really. I should die first. There should be more order in the universe.

George was looking almost religious in our too white bedroom. I’d cleaned out most of the personal things that could collect dust or germs or bacteria. Our bed was fitted with white sheets and blankets and George was wearing white pyjamas and a white robe. He was a little awe-inspiring, like a guru under a shroud. Or a rock star protesting for peace. Either way, George was still quite beautiful, as if that mattered.

But his eyes were dull, and I took this to mean he was already somewhere else. The drugs kept him numb. I had no way of knowing if he was thinking about anything. A sandwich? Or maybe he was thinking about God or hockey.

I spent two full hours doing my hair. It looked a little like a hat when I was finished. A fur hat. But I figured it would be okay for where I was going. I drew on my mouth with red lipstick.

I looked different. I wondered for a second if I would frighten George. He didn’t know me in any case, but now I was looking a little bizarre in my new hair-hat and rouge. I put on a dress awash with a tiny pear tree print that I’d borrowed years earlier from my mother. It was too large for me. I looked as if I had shrunk. Consumed perhaps by what was still to come.

George was awake when I went into the room. He smiled slightly and I searched desperately for even the tiniest light in his watery eyes. He would have loved the dressing up thing, the make-up. I found a comb on the dresser and sat on the bed beside him. I untied his hair and combed it gently. I felt a surge of desire for this thin creature with the deep brown eyes, barely breathing, barely living.

That was a Sunday when George died. He wouldn’t have wanted me to cry. He cried a little himself though. I held his hand for a while and read out loud. I felt the heat in my face and my voice was shaky. You know that uncontrollable quivering of the lips that makes a person cry even before they are ready to. My tears fell onto the sheets and all around our room like a summer shower.

The bottle of pills was beside the bed. I poured two glasses of water. I divided up the contents of the bottle. He would go to sleep soon. I put the book on the floor with my reading glasses. I lay down beside George on the bed.

Outside, the sun was setting. I could hear the lake slapping against the dock the way it did when a storm was looming. That dock was our single most cherished place of refuge. We’d made promises there. We’d drifted and rested there.

“Beer batter is the best way to do fish and chips,” I said, knowing perfectly well what George would say, but wanting to hear it one more time.

“Why waste good beer?”

His exquisite fingers went limp in my hand. I wasn’t going to let go. I would never let him go. We’d crossed so many borders. This seemed a small leap. Besides, we’d already died a hundred times that season. It was a daily occurrence, like eggs for breakfast or kissing goodnight.

I felt the evil bile rise in my throat. It wasn’t death creeping in though, it was life. George beside me was ghostly. He was gone. My stomach churned. The pills were coming back up. The linen was so white it glowed. It would be a travesty to spoil it. Everything looked so pure.

I staggered to the washroom, pasty skin and darkened hair; a middle-aged imposter wearing a ridiculous polyester dress. Treason wrapped its evil arms around me and held on like a vice. I was shocked and relieved by my image in the bathroom mirror. Shocked because I did not recognize the woman I had become. Relieved because all premise of goodness had been squeezed out of me. I had long since become a stranger to George and now I was a stranger to myself as well.

A smile formed on my blood-red lips. I felt unbalanced, as if I was standing on the dock. I could hear the storm outside. It was raining hard now. A dramatic but fitting end. George would appreciate that.

I struggled to keep my footing. My head was spinning. And then, I detected a change in the air. It was subtle at first, no more than a slight dimming of the lights. And there was that feeling again, that I could somehow smell the future. Only this time it was so vile, so noxious that my eyes watered. Death suddenly seemed less sweet.

I sat on the cold tile floor to rest for a few seconds. I slipped into a daydream of some sort. I imagined I was reading to George. He loved a good book. My voice echoed off the bathroom walls, then drifted away, down to the lake perhaps, or even the dock.

“Will Hyde die upon the scaffold?” I said, turning one last page. “Or will he find the courage to release himself at the last moment?”