Homecoming

Homecoming

By

Jamey O’Donnell

“This is Mike Dyer calling for the Veterans of Foreign Wars. Is this Pamela Huston?” asked Mike.

“Yes, it is. What can I do for you?” said Pamela.

“We are raising money for our vets today, helping them out with food and clothing. A lot them are below the poverty line, so anything you can give today would help out a vet in need. What kind of donation can we count on you for today?” said Mike.

“I’m sorry. I’m between paychecks, and we aren’t much better off than the vets. You’re going to have to catch me next time.” said Pamela, then she hung up the phone.

Damn. Another no, getting that much closer to a yes.

It had been that way most of the evening, with most of the people Mike had called turning him down. Only one person in the last hour had committed to making a donation.

Mike had been a fundraiser for the last year, raising money for the vets, getting to keep 25% of everything he raised.

On a good day, he might make a hundred bucks in a 4-hour shift, where other days he could totally blank out and not make one thin dime.

It was the perfect job for him, considering he couldn’t hold down a regular 9 to 5 job because of his alcoholism. All he really needed to make in a day was enough to buy him a couple bottles of cheap wine, pay for a room in a flea bag motel, a pack of smokes, and some food to eat. He was going nowhere fast without the hurry to get there.

After the donations were picked up that evening, he would get paid in cash under the table the next day, allowing him to fly under the radar of society.

Mike use to be somebody once, use to have a real job and a real house to live in.

He use to have a car, and furniture, and lots of food to eat and clothes to wear, but now he was relegated to the clothes on his back and a bus pass to get around.

He also use to have a wife, but when his drinking took over his life, she left him, and that’s when his downhill slide really went into overdrive.

There were times when he was in worse shape than other times, and that’s when he usually got sick and ended up in detox. It was there he would catch up on sleep, eat more regularly, and start to feel physically better, and the only thing he would have to do in return is attend an in-house AA meeting, and after 5 days they would release him out on to the streets to start his vicious cycle all over again.

Most of the phone solicitors he worked with were the same as him, and every so often, one of them would be found dead in a motel room from alcohol poisoning or choked on their own vomit.

It would usually take him a day or two after leaving detox to get enough cash to get a motel room again, so he would sleep out behind the office building underneath the old pear tree, where he kept an old cardboard refrigerator box to sleep in. It was pretty secluded behind the building and fairly safe for a night or two.

Some of the people he had worked for over the last year had tried to help him out, but it always ended up in frustration for them, trying to help someone unwilling to help themselves.

Mike had no desire to make any plans for the future, because as far as he was concerned, the future had no plans for him.

Other than detox or the phone room he happened to be working in at the time, Mike was invisible to society. Even the police were not all that familiar with him, because he managed to stay out of their site, and drink in the confines of his motel room, or out back behind the building where he worked.

He basically dropped off the face of the earth and was no longer on anyone’s map, and that was the way he preferred it.

Sometimes when he did drink with other winos like himself, usually out of necessity, he would wax poetically about the state of the world as he saw things, which was radically different than what was actually happening in current events, but because his world was not in sync with the rest of us, he spun himself into a web of myths, rumors, and half truths only he could understand, but that was when you could see his glimmer of humanity the most.

The only time Mike was half lucid was when he was on the phone asking people for money, but once again, it was critical he maintained some semblance of sanity when representing the Veterans of Foreign Wars, or the homeless, or any other charity he was calling on their behalf.

In other words, in every single aspect of his life, he did the bare minimum to survive. Nothing more and hopefully nothing less.

His blood family had given up on him long ago, as they saw the writing on the wall for him long before he himself had come to grips with his reality, and they too had given up trying to reason with him, and eventually trying to help.

Whatever it was that caused Mike to give up on himself, it was so ingrained in him that it would take a miracle to save him.

He didn’t think about dying much, but when he did, he knew he would be alone, and that was ok with him, thinking that was the way it should be.

And then something strange happened.

Passed out under the pear tree one morning on a Sunday, he had a dream, and it shook him to his core, unable to shake it.

He dreamed his mother had died and he didn’t know about it until months afterward, and he missed her funeral, never having the chance to say goodbye. Though he hadn’t spoken to her in over a year and had no desire to do so, he found himself weeping under the tree about his missed opportunity, wishing he could have thanked her for raising him and loving him, caring about him, and also wanted to say he was sorry for the pain he had caused her by being a no-good drunk that had amounted to nothing.

He sat under the tree and ruminated about his childhood and life as a young adult and found himself reconnecting with old memories of the hope and adventure he had felt growing up and tried to retrace his steps on how he lost his desire to live.

It wasn’t his marriage because he knew he was fucked in the head well before that.

Mike had sixteen bucks in his pocket, enough to buy a bottle of wine, some smokes, and something to eat from the 7-11, but curiously enough, the only thing he wanted was to hear his mother’s voice to make sure his dream was only a dream, so he picked himself up off the ground and walked to the 7-11 to make a collect call to his mother back in Pennsylvania.

“You have a collect call from Michael Dyer. Will you accept the charges?” said the operator.

“Yes. Oh yes, I will.” said his mother.

“Hi mom. Long time no talk. How are you?” said Mike.

“Oh my God Michael, it is so good to hear your voice. Are you still in Denver?” she asked.

“Yes mom. I’m still here” he replied.

“Michael…are you still drinking?” she asked.

After a long pause, he answered her truthfully.

“Yeah mom…I’m still drinking” he responded.

He could hear her begin to weep on the other end of the line.

“Don’t cry mom. Please don’t cry. I’m ok.” he said. “How have you been?”

She took a moment to regain her composure, then answered him.

“I had a stroke a few months ago. It wasn’t a massive stroke, so I’m ok. Just a little slurred in my speech sometimes, and I’ve lost the full use of my left hand, but I’m getting by.

I’ll never be the same as I once was, but I guess its all part of getting older.”

Now Mike began to cry a little.

“Is there anyone there to help you Mom?” he asked.

“No Michael, but I’m getting by. I’m worried about you. How are you living? Do you have a job or a place to live? How are you getting by? I called Becky and she said she has no idea what happened to you, that you’ve dropped off the face of the earth.” she said.

“Mom, she’s my ex-wife and we don’t talk to each other anymore. She’s not going to know anything about me. You don’t need to call her” Mike said. “Mom, I’ve been thinking about you and wondering how you’ve been doing. I’m glad I called because it doesn’t seem like you are doing all that well. I’m thinking about maybe coming home to take care of you for a while. How would you feel about that” Mike asked.

For the first time in a long time, Mike was actually feeling something, where he had become numb to feeling anything, and the words were just coming out of his mouth with no pre thought behind them.

“The truth is Mom, I’m tired of living this life I’m living, and I want to take care of you. If you’ll have me, I’d like to come home.” he said.

“Yes Michael. I want you to come home, but you have to promise me that you will not drink anymore” she said.

“Mom, I promise. I don’t want to drink anymore. I didn’t know it until just now, but now I do. I don’t want to spend the rest of my life drinking it away. All I want to do is come home and eat some of your cooking. You are still able to cook, right?” he asked

She began to laugh on the phone, and Mike joined in, laughing right along with her.

“Yes Michael, I still cook.” She responded.

“Great, because I’m going to want some of your fried chicken” he chuckled.

“It will take me a week to get out there, but I will get a bus ticket and be there as soon as I can. I love you mom.” He said, and then he hung up the phone.

A miracle had just happened, and hope and adventure had just made a grand comeback into Mike Dyer’s life.

In just a few minutes, Mike made the best decision of his life, seemingly out of nowhere, and began his road to recovery.

He worked that week and had one of his best weeks ever, making enough to buy a bus ticket home, and didn’t have one drink of alcohol the entire time.

Mike Dyer, using the love for his mother as a conduit, found himself, his love, and his humanity again, and he never took another drink of alcohol for the rest of his life