Pat Shanahan
I have yet to pry open my eyes, but I can feel the excruciatingly bright winter sunlight blasting through my bedroom windows. It is that 15 minutes of hard sun that shows up late in the morning on some March days. It is not comforting though. It amplifies the cold as it reflects off the dirty snow. As I try to roll over, I feel my arm peel off of the sheet as if it were glued down. Curiosity brings me to finally expose my bare eyes to whatever harsh reality has come to pair itself with that goddamn sunlight. Dried blood covers my left arm, as well as the corner of the bed sheet. The pocket knife I got as a gift for being the best man in my friend’s wedding is lying open on the floor. The cut across my wrist is really not much more than a scratch. Not even a cry for help. It resembles the inner thigh of a sad teenage girl more than anything. Hardly any kind of legitimate suicide attempt. This is the second time this winter I have woken up bloody (the first involved me crawling through my bedroom window after smashing the glass with a flower pot).
I sit up and try to assess the situation. I pick up the carton of warm Wegmans orange juice off the floor. I guzzle what is left, as if some vitamin C, D and calcium would make everything better. I can’t tell if I am shaking due to the cold, the anxiety, or the booze. Mostly likely a lovely cocktail of all of the above. All the questions that I don’t have answers to run through my head. Where was I last night? Mohawk Place? Essex? The Pink? Some combination of the three? How did I get home? How have I never gotten mugged making that 4am drunken walk all the way down Richmond Ave? Why are my pants neatly folded on the dresser? That looks like hot sauce on my Brown Sugar shirt. Did I get a chicken finger sub from Jim’s? How many awful text messages did I send? How much money was not left in my wallet? Who did I offend? What stupid stuff did I say? Is this really what I am doing at 28 years old? My stomach feels as though it has endured a decent amount of dirty Rolling Rock, so I must have spent at least a few minutes at the Pub. I can only imagine the embarrassing things I probably slurred to some poor young Buff State girl. I probably found some mousey girl with glasses and told her she had “specs appeal.” I bet I asked someone if they wanted to go home with me to eat macaroni and cheese and cuddle. I wonder what kind of shit I talked about everyone’s bands, but that I don’t actually mean. Hell, I might have even cried a little at some point. Really, I hope I just sat in a dark corner alone and was grumpy most of the night. As I ponder, I scratch my scalp and the dust of cheap pomade clouds the air.
In defeat, I crash my head back down onto the old flat pillow. I stretch my legs in this king size bed occupied by one single jester. Almost immediately the loneliness sets in and I curl up and embrace the comforter as tightly as I can. I wish that she was here, but I am glad that she is not. I would want her to scratch my back, comfort me, and tell me how everything wasn’t that bad. She would try to repair my broken self esteem, and tell me that I am a good person. In reality, I probably deserve to feel like shit. She never deserved to have to put up with it. It is good that she left. She is much better than this. The past few months have been one self sabotage after another, trying to push her away from sinking with this dead weight. As I was about to drown in a river of Genny, I wanted to watch her float on to a better world.
I need to think about something else, so I focus on recovery. I had been here before. There had been many nights lived trying to make sure there was no morning after. However, it never worked out that way. So now I knew what to expect. The anxiety, depression, and regret were all standard staples of my “sadovers.” The blood was a newer addition, but I guess it is nice to spice things up once in a while. I knew very well that these things, along with some slight agoraphobia, would be keeping me in my room for about the next 48 hours. I will stare at the ceiling and think way too much. If this Manchester Place apartment wasn’t haunted by the old woman that died upstairs, it sure was haunted by half a decade of my own misadventures. For the next two days I would be surviving on the sustenance of tap water and plain flour tortillas. I think I might have some almonds. Time would be passed watching full seasons of How I Met Your Mother, or New Girl, or any easy distraction currently streaming on Netflix. The never ending sea of free internet pornography will be my companion every couple of hours. I might even get caught in some void of reading the blogs of young porn stars. Feeling weird pangs of jealousy as I look at photos of them hanging out in downtown Los Angeles. Tormenting myself by wishing I were younger, more attractive, not alone, and out in the sun. No music actually sounds good right now. I may decide to be a total cliche and wallow in a bunch of Elliot Smith. Maybe some over the counter sleeping pills and Portishead will help me nap it off. Maybe if I can find any energy at all I will give Damaged a spin, ya know Thirsty and Miserable and all. Most of all, I know that time is the only real cure. So I will wait. I will start to get over it in a couple days. I tell myself I will straighten up, and do things better. However, I am aware enough to know that next week I will probably just do it all again. I don’t know how my sober friends get by the way they do. Then again, they don’t seem all that happy either.
I’ve spent much of my life wondering what it would be like to live someplace other than Buffalo. Is this born to lose mentality inherent to my environment? Would I still want to die or die trying if I were from Montana, or Texas, or Spain, or New Zealand? Am I just looking for somewhere to place the blame, or am I programmed to maintain the proud to be miserable rust belt mindset? Or am I just an asshole? It doesn’t really matter much. I love it here, I really do. Still, every year I hope that, one way or another, I will not have to see another winter.
Impractical Cartography 