34. Carter
Chapter 34
Carter
Three years ago
I ’ve been sober for almost a year by the time I step foot inside a bar again.
Eighteen more days, and I could’ve said I’d done it. I’d pushed through every single day and made it on the other side.
Who knew all it’d take for me to crack was a stupid birthday.
It’s not like I’ve always been a big family man. I spent my tenth birthday alone, babysat by our neighbor Francine who smelled like mothballs and cat food and who entertained me by playing Scrabble, all because Brandon had a meeting with a casting company. Apparently, he was going to be the next big thing in cinema, or was it musical theater? I spent my twenty-first birthday, just like this, alone in a bar, not because I wanted to but because it felt like the only option. I could’ve stayed home and had dinner with my parents, but at that age, we’d realized that apart from our careers, we didn’t have much in common. I don’t think they even could’ve named my favorite movie or the name of my best friend (Lee, a guy who’d played the drums in my high school band and who I lost contact with after he moved on from music to work in tech in Silicon Valley). We didn’t really know each other, and by that point, we’d kind of stopped pretending we did .
Which is why I’m so surprised at how badly I reacted to my mother’s call today.
“Andrew,” she said when I picked up. Not hey or oh my God, it’s been so long , just my name, said in that tone of hers that isn’t cold but isn’t warm either. I could almost picture her, sitting in the parlor at home, a gin martini in her hand, tapping her foot on the ground as she waited for me to pick up.
“Hi,” I said tentatively. We hadn’t spoken face to face or even by phone in more than a year, and even though I received the occasional polite text asking me for updates, I couldn’t say we’d actually been in touch since I’d left the band.
“Happy birthday, hon.”
My shoulders tensed at the pet name. How dumb. Her hon , who she’d never offered to visit in Boston or even invited home for the holidays. Maybe that’s because she knew I would’ve refused, but it wouldn’t have hurt to ask.
“Thanks.”
“How are you? How are things?”
“Good,” I said, voice tight. It was mostly true, but telling that to her felt like a lie. She’d never see what I was doing as good .
“Glad to hear it,” she said, not expanding further on what I meant. “Heard about our old friend Vernon a few days ago. You must remember him, right? Since he said you’d contacted him.”
“Right.” I’d figured my contacting old family “friends” would come back to bite me in the ass, but in the end, I did what I had to do. Starting to work as a music producer with no contact in the industry was like deciding to become a track Olympian at thirty-five. It didn’t happen. So I’d stepped over my ego and called some people I knew from way back, or who my parents knew and I recognized by name. Not everyone called me back, but some did. Enough that I got to meet with people who knew people who knew people, and finally, I found a job at a record label in Boston. They don’t necessarily release the exact music I want to work on, but for a first job as a producer, it’d do just fine. As much as I loved to play, messing with other people’s music to bring it a step further tickles a part of my brain I never knew I had, and it brings me a sense of fulfillment I never knew I wanted.
“So you’re sticking with this thing, aren’t you?” Mom said, this time sounding bitter.
“What thing?”
“That quitting the guitar thing.” She tsked. “After everything we’ve put into this. Such a shame.”
My jaw clenched. “If this is what you called about, we can hang up now.” A year of no talking, only to lead to that. No question about why I’d reached out to Vernon, or what I was doing now. I don’t know why I expected things to change, but the realization that this time was no different hurt like a bitch.
“Oh, don’t be like that.”
“Like what?”
“Angry. You’ve always been so angry, Andrew.” She tuts like I’m a petulant child. “You know where we’re coming from on this.”
Right. Because I’m sure my father was of the same point of view. He was probably sitting on the other side of the room, his earphones in as he read an article or worked on some new project. He hadn’t deigned to call me today, so maybe he had an even worse opinion of me than she did.
I stood straighter. “Why did you call, Mom?”
“It’s your birthday.” As if that was a good explanation. Not because she wanted to or she missed me, but because she had to.
“Yeah. You know what? I think we’re done here.”
“Andrew, come on.”
“Have a great year. Talk to you September of next year, yeah?”
And then I hung up.
It should’ve felt good to have the upper hand, to shut her down just like she’d shut me down ever since she and my father had started managing Fickle and decided the band came before all else.
It didn’t.
I’d walked away from them because of the drinking but also because I’d hated the way I felt back then. Like I was never enough, like even when I was “living the dream,” I’d feel so fucking empty. No one actually cared. I’d done everything right, followed all the steps, got the career and the money and the girls, and yet I’d never felt anything close to happy. Just…blank. That’s what had gotten me to drink in the first place. The feeling that the only time I could actually feel good about myself was when I wasn’t really there.
Eyes fixed on my phone, I watched the screen light up again with another incoming call from my mother, only to realize I’d never walked away from that feeling. I couldn’t walk away from it. That emptiness was still there. That feeling of only floating from one thing to the next, never actually enjoying life but simply going through it, was still smack dab in the middle of my chest, and if running away hadn’t made it stop, then nothing ever would.
Suddenly, the last thing I wanted to be doing was standing in the grocery store, buying food to meal prep for the week. The carefully balanced eggs and the hand-picked sweet potatoes seemed to be taunting me. Thought you could have a healthy lifestyle, be happy? How pathetic. And so, I walked away. I left my half-full cart right there in the middle of the aisle, walked out the automatic doors, and went straight to the bar across the street.
I wasn’t thinking, really. Muscle memory took over, or maybe it was more of a self-destructing instinct that decided which way my footsteps should lead me.
And here I am now.
The Anchor, or whatever crass name the place has, smells like sweat, mildewed fabric—probably from the carpet being drenched year after year with melted snow dragged in by dirty winter boots—and cheap beer. Perfect.
The seat I pick at the bar squeals under my weight as I let my body slump over the sticky bar. I don’t want to be here, but I also don’t want to be anywhere else.
Frankly, I don’t even want to be .
A gruff guy with a thick gray beard and wiry nose hairs comes my way and stands, not speaking but asking his question all the same.
“Double Hendricks, no ice.”
He goes to prepare my order, not even nodding an agreement. He must be used to seeing all kinds of broken, desperate people here. One mid-twenties man with a depressed face and not enough energy to keep his spine up at 9:00 p.m. doesn’t faze him. I should probably be embarrassed, but at this point, I don’t think I can disappoint myself any more.
The ice he put inside the drink—either because he didn’t hear me or because he didn’t give a fuck one way or another—clinks against the glass he drops in front of me. Not like I have the luxury to be picky.
I grab it, the cold bite against the palm of my hand feeling so beautifully, horrifyingly familiar. I bring the glass to my nose, taking a big inhale of the alcohol I got sick on so many times before. This is it. All of the past year, in the drain. Or was it already there, and I only fooled myself into thinking I’d gotten out? Guess I’ll never know.
I take another sniff, and then, just as I lift the rim to my lips, my eyes drift to the television above me, the sound low but still loud enough that I can hear the commentator over the basketball game. I don’t follow the sport, but seeing it now sends a jolt down my back, making me lower the glass back to the bar.
What the hell would Frank think if he saw me like this? After giving me so much of his precious time, his patience, his trust, his empathy, to find me at a bar would probably make him give up faith in me entirely. He’d realize he should’ve known from the beginning I wasn’t going to make it. He’d see what a waste I’ve been to him.
I haven’t cried in years. Not when I got into my accident and realized how much of a problem I actually had. Not when I spent my first Christmas on my own. Not when I realized I’d probably never speak to my brother again.
But this, right here, realizing how far I’ve fallen and how disappointed Frank would be if only he knew, makes my eyes mist.
Before I know it, I’m grabbing my phone and dialing him. He answers fast as if he has nothing better to do than deal with my bullshit.
“Carter, how’s it going?”
“I…” And then, the words freeze, right there inside my throat.
“Carter?”
I swallow. I was never going to escape him knowing, was I? I knew when I called, yet I did it all the same, like when you press on a sore muscle hoping for some of that aching relief.
I push against the shame and say, “I’m at a bar.”
He doesn’t skip a beat, foregoing the disappointed sigh I was waiting for. “Have you drunk yet?”
“No.”
“Good boy. Now send me your address. I’ll be there as soon as I can.”
I should probably fight him off on this. I’ve needed him so much already. Asking this of him sounds like the cherry on top, like being yet another responsibility for him, but I’m selfish enough to take it.
I give him the name of the bar.
“All right. I’ll be right there, but you get out of there in the meantime, you hear me? ”
I hum my agreement, already getting to my feet. The task sounded like hiking Mount Everest five minutes ago, but now, it’s surprisingly doable.
“I’m on my way.”
“Thank you,” I say, so relieved I could fall to my knees. I don’t think I would’ve survived this night if he hadn’t picked up.
“And, Carter?”
“Yeah?”
“I’m proud of you, kid.”
He hangs up, and before I can think of whether I deserve his pride or not, I pay my tab, leave my untouched drink, and go wait outside for him.
But Frank never does show up.
An hour and a half later, when I’ve texted him five times and he hasn’t answered, I figure he’s fallen asleep and forgot about me, so I call for a cab. I’m not disappointed, only tired by then. I just want to be home and forget about this whole day. Maybe tomorrow, I can convince myself I never flinched, that I imagined that dank smell and the feeling of the glass in my hand.
The taxi driver who picks me up must be in his sixties and is blaring tech music through his speakers. As soon as I sit, he’s speeding through the streets like he’s playing GTA, all the while his loud bass worsens my headache. I lean back and close my eyes, only reopening them when I feel the car slowing down .
I don’t realize right away what is happening. It’s as if from the moment I look out the window and see the scene happening on the main boulevard, everything happens in slow motion. Sirens mix with the aggressive music in the car, muffled like they’re ringing from underwater. Blue and red flashes in the distance, and the lights get brighter and brighter the closer we get.
“We’ll need to take a detour,” the driver says.
I don’t answer, entranced by the lights. It’s as if a part of me already knows what they mean.
But only when I see the flipped-over brown car with its cheerful stickers in the rear windshield and a stretcher pulling a sheet-covered body toward an ambulance do I realize what actually happened, although I’m not sure I could call it realizing. More like noticing.
Oh, look, a boot—he must’ve lost it when they dragged him out of the wreck.
The radio is still on. Was he listening to folk or rock when he died?
The keychain is hanging from the ignition, swinging. It probably still holds the pendant his daughter made him in art class a decade ago.
His phone must’ve fallen from the cupholder and shattered. Did it break before or after I called him back?
I’m not sure how I get home next. I was at the accident, watching it all with a painful numbness as if out of my body, and the next thing I knew, I was curled up in my bed, staring at the wall, spending God knows how many days like this. Not sleeping. Not crying. Just being there, forcing myself to take breath after painful breath.
Eventually, I get myself out of bed, draining a gallon of water while finally starting to think about what happened, and now that I do, I see it doesn’t make sense. I must’ve imagined it. Maybe I did drink at that bar, and I got so drunk I invented some crazy scenario in my head. So I decide to drive up to Frank’s house. I went once to hand him a document I needed him to sign, so I still have his address in my texts. I’ll get there, and he’ll be raking his lawn or washing his awful car, wearing some pompom-riddled hat and waving at me with a huge grin on his face.
But that fantasy doesn’t happen. When I stop in front of his place, dozens of cars fill up the driveway, including a catering truck and some van where two people are pulling out vases of extravagant flowers.
I don’t even stop in front of the house, only slowing long enough to see it all, then slam on the gas and drive back home.
I spend the next day doing the same thing. And the next. And the next.
I’m not sure what I expect to see there. I just know that passing in front of that house makes me feel like I’m doing something. Like I still have a piece of him with me.
I call in sick to work for two entire weeks, faking appendicitis, but really, I’d take an unanesthetized surgery over this kind of pain.
The realization that his death is on me comes slowly at first, and then it drowns me, pulling me down every time I try to gasp for breath. If I hadn’t been stupid enough to call him at night, if I hadn’t been so weak that I needed him to come pick me up, he’d still be there, spreading his annoying cheer everywhere.
Eventually, I return to work, and it’s probably the only thing that keeps me standing. For the hours I’m in there, I can forget just enough that I don’t crumble. But the moment I leave the studio, it all comes back to me, and the routine continues.
Driving in front of his house becomes some sick obsession. I imagine his clothes lying untouched, his gutters overflowing and never being drained, his roof cracking and needing to be replaced. The house remains the same, but I see it all in tragic fast-speed.
And then, one day, something new appears in the driveway.
His car looks just like it did that night next to the basketball court, scratched and rusted over, but other than that, it’s perfect. As if it didn’t go through some hellish accident mere weeks ago.
This time, I stop in front of the house, long enough for me to stare at that damn car. I don’t know whether I love it because it’s so him or I hate it because of what it represents. Me failing him. Me dragging him out. Me killing him.
I’m not sure how long I spend looking at those like-new windows and bumper, but when my gaze drifts to the back window, it’s as if time stutters.
My daughter needs your help! Have an extra kidney? Get tested to see if you’re a match and save her life!
His daughter. I’d almost forgotten about her. The one person Frank loved and wanted to protect more than anything in the world. I don’t even know how old she is. She could be thirteen or twenty. Either way, I’ve taken her father away from her. Her father, who would’ve given everything he owned to help her.
I’ll never be able to repay her. I’ll never be able to repay Frank either, but she’s probably the person I’ve wronged the most, and I didn’t even spare her one thought.
I read over the line again, then look at the phone number below.
I don’t consciously make the decision to call. I just know the longer I stare at those twenty-one words, the more obvious it becomes. The chances of us being a match are slim to none. I’d probably start believing in fate if we were.
But just for the infinitesimal chance it might work?
I dial the number.