There were four swings in the park, to the freeway side of the soccer fields. Even when all three soccer fields had games going, and families lining the sidelines, Gordie had never seen anyone swing on them.
MacDougall was on one of the swings now, twisting more than swinging, pulling from a two liter bottle that Gordie knew wasn’t just Vernors.
MacDougall saw Gordie and Gordie knew it, but he stopped walking toward MacDougall anyway.
There was really no rush.
There might be no point.
MacDougall was Gordie’s hero twice.
Once, for being the coolest drummer in the best band in the city, one of the best ever, anywhere, if someone asked Gordie, and then again, years later, with the band gone, the singer dead, MacDougall had done something truly heroic, the way Gordie looked at it.
Gordie pretended to yawn, then shoved his hands in his back pockets and with his left pulled out his knife, clutched it in his fist.
He hadn’t thought the conversation through beyond one sentence, and after he decided on that one sentence, he thought: “It might be a good idea to have a knife.”
He could never stab MacDougall, he didn’t think. But the knife might buy him a second to run away.
MacDougall looked at him with angry eyes set in deep purple pits of face.
If human eyes had settings, MacDougall’s had the faders pushed up all the way all the time, angry, depressed, or deliriously, mirthfully happy.
Gordie could just run now, and never have to think about stabbing his nephew’s father in self-defense.
Gordie walked closer to MacDougall.
Either sweat or blood was sticking MacDougall’s light blue sleeveless t-shirt to his chest. Too dark to be sweat.
“You probably know, and don’t care, “ Gordie said “ but they wanted me to tell you you’re fired from Toby’s and banned for life. I wouldn’t go to Nemo’s, either, for a few months. The good news is I paid for Foster’s car. I’ll work on Melanie, but–”
“The fuck I do to Melanie?”
Gordie shook his head.
“I think after you get sober there’s an apology thing. One of the steps. You can probably apologize then, ask her what you did.”
“I’ll get sober someday,” MacDougall said, his eyes still angry, even evil. “ When I’m like 60. Not today. This shit is necessary. It’s my medicine.”
He swigged.
Gordie thought of MacDougall drunkenly flirting with his younger sister Cora, the day he met her, her 21st birthday, at her party at Mercury.
How they had disappeared from the party.
How she told Gordie she was pregnant.
How Liam MacDougall had turned, overnight, into the ideal boyfriend, then the perfect father.
And how he played that character almost perfectly, for the first six months.
Gordie thought MacDougall’s behavior was heroic. Until it wasn’t.
He looked at his drummer hero now, sitting on a swing, 10 am, already on the way to drunk.
Gordie’s eyes went up and down MacDougall’s tattooed arms.
On his right, The Social Distortion Skelly logo hoisting a martini. A photo realistic forty ounce bottle of high octane malt liquor with a cartoonish, almost anthropomorphic bottle of Jagermeister snuggled next to it.
On his left, a more serene sleeve of koi and lounging tigers and water dragons, his bicep and shoulder a huge, smoking volcano.
Gordie breathed in half of the oxygen of the park. He wouldn’t have been shocked if chalk lining the soccer fields got into his nostrils.
“You can’t see Salvador until you get sober.”
“Cora can’t do that.”
“She’s not. She didn’t see you last night. I did. I’m saying it.”
MacDougall lunged from the swing and tried to tackle Gordie.
He was too slow and Gordie dodged it, but MacDougall slapped Gordie’s elbow and he dropped the knife.
“Woooaaahh,” MacDougall said, straightening and making fists.”You brought a knife to your little faggot boy intervention?”
“You’re completely out of control, I don’t want my neph-”
MacDougall lunged again, missed again, but got a solid fist on Gordie’s crotch.
Gordie crumpled.
MacDougall tried to switch directions to jump back on Gordie and fell. The wound on his chest opened up again and he yelped.
Gordie looked at the two-liter sitting under the swing and crawled to it. He grabbed it, stood, and poured it out.
MacDougall’s eyes flashed rage.
“I fucking needed that!” he screamed.
Gordie shook his head.
“You just think you do. You don’t.”
“You’re buying me another fifth. Now.”
The rage in MacDougall’s eyes was frightening. There was almost a clarity to them he shouldn’t possess.
Gordie braced himself for a charge. He was more confident now. The gauze of the hero worship, both the drumming and the fatherhood, was starting to turn to mist.
“Now,” MacDougall repeated.
Gordie took a slight step back.
“Ok. Ok. I’ll buy you another fifth if you want. But then you can’t come anywhere near my nephew until you’re sober. Really sober.”
“Buy me a fifth and we’ll talk about it.”
“You don’t need more whiskey.”
MacDougall closed his eyes and when he opened them there was mirth in them again.
“Oh, trust me, I do need it.”
Gordie took a mental photo of his hero, his friend, the father of his nephew.
“You just think you do, MacDougall. You’ve convinced yourself. You’re sacrificing yourself to that fucking volcano inside you. I’ve seen you sober and I’ve seen you drunk. When you’re sober, that volcano is dormant. The lava might be hot, but at least it doesn’t spew. And I’m not letting it spew on my nephew. No way.”
Gordie turned and walked away.
He was almost to the picnic area when MacDougall yelled “You owe me a fifth a whiskey. You do.”
Gordie briefly wondered how close MacDougall was to the knife, put the thought out of his head. He just wanted his nephew to have a dad.
“I got 38 bucks left after paying for the damage you caused to Foster’s car. If you want it, you can come beat me up and take it. But you’ll have to fight me again next time you wanna see your son.”
Gordie turned again and started walking, listening intently for the drumbeat of footsteps that never came.
***
Photo Courtesy of Getty Images
Discussion Questions:
Have you ever been part of an official or spontaneous intervention (on either side)?
Have you ever confronted an addict for your own sanity, rather than theirs?
Note: I used a particularly loathsome slur in the dialogue. I chose to use that because it felt like something that MacDougall would say in late-stage addiction when behavior often becomes vile and selfish and unfeeling. I certainly didn’t use the term flippantly, or to cause unnecessary pain to anyone in real life outside the story.
This story should probably remain behind the paywall for those of you who have kept this 6 year sober writer in groceries for the last 20 months. But the subject matter just begs for it to be shared and discussed among a broader audience.
That was real, man.
It's very sorry to be in.
Although I've never been a drinker, I've been to the meetings with friends and I know how toxic the life was and how proud they were to get their medallion.
Happy for your 6 years.
Keep it up.
I, a very sensitive queer, didn't even register that dialogue as *you* choosing to write a slur because it felt so authentic to the character.