The Company We Keep

At first glance, I might have taken him to be a homeless person - I was downwind and could smell the grime and urine, sour coffee and whiskey emanating from him. He was filthy in ragged, ill fitting jeans that hung on his hips, a torn and stained once white t shirt with circles of sweat under his arms, and a pair of used up, mud splattered Nikes. He walked with a limp, hunched over and more feeling than seeing his way. His hair hung limply, oily and unwashed and his skin shone with sweat and the pallor of a long time sickness. There was a stench of vomit about him and worse, the smell of neglect. When I was a child, my mother kept a basket of unwashed clothes beneath the bathroom sink. They grew damp with mold and stiff with inattention and smelled like the filthy rags they became - this memory sharpened as I watched him struggle with his keys, balancing a plastic bag of groceries on one scrawny hip. Once in the car, he pulled a bottle from the bag and held it to his mouth for several seconds - scotch, I suspected - and an off brand at that. He lit a cigarette with shaking hands then started the car and pulled away. It was just after nine on a sunny and hot Saturday morning.

There had been a time when we were coworkers and close friends with common interests - music, photography, animals - we spent time together easily and often and were frequently mistaken for a couple. I paid little mind to his drinking as it seemed to be limited to evenings out, heavy but hardly out of control, certainly nothing to be concerned over. I only began to worry when I realized that a stop at the liquor store was a regular feature of his commute home and by the time I took a second look, I was shocked to discover all that I had not noticed before -
his color was not good, sometimes he forgot to shower, his speech was not always clear. He began coming in late and leaving early and having trouble with mornings. There was always plausible denial - he hadn't slept well, he was coming down with something, the washing machine was on the fritz, the water heater broken. It all seemed distantly familiar and I finally realized that I knew this dark road far too well, I'd been down it before. There was no real choice except to step back and watch this downward spiral from a safe distance.

Seeing him that Saturday morning gave me a shock and confirmed my worst fears - this was a man barely functioning, far down the path of self destruction, as someone had recently said to me, Too far gone to be helped.
It wasn't a secret anymore.

I thought of that laundry basket again and remembered that my daddy had simply thrown the entire mess into the washing machine. In a half hour, the stench and stiffness was gone - he gave the bathroom a scrubbing with bleach, aired it out and pronounced it good as new. Things are rarely too far gone to be helped but it's not so simple with people. When the only company we keep is alcohol, it takes more than a little laundering.