Shards of a Day in the Life
raymond tod smith
It was a rather shaking experience to march down the aisle with Sarah’s arm inside mine, the shadowy blue of her bridesmaids’ gown caressing its rough taffeta against me as we followed the groom, Peter, and his new wife, Sandra, out of the church. Sarah and I had dated for nearly two years, but this was, by far, the closest we had ever come to anything resembling a marriage ceremony. Not that I never asked her but that she never accepted and eventually I lost her. Another two years passed before this particular wedding day and I knew that, no matter how fucked up it was, I was still very much in love with her.
The night before, at the rehearsal dinner, she had only briefly spoken to me and made it a stiff point not to look at me when she did, even as I looked into her face for some sign or semblance of her feelings toward me. Except when it was impossible, she seemed to stay as far away from me as she could. My heart felt last-supper thin, as if ridden with some peculiar flu, as she refused to take my arm for the run-through. The wedding-director asked if there was a problem, but Sarah told her no, after all it was tradition that the maid-of-honor exit with the best-man. She said that for the ceremony she would take my arm but not until. A stricken look crossed the bride-to-be’s face, having actually believed that Sarah and I could handle our inevitable contact with some level of maturity. Apparently she did not know her friend as well as I had.
After our detached promenade through the church doors and outside, she immediately let go of me and walked away from me, looking and waiting for her gentleman friend to file out. I followed.
“Nice wedding, wasn’t it?” I asked.
“Beautiful,” she answered with the cool of a long-time clinician.
“You’re beautiful, too, Sarah. That dress really looks good on you.” She grimaced at this, looking off into the voluminous summer sky with silence carved into her features. “I don’t mean to bother you, but I had hoped that we could talk...”
“And what did you think I would have to say?”
“Just about exactly what you’re saying.”
“I’m glad you won’t be disappointed.”
“But I had hoped for more than I expected.”
She looked at me with the doe-bones around her eyes ablaze. “After the way you’ve harassed me since we broke up, calling drunk at all hours to curse at me? I guess your hopes must be as childish as you are...And if you call me anymore, Tom, I’m going to make a call of my own. To the police.”
“I’m sorry, Sarah,” I said and turned to walk away from her.
“Well, you damned well should be,” she whispered.
It was true that, in my by drunken despair, I had tormented her in painfully obvious and ignorant ways, never making it a secret that I was desperate for her affection; when she reject these pleas, I would become angered in my fixation and would shout at her until she had to hang up. I had handled the loss of her like a pro-lifer at a rally.
It seemed to take an awfully long time for the photographers to finish and for the reception to end with Peter and Sandra, pelted by bird-seed and well-wishes, driving away into the late evening sun. After finally getting to leave, I drove directly to the nearest liquor store, bought a twelve-pack of light beer, cracked one and painted myself into traffic, trying like hell to drive away from the hurt that had returned to full its powers and attached to me like a fast i.v., a mainline to my insides.
I had driven and driven, becoming more and more drunk, and stopped at another store for more beers and a pint-bottle of whiskey, with the intention of going home and drinking until my heart stopped teetering upon itself. Only a mile or so from there, I was singing along with the radio, trying to make myself feel better, and had even thought, for a second, it was working.
But a second was all it took, though it seemed to last indelibly longer, and the world of blacktop and trees began to spin in outrageously elliptical patterns.
I staggered from behind the wheel and out to check the damages. Not so awfully bad, I remember thinking, but, when I got back in to try and return to the road, the wheels could find no traction; The weather that day had been fine but it had rained earlier in the week. I got back out to look for some stones or something to push beneath the wheels but slipped in the mud as I did so and rolled, becoming hilariously overcoated by the slimy red earth. After turning off the car, I took the keys out and the bottle, locked it, and walked back to the road to head for home and call a wrecker-service.
I went inside, taking off my ruined clothes just inside the door, and walked directly to the kitchen. I reached into the freezer for the bottle of good Russian, opened it and drank directly from it several large gulps, the whiskey long since depleted.
Naked, the bottle of vodka in tow, I sat down by the phone to call a nearby service-station for the wrecker, but instead ended up dialing Sarah’s number. She answered on the second ring. “Hello.”
“Listen, you bitch, don’t you know that I love you and am miserable without you! Today, you just...” blah blah.
Later that night or early, early morning, I passed out in front of the television and, sometime during a terrible sleep, I pissed my pants.
The police have yet to arrive and my love, I am afraid, has yet to leave me.
