Just Off Center

Yesterday might have turned out to be the perfect cap on a productive week. I quit my second job on Friday. I rested nearly all day Saturday on account of this fucking cold that managed to find me. But yesterday. Yesterday was the big one.

Nina and I got up before dawn and hit the road to hike the Pass Mountain Trail. It was long and hard on Nina, who hadn’t been hiking yet this season. But she trooped it out, literally. I was marching in front of her with a heavy foot to give her a cadence to trance to while she finished the last mile. After that we had breakfast at Paradise Café and bought some bruschetta, cheese, wine, and some yummy Erdinger wheat beers. When we got home it was damn near 2:00 PM and Sam was still in fucking bed.

For those who are just now tuning in, I’ll give you the lowdown on Sam. Sam was an old high school acquaintance who became a friend when Nina and I moved into our first apartment. When I joined the Air Force, he moved into the basement apartment we’d been renting from this old man who really liked us. And that was all we’d heard from Sam for years. Then last December, Sam called us to tell us that he has a problem with alcohol and basically asked us for help. We encouraged him to move into our new home with us. Our first home. Our pride and joy. He accepted.

It was almost two months before he actually got a job. And that was because I had to find one for him. He kept getting drunk and passing out. We yelled at him, but it did no good. Eventually I had to kick him out for a week about three months ago. Since June he’s been sober. He’s been going to AA meetings and got his little sobriety coins which he showed us with such pride. He is still an unbelievable slob. He surrounds himself with his own filth. And it’s been nine months since he moved in.

Sam made a deal with us on Saturday. Saturday would be his day of rest because he had worked soooo hard the past week that he was just exhausted. And he laid there and slept almost all day too. But the deal was that Sunday he would clean his room and the bathroom… all the way clean, not just picked up. At four I woke him up and asked him why he disrespects me like this. He got up and started crying and whining and whatever. I had a long heart to heart with him about how I was so proud of him for all his success and that he’s so very close to being ready to move out and make it as a productive member of society. We hugged and he wept and thanked me for my candor. I told him that since he had an AA meting to get to, he should go to it and then come home and do as much cleaning as he can before he goes to sleep. He was gone for just over an hour, not nearly enough time to have attended a meeting. He came home, went to his room, and got ready for bed.

Nina had sensed he was acting funny. Since I’ve come to respect her instincts in this matter, I took a flashlight out to his car and the trashcan to look inside. And there right behinfd the drivers seat were two bottles that appeared to be booze. I couldn’t be sure so I went to his room and told him to open his car for me. He opened the door and I got in, reached behind the seat and there they were, a fifth of tequila barely touched, and an empty fifth of rotgut whiskey. I just asked him why. Why, Sam? His response was the usual self-deprecating crap about how he’s scared and a coward, and weak, blah blah blah. I asked him how long he’d been drinking. His response?

“I never stopped”

It turns out that his longest stint of sobriety was for two weeks when I kicked him out three months ago. Ever since then, he’d work, stop for crap liquor, chug the whole bottle on the way home, and then come in the house whining about how exhausted he was and how work was just killing him and he couldn’t do anything because of how tired he was.

I took him into my bedroom, where Nina and I yelled at him and started to feel the weight of this betrayal. Nine months. I took on a second job to cover the financial losses incurred since he couldn’t afford to pay rent. I cut him slack day after day, week after week for all his effort. I even had a talk with Nina during our hike about how she’s been kind of a bitch to him lately and should probably give him a break. Nina gave him one month to clear out. I don’t feel so generous. I’ll probably kick him out on his ass this week. But I want him there for a couple days to suffer through me.

I extended myself out for this friend in ways that I never had for anyone. I truly believed in him. I believed him when he bragged about being sober since June. I was so proud of how hard he was pushing himself that he was so exhausted every day. I opened myself up. And I have been used since day one.

I am the biggest fucking sap and sucker I’ve ever met.

# posted by Mike @ 6:58 AM