B^{ound By Marjolyn Deurloo}

We sat on the bus you and I, only you were passed out on my lap. I had one arm over your shoulder, the other against the cold steel window frame supporting my head. I felt maternal towards you, protecting you, praying you needed me as much as I hoped you did. I was so tired but I couldn’t sleep. My lids hung low and heavy. The night had worn me down, but as my physical abilities sank, my mind remained in overdrive replaying the events of the night. Something was there, something I didn’t want to admit.

It was a Thursday night. The bright lights of the bus were burning my eyes. I longed for the blackness of the street. Our stop seemed to come out of this blackness, immediate. I tried to lift you to tug you, but you resisted, ”This is not righ’. This is not our, stop.”

The woman in front of us sat with her legs in the aisle. Her sorrowful expression instilled in me a feeling of anger and hostility. She looked over her seat at you and then said, “Do you need some help?” I tried to answer, to tell her that we were all right. But you sat up instantly slurring, “Ah for fuck’s sake. I know where teh get of ‘da bus. Fuckin’ Hell.” She quickly turned around, a silent withdrawal of the previous offer quite evident. I didn’t correct you. I couldn’t control you. Your rudeness surprised everyone on the bus.

We reeked of liquor. A middle-aged man in a gray suit sat across from us. I smiled at him nervously. He huffed in disapproval and turned to look out the window as you sank back into my lap and the freedom of slumber. I couldn’t sleep. Where would we get off this bus?

I had been drinking too. Three gin and tonics seemed to be nothing compared to your twelve pints of Guinness and shots of whiskey that seemed to come with every other pint, but instead of being merciful and dulling my senses as it had for you, liquor began to connect my thoughts in a way that I resisted when sober, quickly and without explanation.

My mother and father divorced when I was young, seven years old, but he still came around plenty. My mother started working fifty hours a week for Southern Pacific Railroad Company, the office somewhere near the Embarcadero. That’s when I started taking the Geary bus to school and I never missed my stop. I took it from Masonic to St. Monica’s on 23rd Avenue. I didn’t know the stop before or the stop after, only the one I knew, the one my mom showed me. I thought that if I missed it I’d be lost forever.

But here we were three stops later and I was filled with the same sense of dread. Where would we get off this bus and how would I get us home? I pulled the cord to alert the driver we were ready to get off. I used all of my strength to pull you up and all of my force to push you down the aisle, but you refused to walk any further. You grabbed hold of the chair for balance. “Why do yeh keep doin’ tha’? This is not it. This is not our stop,” you managed to say, your eyes thin slits, your limbs swaying.

Liquor was on your breath, your clothes. It seemed to be coming of your skin, out of every pore. This was a direct result of an evening at Cassidy’s

Earlier that night you’d begun roughhousing with your friends. I caught a sharp elbow in the chest as you all fell to the floor, beer spraying across the bar, stools taken down like dominoes. But you guys were regulars and with literally a slap on the hand from the barmaid your pints were refilled and order was briefly regained. You couldn’t stop laughing the three of you, you laughing through a bloody lip.

The laughter subsided. You stood to go to the bathroom but your feet gave way beneath you. The roars of laughter continued in rounds but no one moved to help you. You lay amongst the cigarette butts and spilled liquor holding onto my barstool as if you should fall off the world if you let go. What was so funny? Couldn’t they see that you were sick? My heart stung, became swollen and heavy.

Two old drunks, one gray-haired with a beard and a Harley Davidson cap and the other the same only balding, sat and watched from the edge of the bar. I despised their smug expressions. I slid off my barstool and stood over you. I threw my purse over my shoulder and reached down beneath your shoulders to pull you up. “Honey,” I pleaded. “Honey, get off the floor.” You helped me with a slight push up from one knee, and stood shouting towards the door, “Eileen!” I’m right here.

You look to the person who supports you. It’s me. “Oh, there yeh are. Good Good.” You threw your arm over my shoulder and patted me on the chest like an old friend taking one last look around, not focusing on anything, or anyone. “Honey, I think we’ll call it a night.”

Like a wounded shoulder I led you to the bus stop three blocks away.

I spent my youth in bars that were dark seedy sticky places. Setting up my Barbie Carrying Case under burgundy leather booths of these bars that my mother would drag me to with promises of free popcorn and all the Shirley Temples I could drink. Maybe that’s why I felt so at home in them.

There were nights when the phone would ring when it was black outside, cold and wet, and my mother would get my brother and I from our beds and put us in the back seat of our Datsun with one blanket for the two of us to share.

We would drive for a while, always the same route, then my mother would double park with the engine still running and tell us to wait. About five minutes later she’d appear with our father and his friends spilling out into the street behind her, having a grand time and carrying on.

On nights like this our father was a different person, like a brother, a third child. I could sense that even though everyone was laughing, something was terribly wrong. My father leapt onto the hood of the car singing, “I’m in the mood for love simply because…I am D’artagnan winner of women!” Everyone laughed as my father jumped onto the roof of my mother’s car beyond my sight where I could only hear him shouting and hear his footsteps, “Winner of Women…D’artagnan!”

I laughed as well. My mother was the only one who didn’t. She just tried to coax him down, her pregnant belly pressing against the glass of the window before me. After finally getting into the car he’d continue his rant most of the way home. D’artagnan Winner of Women till his shouting became talking, his talking became a whisper, his whisper replaced with the sounds of the night air, the rattling engine, and our mother’s deep heavy sighs.

I pulled the cord again to alert the driver that we were ready to get off. “Did you need some help, Miss?” It was another passenger, a man in a brown leather jacket the same color as his hair. Everyone on the bus was watching. I felt a thundering behind my eyes, but I refused to blink. I refused to allow the hot tears to flow. You lay there mumbling, not passed out just lying there across two seats. “Did you need some help?”

“Yes, please.”

He picked you up and I followed feeling the weight of the stares from the other passengers. “There you go.” He sat you down on the sidewalk. “Are you gonna be alright?”

“Yeah, thank you.”

The lights of the bus disappeared into the fog that had begun to roll in. I watched you get up and move around the corner to release what had grown bitter in your stomach.

It was at that precise moment when I heard you, saw the blackness around me, and felt the chill of the December air, that I realized that alcoholism had managed to slither into my life again. And once again it wore the most beautiful disguise. Like before when it had played father. Now it had taken you. It had a heart and a mind and a soul that I loved and it sat inside in complete control corroding you, hollowing you out.

All the signs became clear but still like a nightmare in fragments. Our lives revolved around liquor, never stopping after one drink, hating to see any liquor, even half a glass of wine go to waste. It was every night, even nights when we would stay in everything revolved around getting a drink, having a drink, making sure we had enough drinks. I kept telling myself you were Irish, it was a cultural thing.

How did I let this happen? I hated alcoholism. It was the disease that took my father from me. I had dated responsible men my whole life, men with jobs who rode bikes and ran marathons but they never needed me like you did. They had it all already.

Men like Paul, who I dated for over a year. I can close my eyes and still hear the classical music playing in the background, the low murmur of polite conversations from other tables, the clink and clatter from the fine china, and from this distance, it almost feels safe. But when I was there, in that moment I felt suffocated.

I tried to fit into his world. I tried desperately to love him because he was solid that way, the way my mother had hoped for. She begged me to learn from her mistakes, to seek out a man who could take care of me and I tried. I really did, but I began to despise Paul. I had nothing in common with him. Men like Paul came from happy homes where no one ever fought, where their parents planned for the future so they never had to worry about money, never had to worry about anything. What did I have in common with these men? Nothing.

Then I met you working in a bar.

“What’re yeh havin’ love?”

“A glass of Merlot.” You tapped the bar twice after you set it down in front of me and walked away. You turned to smile and I just knew. I saw a brilliance in those green eyes.

You were the king of that bar always with a joke, always the center of attention.

“I’ve been wantin’ teh ask yeh out.”

“Yeah?”

“But I have the know, Do yeh drink Guinness?”

“I’ve never had it before.”

“Ah yeh see because I can’t date a woman who doesn’t appreciate Guinness. Would yeh like a pint?”

“Do I get a date?”

“Ah, for fuck’s sake woman, Try teh play hard the get will yeh?”

You were back in a few minutes and after explaining to me the virtues of the pint you handed me a napkin, “This is my number.” You tried to be suave but you laughed right through it.

I remember that bar. We drank there every night after your shift until you got fired three months later.

You never cared though. You just got another job in another bar. You were so free that way and I so admired that freedom. I became a part of it.

There was drinking right from the start. I have to admit that. I told myself that you were a bartender, it was a part of your job, you were Irish, it was in your blood.

And tonight I realize that caring for you, is in mine. I was raised to love you. I loved you, because I loved my father.

I needed you to need me and in return. . .

I was your savior in the bar when you collapsed to the floor.

I was your guardian against all the knowing looks.

I was your memory.

Now we stood in darkness. I had no money for a cab. I stood there in the darkness having missed our stop. I felt nauseated. You sat there, your back against the wall, head in your hands.

“I’m sorry baby.”

“I know” I lifted you up.

“I ‘m gettin' up early tomorrow and I’m gonna cook for you. Fried eggs and spuds, and bread, muffins.”

“Okay.”

“Cause no one deserves it more than you honey”

“Okay” I walked to the curb.

“What are yeh waitin’ for?”

“We missed the bus.”

“Are yeh serious? Ah’ yeh went too far. Yeh should’ve gotten off ages ago. Ah’ I want teh go home.” You came up behind me.

“Here’s ‘da bus!”

You started to wave your hands in the air. The bus pulled over and I saw that it was the right number. You were so lucky that way. If you wanted the bus there it was.

The bus was mostly empty this time but once again the lights were harsh and unforgiving. You put your head back onto my lap, “See then tha’s alrigh’.”

My mind was a jumbled mess of fragments from the past, our past, my parents past. I couldn’t put it all together. I wouldn’t remember it tomorrow. Why was I so upset over a bus stop? It was something still making its way through the murky waters of my subconscious, or maybe it was just the sentimentality of the liquor. Yes, that’s what it was. That’s all it was.