this version intensely—all the guilt rested squarely with Robbie and in fact increased with every passing moment. He could picture the family at the crappy little diner across the street from the hotel, Dewey gnawing on a stale French fry, Julia absently running her painted fingernail around the rim of her water glass, Tonio red-faced, steam puffing out of his ears. Then the family back in the hotel room, tiring out Dewey properly with a game of crazy eights, so that they could tuck him into bed and sit up and argue till the wee hours.
This was an awful scenario, and it was one in which Robbie was expected to do something—namely, swallow his pride, go back to the hotel, apologize, man up the best he could to Tonio and try to look Dewey and Julia in the eye, so they could get on out of this town and over to Charleston as planned. At which point there would be, for him, good old Uncle Robbie, a long, dried-out, spectral time of nothingness.
He considered this possibility. What would the spectral time of nothingness actually entail? Doddering strolls around some sun-bleached lane with a name like Sea Oats Drive, populated by Volvos and Volkswagens and one or two palm trees, tossing a plastic football back and forth with Dewey. Hours spent staring at Tonio’s bookshelves, trying to find something to read that he could convince himself was more entertaining than getting drunk or high. Awkward silences around the dinner table, staring at plates of grits or chicken livers or whatever they ate in Charleston. Awkward silences especially with Julia, watching her pull dirty clothes from the laundry hamper while Tonio rushed to get ready for work, keeping a nervous and critical eye on the proceedings. Boredom. Boredom more than anything else. Not the DTs or any kind of hallucinations or paranoid fantasies or whatever people like Tonio imagined—boredom was the chief problem with all attempts at sobriety. The physical symptoms of withdrawal one could deal with. Boredom and the prospect of further boredom, boredom forevermore, was the killer.
So, but, say he was ready to give up the cheap keg beer and the bad whiskey and the company of Stephanie and all his new white trash friends, call it quits right now, give himself up peaceably to Tonio and his superior silent anger. Then what? It was all too exhausting to think about. The easy thing would be just to plow ahead on the route he’d chosen. There’d be a good week or two of steady drunkenness before these new friends got sick of him and figured out that he had no more money and no desire to work for it and no real attachment to anyone or anything here. Stephanie would be the last to turn on him. He’d manage to negotiate a bus ticket out of town, either from Stephanie or someone who had an interest in seeing him removed from the situation with Stephanie, or from his mother and father if it came to that. Then he could either go back to Portland or go back to rehab. It was by far the easier and therefore the preferable and therefore the inevitable plan. All this other stuff, this back and forth in his head while he rubbed this sleeping girl’s shoulder and sat awake and slightly buzzing in the quiet and watched, as he’d seemingly been watching forever, the snow fall—all of this was just parsing, just sifting, the broken mumbling of the remnants of himself.
He got dressed and went out on the covered porch to smoke a cigarette. He hunched against the cold and blew streams of smoke into the air and hopped up and down in his sock feet. There was hardly any noise from the house. Had they all gone to sleep already? Robbie himself was ready to head out to the bar, although he’d have to put some thought into that, have to figure out a way to avoid Tonio and/or Julia, probably Tonio, who could certainly be out on a scouting mission.
When he thought about it, though, he was nearly as miserable out here on the porch steps as he would be back in the hotel. Could these people really
This was an awful scenario, and it was one in which Robbie was expected to do something—namely, swallow his pride, go back to the hotel, apologize, man up the best he could to Tonio and try to look Dewey and Julia in the eye, so they could get on out of this town and over to Charleston as planned. At which point there would be, for him, good old Uncle Robbie, a long, dried-out, spectral time of nothingness.
He considered this possibility. What would the spectral time of nothingness actually entail? Doddering strolls around some sun-bleached lane with a name like Sea Oats Drive, populated by Volvos and Volkswagens and one or two palm trees, tossing a plastic football back and forth with Dewey. Hours spent staring at Tonio’s bookshelves, trying to find something to read that he could convince himself was more entertaining than getting drunk or high. Awkward silences around the dinner table, staring at plates of grits or chicken livers or whatever they ate in Charleston. Awkward silences especially with Julia, watching her pull dirty clothes from the laundry hamper while Tonio rushed to get ready for work, keeping a nervous and critical eye on the proceedings. Boredom. Boredom more than anything else. Not the DTs or any kind of hallucinations or paranoid fantasies or whatever people like Tonio imagined—boredom was the chief problem with all attempts at sobriety. The physical symptoms of withdrawal one could deal with. Boredom and the prospect of further boredom, boredom forevermore, was the killer.
So, but, say he was ready to give up the cheap keg beer and the bad whiskey and the company of Stephanie and all his new white trash friends, call it quits right now, give himself up peaceably to Tonio and his superior silent anger. Then what? It was all too exhausting to think about. The easy thing would be just to plow ahead on the route he’d chosen. There’d be a good week or two of steady drunkenness before these new friends got sick of him and figured out that he had no more money and no desire to work for it and no real attachment to anyone or anything here. Stephanie would be the last to turn on him. He’d manage to negotiate a bus ticket out of town, either from Stephanie or someone who had an interest in seeing him removed from the situation with Stephanie, or from his mother and father if it came to that. Then he could either go back to Portland or go back to rehab. It was by far the easier and therefore the preferable and therefore the inevitable plan. All this other stuff, this back and forth in his head while he rubbed this sleeping girl’s shoulder and sat awake and slightly buzzing in the quiet and watched, as he’d seemingly been watching forever, the snow fall—all of this was just parsing, just sifting, the broken mumbling of the remnants of himself.
He got dressed and went out on the covered porch to smoke a cigarette. He hunched against the cold and blew streams of smoke into the air and hopped up and down in his sock feet. There was hardly any noise from the house. Had they all gone to sleep already? Robbie himself was ready to head out to the bar, although he’d have to put some thought into that, have to figure out a way to avoid Tonio and/or Julia, probably Tonio, who could certainly be out on a scouting mission.
When he thought about it, though, he was nearly as miserable out here on the porch steps as he would be back in the hotel. Could these people really
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