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Volume XI – Up The Stairs
"You were the best I ever saw."
"Not anymore, Judge, now I'm just happy
if someone gives me ten dollars for a book."
We're in his hotel room, the dirty plastic glasses
are half-filled with J & B. He's on the bed
waxing nostalgic about the days we used to
work together. I had to cut him off.
I don't want to think about the capitalistic,
addictive person I once was, smoking weed
to forget my job immediately upon leaving
and drinking when that didn't work.
He's lapsed onto an elbow, one of his legs
is bent in front of him, the other's toes
are resting on the floor.
I had to carry him up the stairs.
He wouldn't take the elevator –
'the doc says it's good for my knees'.
I know he doesn’t want to be seen
by the people at the front desk
in this condition.
He's staring at me.
"What are you looking at?" I yell and
leap from my chair, making like
I'm going bust his head open
with my piece of shit whiskey glass
He doesn't flinch. Instead, he raises his drink,
"To the best damn engineer I ever saw."
For some reason, there is nothing more
insulting he could say to me this evening.
I fake a sip – the last one almost came up –
and lecture him while I’m still standing.
"I've told you before
just because you're good at something
doesn't mean you have to do it? For instance,
you have a grand ability to drink
but what's that gonna do for ya in the end?"
I typically wouldn't bring it up, but
he is loaded and he lives on the third
fucking floor. I can still feel his hand
clenching my shoulder as I hauled
all two-hundred and fifty pounds of
his useless ass up the hotel's back stairs.
He doesn't talk when you mention drinking,
he drinks. Yeah, I pissed him off,
so what. You didn't see me bringing up
'Nam or his ex-wife, did you? That last job
nearly undid me. Towards the end
I had an epiphany: what I did every day
did not make me proud. Once I quit
I discovered it never had.
I walked away from the career
rising in front of me like a spiral staircase
and refused to look back, even at him.
The Judge is crying. It's quiet, no whimpering,
no pestering tears, just the release of internal floods.
He's lost inside himself and I don't want to go there
tonight, even if it's my fault. I slam my drink.
"I'm outta here." And I leave. Down the stairs
to my car. Don't worry about me, I'll be fine.
I'm the best engineer he's ever seen and I know
the way home, drunk or sober.
It used to be my commute.
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