Marty is a burn-the-house-down-and-die drinker, same as I was not so long ago. But he can hardly stay in recovery two months. Sobriety’s hard on Marty. He comes unglued, then disappears a thousand miles off in any direction for who-knows-how-long. Last time, he was out for most of a year before he turned up at a meeting, hating on himself. He had nothing but the smallest glimmer of maybe a purpose in life. He hoped he might finally tough it out in recovery and set an example for his brother Keith, who wanted none of that.
But I admire that about Marty. Normally, I wouldn’t have the time or energy to be friends with such a yo-yo. I ought to stop talking about Marty like that. I got the better end of this deal. Worrying he’s drunk and trying to off himself keeps me from testing one more time if I’m a real alcoholic. We relapse hard.
I saw him today strumming guitar on the northbound side of Manchaca, good as gold in his Johnny Cash pompadour. Too spacey to drive, he waits at a bus stop, serenading cars. Used to be, you’d never see him out in daylight. Psych meds have slowed his speech and rebuilt him heavier and round-shouldered. When he’s stable enough, he plays for happy hour at a dismal bar.
I dropped in once. A volunteer roadie from the treatment center helped Marty set up. I exchanged how-do-you-dos with his mom and stepfather, then shrank back to a table near the door. The place felt so deprived, and Marty’s songs so alienated and bleak, I had to leave or get blind drunk. That once, I went. The dimwit has thanked the crap out of me three whole times.
Last Friday afternoon he stood outside our big, modern church, facing the parking lot as if trying to remember how he got there. Last thing I wanted to do was make him feel dumb.
I walked up like, “Marty! How are you?”
“Not good,” he said. “My kid brother killed himself.”
“No way! Marty—when?”
“Day before yesterday. No this is Friday. That was Tuesday.”
I’d seen the kid—longhaired wise-ass punk, hard to like. “Fucker. How old was… Keith, right?”
“Yeah. Twenty-four. I thought if I straightened out, he might too. I guess he wasn’t ready.”
So then what?—I thought. He skidded off a cliff? A grackle swooped in for trampled Fritos. It squealed like the world’s rustiest door hinge. I said, “He must have gone on an all-out tear.”
“Might have been. I saw a half a fifth of whiskey. It wasn’t like he threw a party.”
“You saw him?”
“I wish. Already he was like made of wax—in Mom’s garage. Fucker.”
“Jesus! Did Keith do that to hurt her?”
Marty gazed past me, his eyes reducing the sky to blue ink drops. “He might have.”
“Did you drink from that bottle?”—I had to ask.
But no. He’s bone dry, doping out funeral arrangements, calling kin. “We thought my half sister might show up for us this once, but when I call, she yells malicious stuff and hangs up.”
“I wouldn’t take it personally, Marty.”
He said, “Sometimes you have to deal with shit. Sometimes you have to cut your brother off the end of a rope.”
I said, “Marty, Let me buy you lunch.”
We didn’t talk about Keith anymore. Whenever he’s ready. And I didn’t mention my own brother, but fore sure I need to call him.
My older brother has a younger brother an awful lot like Keith. But this longhaired wise-ass punk happened to not die. That seems long ago, but still, my brother needs to hear me say I’m sorry.
