Drinks, Knives, and Doorknobs That Don’t Lock

Once, I ran into a pack of wild dogs in the dead of night, barking and snarling with rabid grins, and I knew I could not run faster than they could.

Once, I was swimming in a sea with a barracuda, and it was staring, watching me with its teeth, and I knew that I could not swim faster than it could.

Once, I was driving across a bridge during a storm and I was nearly blown over the edge, into the waves fifty feet below, and I knew that if I was sucked down into the green water I could not fight harder than it could.

Once, you asked me to look at you, to answer honestly: did I love you the way you loved me. I would have trusted you with my life; I’d known you five years, or maybe it was five hundred years, but now it felt like it may have only been five hours.

You had always loved me, you said. Always. And sometimes you even hated me because you loved me so much. Your eyes pleaded and burned as I told you that I loved you too, only differently. Our love did not match. I couldn’t be with you, couldn’t marry you. But you said again that you loved me, and that you hated me because you loved me so much.

Your eyes were red-rimmed with sorrow and spite; you cried gin tears, they spilled down your face as you hid the empty bottle that we’d been drinking since midnight behind a stack of books on the bookshelf. An old habit of yours.

A woman knows- she is taught from childhood- what can happen when a man braids the twisted cord of love and hatred and intoxication. Sorrow and scorn can so quickly turn to revenge and rage. I listened to you talking, and I tried to see the man I had known for five or five hundred years. But still, I counted the weapons I could reach- a knife, a walking stick, a chair, an ashtray- just incase. An old habit of mine.

We talked a long time, and I swayed between seeing real bits of your soul and seeing newspaper headlines. I told you to sleep on the couch, to sleep it off, and took your keys so you wouldn’t try to drive, and then I went back to my bedroom that has the door that doesn’t lock. I heard you sobbing in the living room, whiskey sobs, and I held the knife under my pillowcase tighter, just in case the doorknob that does not lock should turn in the night. I heard your heavy footsteps on the stairs a few times when you came up to use the bathroom, and every time I held my breath until I was certain the footsteps would not come near to my door. I didn’t sleep until I finally heard you snoring. Because I knew that I could not outrun you, and I could not outfight you, and if you decided to turn on me, I would not be able to reason with you.

I woke the next morning and you were still snoring. The knife was still in my hand under my pillow. The dogs had not torn my limbs, the barracuda had not hunted me down, the wind had not thrown me to my death, and the doorknob had not turned in the darkness. I got up and made coffee and said good morning and handed you an aspirin. You asked what we’d talked about last night and I said I couldn’t remember. You were again the person I had known five-fivehundred years. The real you, the sober and caring and deeply compassionate you, who would rush into danger to save someone he loves, whose life centers around helping others, who is far too quick to self-criticism. The one I trusted with my life but could never marry. I gave you your car keys and a hug and a goodbye.

And I told myself I was never going to drink with you again.