The Apartment
photo: Patty Gallimore
I wake up in a shadowy apartment,
naked of furniture and thin with curtains.
Stained mattresses on the floor. A worn sofa. Dim yellow lights.
The sink drips. So hung over, it hurts my head.
I look in the bathroom mirror. Don’t recognize myself.
My t-shirt’s soaked in sweat.
Cold water.
Under the cold water, my long fingers, pink on the palm side.
Splashing, on my black face, matted fro.
I shake my head and water flies like a dog by a lake.
This is not me. This is not my head.
How did I get here?
I search my palms for answers.
I walk uptown to my real apartment. My real wife.
My real sons are waiting for me.
“Where you been Dad?” they ask.
“Playing ball,” I lie, “worked up a filthy sweat….Gonna shower before work.”
They look at me, blank. They don’t recognize me.
“It’s Sunday Dad, no work today.”
I shower.
My wife comes in the door-
my suits fresh from the dry cleaners over one shoulder, bags and keys in hand.
She kicks off her shoes and hangs the suits and watches me
as I stand in a towel, shaving, scrubbing, wiping myself back into something I recognize.
But the circles under my eyes – they won’t go away –
and she asks “Are you alright?”
“I think so,” I answer.
It’s not an answer to satisfy her. “You think so?”
“I don’t remember…”
“You don’t remember…what?”
I don’t know what to say without another question to prompt me,
and right on cue she asks it.
“Where were you last night?”
And then, the remembering floods in –
The loud music. The bodies. The dancing.
The following someone like a dog on scent.
The scent. Burning in my nose.
The spinning room. Emptying.
Darkness falling. Darkness filling me up.
Darkness waiting for me when I wake up. Empty.
Waking up. The dark apartment.
I remember.
I try to forget.
“I don’t remember,” I answer her.
“How can I forget?” she asks.
And when I turn to her, confused, she tells me more than even I know.
“You can’t remember the nights you don’t come home.
You can’t remember where you’ve been….
But I can’t forget. And I can’t ignore it. I can’t pretend.”
I reach for her face. I watch her eyes, her lips, her nostrils flaring.
“Hold me baby. Hold me here,” I beg
“and I swear – I won’t disappear.”
Those few true words bring her close to me and I remember this.
I remember this is who I am,
and if only we could make it so that I never forget myself.
If only I can stand here.
Not ever leave.
Not ever get lost again.