The Point of Possible Return

My head pounded, and I was more zombie than even the slow-mo white hairs blocking every grocery aisle. She never learned, Myra, my wife, that Sunday morning was not a good time to take me shopping. A guy had to let off some steam on weekends after yet another shitty forty-plus spent mopping floors and answering to morons.

The frozen aisle felt good; iced the notion that I was sweating blood and reeking of piss, though at least one of those was probably true. Myra’s been patient, and I loved her for that because I knew what I looked like, what a total lump of embarrassment I must have been. I had on my shades to block the overhead lights and (bonus!) hide my bleary eyes, but I’m sure I looked like I felt that morning, and that description involved something crawling out of a toilet. Myra asked me about ice cream. About whether our budget dared allowed us to enjoy the Haagen-Dazs sale, or if we should stick to the store brand, which on a good day tasted like cold cardboard. Her request for permission made me want to cry.

“What the hell, honey, got to live some, right?”

Her hand felt cool when she patted my cheek, refreshingly so. Good dog. My tail wagged by way of my lips straining towards a loving smile.

Then I heard it:

“Fucking pussy,” the kid said. He and his two pockmarked pals passed wide of the wife and I, dead-blooded ole married me frozen, clinging to that smile intended for Myra.

I smiled as they neared the corner of the aisle, but worry snuffed that smile as soon as I recognized them. I tipped my shades up with my forefinger and stared. I’d most definitely seen these kids before. From a different perspective.

Of course, I’d seen them before, I even remembered the Sunday morning, then considered a very late Saturday night, when Halsey, Frankie, and I went on one last beer run, and I called some old whipped bastard a fucking pussy.

I sobered. I swallowed, my dry throat sucking a walnut over sandpaper.

“Alexander, what’s the matter, hon?” Myra asked, apparently oblivious to the obnoxious sixteen-year-old me who had just tried starting a little shit.

I took a couple of slow steps forward and paused. There I was, thirty-seven years old, married though unencumbered by children, so hungover on a Sunday morning, realizing the rest of my week was only going to suck even harder. Why she even stayed married to me, I don’t know, except maybe I amused her long past any sane expiration date. That poor young punk was sure going to get his, but what if—

I approached the corner of the aisle.

“Leave it be, hon,” Myra said. So she had heard.

“It’s okay,” I said, taking a couple more steps. “I just want to talk to him,” I said, disappearing from Myra’s view around the corner.

Maybe I could reach him. Yes, I mean I wanted to catch him, but also, maybe I could, I don’t know, really reach the little shit. Save him from becoming disappointed later, too goddamn poor to even afford a mid-life crisis that cost him more than Budweisers, Sunday morning hangovers, and dreams of a better ice cream.

Even on the cool dairy aisle I felt my beer sweat return. The fellows and I had already grabbed the twelve-pack of Buds and, I remembered this, sensed I was on their tail. Nervously chattered about my approach. So, instead of turning and taking the direct path towards checkout, we walked badass cool towards the end of the aisle, then swept through and out of the store, just stealing the beer rather than risking confrontation with me, or any request for payment at inconvenient checkout lines.

I knew I could catch us, but I also knew I wouldn’t. Or could I?

I picked up my pace, feeling certain I could still catch time and heal the catastrophe that had become my life. I was too far gone to wonder over the physics involved in such a feat, my only wish, my only hope, was that I could fix myself and be better.

I reached the end of the aisle and damn near went headlong over one of the elderly who had been pinned in my path since we’d arrived.

I called him something. An old son of a bitch, I’m ashamed to admit.

I heard Myra calling from a distance, but I could not stop myself. Until—

---

Myra’s voice was faint, probably not to him, but to me in my moment, and that was despite every ounce of my wanting to forget him entirely and instead simply reach out across the years to reclaim her. I hadn’t seen her in so long, and I didn’t want to taint what memories I had by looking back. But this moment, him, I had remembered. Even if he hadn’t called me an old SOB, I would have recognized him at once this time, so I thought I was prepared. I couldn’t catch him, not with my heart and sundry other ailments, but I could call him:

“Alexander!” I shouted, not as loud as I had hoped, but enough to stop the drunken sot.

He turned. His pursuit of those boys, us boys, was cut off, finally, after all these years. I had been around long enough to read the curiosity in his eyes, the horrible and wondrous truth that quickly birthed upon recognizing my lined face and realizing who this septuagenarian—this old son of a bitch—was.

“Do I know you … sir?” he asked.

Speak well, I thought, speaking well to myself. Don’t swear or be crude. Show him he could be better.

“It’s too late” I said. I knew. I had tried, but they weren’t ready to hear it yet.

“What?”

“We were so young then. Boys will be boys, yes, but you’re too late for them.”  At least I had been. They had never listened to me in this older skin.

I could tell he was wholly sober now and that he accepted who I was. Maybe I could get him to hear me now. I was not surprised when he approached close enough to whisper:

“Myra?”

“She left. I won’t tell you when, but I can warn you of what.” I waved my hand up and down his disheveled self, and then over my own body. “This has to stop.” She had left him in the tumult following my fortieth birthday, so it wouldn’t have been long. For him.

“I’ve got to catch him,” he said.

I shook my head in the negative.

He got angry. I could see it, he was trying to control himself, but I knew that temper—it had taken many, many years for me to shake it.

“Look at you,” he said, his face twisted by disgust. “Nothing but an old bum.”

That was not entirely true. While my Sunday best did little to impress him, I tried to look well. I’d even shaved that morning, as I had every Sunday morning throughout a lifetime spent seeking another grocery store miracle—the way others cleaned themselves up to seek them from their church pew. Well, I’d found it at last. Poor posture and the cane likely didn’t help my cause, but time and toil were rough. Still, I knew him well enough not to be cowed.

“And just what were you going to tell him?” I asked.

He didn’t have any answer for that. No, just another question.

“What are you going to tell me?” he asked.

I was silent except for a deep breath. This was it. Finally. But what indeed? Before I could say, a shock of terror ran through me as I sensed Myra’s shadow crossing into my path. Her approach was unbearable. Unable to suffer even a flicker of my lost love, I patted his shoulder before walking on past him. I departed hoping what I had already said had been enough, and drifted away to the lonely life he had built for me.

Or so I had believed.

Outside of the store, the day was bright, and I felt … better? There were no aches and pains and, dare I say, my overall general constitution felt, well, improved? The throb my pulse usually drummed at my temples was gone, and my breath came without struggle. My head felt clear, though my memory somewhat cloudy as I tried to settle myself; I was not so much frightened, but confused. I was aware of what I had just done, who I had just spoken with, but there were now gaps in the before.

“There you are! Did you forget the milk, hon?”

The lines in Myra’s eyes outside of the grocery amplified a sophistication I could not recall just moments ago, yet were familiar in every one of my days as those gaps in my memory suddenly filled. I stood up straight. She smiled warmly before a puzzled expression overtook her as she gestured towards my cane, which I then dropped in that parking lot forever.

Myra’s arm locked with mine and my memory kept expanding, flashes of life unwinding through my mind, ultimately providing clarity. There had been no more Saturday night binges after that shopping day decades ago. The second time I’d crossed my own path. Too busy trying to get ahead. Some time, not long after the man I might have become had advised the man I most definitely had been, I had, as he might have said, gotten my shit together. I earned my degree, handed over my mop, and exchanged my rags and attitude for office work that rewarded advancement without beating up my body. Myra stuck with me this time and, what with her being a few years younger than I was, we were eventually blessed with two children.

My only regret was that I, the teenage I, hadn’t been ready to listen to that other me, the me who never really had to be.