Rescue

On my right was the drunk man with the wide blank stare.  I don’t think he blinked once the entire time he held my hand.

I was talk­ing to my friends when he grabbed it; the one not hold­ing the vodka cran­berry.  The band was loud and the crowd raised its roar to match it.  The heat of our heads bounced off each other’s as we shouted our con­ver­sa­tion in the tight face hud­dle we had made in order to hear each other better.

The air and the noise slapped me alert as I with­drew from the group and turned to look at who I was sud­denly hold­ing hands with.

An older guy, late 40’s maybe, bald­ing and slight like I could push him over if I really wanted to.  His t-shirt was low-cut, loose and gray.  Dark in spots from liq­uid; sweat maybe or drink.  His chest pale with scat­tered unat­trac­tive hairs.  He said noth­ing, just his blank, wide-eyed stare, almost pleading.

I looked at his hand clasped in mine.  He had it strong against his chest like he needed it. I looked back at his eyes, then our hands. Our hands.

We were sud­denly an “our”.

I smiled wary and hes­i­tant, puz­zled. He made no move to let go and nei­ther did I.  Many times I’ve felt the need for a hand to hold.  This drunken, unblink­ing man with his hand clasp­ing mine tight to his chest, maybe this is what he needed right now.  I’ve never had the guts to take another’s hand, with­out words, with­out expla­na­tion.  Maybe now, in this moment, he had found the guts.

I thought of the scene at the end of Titanic, Rose beg­ging Jack to not let go.

Maybe I was sav­ing him.

My friends even­tu­ally noticed this odd dis­play and asked if I was alright.  I didn’t know what to say.  I forced a smile and a shrug as if to say, “Drunks, right?”

The man I had come with had not yet noticed, his body angled, watch­ing the band.  I knew there would just be moments until he turned around and saw.  I hoped he would not want to kick his ass.  I hoped he would under­stand, as I was — our palms together, fin­gers entwined as if famil­iar — that it was just for now, for his need­ing, and it meant noth­ing but so much every­thing.  For him.

I held on.

–

xTx is a writer liv­ing in South­ern Cal­i­for­nia.  You can find her writ­ing in places like PANK, Dogz­plot, Thieves Jar­gon, eli­mae, decomP and >Kill Author.  She has a free e-book enti­tled, “Nobody Trusts a Black Magi­cian” avail­able at non­press (http://notapunkrockpress.com/titles.html )  She says noth­ing at www.notimetosayit.com .

© 2009, Metazen. All rights reserved. 

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, November 24th, 2009 at 4:33 am