"DRUNK"
She checked the rearview mirror a second time.
Yes, a police car.
No, the lights weren’t flashing. Yet.
She’s almost home when a bright light to the left, blue
& red and making her heart thump a little in her throat, appears in her
left mirror. She glances at the speedometer. Speeding, but just barely. She
slows down without braking.
Once it passes her, she lets out a long breath, almost
crying with relief. He (or she) must be after someone else. Someone speeding up
ahead, or maybe a domestic abuse situation, something that’s not her and her
slight speed. The guitar whining on the radio is not making things better,
though…it seems ominous, somehow.
Like:
The night won’t end well. Will she make it home? If she
does, she’ll forever be thankful. She flips off the radio. Concentrate. The
yellow line is two feet away. Make sure it stays there.
Then, without any warning, another police car appears in
her mirror. This one turns the siren on, briefly. A sound like a cat, howling.
How could this be happening? Her relief, so sweet and unappreciated just
minutes ago, turns to anger instead of fear.
When a cop approaches her car, she’s almost tempted to
jump out of the car instead of waiting, which is protocol. She wants to accuse
this young man (and he IS young, young enough to be her son) of ruining her
night. Ask if he knows how hard she’s just worked, how, for almost 10 hours
(most of it on her feet), she’s balanced, scraped, dodged, and swerved her body
around a dark, smelly restaurant. Oh, it’s her second home, and she loves it
like that, but, still…if she’s honest with herself, it’s also draining.
Literally, some nights she feels like the blood has left her body.
Well, she had better calm down or things could escalate
to a point from which she couldn’t save herself.
Before leaving work she had sat down at the bar, still in
her apron, and shared a drink with Eddie. Eddie was the only bartender close to
her age. Goldie had worked at Misty’s since she was in her twenties, and now
she was 62. A good-looking 62, but, there it was: she was now the oldest
waitress in the restaurant. Hell, she may be the oldest waitress in town. Now
it seemed that most of the servers were young college students supplementing
their weekend spending money. For Goldie, this was her career, and it always
had been.
“Do you know that we’ve never sat down together, just to
talk?” he had asked earlier in the evening, when there was a lull just after
the dinner crowd had thinned. “I feel like I don’t even know you.”
Well, this was a surprise. Always just cordial, Goldie
felt Eddie didn’t find her worthy. Unlike her, his wife didn’t have to work.
His bartending gig was a fun diversion, to help out his longtime friend, the
bar’s owner.
“Maybe I could stay for just a drink or two tonight. Keep
you company while you clean up the bar,” she smiled. She could afford to be
daring. He was married, and she’d never had any interest in him before. What
was there to lose now? He was just another married man, sure of himself and his
picture-perfect life.
“Okay”, he answered. “Okay, then.” He looked pleased and
surprised as well. This turn of events made Goldie light on her feet for the
rest of the night.
At 10:30, she sat down on a bar stool. The other two
waitresses that night were in a hurry to leave. Good. Eddie would have no
excuse but to devote all attention to her.
“Long day?” she asked. Since bartending was his second
job, she knew he did something nine-to-five, she just didn’t know what.
Letting out a long breath, “well, yeah. Don’t really want
to get into it, though. How was your day? Your section was busy tonight.” He
wiped the bar down and watched her, took her drink order.
After three drinks (the first one she downed quickly, out
of nervousness), Goldie got up to leave the bar. She stumbled just a little,
but that was mostly the damn carpet. The owner hadn’t replaced it in years, and
little ripples sprung up here and there.
“You okay?” Eddie asked, but it was just a perfunctory question.
He didn’t care, of course he didn’t. His life was elsewhere. All of a sudden,
Goldie felt stupid for sitting down and getting a little drunk. She knew
better, and she berated herself for not thinking ahead…she was supposed to let
her daughter’s dog out when she got off work, and that was across town. It
would be 1:00 before she got home.
Now, the cop looked at her face. She did her best to
focus, smiling at him without teeth. Like his mother might smile at him if he’d
done a good deed. Tonight, his good deed would be letting an old lady off easy.
“Goldie, huh?” he asked. She got this all the time. In
the beginning, when Goldie Hawn became popular on Laugh-In, she loved it. Felt
a kinship of sorts. Now, with that other Goldie still looking like she was only
forty, it was just an embarrassing nuisance. Something more to shrug off at the
end of the day.
“Yes.” Concentrate. No slurring allowed. Your life
depends on it, she thought.
“Do you know how fast you were going?” he asked.
“I do…I think I was going around 37” she answered,
enunciating carefully, but not too slowly. Focus. Concentrate.
“Well, I think it was more like 47”, he answered, trying
hard to look into her eyes. What did he think he would see there? She was fine,
just fine. She was just a little aware of being in that invincible zone that
you reach when you’ve had one too many.
All at once, she knew. She had looked at the speedometer
wrong. These mistakes happened more and more lately. Her self-pity became
desperation, as she started to pray silently that he would let her go.
“I’m sorry, I guess I was in a hurry to get to my
daughter’s home. I need to let her dog out tonight, and…” she trailed off. Deep
breath. This is your life, Goldie. Whatever happens next, you created it.
“Well, I guess I’ll let you get on your way, then. Don’t
want to keep that pup waiting”. He had her come back to his car so he could
write out a warning, and, all the while, Goldie thanked God. Thanked God that
this kid probably was thinking of his mother, who, just a little tipsy, might
also mistake the 4 for a 3 on the dashboard.
