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Our man Evans is discovering, little by little, what isolation means. After cutting everyone off, he begins to realize
that he actually needs people. In the city he has contact with only three individuals: his employer, his friend Buddy,
and Carrie, whom he occasionally sleeps with. These three do not provide enough human contact for him to maintain his
sense of humanity.
As well, they are not at his beckon call. Working nights, he almost never sees his boss. Buddy wants to be there for
Evans, but he has obligations of his own. And although Carrie likes Evans and sees him as an interesting and tragic
figure, she is not about to commit her every moment to being available for him. So when three days pass and Evans has
not had more than a brief telephone conversation with another human being, he begins to think strange thoughts.
Three days may not seem like a lot. Perhaps you think you could go three days alone without difficulty, and perhaps
you could, if you are emotionally stable and not teetering on the brink of a spiritual black hole. Perhaps you could
pass three days blissfully alone, perhaps even enjoying a stretch of quiet solitude. But Evans, depressively lonely
and beginning to question the value of life, is not coping well. And if you can understand that, then perhaps you can
understand why he suddenly decides to reach out for contact in a direction that he never expected he would again.
Evans decides to call Trish, his ex-fiance. He does not come to the decision lightly. In fact, he spends the whole day
thinking it over. In the late afternoon he goes out and picks up a liter of cheap red wine. At home he rolls himself
several cigarettes and sits looking at the telephone. He drinks a cup of wine and looks at the phone. He refills his
cup, smokes a cigarette and looks at the phone a while longer.
If he could use the power of his mind to make things happen, then the phone would ring and it would be Carrie on the
line. But he can't and it doesn't, so he sits staring at the phone, wondering if he's man enough to call his ex and
face the music. He drains his cup of wine and wishes he'd bought two bottles. Maybe three.
With the cigarette stubbed out in the tray, our man places a hand on the receiver, wondering without picking it up
what he would say if Trish were there to answer the phone. Would she cry? Would she scream and shout? Curse and swear?
Where have you been, you bastard, do you have any idea what you've done to me? He takes his hand off the phone.
His chest feels like it's full of lead. How long has it been? He's been in the city three months. Three months since
he looked Trish in the eye, three months since he heard her voice. Deep hazel eyes, clear sweet voice. She's beautiful.
She's beautiful and sweet. And loveable. And loving and good. Caring. Soft. Tender. Wonderful. She's a wonderful girl.
A beautiful, special, wonderful girl.
Evans finds tears in his eyes and his nose begins to run. He wipes his eyes with the back of his hand, refills his
cup and reaches for another cigarette. "Steady now," he says aloud to himself. He takes a long sip of the wine, winces
and exhales sharply, the taste of the cheap California red raw on his breath.
He stands up and lights the cigarette. "You're hitting the wine too fast," he says. "There's no point in talking to
anyone if you're drunk." He sniffs and blinks, trying to stifle the onset of emotion. He smiles. "And you only start
talking to yourself out loud when you've been drinking."
He takes careful steps, moving around the small room. "And really, what do you want to say to her anyway?" he asks.
"Worse, what do you expect her to say to you? 'Oh Evans, I've been so worried. Are you all right? I know you must be
going through something awful. I understand. It's okay.' Yeah, right." He takes a drag, exhales. "Shit, what a
nightmare."
"Hello, Trish," he says, play-acting an imaginary conversation. "I just wanted to tell you I'm sorry, and that if I
could go back and change everything I would, but I can't, so... ah, bullshit." Drag. Exhale. Sip of wine. "Hello
Trish. Sorry I humiliated you in front of everyone you know. Yeah, I guess that was a dick-headed thing to do, but
I've been going through a selfish phase lately..."
Sip of wine. Steps in a slow circle, pacing around the room as he talks. "But you're not the only one who suffered,
Trish. Yes, I know you were humiliated. Yes, I know you'll carry the emotional burden of rejection around with you for
the rest of your life. Yes, I know that I probably fucked up your self-esteem and that you'll have a hard time trusting
people from now on. Yes, I know that you wasted the flowering years of your youth with a lying coward. Yes. Yes. I
know all that. But I had my reasons for leaving."
Our man stops pacing and rocks up and down on his toes. He takes a drag and stares at a fixed point in space. He
exhales. Takes a sip of wine. "I had my reasons." He tries to prepare a face that is at once strong and sympathetic,
a face that has wept and suffered and felt shame but survived with dignity intact. "I had my reasons."
He takes a last drag from the cigarette and turns to butt it out into the ashtray, but feels a wave of dizziness.
Evans holds out his arms to steady himself, then takes deliberate steps toward the table and crushes the cigarette in
the tray. He sits down on the bed.
Alcohol tolerance is not our man's strength. He knows how much the wine is affecting him, and with a self-consciously
careful hand he reaches for the green glass bottle. He fills his cup, sets the bottle down and has another sip of wine.
"Fuck her," he says at last. "I had my reasons."
"So what were your reasons then, Evans?" he asks himself. "Explain yourself. Explain yourself to her. And to your
mother. Explain yourself to everyone at home who might say, 'Why did you take off like that?' Here's your chance, big
man." A smile passes over his face and he whispers, "You only talk to yourself when you're drunk."
He runs his hands over his face, runs his fingers through his hair, then gets up and walks to the bathroom. He
urinates, flushes, and stops in front of the sink to wash his hands, and as he's done countless times before our man
pauses and looks into the mirror. He looks into his eyes. They are blue and red. His face is flushed. A stupid smile
crosses his face.
"You fucking fool," he says to himself. "Are you going to call her now? Tell her how you feel? Drunk? Yeah, she loves
talking to you when you're drunk."
He leans on the sink and rubs his face against his shoulder. "You fucking fuck." He straightens up and looks himself
in the eye again. "She's not going to want you back. And what the fuck? Do you really want to go back to her anyway?
Start all over again? Spent the rest of your life in some little nest of safe desperation, live in misery because it's
better than being alone? Spend the rest of your life crawling on your belly like a snake apologizing? You don't want
that. And you know she's not going to take you back. So you're fucked. Just fucking face it. You. Are. Fucked."
A tear rolls down his cheek. "She would have to be fucking crazy to even listen to your bullshit." He washes his face,
dries with a towel and walks back into the gloomy living room.
He sits back down in front of the wine cup, the cigarettes and the phone. After a moment's hesitation he reaches for
a cigarette and lights it, leaning back and staring up.
"She's not going to love you now, man," he tells himself. "And think about it, even if you beg and apologize and she
says she still loves you, you know it's still over. There's no going back. There's no fixing this."
Reaching for the wine, he shakes his head as though he were explaining something to a particularly thick-headed
person. "Shit, why would she still love you? Are you so fucking special? Are you such a goddamn all-star that you
can treat people like complete shit and they'll just roll over and take it? Fuck you, man. I mean, fuck you."
He pours the last of the wine into his cup and drinks it down. He takes a drag on his cigarette and decides the
best thing to do would be to go for a long walk. To clear his head. Get out of the apartment, out into the night air.
Get away from the four walls and the phone. Get out and breathe.
He puts on his jacket and moves to the door. As he reaches for the knob, the phone starts to ring. He turns to dash
back and answer it, but he moves too quickly and trips over his own feet, falling face first and smacking his chin on
the linoleum floor.
To Evans, the ringing of the phone seems like the count from a referee, shouted to a punch-drunk boxer lying under the
glare of the lights: "Four...seven...five...three...nine..."
"Ohhhhuuuhhhhhh," he moans, reaching up to feel his aching chin and jaw. Struggling forward, he reaches for the
phone and claws it off the tabletop down onto his chest. The receiver spills off the cradle and he manages to grab it
with insensate fingers. "Ohhhhh...hellooo..." he groans into the mouthpiece.
"Evans? Is that you? It's Carrie. Are you okay? What's wrong? What happened?"
"Ahhhh...It's okay. Uh, I'm okay."
"Are you sure? You sound strange. Did you take something?"
"No." He rubs his jaw, wobbling it back and forth. It doesn't seem to be broken. "I tripped and hit my chin. I'm okay."
"Oh. Um...I got your messages. I'm going to a party tonight. I was wondering if you wanted to come."
Evans looks at his watch. It takes long spinning seconds for him to decipher what he sees and understand that it
is twenty minutes after eight. "Maybe. I won't be ready for a while, though."
"That's okay. Do you want to meet me around ten?"
"I guess so. Where?"
They agree to meet at the corner of Queen and Bathurst and Evans hangs up the phone. He stretches out on the floor
and relaxes for a minute, just listening to his body. His jaw aches. His head is a dizzy mess. The room is spinning.
His elbow hurts from the fall.
"Now," he says aloud, "is this good timing or bad?" He slowly raises himself into a sitting position. The room spins.
"And would it be a good idea or bad to see her right now?"
He crawls to the bathroom, struggling out of his clothes on the way. Naked, he crawls into the bathtub, sweeps the
curtain closed and turns the shower on, sending a freezing rain down across his back. He adjusts the temperature to a
tolerable level, takes a deep breath and vomits, sending forth a stream of dark maroon to mix with the warm water and
slowly swirl down the drain.
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