I was in the town before my end. I knew more deeply
than before I was in trouble with drinking.
I received a copy of a Graham Greene novel, The End of the Affair, in the mail.
I sat down to read it one night, sure I would not like it,
but I could not stop reading.
I felt the romance of the book was validating one more wild prolonged fling,
alcohol at the center of the fling. I had no one in mind but I knew there would be
someone. And I knew it would be trouble.
The novel made me feel as if I could see it all.
In the middle of the night there was a knock on the door.
A neighbor—I had met no one in the few days I had been in town—
asked if I would drive her and her daughter to the hospital.
Her daughter was sick, she had no car. She had seen my light.
For some reason I was glad to do so. I took the book.
The wait was long, the mother finally told me I could leave,
she could call a relative if they had to leave the hospital.
I saw them on the street days later—she hardly spoke—I wondered if it was because
we were of different races. She simply nodded when I asked if her daughter
was all right.
They left their house within a month. The house became a place for itinerants.
Six families in six months. One afternoon I heard screaming and cackling
and looked out the window to see an overweight man who could hardly walk
limping and tilting away from the old woman on the porch.
She both screamed and cackled. The overweight man finally
hobbled off like an old wagon.
I want to thank the woman and her child for interrupting my reverie.
Although I proceeded to wildly continue an affair for drinking
I feel that couple as a pull from life, a pull
from a source I was for a final time denying.
The book meant more than life. How I shaded the book
meant more than anything, anyone.
- Michael Burkard