The Courage Of Love
by Darren Stone

I started drinking again today.

I made it almost three months without Lori, and ended up taking half a day off work to start a weekend binge. It was 1:00, and I sat at my desk and I thought about life, and I couldn't stop shaking, and I got up and I went home.
I hadn't talked to Lori since the Big Ugly Night, but it was time, and as soon as I got home, I called. I had to look up her number. How strange that only three months had dissolved this once precious and familiar number from my memory. The phone number that used to make my heart race, now made it ache so deeply.
I left a message. "It's me. I'm not doing good. Can you call me sometime?"

Ah yes, the Big Ugly Night. How did it get so ugly and so final? She said I stopped loving her, but nothing could be farther from the truth. She was a hard woman, true. Unbelievably beautiful, but hard. And mean. I don't know what made her so hard - I suppose it was the way she had always been treated before.
She wasn't a Romantic like me, and when she tried, she usually clobbered her romantic intentions with a poorly-timed insult or one of her paranoid accusations. That was excusable, perhaps - we're not all Romantics - but worst of all, she kept me Outside. A year and a half, and she never let me In. I loved her without fail, with my entire being, but I didn't have a role in her life.
She seemed to believe at first. You know, in Us. But the months rolled by, and she never involved me in any plans - with her children, her job, her vacations, her holidays, finances, transportation problems - not even when she shopped for, and bought a house.
We never spent a holiday together.
Somewhere along the line she stopped believing.
And although she didn't involve me, still, I loved her. I figured she'd let me In eventually. To be honest, I didn't have anything left in my life BUT her. I left my friends, my job security, my home of fifteen years and ultimately all my hobbies and interests to devote myself to her life and happiness.
I gave it all up for her, but in return I suppose all I received was my new birthday microwave, and a box of various open liquor bottles. I found the box last week, stashed away in my garage and forgotten until now. A cardboard box of alcohol hidden away - per her instruction - but not destroyed. A testimonial of her half-hearted attempt at following twelve steps towards a sober and healthier life with me.
A box of liquor which once comforted her and caressed her lips, and lulled her to sleep, while I sat awake and alone in a cold, empty bed. A cold, empty bed in a strange, new town surrounded by strange, new people who I never did meet.
A box of liquor which is helping me find the Courage tonight.


Dom B&B Liqueur. This was her favorite, I think. Expensive, which is probably why she liked it. Lori had this notion that she had high-class tastes, apparently because she lived for eleven years with a guy who made money. I don't make real good money, and one of the first things I learned was to keep my mouth shut about "good taste." I admit, people with money can develop a better appreciation, acquire nicer things, and demand finer living. But I guess some of them just end up spending a lot of money, unnecessarily.
Lori may have had high-class taste, but she didn't really have good taste. If she thought something was big or heavy or old, she bought it. Not because it matched anything, and not because it was useful or even pretty. But because she thought people with money should have large, old things. So she had a modest ranch house - which, by the way, she thought should be remodeled into a Bellaire property - decorated with old, mismatched, overpriced, yard-sale-quality riff-raff and oversized, out-of-place, gargantuan accessories.
This B&B stuff is not something I particularly enjoy. I have to sip it in tiny little sips, and tiny sips are not going to get me anywhere tonight. Nevertheless, there's some kind of irony in getting drunk over a girl and using her inventory to do it. So, I'll keep sipping the B&B while I find something I can really put away.


Three bottles of wine. Now I've never been a wine connoisseur. I have a very limited palette, and wine is typically either too bitter or too delicate for me. "Acquired taste," you say. Who's got the time? When somebody suggests to me that anything is an "acquired taste," they're only telling me it's something foul that I can learn to accept with enough exposure. I mean, why bother? Seems to me there are enough fluids in the world that I shouldn't have to waste my time and cash on something that isn't instantly delicious.
Again, here's this notion that Lori drank wine because that's what a person of good taste does. They drink wine. Whatever.
She could pound the brewskis too, and that, of course, was the heart of our failure. Let me go on record by saying Lori wasn't a falling-down gutter-drunk. But she couldn't drink two beers. Or three. Or four.
And it wasn't ever just "a glass of wine with dinner."
And why be in any kind of relationship if the end of a good day is when you fall asleep semi-comatose while your significant other sits on the sofa and mourns for a decent conversation? Why even pretend to be living?
That's no life.
That's escape from life.
Anyway, I think I'll pass on the wine right now. It'll be fine without me.


Half a bottle of rum. Yummm. Having somewhat of a sweet-tooth, I can do rum with anything. I have made white chocolate-dipped pretzels using rum in lieu of milk, and trust me, they were a hit. Rum and anything bubbly. Rum and chili. Rum and wine coolers. I think I even tried Frosted Flakes once, and wasn't too disappointed.
The rum tonight is a welcome friend, mixed simply with good ol' Coca-Cola, and my brain is already dancing.
There's a smell to rum that reminds me of a tiny blue house on a dirt road where Lori lived when I first moved across the country to join her. What a move that was. It took five days from Los Angeles to Virginia, pulling everything I owned. And when I got there, Lori was as excited as I was. I had a small apartment closer to town, but I didn't stay there much. It was expected that we spend most of our time at her place, and that was fine for a while. I just wanted to be with her.
She had only recently left her Money-Man, and renting the little blue house seemed like proof enough that she was committed to our future together.
She didn't keep rum in her cabinet until I arrived, but since I could mix it with anything, she started to keep it around. Probably because it gave me the chance to drink with her. And sometimes, just to be with Lori, I found myself emptying a bottle for myself. Sometimes, I did what was needed to keep pace with the woman I loved, the beer, the wine, and the Dom B&B.
It seems like I drank a lot of rum in that little blue house.


Mad Dog 20/20. Paydirt. I had forgotten all about MD 20/20 until just now, and I am not wasting any time getting the cap off. I have never pretended to have a great deal of class, and I'm not starting tonight.
This is the wino's Kool-Aid. And I love the stuff. I can guzzle it and get buzzed within three or four minutes. And I'm six minutes in.
And it's sweet.
And it's numbing.
Lori accepted Mad Dog not for herself, but for me. I think she liked that I could really slam The Dog and go for the buzz.
And my plan is to keep buzzing.
There is a certain amount of buzz I must maintain to find the Courage to get through this night.


There are some other bottles in the box. They must be mixes, because the liquids are all bright red and blue and yellow. No, wait - the blue one is tequila. I can't do tequila. I had a mighty and memorable night with tequila when I was twenty-five, and I haven't touched the stuff since.


Riddle: what's bald and weighs 5 pounds less?
Answer: me, after drinking tequila.

But tonight I'm dropping one capful, just to say I did it.
Naturally, I have to chug some more Mad Dog to wash out that nasty tequila-taste.


I'm better now.
Things are swimming, and I really can't read the labels anymore. It doesn't matter. I've gotten as far as I'm going to get. I wish Lori hadn't given up on us. I still can't believe she turned it off like she did. She has no idea how I lived every minute for "us." It would have been nice to talk things through once or twice.
I made her promise, before I ever left L.A., that we would always talk through our differences. I'm just the type that needs to get everything out in the open.
And I can honestly say, with no hesitation, Lori never ever ever ever ever used the words, "Let's work this out." No sir, she marched out of the room instead. Or drove away. Or hung up the phone. Or slammed the door.
You probably can't imagine the kind of life I lived, needing to work things out, and never getting the opportunity. Every day was a day of unfinished business. So many nights alone with so many unanswered questions. No differences ever resolved.
And the last time she turned away - the Big Ugly Night? It still hangs out there. No closure whatsoever.


But that was three months ago, and the Mad Dog is gone now, and there is a picture in the bedroom I need to see.
Here we are. Sitting on my futon, clutching each other so tightly. This was our first weekend together, and I knew then I could never let her go.
I can't control my tears, as I stare at this picture of two people so ready for love, and so willing to give up everything. Two lovers about to take a chance.
Was I shaking then? I'm shaking now.
Did she believe, then?
Did you believe I was telling the truth on that day, Lori?
What changed? Why did you stop believing? Why couldn't you look at our differences, look at my heart, and work with me towards a resolution?


People are always going to have differences.

Maybe how you deal with it determines whether you are lovers or strangers.



I'm sorry, Lori, that I couldn't convince you to look deeper and listen to the truth. The truth that I never stopped loving you. That I never lied to you, Lori. Things aren't always as they appear.
I didn't have a lot of money for your birthday present, because I bought you a ring. The best I could find.
And after I took it back last month, well, that is how I bought the gun, if you're wondering.
The $949 Kimber Eclipse stainless steel .45 caliber semi-automatic.
When I left the counter, the man said, "Be careful with that thing."

Funny - nobody ever says that when you're buying an engagement ring.


One more taste of the B&B.
At last, I have the Courage.

I'm sorry Lori.