Summer 1997

Inspired by "Deer Girl" this morning

A Pittsburgh Hardware Store on Forbes Avenue in Squirrel Hill

Squirrel Hill Hardware had a “Help Wanted” sign in the window. I needed some steady income to pay the rent when clients of my freelance German-English translation gig were sparse, so I went in and talked to the manager.

“Hardware is in my DNA,” I claimed. My great-grandfather had run “CC Gill and Sons” hardware on mainstreet in Orange, Virginia after all. It seemed the right place for me. Maybe it could have been. In the interview, the manager asked if I drank. I guess he had had experience with alcoholics who needed a gig and wasn’t too interested in having anyone who was less than reliable. The previous April, I had quit drinking - for a week - but I had begun again after a date at the “Squirrel Hill Cafe” just across Forbes Avenue from the hardware store. Thereby hangs a tale (with apologies to Jacques in “As You Like It” by Shakespeare.) I was, at the time, a motley fool.

“No,” I replied. This was a lie, but I was limiting myself to about a pint of Wild Turkey 101 a night at the time. I got the job. It was part-time, and I guess I did it for a month or two. Part of my responsibilities was to be a custodian of an apartment building that the owner had across the way from the store. I vacuumed the hallways and, if needed, tended to individual apartments. One of them I recall well. The owner showed it to me and explained that the tenant, when in town, worked from his home. On his neatly organized desk, a sealed envelope rested on the keyboard of his desktop computer. It read “In the event of my death….” I admired the foresight. One never knows when one might have “An Appointment in Samara!” - if you are unfamiliar with that story, I recommend it.

I don’t remember a lot about those days, however, that date I mentioned earlier had blossomed into a relationship. In the beginning, she told me that she had made her face sore from smiling. I really was over-the-moon about her since I had been struggling to find my feet in a relationship for the past three years after my divorce which, as it happens, had coincided with my acceptance to graduate school. I had just finished my work as a teaching assistant and this was my first move toward employment outside of the University of Pittsburgh. I had, essentially, been drunk throughout my studies. I’d nearly died of pneumonia as a result of taking such poor care of myself in March 1996. Doctors had thought I was about three hours from being beyond recall when I arrived in the Shadyside Hospital ER with blood pressure of 70/30 and a temperature of 103. My blood had gone septic. Had a good friend in the Art History department not driven me to the ER after getting a message through her Japanese roommate, poorly translated from the answering machine tape, I would not be here now.

I had survived however, and the same friend had come down with me to the Squirrel Cage (as the Squirrel Hill Cafe is lovingly known) to meet this woman on a blind date that April. I had been sober, as I mentioned, for a week because I knew that I needed to stop drinking if I was ever going to finish my thesis for my Master’s degree in German. We had been studying, as was our habit, at 61C - a coffee shop named for the bus that stopped there on Murray Avenue. It was a very popular hang out for the grad school crowd. The cafe phone had rung while we were there and I was paged. It was this woman who was asking if we could meet at the Cage. A short time later, my art historian pal and I were sitting in a booth and I was having my hamburger and iced tea when a blonde in overalls walked in and began talking to the bartender. I went up and asked if she was who I thought she was and was very pleased by my good luck. We had not seen each other before but had connected on Match.com - we were early adopters of that platform. My entry had been prompted by my art historian pals who had started using it to find dates.

Now that I was sober, I was also lonely. This is something of a pattern in my life. When I was in a relationship, I didn’t drink so much - or at all. When I wasn’t, I did. I’ve come to think that alcohol’s personification is like a jealous lover who broaches no rivals. This time, thought, it was different.

After meeting at the Cage, my “safety-friend” and I took my new date back down to the 61C cafe. As it turns out, my new friend found it too bright, so back we went to the Squirrel Cage. This time, we sat at the end of the bar, closest to the door. As we settled onto our barstools she said, “It’s so nice to go out with a guy and have a beer. All my friends are in recovery and they are so disclosive! They’ll tell you their whole life story as soon as you meet them!” I agreed that this was unatractive behavior and ordered a Blue Moon Ale. There went that week of abstinence. For the next eight months, I’d drink like I like to - which is excessively - and have a tumultously exciting relationship with this young woman, who, as it turns out, was then a highly placed professional in the service of those who had extreme needs. That’s about as detailed as I’ll be to protect the innocent.

So, I was loving life as I worked as a freelance translator, worked on my thesis, and taught a summer session at the University of Pittsburgh. Then came the hardware gig.

My girlfriend had feelings about my willingness to take such a menial job. I rationalized that I needed something to keep the rent paid that would not interfere with my freelance work. However, I had little of that. As it became an issue, I finally called up the owner and quit, saying that there was a medical emergency with my parents and that I was leaving Pittsburgh! That was a lie. It was an unnecessary lie.

It freed me up though to let go and let the universe take over. My girlfriend and I left for Europe for a couple of weeks to visit one of my university colleagues and tour around Europe. Being together 24/7, it was obvious that I drank excessively as often as I could but this did not seem to phase her in the least. We took a day trip from Freiburg to Staufen and climbed up the ruins of the castle there where Mephistopheles had been conjured up by the historical Dr. Faustus. We took another to Milan and toured the Duomo before coming back that night. We took a trip to Paris where, after getting into a fight when I said something I shouldn’t when she was treated rudely by the guards at the Louvre, we split up on the left bank of the Seine. Of course, we couldn’t literally split up then and there but we cancelled our plans to join a French friend from Pittsburgh at Chartes.

I walked up Montmartre to make our excuses while my girlfriend waited with our luggage and we caught the night train back to Basel and to Freiburg with intentions of flying out early. On the train, however, in the noise as we waited to depart, she said, “This seems to go on endlessly.” She was referring to the pattern of getting into relationships and then having them break up. I thought she said “I just want to end this.” - as in the present fight. I agreed and we did end the fight. We stayed together for another three months. I did not find employment in that time and after spending Veterans Day weekend at my parents’ place in Amherst County, VA, we broke up for good. I was devasted. I was suicidal. This seemed to go on endlessly. I decided that I would sober up and went over to get my stuff from her apartment on the evening of November 13, 1997. She asked, “What are you going to do now?” I said, “First, I’m going to sober up.” She said, “Well, I never knew you had a problem, but, I’ll give you this. Whatever you do, you do it!” That last bit stuck with me. The first part might have since she was a trained professional who ought to be able to detect a problem. Denial runs deep however and I was not in denial any longer. I knew. I either had to get sober or kill myself. I am writing now so I guess you can tell how it all shook out.

Thanks go to Deer Girl for having written something of her own “harrowing” experience which prompted the writing of this tale.

As I was telling my cohort this morning, paraphrasing Keith Richards, I’m grateful to be here. I’m grateful to be anywhere. I’m going to post this one publicly and I hope no one will find it in bad taste.

Onward!