A Funny Thing Happened That Resulted In Me Drinking Quite Heavily For A While

This surrounds a break-up I had with a girl a good few years ago now... who ever said 'It is better to have loved and lost than to have never loved at all' is full of s**t... ;-)

     Welcome to the Emotional Cocktail Lounge. I�m Howie and I�ll be your waiter for the evening, may I take your coat? Please, pull up a stool, help yourself to a plate of crudit�s and try not to choke�

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     I guess that I should have seen it coming, but we always say that don't we? Then again, I suppose, had I seen it, I probably wouldn't have wanted to have believed it anyway. It's like a cocktail (God knows I've had a few of those since Black Friday):

     Too many shots of Optimism - One slug of Stubbornness with a dash of Procrastination for good measure and topped with an acerbic twist of, 'bare faced refusal to acknowledge the simple fact that things are not as rosy as one would like to believe'.
     Give it a stir and it turns a real s****y colour.
     Served in a tall glass, this is known in the Emotional Cocktail Lounge as
........................................�The Unrecoverable Downward Spiral�

     It�s a long drink with a straw and you have to keep on swallowing even though it seems to go on forever, with people chanting chug-a-lug-chug-a-lug, in your ear. And you stomach it, that�s the crazy thing, even though you know deep, deep down that it's going to repeat on you later.
     That�s the trouble with us men, or certainly, that�s my trouble; ever the optimist, you see. I should learn to be more pessimistically optimistic, or maybe I�m talking cod s**t. Whatever, it wouldn�t be the first time...

     Black Friday: 21st Feb 1997
     Her little blue Nova pulled up just outside my parents� terraced house where I stay from time to time whilst on leave from the Navy. Lea put her pretty head in her hands and said to me. �I�m sorry, I just can�t carry on any more.�
     �There�s no need, we�re practically outside my front door.�
     �No, I mean I can�t go on seeing you anymore.�
     This was not a time for flippancy; every paranoid thought that had entered my head over the past four and a half years came rushing back all at once. It was a cold and unsettling wave that swamped me, took hold of me and slammed me face first into the sharp shingle of the car seat.
     �Who is he?� I asked, allowing my paranoia to get the better of me in spite of myself. I had to know and yet didn�t dare hear the truth in case it was as I had feared. Thank God it wasn�t.
     �No, there�s no-one else, I swear. It�s just me� only me.� She still hadn�t moved her hands from her face.
     �Why?� As realisation, that this was the end, dawned, I was having problems forming sentences.
     �Oh God, I don�t know. It�s just that it�s not working is it? You must have known that, you must have sensed it!�
     �So there�s nobody else then.�
     Lea shook her head without speaking and I was oddly content with that. There was a long pause and I felt my face burning as I stared dully through the rain splattered windscreen.
     I forced some spit into my mouth. �We�ve come through problems before,� I managed to say, now only too aware of the strangled pitch that my voice had taken.
     Lea stared crying then and turned to face me; I could see her out of the corner of my eye. I continued to stare straight ahead; I couldn�t return her gaze for then I knew that it would truly be over.
     �I�m sorry,� she apologised again, �when you went away last year, I could hardly cope without seeing you, but I got through it and got used to being single.�
     Oh Christ, I thought, then this really is it.
     I�d returned towards the latter part of �96 from a six-month tour of South America and the Falkland Islands. It was strange, I noted in a detached fashion, that 15 years after the conflict that the Falkland�s were still claiming casualties of a sort.
     �I got used to not having you around and after a while, I seemed not to miss you as much as I should.�
     �But I�m back now.� F**k me my eyes were stinging and I had begun to feel sick.
     �Yes but it�s not been right since you came home, we argue most weekends you�re back. We�ve been more like friends than lovers these past three months.�
     �But I still love you,� I bit down hard on my lip and my eyes were beginning to burn so much now that I had to blink twice as much. I drew in a deep, shuddering breath.
     Lea was crying even more now, but I didn�t move to comfort her; I couldn�t. I could not move at all, I was all of a sudden so depleted.
     �Oh Howie, I love you too. You know that, more than anything.�
     Now I was confused but I couldn�t ask why, my throat was too tight and my tongue felt twice the size.
     �It�s just that I don�t love you enough to carry on any more and it�s tearing me apart.�
     Oh God. I turned away and balled my hands into tight fists that squeezed the first in a long line of tears out through my eyes. Those were words I did not want to hear. �I just don�t love you enough.�
     This was the girl with whom I�d been shopping with for rugs and pots and crockery for when we finally found a place of our own. This was the girl who, just one week before, had sent me a Valentine�s with, �All my love, Lea xxx � inscribed within.
     This was the girl!
     �But I had plans for us,� I said brokenly. To hell with the boyish tears, I had to tell her. �I thought that when I came home that I�d take you away for the weekend, to Venice, and ask you to be my wife.�
     Why I said that, I don�t know, it was true certainly (I had the brochures), but was there any need to tell her and make her feel worse? I don�t think that I wanted her to feel bad. Then again, in retrospect, perhaps I did; perhaps I wanted to make her feel as rotten as or worse than I. Something told me though, that she already did.
     I can�t really remember much else of what she said; or rather I don�t want to remember though I fear that every word is emblazoned in my mind and shut away. She handed me a letter that she had written that week, a letter that I didn�t have the guts to read until a few days later.
     �I�d better go,� I said smearing away my tears unabashed, in a vain attempt to compose myself.
     We kissed goodbye and I remember thinking to myself, for God�s sake hold onto to this moment because you�ll never do it again, and slowly, I reached for the door handle...
     I paused and turned back to her pretty, tear streaked face, it was wracked with misery and I wondered what I had done to cause it. Still so beautiful.
     I said to her, �if you change your mind, please let me know because I�ll still love you.�
     I stumbled drunkenly from the car with my bags of dirty laundry for my Mum and left her there at the wheel sobbing.
     I did not look back.
     But I know it was a long time before she drove away...

     El Club del Fiddler Espa�ol: 24th Feb 1997
     �I still can�t believe I let her go so easily,� I said glumly, �everything inside of me screamed at me to change direction, to take hold of her and make her realise that I wouldn�t let four years just slip through my fingers. But ... I didn�t.�
     �What did she say? She loves you like a brother now, not like a boyfriend.�
     �Something like that.�
     �That�s what my ex-wife said to me, right before she sodded off with some other sodding sod half her age.�
     We sat around in a semi-circle, six of us, cradling half-empty pint glasses and a select few puffing contemplatively on cigarettes. I had somehow, found my way into a select and time honoured single gentleman�s society; El Club del Fiddler Espa�ol.
     �Ah forget it; she probably shagging some other bloke right now,� one said.
     �Oh that�s great� thanks very much.�

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     For this you will need a heavy dose of Bitterness tinged with Regret. Drop in a shot of Loneliness and a stab of Anger and sugar the glass rim with a saccharine sprinkling of manic Pseudo-happiness. (An injection of Envy is optional depending on circumstance).
     Whatever the ingredients, in the end, it always turns blue.
It�s a slammer, a single shot that you down in one go and let it sit in your belly and leave to stew� sooner or later it�ll come back up and everyone will get some.
..................................�El-Bow, the Spanish Fiddler�s Club Cocktail�

     The window in my mind swung open and the tidal paranoia that had been lapping at the glass began to pour back in. �She�d said that I was paranoid about her seeing some else, you know,� I pointed out.
     �Ah, paranoia! When a woman says that you�re paranoid, she means that she�s just found another reason to give you the hoof.� Somebody rationalised.
     It had only been three days. Easy for some to discuss it with the blas� attitude that starts with the old, ah forget it line. Not me though. Besides she couldn�t have gone off with someone else. Could she?
     �Women always say there�s no-one else once you�ve been binned because they feel bad about binning you and making you feel worse about it would make them appear heartless b*****s when they don�t want to, when in fact, that�s exactly what they are ... heartless b*****s.� Another philosophised with a sage nod.
     �Aye, snakes with tits, all of them.� Remarked another bitterly. �Scorpion women!�
     �I�ll tell you what you should do.� Someone else added draining his pint. �Your best bet is to go straight out and bury yourself in the first available female you find. Get her out of your mind. Doesn�t matter what she looks like� wham!"
     �Yep, any port in a storm. Go ugly early.�
     �You think?� I was open to all suggestions now.
     �Yeah, of course, that�s what I did when my ex just upped and did one.�
     �Cool.� Though, it didn�t seem to offer much hope.
     I was beginning to see a familiar trend with service life and love life and decided that I didn�t much care for it. So, what to do?
     Leave the Navy?
     Stay?
     Try to get back the only girl I�d ever truly loved?
     Let her go?
     I didn�t want a new girlfriend, I knew that much. I picked up my pint glass and stared into the golden depths for an answer; what I saw there was the wrong answer. And as I gazed down, I suddenly heard my Dad�s voice.
     �You can�t stay drunk forever son.�
     Maybe not, but I reckon that a few more days wouldn�t matter. I tipped back the glass...

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     28th Feb 1997: The First Hurdle Hurdled and The Clear Leap Cooler.

     To successfully mix the tricky libation that is the
........................................�The Clear Leap Cooler"
...you need three main ingredients: A good spray of Friendship, a liberal splash of Support and more than a pinch of Time. Whether or not you decide to stir in a dash of Advice is up to you; just bear in mind that if it�s of a complementing flavour then you may have to start over with a fresh glass.
     This concoction clouds immediately upon pouring, but allow it time to settle and things finally begin to clear.
��������
     It�s curious how liberating a newly fractured relationship can be, I thought, as I slammed another Bacardi & Coke down my throat. It was exactly one week since Bravo Foxtrot and the lads had persuaded me to stay down in Plymouth for the weekend.
     �Let her phone you. She�ll realise her mistake soon enough.�
     I was content with the fact that she would phone me at the weekend, I knew she had the number of the ship in dock. Although I was disappointed that I�d not received any correspondence from her, especially as I�d penned her a long letter last Sunday. All I had to do was to avoid phoning her at all costs and, as the alcohol took affect, that became the hard part.
     Of course contradicting advice made things some much more fun.
     �If I were you, I�d swallow my pride and phone her. That�s what I did, I begged my girl to come back, twice in fact, after we�d split up. Now we�re married and I couldn�t be happier.�
     �Bollocks, kick her into touch� she was getting fat anyway.�
     I just wanted someone to tell me what to do.
     Still, I surmised, this is the first week over and I�ve successfully negotiated it without managing to top myself. This was the first hurdle hurdled and I hoped that, from now on, the road to redemption would become smoother. It is not a hard road to travel if you keep your head down and work at it; it�s just that people keep littering the path with pints of lager and Bacardi & Cokes.
     I had bidden fond farewell to the Spanish Fiddler�s Club who were pleased to see their newest recruit graduate in such a short time. I had begun the ascent from maudlin self-pity to salvation.
     All I had to do was push Lea as far back into my mind as I could and, like an old photograph, with time her image would fade. As time passed I promised myself that I�d not beg nor demean myself in her eyes by grovelling and worming my way back into her life. But God I did miss her.
     Oh hang on, perhaps she thought the same... maybe she was waiting for me to phone her, was it a test?
     Had my hard-nosed, bull headedness dragged me out of the quagmire only to shove me through a plate glass window ten storey�s up?

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     I never phoned Lea again and never knew whether that was the right or the wrong thing to do. Nevertheless, I took away from the experience one very good piece of advice that I offered to a friend in need some time later. I said to him, �if your woman leaves you and you love her, for God�s sake, don�t let her go without a fight, for even if she doesn�t come back, at least you�ll know you�ve tried.� That was something I never did, and that failing was the hardest Cocktail I�d ever had to swallow.

........................................The Sweetest Cocktail Ever Made
     I leaned across the bar and spoke at the barmaid, or at least offered her my interpretation of speech. It didn�t matter how it came out anymore, by now she�d got well used to my topic of conversation.
     �You see, I�m under the illusion of happiness now,� I said, �I can even play my Simply Red CD again, which I see as some small victory. I�m still single and hey, perhaps I�ll remain that way, who knows? Although I expect someone will happen along when I least expect it. Love does that sort of thing quite a lot; crafty little bugger isn�t it?�
     She just nodded and smiled and blinked at me ... with the greenest eyes I�d ever seen. Hang on�
     You have got to be kidding�
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     Did you know the Sweetest Cocktail ever made in the Emotional Cocktail Lounge is blended using just one, pure ingredient? It is the most addictive and potent of all the drinks in the Lounge but we damn fools seek it time and again. This is for the simple fact that each time and for every man, the Sweetest Cocktail is flavoured just a little differently. You just have to keep tasting it...

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     My thanks to Mister Bacardi and Captain Carlsburg for a hell of a road trip.

Music courtesy of Scouting For Girls.

Author's Note

Oh and for info... the green-eyed barmaid? She ran off with someone else a year or so later... ahhhhh, women such sweet smelling purveyors of pain :-)

Reviews

[Narnie]

Well now... you say you're no romantic? This is a fabulous *masculine* take on love lost and found. It had me completely enthralled from beginning to end. I laughed out loud in the middle and smiled at the clever cocktail concoctions. I want to know what he did next... I want cocktails to cover his every move. I want to know if he left the Navy(!).... that shows that it's good. Fab work. No Romantic? GAH! I shall pm you to show you what a NO romantic really is, lol.

[Steve Scrivens]

Liked the way you got these thoughts across Howie!

A lot of guys out there will recognise this 'Lounge' and the 'encouragement given and be sitting there reflecting over many similar cocktails they've consumed. The slightly bitter humour suits the mood well and it's a cleverly constructed and novel way of displaying a lot of different emotions in a short piece! Really enjoyed the read.