Isotopic

I ask questions. Like a paleontologist whom cautiously, and methodically, chips and brushes and files away layer upon layer of sandstone, plunging further back into time, thousands of years with every passing inch. Examining bones. Piecing together a coherent story based on riddles, half-truths, and cryptic clues. I prod and poke and smile. I keep the drinks coming so long as he keeps talking.

The topmost layer I find cockiness. Arrogance. Brash assurity. A carefully erected blockade or defense mechanism designed to keep the right people out and let the wrong people in. Bulletproof armor designed to prevent a messy stabbing or a shooting, but imperfect at the same time. This armor may prevent death but it won’t prevent pain. You’ll invariably find yourself knocked on your ass, gasping for breath like a slimy fluke flopping around on the deck of a fishing boat. In fact it’s this “I don’t give a shit” attitude that first drew me to him. I had to invite this guy out for a drink or three. I had to study and dissect him, and then tell the story as it should be told. It’s been awhile but finally someone with a set of balls - solid brass ones, who truly didn’t give a flying fuck what other people thought. They say in life perception defines a person. If people believe you’re a fucking drunk and a loser and a con then you are. It’s a democratic system, the majority always wins. It’s unfair but it’s life. It’s destroyed many. And it leaves permanent scars. Perceptions are near impossible to undo. Was it Obi Wan Kenobi, the Jedi knight, who said “Many of the truths we cling to depend greatly on our point of view?” Needless to say, my new friend, let’s call him “Sam” has been crucified on many an occasion. He’s played the pariah. And he loves it…

Or so he would have you think.

He’d also be the first to tell you he is, in no uncertain terms, a fucking “wino.” He wears his scarlet “A” with beaming pride. He’s let go. He’s embraced it. Why? There was a time it was so much worse. There was a time he was consumed by it, unable to stop, completely intent on drinking himself into oblivion. A filthy apartment void of furniture, in lieu of a sofa or a coffee table or a 32” television there are rows upon rows of stacked empty bottles. He calls it “the wailing wall.” I nod and I tell him I understand, I truly do, of course, he insists I don’t. “ No one can. I saw, with my own eyes, demons and devils.” It was severe. Family and friends tried to help. The intervention only intensified the problem. It fueled it like dry tinder crackling on a campfire. Finally, the ambulance, along with the cops, came to take him away from his purgatory, his wailing wall, because he posed a threat to himself. In a court of law he would have been indicted for involuntary manslaughter, or as he phrased it “voluntary stupidity.”

This is the tale of the tape. This is the story the top layer - carefully catalogued, carbon dated, and labeled – tells. The first mask of many.