Free Birds in the Bayou

RYAN

"If you're a man in America, and you have a great divorce lawyer, you get the kids every other week. If you have a decent divorce lawyer, you get them on the weekends. If you have a bad divorce lawyer, you get them a week of every month. If you have my divorce lawyer, you get them for one month every year before school starts, and no contact until then. You know, I sympathize with women activists in this country, I really do. It makes no sense that half the population had to claw through hundreds of years of bullshit just to finally be treated like a proper human. But if you ask one of these militant feminists -who, by the way, I usually agree with-, if you ask one of these feminists about how bad a man in America gets fucked by the divorce courts, they don't have an answer for you. You know, if you spend enough time being the victim, I guess it's hard to recognize when you're victimizing someone. Or maybe I was just always a victim. A victim of my own shit decisions and weakness."

Dave withdrew the glass of whisky he was about to serve me. "Would this be one of those shit decisions, Ryan?" He asked me.

"Why do you say that?"

He pointed to the clock behind the bar. "It's nine in the morning."

"It's also a Saturday."

"Every day's been a Saturday since you got laid off, and you've spent every one of them right on that stool." He opened the register for effect, "Is your entire severance package in here?"

"So what if it is?" I snapped. "The kids are eighteen, so no more child support payments. I'm a free man!"

"You sound overjoyed."

I glowered at him. "Just gimme the damn drink, Dave."

"Look Ryan, I've been in this shithole long enough to know when a man's drinking to get the day started. If you want to become an alcoholic, then go full-tilt and start drinking alone in your goddamn whitie-tighties, but I'm not gonna stand here and watch you drown day after day knowing I poured you the first glass." He pulled the glass away, "From now on, you're money's no good here until after noon."

"Ah, piss off. You ain't my goddamn priest." I grumbled, getting off the stool.

"But I am your goddamn friend." He crossed his arms, "You say you never gave a shit about that job at the mill, but you've been nothing but miserable since they canned you."

I looked to my left, making sure that the bar was empty. Then I looked at Dave, and sighed. "It ain't the job, Dave. I never gave a shit about that job, and I still don't. It's..." I twirled my hand, searching for the words, "My girls are grown now, and I've seen them a grand total of a year since they were five. They're headed off to school on the other side of the country, and..." I chewed on my lip, "I had prospects, you know? After the divorce, I could've gotten ten different jobs –real jobs- in Phoenix, but I stayed here, because this is where my girls were. I put my whole life in a goddamn holding pattern for twelve years, and now it's over!"

I yelled the last words to cover up the sob in my throat. They echoed throughout the room, bouncing off the implacable stare of Dave Farmstead. "The holding pattern, or your life?" He asked.

I shrugged. "Somewhere down the line, the holding pattern became my life. I don't know, man; you keep waiting for the future, then you realize it's behind you, it happened, and it wasn't nothing like it was supposed to be."

Dave looked at the glass of whiskey he'd pulled from me. "You're daughters are coming today, ain't they?"

"Yeah." I breathed it out like a confession.