Chapter 3

I like this moment best.  It wasn't the drinking so much, but what it meant. It certainly wasn't the aftermath or the consequences that I relished. This was my moment. This was the time when I could feel my heart rate slow just by having it on the table in front of me.

It’s the curve of the bourbon as it sits atop the shot glass. I can see it now, resting, sometimes dancing from the blow of the air conditioner. I've missed this curve. This moment, when I’m going to be taken away from here. When I raise it up and throw it past my lips. The first place I feel it is the back of the throat, maybe the back of the tongue gets some too, but if it does, it’s fast.

And then comes the beer. It’s not a chaser. It doesn't chase anything. I let the bourbon, or vodka, or tequila, all the remnants rest in the back of my mouth and burn me up. And then I reach for the beer, and take it back. It goes down. It doesn't chase, it trails, it cleanses.

“Want another?” the bartender asked George. He looked up, nodded. “I changed my mind. I mean about dinner. That steak looks good,” he said nodding in Rich’s direction.

“Right away,” the bartender answered.

George reached for his second drink. He didn’t start it right away.  Maybe he was thinking about what Rich had said about drinking it fast. Oh Shit, who cares about this guy at a bar, and he took a big gulp.

He would tell me later that his daughters were on his mind. His two girls, now women, late in high school, well into puberty with breasts and periods and tampons. And moods. Oh, the moods. His wife had told him about the years of slamming doors from when she was a pubescent teenager. He didn't know from this. But he was getting a crash course.

Mostly the girls fought with their mother. He thought of himself as the peace keeper, but really he was the one they went to when they “hated” mom. He didn't try to keep the peace, he just wanted them to love him. He knew he wasn't there enough to play good cop-bad cop. What impact could he really have between 9 and 11 PM? Now that they’re more fully formed, did he even matter to them? The good and the bad, either way they carry his name. He knew he would never be father of the year, with all the business travel. He never made a conscious decision, but it was hard to be businessman of the Year and father of the year in the same twelve-month period. And so most years he chose businessman.

When they were raising the girls he could handle most anything, whether he did or not was his own decision. The poop, the diapers, even the middle of the night crying. But when his second child had a bad stomach, he couldn't do it. Not the vomit. That was his wife’s domain. “I’ll work one end, you work the other,” he told her.

So when we heard the gagging midway through his second drink he instinctively looked away, childishly avoiding, trying to plug his ears with his shoulders. At first the sound and commotion were an annoyance. The thumping of feet, the crashing of silverware onto the porcelain until they smashed into my table.

Rich staggered back from the bar grabbing his throat, backing into George forcing him to focus. The small, choking man, fell toward me, I reached for my drinks but couldn't save them from wetting my crotch. I lean forward trying not to get caught in the choking man’s path. His body slammed against the bar, his belly first, holding his neck, his face the color of cherries.

I always hoped in an emergency I would hear the call to action. But I stood there, dumb, too surprised to move, until the other man at the table next to me took Rich from behind and pulled. He pulled and yanked, trying to loosen whatever had lodged in his throat. Rich’s five foot seven inch frame began to slump, as oxygen slowed.

George was rubber necking at the action in the center of the bar, watching the third man continue his work. The real horror of it wasn't the dance between the two, but the sound, the gagging, the sweat, the colors, his face. The third man, skinny with carrot-colored hair and a face to match caused by the exertion, was losing energy as the bar noise grew. The bartender telling him to “pull up,” the high pitched screaming of the waitress, the shuffling of feet as people avoided the fight, the terrified looks through the glass partition as the diners watched the struggle to breath.

The carrot-topped man was out of strength, heaving himself, sweat pouring from his head as he pulled in, tugged up, pulled in. I moved closer, knowing I had no expertise in the matter. All I knew about life saving I learned from news stories where an 8 year-olds saved lives while shopping at Wal-Mart. And it appeared to me that the third man was doing everything right. The bartender leapt across the bar, unsuccessfully, catching his shoe on the edge and falling to the floor, holding his ankle. The waitress, now in full horror-movie scream, as the body slumped, with no clear way to revive him.

“It’s not working,” the third man pleaded, “it’s not working.”

I could watch no more, the near-lifeless body a hanging, gagging mess. The third man propped him against the bar and I stepped between the two.

Grabbing Rich I pulled and tugged, the body heavier than I expected, the face now alabaster. Fear drove me, but I too struggled to get my arms around his belly, stretched to lift him and force enough air with my tug to drive the obstruction free.

Pull, tug, grab, dry off sweating hands, pull, tug, grab, tighten, squeeze.

George winced, still trying to avoid direct eye contact, but recognizing that he was watching a man die. Finally, he engaged, pushing me aside with his big paw and grabbing the dead weight of the body, towering over the shorter victim. “Pull,” the bartender yelled from the floor, “pull,” and three mighty tugs led to a great burp and a chunk of rare red meat jumped from his mouth along with a teaspoon of red wine. The meat shot out hitting the side of the bar, falling to the floor.

George fell into an open booth, with the shorter man resting against him. Rich gulped for air. His airway now clear, his body heaving, his color returning, his chest rising and falling. He pulled at his tie, then his collar until the buttons looked like they would pop.

The carrot-topped man and I sat across from them in the leather booth. The four of us, strangers, sweating and exhausted from physical exertion and fear sat at the square table.

The table opened to the bar and was attached to a glass wall on one side. The bartender, the maître d and the formerly screaming waitress now crying, her hand over her mouth and tears dribbling over her knuckles, all stood around us. The bartender rubbed his injury, the maître d asked questions, offered services and apologies.

Rich waved them off inhaling deeply, as if breathing for the first time. His hands said don’t help me, he couldn't yet speak. The bartender and waitress stared at the four of us, sitting in shocked silence. Time passed, the recovering man’s eyes tearing from the physical shock. He took the glass of water in front of him and slowly drank, clearing his throat of further debris.

He coughed again. Resting his palms on the cool dark table. He reached for a napkin, the fork and steak knife slipping out the bottom rattling on the floor. He wiped his brow, looked up and squeaked: “Who the Hell are you guys?”