I Forgot to Turn Off the Rocks

Some things get forgotten; others can never be forgiven

Jean saw me start to shake. In spite of the warm air, I was sweating. Steam puffed out of the room next to the pool, across the large natatorium. I turned around and stumbled back through the double glass doors. I whispered apologetically: "I have to go back to the room. I'm sorry..." I didn't quite make it to the elevator before the tears came.

I all but staggered to the hotel room. I sat there, alone. The curtains were closed, shutting out the view of the fair spring sunshine. The only sound was the occasional distant hum of housekeeping's vacuum cleaner. I sat and stared at the small bottle I had taken from the mini fridge I alternated between shaking and crying. I wanted to drink it down in one gulp; I wanted to throw the full bottle through the window. Instead, I did the worst thing possible.

I remembered.

@     ~@~     @

"Hi, Matt," the room intoned ritualistically. I looked around at the gathering of former burnouts and boozehounds.

"I've been sober for 29 days, now; but today is the only one that counts." The group nodded their heads and murmured. I felt like laughing at them, scorning them, calling them fools. But what did I know. I was just a drunk.

I never found the AA meetings liberating like so many others did. To me, they were humiliating, time and time again. "I'm a loser. Mea culpa. I'm a monster. Mea culpa." But that was the point, wasn't it? Penance isn't about feeling proud; it's about feeling like horseshit stuck to the shoe of a homeless madman. Penance is supposed to hurt, and it hurt me every time. Thank God.

@     ~@~     @

"Whiskey, ice!" I called down the bar. Gina looked at me with slight disapproval.

"Matt..."

"C'mon, 'm on vacation." Even I could hear the slur in my voice, but I was on vacation; so what if I was a little drunk. I dropped twenty dollars on the bar—even tipsy as I was, I knew these drinks were insanely expensive.

I drank the whiskey quickly; Gina and I had tickets to a play at a local theater. She frowned a little. I could see she was more hurt than angry, but I was still annoyed. I swigged off the last sip, set the glass down loudly.

"Well—let's go, then!" My voice was more curt than it needed to be, and much louder. Patrons at a few of the other tables glanced at me, rankling me even more. Gina's hurt deepened. She got up quickly and followed me outside.

The cooler night air hit me like pins on my cheeks, making me feel a little more sober.

"Damn! Got kinda chilly out, didn't it? Oh, here, let me give you my blazer, hon—"

Gina stepped away and held her hand up brusquely. "I don't want to go to the play, Matt. Just...just let's go back to the hotel."

"What? Why? This was your idea!"

"You're drunk, Matt! Again! If I wanted—" She broke off and threw her hands up in the air with frustration, turning away from me. "Do what you want, go where you want, hon. I'm going back to the hotel."

A taxi seemed to magically appear when she put her hand out. I got in with her, still grumbling.

"Shut up, Matt. Don't pretend you're upset about the play; you didn't even want to go. Just—" She broke off, shaking her head and looking out the window.

We rode to the hotel in silence. Silence as we walked across the lobby and on the elevator. The only sound was the hum of the elevator to the third floor. I had really screwed up, I could tell.

Once in the room, I sat on the edge of the bed and laid back. "I'm sorry, Gee. I guess I did have too much." I sat up slowly. I smiled and held out my hand. "C'mere. Let me say I'm sorry."

Gina moved away, but she didn't seem as angry now. "Let's go down to the athletic room. They have a sauna." A mischievous twinkle came into her eye.

I reminded her I couldn't do the sauna. I was on some meditation that interested with my body's ability to sweat right. She was disappointed, but not hurt this time. "Just come down with me anyway, okay? I'm sorry I got so mad. Maybe I won't wear my towel..."

I smiled and stood up, following her unsteadily to the door. She was wearing a bathing suit with a long tee shirt as a wrap, and I thought she looked sexy as hell. I wish I had a picture of her like that; I wish that's how I remembered her.

We only passed one other patron in the athletic room, and he was just leaving. We had the place to ourselves. Gina opened the door, and the blast-furnace heat me. It was as sharp as the cold night she had been earlier. I recoiled from it, but Gina sighed into it.

"Let me know when 15 minutes is up, okay Matt?"

I sat back on a nearby poolside lounge chair, taking out my phone. The only sound was the hum of the pool pump and the heating element in the small sauna room..

@     ~@~     @

"Hi, Matt," the other bloodshot, haunted eyes in the room intoned ritualistically.

@     ~@~     @

I startled awake in the chair outside the sauna, the one facing out the window of the resort hotel's athletic room across the water. I looked down at my phone, which beeped again. Battery low. There were 14 unanswered messages 14...? I looked at my watch. It was 9:32. Wow, I was more than dozing, I thought, as I rubbed the cramped muscle on the side of my neck. It was only about 7:45 when we—

Where the hell is Gina? I thought crankily. I remember that so damn clearly. It's the first thought I have in the morning, and the last I have at night. It was all about me, how surly I felt that she had gone back tot he room and left me passed out and getting all cramped up.

But the light in the sauna was still on. Someone was still in there, and since the pool area was closed due to a lack of lifeguard staffing, hardly anyone was around on a cold March evening. I jumped up and sprinted the 8 or ten steps to the sauna. I yanked open the door, and my breath was sucked out of me by the intense heat coming out of the cage of sauna stones that was still on.

A moment of nausea and dizziness. Peering through the steam, I saw Gina lying on the floor. Her eyes were open, and she was staring at nothing. The heat clenched my stomach again, and I threw up three feet from my dead wife.

@     ~@~     @

After the lights and the stretcher with its white sheet left; after the firetruck snored away back into the night; after the small crowd from the resort had drifted off to find another drama, the detectives told me what they thought happened. My wife had been on the upper level of the sauna. She slipped on the bottom bench trying to climb back to the lower level, according to marks left in the condensed steam, and fell sideways. She might have been using her phone, not paying attention; they found her phone next to her, just inches from my vomit. When she fell, the side of her head hit the upper bench, and then the lower. She was knocked unconscious and was unable reach the door or lower the temperature. She appeared to have passed from heat stroke.

"Where were you, Mr. Hollowell?" one of them asked.

"I was in the chair over there."

"Did anyone else come in here? We just need to check."

"I don't know."

"But you were right there? Did you hear anything? A noise, a...a thud or a cry?"

"I didn't hear anything."

"But you were—"

"I was passed out! God damn it, I was passed out as my wife was dying of heat stroke 20 feet away, alright?! I was fucking passed out and I couldn't help her, couldn't hear her, didn't know she... didn't..." I trailed off in embarrassed confusion.

I stood there, swaying, wondering fuzzily of how I would tell our children. The shock and the lingering alcohol made thinking a herculean effort. The detectives walked away and asked if I would follow them to their car after I cleared my head a little. There were formalities to talk over and sign, we know this is a horrible time, we're sorry, but we appreciate your help...

I sat back down and cried until the detectives returned and led me to their car.

@     ~@~     @

Jean put her hand on my shoulder. I hadn't heard her come in the room. The only sound I'd heard was the hum of the elevator moving between floors. I jumped and opened my eyes. The bottle was gone, and I sobbed harder for a few moment. Once I got a little control back and could speak, I told Jean I needed something from her.

@     ~@~     @

I stood outside the church as she pulled away. It was quiet, humid. The lone light on the church seemed like it belonged in a story somewhere. The only sound I'heard was the hum of Jean's car fading into the darkness.

Instead of climbing the stairs to the front doors—that's where all the salvation took place; that was no place for me.—I descended the little staircase to the basement and opened the door.

@     ~@~     @

"Hi, Matt," the room intoned ritualistically. I looked around at the gathering of sad-eyed burnouts and boozehounds, just like me.

"I've been sober for 78 days, now; but today is the only one that counts." The group nodded their heads and murmured. I felt like crying with them, begging them for forgiveness, as though they had any to offer me when they were still struggling to forgive themselves. I wanted them to help, thought they held the key to my penance. Instead, I sat back down in my chair and welcomed the next person, Kia, to the meeting. I knew this purgatory was all I'd ever have; I'll never make it upstairs.

But really, what do I know? I'm just a drunk.