Levesque
As he did each night, Levesque sat at the window with his bottle of Stoli and a heavy shot glass and watched the night descend. Beth had run from the table two hours ago. The bottle, full at the start, was now at the midway point.
As the rain increased its rhythm on the windows, he increased the pace of his race to melancholy.
He hadn’t meant to be cruel. Or at least now he thought he hadn’t meant to be. That was the trouble when he didn’t drink. Things weren’t as clear. He wasn’t as in control. The other piece of him had room to take over.
He’d wanted to see the emotion rise up in her eyes. He’d wanted to see the hurt, the pain, the anguish. She hadn’t acted with any sympathy towards him as he relayed his morning.
He’d seen the concern behind her eyes when she asked after Davis. She knew what time it was. She knew he would have been there with J.D., getting the store ready.
She would have known because Davis would have just left the house. His house. Levesque’s house. Levesque knew he came every day, ten minutes after he left for the store. He knew it was why Davis was late everyday. It was Davis’ own little FU for his not granting Beth the divorce she and Davis were so desperate for.
He couldn’t grant it. That would have been giving in to his father. He burned with rage for that old man. He took a drink.
“Would it have killed him, just once to approve of something I’d done?” he mumbled to himself.
A gust of wind rattled the bay window. He saw his father’s image there, reflected from the photos hanging above the fireplace.
“You were right Dad. You were 100% right. Are you happy? She’s everything you said she was.”
The rain lashed harder against the windows, a bolt of lightning cut the sky. He took a long pull from the bottle and remembered his father’s words when he told him he wasn’t going to Cornell because of Beth:
“You idiot. You’re giving up the rest of your life for a cheap fling.”
“I am not, I love her.”
“You only think you love her. You think you love her because she’s the first female to smile at you. You think you love her because you’ve been drunk with her a couple of times, and everything seems rosy when you’ve been drinking.”
“It’s not like that. She cares about me. She –“
“She cares about what you can provider her. She likes your money. She likes that you come from some. She doesn’t care about you. She just wants the jewels you can put on her fingers, and the comfortable life you can provide. I thought you were smarter than this. If your mother could see you now, God rest her soul.”
“She does care –“
“Stop it! I can’t listen to your noise. Do you know where she’s from? Do you know her background?”
“I know she’s from a shitty part of town –“
His father’s left hand had reached out and slapped him across the right side of a face, with a quick return to the left.
“You’ll not ever swear in my presence! Yeah, she lives in a dive downtown. Did you know her father’s a drunk? Never done a day’s honest work in his life. Her mother threw him out ten years ago. After that, he just stumbled into the Chanti night after night, hoping someone would pay his freight. You can’t tie yourself to someone like that. The disease runs in the family. It runs in the blood. She’s going to suck the life out of you.
“You have to find someone respectable. Someone who’s not going to be seeking out male attention because her father wasn’t a good family man.
Yeah, don’t give me that look. I know the stories about her. How she bats her eyelashes at you and your testosterone charged pals and doors open for her. As soon as you stop with the baubles and trinkets from the store, she’s going to start looking elsewhere.
“She may claim otherwise, but I know the type. She’s going to get what she wants from you, and move on to the next, you know it, and that’s the only reason your staying. You’re staying because you’re afraid she’ll run off with some other guy if you aren’t around.
“That’s the one thing you’ve got right here. She will. Mark my words.”
“God, I hate you,” he said to the rain. He took another long pull from the bottle. His vision blurred as his mind flashed back to the conversation he’d had with his father when he told him he and Beth were getting married:
“You’re a fucking idiot. It’s bad enough you’ve stayed in this piece of shit town for college, but now you’re going to tie yourself down further, with the gold-digger. Son, I can’t condone it.”
“Why can’t you just admit you were wrong about her?”
“Because I’m not.”
“You don’t know anything.”
“Son, your 20 years old, with a year of college in your home town under your belt. You think you’ve seen the world? You’ve seen nothing of it. You’re a fool if you don’t think I know just how this will end. Your blind to her charms, of which, I grant you there are many, but it doesn’t make you any less of a fool.”
“Fuck you, Dad.”
His father rose up from his chair, pushing his shoulders back as he reached his full six feet of height. A vein on the ride side of his forehead began to pulse down to his eyes. The muscles of his chest and arms strained the material of his shirt.
“If you think for even a minute at 60 I will tolerate that language coming from you, then you also must think I don’t have the ability to throw you across this room. In both instances you would be wrong.”
He had cowered as his father rose, “I’m sorry.”
“You’re damn right you’re sorry. You do not have my permission or my approval in this matter. I don’t care how perfect you think she is. You’re going to be hurt by her, and I refuse to say I ever gave you my blessing or anything of the sort in the matter that led to your demise.”
“You don’t even know her. You refuse to meet her.”
“I met her once. And I knew her father. That’s all I need to know about her.”
“Why can’t you have an open mind about anything?”
“Because I know what’s best for you. I’ve lived a life already. You’ve stayed stuck in the same place. You’ve never been out. I’ve seen some of this world, and it’s a mess. You have to focus on protecting what’s yours. I know it doesn’t feel like it, but I’m trying to protect you right now.”
“You’re suffocating me. You’ve always suffocated me. Nothing has ever been good enough.”
“Because you haven’t been good enough. You haven’t pushed yourself, or even attempted to make the most of what you have.”
“Because I’ve been afraid of you.”
“And that’s yet another fault of yours, you’re soft. Toughen up. Be a man. This girl is just going to push you around. You need backbone.”
“I’m not sorry you’re gone,” he whispered to the window. He emptied the bottle of Stoli. Putting it back on the end table, he knocked over the shot glass. It fell with a thud.
He pushed himself up from the chair. Bracing himself on the window, he stumbled into the kitchen. He went into the refrigerator and found a container of cranberry juice. Unscrewing the top, he took a long drink. He opened the cabinet above the refrigerator and took down a fresh bottle of Stoli. He took another drink from the cranberry juice, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, replaced the top and put it back in the fridge.
He stumbled back to the recliner. Landing with a thud, he unscrewed the top of the fresh Stoli and took a long swallow. He heard Beth’s feet creak across the floorboards upstairs. He took another swallow and went back to remembering.
