When it was time to take everybody home Kyle moaned and groaned, but Jamison could see the sleep already taking over his son's eyelids. 'You can stay up and watch TV until I get back,'� he said to Kyle, knowing already that the boy would be fast asleep by the time he returned. He walked the two other boys out to his car and they piled in, ready to bring the night to a close.

He had always been close with his son's friends. He'd always been the cool dad. As they drove they talked about sports, television; the two most important things to the average 11-year-old. Landon, the boy in the back, fell asleep after a few minutes and Jamison spoke more quietly. 'Do you have a girlfriend, Matt?'� he asked the other boy. 'No. Girls are annoying.'� 'I wish I could tell you that changed, buddy'�'� Jamison looked at the boy out of the corner of his eye. He was one of those children who you could tell was going to be very good-looking at some point. When he realized that girls weren't always going to be annoying his crossover into a sex-life would be quick and effortless. As Jamison looked at the boy he felt something. Though he had never considered himself an especially sexual person, he recognized the feeling as a deep longing. A reaction so visceral it made his mouth dry. At the next light he changed direction. It probably made more sense to take Landon home first.

***
My shoes seem shinier than they ever have and I can't stop looking at them. I prop them up on the chair in front of me and the movie becomes a dull, fluid movement in the background. My shoes are the real show. Black, Ralph Lauren® Condado Leather Penny Loafers, one-hundred thirty five dollars; recently buffed to a high-gloss. I rotate the toe slowly and watch the shine move from the top to the side to the heel, and then vanish. My eyes rack-focus and I watch a man with a big gun sweat and jog through a space station; 'you're fucked my friend,'� I think. 'You're running through a space station being taken over by violent aliens, you're alone, and you've had two lines in this movie. You're fucked.'� I watch as a big green spike covered in slime whips through the man's stomach. I shift focus back to my feet.

If the movie had been five minutes longer I would have left early, but it wasn't, and I leave with everybody else. Step out into the night and light a cigarette. Through my tainted eyes I see the flame of the lighter dance and spin out of my control. I reach for it and it moves quickly out of my grasp. Then I realize what I'm doing, and catch myself.

The world moves slowly under my feet. Everything has some bizarre new twist to it that I'd never before considered. A Gyro place on the corner is brighter, has more character than usual. I can see the cheer coming off of it in waves; colored waves of laughter and teasing and 'mmmm's'� provoked by good food. 'Being drunk and happy is the most unqualified kind of happiness,'� I think. 'And the most unfaltering sadness.'� Epiphanies are out in abundance tonight.

I walk by bars and clubs and pubs and hear screams and squeals and see people underneath their skin. A young woman runs by with her tits nearly popping out; 'slut,'� I say, loud enough to make me nervous but not enough for her to hear me. Some tight-shirted, backwards capped beefcake sips a red drink with a little straw; 'fag,'� I whisper, in my inside voice. I mentally compose a letter to the people I see. It starts, 'Dear Youth of America,'� and ends, 'Your Future Responsibility, Jamison Lindsay.'�

I stay out until the bars start to close, stay out until I hear 'Last Call!'� for the tenth time. As the drunken masses stumble home I make my way to the bus station. I've always appreciated the bus station as a place where I can go when nobody else is awake. There's a guarantee that someone will be sweeping or lounging on a bench at the bus station, and it has always made me feel better, made me feel less deserted in the wee hours.

Tonight the station is bustling and I settle myself for people watching. As I watch the late night crowd, I keep getting distracted by the strange designs in the floor or the walls. A checkered/lined pattern in the floor is fluctuating and seems to be heading in one direction. I get up to follow it, mesmerized by the bright red of the liquid lines. It carries me, weightless, down a hall and around a corner; the lines seem electrified with purpose and I'm just a passenger. Suddenly I find myself in front of a board of missing persons. Pictures of fathers and brothers, mothers and daughters, children and younger children watch me as I self-consciously look back. Though I don't want to, I begin to search the pictures. My eyes move rapidly from grainy image to name to physical description. Eventually I find what I'm looking for. 'Jamison Lindsay,'� I read aloud, 'Age: 38. Height: 5' 9'�. Weight: 157 lbs. Last seen January 5, 2006.'� It has been almost two months since I left. I try to remember all the things I've done in those two months, but it's so blurry it makes my head hurt. My eyes travel downward to the floor and see that the lines have a new destination. I let myself go.

Standing in front of the mirror I examine my face. My eyes, pupils dilated and liquid dark. My mouth, full of teeth; I grin at himself and grin back. A 'broad'� nose as my wife has often described it, 'Regal and dignified.'� I think that I'm good-looking. I think that I'm someone who's aged well and might still be attractive to younger people. I think of my wife and my sons and I miss them. Though I've had a continuous inner-monologue through the night, I had tuned it out for the most part; now I pay attention: 'It's time. It's time to go back and stand up and be a man. You have one family and they'll love you. It's time to come forward, admit what you've done, and deal with the consequences.'� I stare at myself for a moment before nodding once, quickly. I stare myself in the eye as I back out of the bathroom, into the real world. Into the world.

***
At some point in the night I resituated my body so my head was hanging off the bed. Belly-up, mouth open and dry as hell. At first, when I'm half-asleep/half-awake, it feels kind of like I'm floating. Then I orient myself and realize I'm sleeping sideways and my neck hurts like a bastard. Even lifting it back on to the bed is a struggle. I lay there for awhile trying to get back to sleep, but the sun is under my eyelids and I've reached the point of no return.

When I open my eyes I'm immediately depressed by what I see. Last night everything was vibrant, vomiting color; the ceiling isn't even white, it's plain, it's opaque or some other non-descript colorless word. There are no jumping lines or inexplicable flashes of light. There's just a little alarm clock flashing twelve. I look at my watch.

The good thing about waking up after one o' clock is that the bars are open. The bad thing is that the sun is so bright I have to count to ten before stepping out from the protection of the hotel. An acid hangover is much different from any other kind. Being hung over from drinking too much, that's an almost organic feeling; stomach pains, weakness in your body, etc. With acid, the next morning feels like you slept in mouthwash. Everything is chemical in a terribly unpleasant way. I can't stop tonguing the roof of my mouth and I don't know why.

Sitting down at the bar immediately eases the tension. Dark wood and soft lighting; crisp ice cubes and clean glasses, and the alcohol. The thing about the 'bar'� is that it's exactly how every alcoholic would organize their drinking if given the opportunity. They would get all the best kinds of liquor, put them altogether in one place, and invite people to come over and drink. It's perfect. 'Bushmills. Three cubes, please.'� Thank you.

I don't know the area very well, so I don't do too much 'bar-hopping.'� Eventually though, I drink so much that the bartender knows I've had enough (whether or not I'm acting like it) and I have to go elsewhere. I pick a dark little place squeezed in between a motel and a Long John Silver's. Yes, this is where I shall lose myself.

I drink for an hour, sipping, slowly but steadily. At some point another man sits down and tries to make small talk. Though I don't know what he's talking about I smile and nod and say 'Absolutely'� at the right places, and eventually, he leaves. I've always considered myself a functional alcoholic in the sense that I can always find my way home. I've never been drunk to the point where I couldn't get my body on a bus or into a taxi and then hurl myself into bed. Often, I'll even wake up with a glass of water on the table next to me and pat myself on the back. Functional alcoholism is probably the worst kind, because you really don't have any impetus to stop. If you're a drunk to the point where you can't hold down a job or you're calling far too much attention to yourself, then someone will have an intervention or something. It's when you walk around, drunk, everyday doing the same thing. That's when you're screwed.

Around eight o' clock I start to get hungry. I remember that there's a Long John Silvers next door, and then I remember that Long John's will tear me up and leave me for dead and I ask the bartender what's nearby.

A fifteen-minute walk and I'm standing outside of Applebee's. A 4-foot picture of Applebee's Honey BBQ Baby Backs hangs in the window and my mouth starts to water. 'I'll have the ribs in the window and a Miller Lite please.'� Thank you.

I've always thought that a key trait required of a functional alcoholic is the ability to hold your piss for extended periods of time, and though I have had a lot to drink and have yet to break the seal, I've reached the point where I simply have no option but to take a trip to the men's room. And the Applebee's men's room is exactly what you would expect it to be; goofy memorabilia and sensors in the sinks and toilets.

I stand there peeing for what seems like 7 or 8 hours. My head falls backwards on my shoulders and a dull ache reminds me of the night before. I think of my trip to the bus station and the missing persons board. I think of the drastic influence drugs can have on one's emotions. I think, 'when was the last time you washed your hands after pissing?'� and I go to the sink.

As I'm standing there washing my hands, I glance up at myself. I look awful. Hair all over the place, dark circles, barbecue sauce on my jacket, it's all there and it's all pitiful. If someone put me in a lineup and asked, 'which of these men is the drunk?'� I don't imagine I would be flying under anybody's radar. I move closer and examine my face. It's been almost 24 hours and I feel as if I couldn't look any different. My smile is awkward and dazed and my hair looks greasy. I notice that a button is out of place on my shirt and fix it, but the improvement is negligible. As I stand there, I recall the inner-monologue from the night before. The words, ''�they'll love you no matter what,'� keep circulating. For some reason, when I picture the words; big, bold and 3-dimensional, the word 'love'� is just a big, red heart. And there's a question mark at the end of the sentence. I force myself to look back into the mirror. 'They'll love you no matter what'� is absolute bullshit and I know it and I think I even knew it last night when I supposedly convinced myself it was true. 'They'll love you unless you do something as horrifyingly disturbing as touch one of your son's friends. They'll love you unless you get drunk and molest an 11-year-old boy.'� True. Going back now is impossible. It is an impossibility. I can't imagine the circumstances under which my family would ever look at me without some kind of dark thing inside their eyes. Let alone a time when I could respect myself.. No, this is what should happen. Right now I'll have another beer, and in the morning, I'll get on a plane and go someplace new. The distancing process is going slowly for me. Slowly but steadily.

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