Cabin Cousins: Part 6

Saying Goodbye; for now.

Based on a post by NewMountain80, in 6 parts. Listen to the Podcast at Connections.

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Chapter Twenty.

On the drive home, I felt good, like really good. I felt
like things were actually going to start changing for the better. Reveling in
this feeling, I made a spur-of-the-moment decision. I stopped my car in a
random parking lot and pulled out my phone.

One of the guys that I used to work with, Carl, liked to go
to this little bar in Superior to hang out with friends and have a few drinks.
There was a whole group of guys from work that would go regularly, but Carl was
the only one who never stopped asking. For one reason or another, I never took
him up on it, and I haven't seen any of them since I stopped being able to go
to work.

He answered after a few rings.

"Hi, it's Charles, from work."

"Charles? Hey buddy! How are you doing?"

He sounded happy to hear from me.

"Oh, I've been hanging in there. How's the store since
I left?" At the time of the accident, I was the yard manager
at the same store I had worked at since I moved to Duluth. It didn't pay a lot
of money, but it was enough to get by, and I liked the job. I still felt bad
about how I left. As the years went on and my depression spiraled downwards, it
had become too hard to mask. My job performance was terrible, and people began
to ask questions I didn't want to face the answers to. One day I scheduled
myself to take all my vacation days, and then with that in the system, I put in
my two weeks' notice. I never went back.

"They made me assistant store manager if you'll believe
that," Carl said. "Still a lot of the same faces around here. All the
young kids come and go. You know how it is."

"Yeah." I chuckled. In a store like that, you
could count on about half of the employees to be lifers. They'd never leave.
The other half seemed to be a completely different mix of people every couple
of months.

"So, what's up?" Carl asked.

I could hear the store's advertising jingle blaring over the
loudspeakers in the background.

"Do you and the guys still go to that bar in
Superior?" There it was. I said it. Now if he says yes, I'll have to ask if
I can go, and then I'll have to go.

"Yeah! But it's usually just me and Matt. Brian got
married, and his wife has him on a short leash. Joe goes to AA. The other guys,
just kinda stopped going for one reason or another. Tonight is the night we
usually go."

"Mind if I come with?" I asked.

"Of course, man! We're going to leave here at about
six."

"Cool, I'll see you there."

"Looking forward to it. It'll be good to see you again."

And now the awkwardness of ending a phone call. I've heard
that it's a Midwestern thing, but everyone seems to do it better than I do.
"Okay, bye."

"Bye."

I went home, set out some clean clothes, and got in the
shower. Sometimes I forget how good it feels to be clean. But then, I knew
exactly why it was often too hard to motivate myself to get into the shower.
The shower brought memories of Melissa and the possibility of pain. I stood
still, letting the near-scalding water cascade over me. The fruity scent of the
same brand of body wash Melissa had during our first shower together was
strong, and I remembered.

I closed my eyes and started my breathing exercise with a
deep slow inhale. Melissa's hands scrubbed my lower back and slid down
to squeeze my ass. Breathe out, the pain and hurt waft away like steam
in the shower. My fingers follow the lines of her muscles and up her
inner thigh, she looks at me with serene contentment. Breathe
in. She turns, arches her back, and sighs as I enter her from behind. Breathe
out, the pain is gone, and there is only joy. She moans as my soapy
hands cup her firm tits, holding her tight against me as we make love. Breathe
in. I gasp and hold my breath as we both climax. Breathe out.

I catch my breath and look down, my hand was still grasping
my quickly softening manhood, and the oozing result of my orgasm was slowly
washed into the drain. I finished cleaning up, turned the water off, and
stepped out of the shower.

I looked at myself in the mirror as I toweled dry. It had
been quite a while since I had exercised, or gone to the gym, but I still had a
good amount of muscle on me. Granted, a bit more flab than I liked, especially
on my belly, but overall I still liked the way I looked. Melissa liked the way
I looked too. I patted my belly, and there was a slight jiggle. I really should
work out again, I thought. When was the last time I went for a run? I couldn't
remember.

My eyes strayed from my body to my face. I was still
slightly pink from the hot water. I studied the slight age lines beginning to
appear around my eyes and noticed that I seemed to have a larger forehead than
I used to. When did I start losing my hair?

I put my hands on the edge of the sink and leaned close to
the mirror. It's a strange thing, looking yourself in the eyes. Despite how
good I felt at the moment, all I could see was the pain deep inside. I knew it
hadn't always been there, and obviously, I knew when it started. What bothered
me was, I couldn't remember what it was like to not have this pain. I could
remember every little detail about Melissa, her face, her body, the
conversations we had, the things we did together, everything. But if I focus on
just me... I can remember being a skinny awkward teenager falling in love and
beginning a perfect life, then this, an aging man being crushed by the weight
of a tragedy. Every memory between, of what it was to be me, was just gone.
Lost to the gray. At the same time, I knew that this person staring back at me
in the mirror wasn't me. Once, I was happy. Once I was me, whoever
that was. Would I ever get me back, or did I just have to come
to grips with the fact that I was now a completely different person?

In heavy contemplation, I got dressed. I put on a faded Iron
Maiden concert tee, a token from the time Melissa and I had driven to Sioux
Falls, South Dakota to see them perform, and some blue jeans that seemed
tighter around the waist than I remembered.

I checked my bank balance and determined that If I was going
to have drinks at the bar with Carl, I had better eat at home beforehand. I had
a cup of ramen noodles, and cut slices off of a brick of cheddar cheese, as I
wasted time watching random crap on YouTube.

Finally, it was five thirty and time to go. Well really, I
didn't need to hurry, as it was only a five-minute drive across the bridge to
Superior, but there was no way I was going to be late.

I parked behind the bar and didn't see any vehicles I recognized.
I listened to the radio for a little while, then at ten to six, I got out of
the car. The hard part is done. I'm here.

I walked in and scanned the place for Carl. I know he had
said he was leaving work at six, but I didn't want to miss him by mistake if he
was early for some reason. Not seeing him or anyone else I knew, I took a seat
at the end of the bar. The place wasn't very busy at all, with maybe a dozen
people spread out throughout the whole place. A red-haired waitress came and
took my order for a Grainbelt beer, and I watched her go to the cooler to get
the bottle. She was cute, if a little thick around the middle, and when she
handed me the beer, she flashed me the smile of experienced waitresses
everywhere. The kind of smile that says, "I'll be sweet, and yes, maybe
even flirt with you a little, but this is my job and you better not take it as
more than a professional courtesy". I respected that. Good bartenders were
hard to come by, and this one seemed proficient so far.

I sipped my beer, and surreptitiously watched the other
patrons. There was the same general mix of people you see in bars like this on
a Tuesday evening. A few older couples, quietly enjoying dinner and a glass of
wine, a fifty-year-old high school prom queen and her steroid-pumped boyfriend,
slamming cheap beer, faces wind burned from riding a Harley all day, a table of
college frat boy types laughing too loudly at offensive jokes, you know the
kind of place.

I faced the bar again, and in the mirror, I could see that
one person was sitting alone at the table right behind me. She was facing away
from me and seemed engrossed in something on her phone. She was wearing a
maroon sweatshirt and had bushy dark brown hair that immediately reminded me of
a young Hermione Granger.

I watched her in the mirror, not being a creep, just out of
curiosity and that I had nothing else to do while I waited for Carl. She never
turned or sat up straight, just stayed on her phone, occasionally typing
furiously.

After a while, I looked at the time on my phone. It was
twenty after six, Carl should have been here already. I ordered another beer
from Cassie, the bartender, and gave him ten more minutes.

I called Carl, and it took four or five rings for him to
pick up.

"Hey dude," Carl said right away. "I am so
sorry. I have a big issue I've got to manage here."

I could hear people talking loudly in the background and the
beep of a forklift.

"Hey," I said. "