Hello, My Name is Andrew Garrison

“Hello, my name is Andrew Garrison, and I’m an alcoholic,” I said to the room of defeated faces that formed a circle around me. The man at the other end, with the spectacles, crossed legs, and rosary dangling over his hairy chest, said, “Thank you, Andrew, we’re all happy to have you here.” No, they weren’t.

“Is there anything you’d like to say? Any thoughts you might have? This is a judgment-free room,” the rosary man said.

“I don’t want forgiveness or nothing like that.” I answered. “I ain’t here because I want this room to convince me that I’m not what I am. Because I’m not confused about that.”

“Very well, Andrew. You can continue.” I disliked this man. The smile told me he thought he was above me. That he believed he was the puppet master of this room. Controlling a bunch of sinners who were looking up at rock bottom, because it was easy, because they were already defeated.

“My daughter died. She was only three months old. I was drinking heavily. I passed out on the couch while my ex-wife was at work. I placed her on my chest, and I came to with the sound of Helen screaming, as she grabbed Annie, who was lying face down on the carpet floor next to the couch. She wasn’t breathing.”

I paused to see if the rosary man was going to interject, but he didn’t say a word. Just waved a hand at me to signify that it was okay to continue. That no one was judging me, even though their faces told a different tale.

“I bet you’d think that something like that would make me put the bottle down? Well, it did, for a little while. But when Helen left, and I lost my job at the refinery, I couldn’t stand reality, you know? The thought of it. The thought of clear consciousness made my skin crawl. And eventually I found myself roaming the streets at night, fighting with myself.”

“What was the fight about, Andrew?”

“The fact that I couldn’t come up with one single reason to not shove a gun down my throat.”

“Well, you’re still with us. Among the living. So, what changed your mind?”

“A bar. Tom’s Bar. I would sit there, me and the rest of the disenfranchised. Silently having the same conversations inside our head. Well, maybe there’s weren’t quite as bad as mine, but they still had their shit, ya know? Their regrets. Anyway, one of them, this guy named Reggie, he’s a small skinny little thing, shaped like a twig. He says, he says, that uh, his sister, her name was Margie, I think, works down at the River Run diner off of Water. Anyway, he says that her man has been laying beatings on her, something awful right. Reggie says that every Wednesday they get together for a game of cards, a few beers, and just to talk about life and shit. So, he tells me, well, he tells whoever’s listening, that she comes over to his place on Wednesdays, all bruised up. One week it’s a shiner, the next it’s on her forearms, her legs, then on one of these Wednesdays, she asks if she can take a shower. Reggie says, yeah sure, no problem. So when he hears the water running, he peeks in. He tells the guys that he ain’t no pervert, or incest, or whatever, but he just wanted to see what it was she was hiding, you know?. He sees her back, and man, he said he nearly dropped dead. There were scratch marks from the top of her back to the bottom. Bite marks, scars, you name it, it was there. So he says, Wendy, this is the final straw. I’m going to go over there and beat his head in. You know what she says?”

“No, I don’t.” The rosary man said. “No, but don’t stop. Please, continue.” Again, he waves his hand in my direction, and I want to go over there and break it off. But I try not to dwell, because my thoughts get all jumbled when that rage takes over, and I want to finish my story.

“She tells him that Reggie will have to kill him. Plain and simple, because if he doesn’t, he’ll kill her. So, it’s either let it alone. Let fucking bygones be bygones or whatever, or go all the way.”

Then this lady, about fifty or so years old, scratching at her wrists, timidly raises her hand like we’re in grade school, and asks. “Well, why didn’t she just go to the cops?”

“That’s a good question. That’s what Reggie asks her too, you see? He says, Wendy, I’ll drive you down to the sheriff’s office right now, and we’ll put the prick away. But she says no. She actually laughs. Not a, this is a funny situation laugh, but a Reggie, how could you be so naïve laugh.”

The 50-year-old woman raises her hand again. “Why did she laugh?” She doesn’t make eye contact with me. She stares at her shoes as she asks.

“Well, she laughs because of society, right? This man, this man, is a pillar of the community. A stand-up guy, you know? Donates to charity, volunteers at the soup kitchen. He’s a reverend down at the Holy Cross too, or at least he was. A man of God. And she says that she was born into a white trash family and lived her life in a trailer park. So she says, what would the sheriff say? The man, who is a personal friend of her boyfriends, what would he say if a trailer trash girl from a trailer trash family tried to condemn a pillar of the community? Well, he’d laugh in her face is what he would do.”

“That ain’t right, man. That ain’t right at all,” A young black man to my right said, and I just nod my head. It isn’t right at all. “This guy should get a bullet in his head.”

“You couldn’t be more right,” I said, as I looked at the man with the rosary. “My daughter died, and nothing will bring her back, but maybe I can balance the world again by getting rid of a piece of shit.” I stood up, pulled the .38 from the back of my pants, and shot the rosary man twice in the head.

Then I turned around and walked out of the meeting, as the circle screamed.