Chapter 1

Part 1: The Darkness

Judge: Baptism

I want to tell you about my year with Judge Szblynski.  There was light all over, all around.  The man liked windows, and light.  But first I want to go somewhere darker.  I liked the dark.  And I liked being below the ground; to know the cement foundation of a building was keeping out dirt and that really I was just in a capsule that the Earth’s core was trying to pull toward itself.  I liked finding pockets of the city that weren’t flooded in street lamp, neon sign, or car headlight.  I liked the dingy, dim, antique, and weathered.  I liked places that glowed shades of green and blue, and that I had to walk down a flight of stairs to get to.  Don’t think Cheers.  These places were usually called “PJ’s” or “Bill’s;” men who were purveyors of whiskeys and darkness.

Let’s go inside PJ’s on a Wednesday night and observe me sitting in a corner by myself with a notebook and a double Maker’s.  It is probably my third double, and I will probably have three more before realizing that I had spent the laundry money for the next two months and that I had a case of McNaughton’s at home I had already purchased with not laundry money.  Alas, the opportunity costs involved with alcoholism.  You see, that’s what I was, an alcoholic.  And with my notebook and a pen I would write.  Sometimes it was poetry, sometimes essays, sometimes observations of people at PJ’s that I would consider using to fill in my made up characters for my made up stories that would never actually be finished.

Yet there I was, writing insatiably, drinking insatiably, and not letting myself give in to any inclination of sociability or sobriety.  During the day I managed the east branch of the city library.  I often made a sweep through the floor before leaving for the day to see if the Poe and Joyce collections were in order.  I had worked particularly hard to collect a variety of rare and undercirculated Poe and Joyce; they represent my two favorite writers, and though it was prideful, I brought them in because when one is a library manager, he has very little power beyond the circulation and apprehension of specific, personally empowering titles.  At night I would carry the spirits of Poe and Joyce with me to my underground haunts and join them with liquid spirits, and uphold the ridiculous notion that I would be the next famous alcoholic author whose early death from cirrhosis would be so tragic that Stephen King and Cormac McCarthy would attend my funeral, essays would be written about me comparing my life to Immanuel Kant’s, and classes would be taught about my writing by professors who would lobby for my work to be canonized.

I will say only this about my family: They loved me, but I did not love them in return; I tried to marry, but I never understood how to love in the first place, so these attempts failed; and all blood relations live in Indianapolis, a healthy distance from Spokane, Washington.

I was 36.  I know, you’re thinking, “That seems so young.”  It’s not as if I’ve lived a completely antisocial and pathetic life.  In high school I was spinning Rites of Spring records and wearing cut up denim and leather clothing.  Mom sewed on patches for me; I think I was close to loving her then.  I had friends.  We went to shows.  Even talked about some serious issues.  Granted we were usually high on something, but I still remember talking to Jay about why we all aren’t better.  I mean humans, in general.  Then I decided to go to Washington State University to study journalism.  I used to love reading the news; loved thinking about the various conspiracies our government and large corporations were a part of.  It was around that point that all of my interests were stolen by alcohol.

It was said that WSU was rated the number one party school in the country at one point (to much debate I’m sure).  It was also said that 1% of Busch Light sales in a particular year could be attributed to Pullman, Washington.  I’m sure I contributed my fair share toward that effort during my five years there.  At my best I was drinking a 30-pack to myself on a Friday or Saturday night.  Some might say that was my worst, but my friends called it my best and I preferred to go by their measurements.  Even after I graduated I had friends, and prospects.  I broke into a small town newspaper and loved my job.  I got to know the people in town well enough to call many of them by name and choice of drink, and they knew me well enough to ask me to stand up on the bar and sing “Piano Man” by Billy Joel for the bar workers’ birthdays; they knew that would entertain them.  I was good with that song.  Made sure to crescendo at the right time; liked to point out people around me to be “John at the Bar,” “Paul the real estate novelist,” “Davey in the Navy,” etc.

Then my friends started getting pretty good jobs, getting married, having kids, and going on holidays to Disneyland or the lake with their new friends.  I was pushed to the side and had none of those things.  My job was okay, but nothing to write home about, and believe me I didn’t.  I got the job at the library after quitting the paper.  I had gotten fed up with the monotony and unnecessary politics as a small-town journalist.  I had my sights set on the Seattle Post-Intelligencer.  I was confident in my abilities as a writer and my visions for local stories could woo the editor, but they were staffed and good to go for years to come.  They didn’t even have room for anyone on the electronic side of things in spite of the internet’s increasing popularity.  So I moved to Spokane.  It was more out of hopeful self-pity than anything else.  My dad knew this guy he went to law school with at Valparaiso; said he had a lot of connections.  I was 27 at the time I met Judge Szblynski.  He was 55 and had just lost his wife to breast cancer.  Shit.  What  a life I had.  Terrible timing to just about everything I wanted any part of, and to boot I was stuck in the throws of alcoholism.  Fortunately I had any sense at all to look for jobs outside of journalism.  The library hired me within a month of moving out there.  I started as a circulation manager.  They needed my writing ability for the newsletter and they had quite a deficiency of employees in my age bracket as you can imagine.  

At the same time I started the library job I had my first meeting with Judge.  We would meet once every three months or so; sit in his hot tub up on the South Hill; maybe grab a bite to eat.  He would ask me about being young in the city, about the night life, about the library sometimes, and about my dad other times.  I got really good at pretending I was a lot of things to a lot of people.  Hell, I even invented a girlfriend for a little while then pretended to break up with her after she “told me she was pregnant and that I wasn’t the father.”  I think Judge was quite impressed with my decision-making and with the trajectory of my life.  I would ask him how he was doing in the wake of his wife’s death; would ask him about how his only child Derek was doing at college; would be sure to impress upon him how valuable his advice and care was.  

Sometimes I almost believed my stories.  Sometimes I would convince myself of the kinds of love or hate or passion I talked about. The irony of his position would always strike me as I left his house, and then I would get in the car and drive down to Andy’s or Catacombs--someplace dark, low--and I would order drinks and think about the stories I just told judge, and about how I would change them next time, but still stay aligned with the character I had created.  I had the utmost respect for Judge, which is why I think I tried so hard to astonish him and to be consistent.  

We met for eight years together.  Eight years of fabrication.  Eight years of intense conversation about nonexistent issues.  In the tradition of Spokane, it was like doing meth.  I couldn’t stop; but it ate my soul.  It had finally become too much, though.  Nobody was going to stop me from creating a world around me, from writing my own future to Judge; from the peaks and valleys of a simulated life.  Only I could do that.

I don’t know why I did it, but as I was placing a signed copy of a 1923 print of A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man in our showcase box at the library, I told myself I needed to grow up.  I walked out into the water, submerged myself, baptized myself; and it was fitting because I’d done everything else to myself too.  I had created my own hell, in spite of how hard I tried to convey to Judge a positive, hopeful, successful life.  And now I was ready.  I think I needed to admit to myself how fucked up I was before I admitted it to Judge.  Matter of fact I admitted how fucked up I was to Alan, who was tending at PJ’s, before I approached Judge.  Alan took it well.  He grabbed my whiskey, threw it down the drain, and paid my tab for me.  Then he walked me out to my car, punched me in the jaw, and gave me a hug.  I didn’t know what to make of it at the time, but I climbed in my car, started to cry, then drove drunkenly up the hill to Judge’s place.  

That night feels like a dream.  The gravel driveway.  The dog barking.  One of the garage lights was burnt out allowing the fabric of darkness to further encroach.  I liked darkness, but not tonight.  Tonight the darkness moaned and marched along the yard; an army oppressed and infuriated, rallied and revenge-seeking.  Shapes and shadows grew, became giants, advanced in bloodlust.  My heart whirred, desperately trying to balance my poisoned body and mind.  And then a sliver of hope, of light, emerged from the doorway to Judge’s house.  The ethereal swirling shadow army dissipated in the light, and the tangible body of Judge walked out onto the porch.

Joy swelled as I saw him, and then I vomited all over the driveway; poison leaving my body, my being, as I heard Judge yell, “Dammit bud!”  But then his hand was on the back of my neck while I heaved.  That strong hand, leathery with age, was what I remember as my world became all white.  Floating and white.