Chris' Christian Blog

Could I Have?

"Could I Have?" 

The Blog City Prompt Forum prompt for 1-14-17 is " You have a terrifying secret that you never wanted anyone to know but the note taped on your car windshield suggests that someone does know. What are you willing to do to secure silence?"

I'm not going to go there directly. What i am going to do is tell you true story from my own life.

When I was discharged from the military I began a 35 year decent into the depths of mental illness and addiction. I began drinking in the military and always drank myself to near alcohol poisoning. I seldom remembered taking my third or fourth drink because "drinks" for me were usually one pint of liquor or more at a time. One time shortly after discharge I left my parents house where I was living to avoid taking actions against my dad's intolerable behavior that I'd later regret. I found myself in a town 60 miles north soon afterwards. Once there I quickly befriended a man and we began splitting rent on an apartment. I went with him to a party one night, and as was usually the case for me back then there was booze. I quickly drank myself to oblivion as did my roommate. I was lying on the floor in a corner passed out and my roommate was across the room passed out.

An important part of this story is that I was always straining to use the bathroom and rectal bleeding wasn't at all uncommon for me. So I was often a man with a sore backside. So when I came to, because I never woke up back then, I was sore. I didn't give it a second thought until my roommate told me that the last thing he remembered was seeing the host leaning over top of me. Well like the young fool I was back then I put two and two together and came up with five. I was sure the host had slipped me a mickey and assaulted me. I was furious! I went on a bender to end all benders and began a four day blackout. To this day I can't account for that time. On the fifth day when I came to again I heard that the old boy who had hosted the party had simply vanished. Nobody seemed to know where he had gone. Again my screwed up calculator added two and two and got five. I was certain I had done something I could never undo. After all I had been trained to do so by the world's mightiest military and had been willing to do so for them if need be. So I knew I had it in me. I so wanted to put out some inquiries to find out if anything was known as to his whereabouts.. On the other hand I wanted to fade into the wood work because a relationship with Bubba just wasn't something I wanted.

For nearly 30 years I spent my life looking over my shoulder. I was always very patriotic and loved the red, white, and blue. I just didn't like it in my rear view mirror! Yet I always had a nagging suspicion that it was a matter of time. I was always getting into petty mischief back then, usually destruction of property from tearing up a bar, so the police would come and talk to me. Each time I saw them coming I would think "This is it!"

Well of course I never was arrested for the man's disappearance in any way. Then one day about a year after I gave up the sauce I was sitting in a diner in my then hometown, about 90 miles south of where he had come up missing, and he was sitting at a table near mine! I didn't know whether to ask him what really happened or kiss him! So I went over and asked if h remembered me. Of course he didn't. I told him the whole story, apologizing for ever thinking evil of him. While he didn't remember me he did remember the party. It been his "going away" party before leaving town for permanent reassignment! he hugged me and told me he had been seen practically over top of me because I was lying in a corner passed out. He wanted to roll me over in case I got sick. Saving my life led to a series of events that left me sure I had done the unthinkable and living with the incredible remorse that entailed for over 30 years!