Date: Wed, 17 Apr 2002 16:52:41 -0700 (PDT) From: K. S. Subject: drinking-at-sullivans-grill-5 [Yes, its been forever again. I'll try to do even better. I just got inspired today.] FROM CHAPTER FOUR: "I...uh," he began again. "I like you a lot." As he said those final words, he quickly looked away, concentrating on the decking of my patio. I could hear --and see, in the cold weather -- his breath, coming fast and furious. He stood, next to me, one hand holding a now half-empty drink, the other hand tucked until a jacket armpit for warmth. His head down, and tilted away from me as well, I couldn't see his facial expressions. But I heard his breath sounds change, and suddenly sound more violent, and he moved his free hand away from his jacket and up to his face, rubbing at his eyes. It hit me, suddenly, that he was crying. CHAPTER FIVE At this point, I was at a loss. Or rather, I was in a complete quandary. I had spent so much energy into being a customer at Sullivans's and getting to know their bartenders, that I was hurt by Glenn crying and my desire to "fix it", as quickly as possible, was almost palatable. At the same time, though, I suspected he wasn't the person to just suddenly have an emotional outburst. Of course, I thought I knew (or at least suspected) the reason at this point. Nothing else made sense. I just couldn't believe it. "Glenn, dude...", I started, placing my boilermaker very carefully on the floor of the patio. I wasn't sure where this was headed, but I wanted to have my hands free in case a hug helped. Unfortunately, noise just made things worse. Glenn went from quietly crying to noisily making sounds that concerned me. He'd already gone from leaning over the rail of my patio to sitting in a spraddle-leg fashion on the patio, and from what I could see, his beer had gone over the edge into the hastas a few moments earlier. From what I could see, none of this was headed into a good situation. At this point, the night had turned back into weird. 'Sober up' was the litany I repeated to myself for a few moments - which seemed like forever - while I watched Glenn collapse to the ground. Over and over again, in my head, it actually seemed to help. I began to realize that I wished I had known that doing that actually made you seem more in control; at the same time I wondered if it was just an affectation. In any event, I was in this situation (at least partly of my own making) and I was determined to take care of it. "Glenn...", I said softly, sinking down to the same level as he on the patio. Right behind his back, I was hesitant to put my arms around him, but he was crying so hard I was hesitant not to. Compromising, I put my hand squarely on his back, almost shaking him. "Glenn...", I repeated. "I'm OK...", I heard between muffled sobs - Glenn was holding his hands over his face at this point, and it was difficult to hear clearly. "Glen, its ok if something is up, I'm just concerned about you." Immediately my conversation grated on my nerves. 'Just say "It's OK, dude, I know what you're going through."' I thought. 'Don't tell him you know what he's going through when you don't really.', I thought at almost the same time. Obviously, I wasn't going to get much help from my brain, tonight. Going with the heart instead, I wrapped my arms around Glenn, perfectly prepared for him to throw his arms up, march off my porch and go home, presumably still crying. Sometimes though, random stuff works. In this case it did. Glenn sank back into my body - I was sitting right behind him - and I began to revise my definitions of being emotionally upset. If he was crying earlier, I wasn't sure what he was doing now, it was so intense. His entire body was shaking so bad I thought about what I knew about seizures. Not sure he was having one, I was hesitant to put my wallet in his mouth to bite on, and I'd read that was probably a bad idea anyway. So instead, I just held him tighter while he cried. I'm not sure that crying is an accurate description of what he did, really. Having cried hard, I know what that is like. With Glenn, it was a much more physical thing. His body shook, and his nose ran, and his ears leaked tears like they were faucets. After my arms were around him, it only seemed to get worse. I began to wonder if I was helping or hurting, until he turned his head around, and started shifting his body so that we were face to face. Putting his face in between my face and chin - so that his entire face was in contact with my neck, I just let him cry.