The Corner Bar

A bar counter should always be of fine dark wood. Its not that it affects the flavour of the drink, but it does effect the mood of the drinker.

She didn’t have to ask if he was there, she could see the quarter filled glass beyond the divider. Clever or not so clever wooden or glass dividers allowed those who wanted some solitude an element of hope.

“Don’t make a scene Claire” pleaded Jeff.

“Will it make a difference?”

Jeff slowly nodded.

Claire walked along the bar counter and reached the shadow she had been seeking for two days.

“Hello,” she said calmly.

“I think it’s Tuesday, is that right, or maybe Monday?” replied Mark.

“Why are you doing this again? You know things are a mess at the moment, we can’t keep doing this.”

Mark looked at her and smiled, “you’ll have a Coors Light, yep?”

Claire stared at him and then gave a slight nod.

As the drinks were being readied, Claire gripped Mark’s arm, “you can’t keep doing this, what’s going on?”

“I was thinking yesterday, no, the day before, we should take a trip to the lakes. What’d you think?”

She looked down at the floor and heard the sound of the bottle on that dark wooden counter. If Mark was talking about the lakes again she knew she wouldn’t be able to handle this on her own.

“I don’t think taking a trip is the right thing to do,” she finally whispered.

He was slowly moving his index finger along the smooth curve of the wood, back and forth. Claire recognized this, it was what he used to do when carefully composing his response. No-one was better at it than him. He could be in a board room in New York with twenty foreign business men, hostile with each other and more-so towards him. He would look straight ahead, the person at the end of the table in his grip, and his finger would gently move, only slightly, along the edge of the table, seldom noticed. Then, after a moment, he would speak, and what tended to happen next usually removed the problem at hand.

It took longer, these days, for him to finally speak, and sometimes he said nothing at all. But she knew the sign and waited, hoping, an end might be in sight.

“We should take a trip to the lakes. What’d you think?”  he said quietly.

Tears came to Claire’s eyes as she knew the man she loved and had come to believe in so much, was slipping away into a world that she had no understanding of.

For twenty years he had masterminded deals and opportunities all over the world with a following that had come closer to what she imagined a realigous cult might be like. But in the past three years he had started to waiver on his decisions. His hesitation noticed quickly by the formerly adoring followers and they slowly seemed to step further away from his gradually tilting poise.

Finally at a crucial moment in one of his second nature deals, no answer came from his gentle finger movement at the boardroom table. His followers vanished and he retreated into a silence that lasted three months.

Claire had received great advice from real friends and family about who to go to and they had discovered a man who seemed to have an ability in helping those who had moved to an inner world. For many months they had met and soon Mark was speaking about things she had never heard before. It was the first time she had heard about the lakes and what they meant to him.

She wondered, as she listened to Mark explaining the story about his childhood friend Peter in one of the sessions, do we all carry secrets around with us and at what cost? She had never seen her husband cry before. His body had started with a slight tremble and then shook almost in a violent manner, the sound pushed from his throat through his nose as he held his lips tightly closed, was so foreign to her.

Finally, with the help of this miracle man, the tragic witnessed accident of a five year old friend drowning was something that Mark started to talk more about, and cried less. The sessions continued and his mood seemed to lift. He even spoke of returning to work, a situation that would simply never happen, that world was one you had only a single ticket through.

It had been a year since the intensive sessions had ended and Mark only attended some support group sessions from time to time. He had found some enjoyment in photography and would often go off for hours with his camera. The hours gradually stretched longer and after a while these trips ran into days. Claire would find herself out searching for him and in recent times the ending was always the same. Mark would be in a bar, behind a divider, quiet, sipping, thinking. Lately, he had settled on this small corner bar, which in a way was a relief, she knew this place and Jeff was understanding.

It’s not that Mark was violent or dangerous when drinking, he was completely harmless. It’s just that he no longer knew where he was or what he was doing.

Now he was asking about the lake again. She fingered her mobile phone in her pocket and remembered that miracle man’s words, “Claire, we have no guarantees, he has responded well and is so much better, but this break was very severe and the longer he is well the better the chances. Even with that, you need to be prepared, if it happens soon again, you’ll have to act.”

Mark was completely unaware of the tears now flowing down her face as she stood up and turned away, slowly walking to the far end of the bar. She looked at the phone and found the number she’d been given. She drew on all her strength as she gave the instruction that would mean Mark would lose his freedom, perhaps for good.

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