I had this Uncle who drank Lipton like a daschund on a summer day. He took to it like his liquor, lapping it up several times each hour to steady the nerves. Tonton Bertin we used to call him. One of those fun uncles every child deserves. The kind of man who spends his Saturday mornings taking you and your three brothers swimming and spends the evening drowning in a furious cocktail of Heineken and short skirts. By 20, he was 6'2 and just as thin as my father. The most dangerous thing on this planet is a tall strapping 20 year old male with free time…liberte reste, bangala forte…so they say. In my memories, there's nothing but swimming pools and beach balls. All it took to face the truth of his situation was a question from my mother. "Why do you think he drinks so much?" It was rhetorical. Her face held the answers left unspoken and I didn't dare respond though my mind jumped to the obvious.
Do vagabonds make home wherever they go or simply spend a lifetime chasing it? We always knew Tonton Bertin was staying with us if the fridge was stocked with meat and beer. He survived all 70 years of his life on a diet of kabobs and Heineken…eventually replaced by Heineken Light. Which comes first…the diet or the lifestyle? Or the divorce? Men like Tonton Bertin never use words like divorce and families like ours never ask what came of the aunt and cousins I never met. They disappear into the ether, the dark void of familial shame to be excavated for $250/hour by my next therapist.
He had a knack for disappearing. Years would go by without so much as a letter or a call. With the advent of social media, we'd now receive sporadic clues. A Picture posted of his smile, drifter's hat and the truck stop he called home for that night. There are things childhood innocence misinterprets. Things a child can never see. We always thought he was chasing the wind. The kind of man boys want to become. Africana Jones and the Temple of Conoco. The night my mother asked me that simple questions was the night I grew up. My mind wandered from carting his empty glass bottles to the reality of his cruse. Generational solitude triggered by a telltale cycle. He wasn't chasing his destiny, merely running away from it with all the control of a runaway truck bulleting down I-25.
What are we to do with such a man, destined for destruction?
Well, the last five would tell you to get the hell out of the way. A runaway truck has one possible destination and it ain't a fairytale ending. The furthest he got once was a road trip to a holiday dinner. Her family, of course. Somewhere between Connecticut and Vermont. A no man's land bordered by fall colors and too many maple trees. The real question is…beyond a Sunday breakfast, what do people really use maple syrup for? It's too fancy for your Monday routine and too sweet for much else.
Once, he bagged a woman so rich she flew him into California. Four-star hotel. Room service overlooking shallow waters. One of those entirely realistic scenes from some film starring Leonardo DiCaprio. This wasn't that sort of trip. She was poor. Not Appalachia poor. Not New York poor. Definitely not Lome poor but something close enough to fill him with regret. There's nothing worse than looking into the eyes of the ghosts you've been running from.
It was 2003. You can love Nelly today but that era in music wasn't exactly ripe for road trip soundtracks. He left his Jimi Hope CDs back in his apartment. These American women love whenever he plays his music, but his soul had already begun its retreat. Three weeks back, he recognized her love-addiction and didn't have the heart to say no to this but knew he shouldn't. Her eyes filled him with an innocence that was hard to betray. She was the kind of woman men preferred to break up with than cheat on. Ever meet the type? Born with a talisman that shrivels your manhood before you think of the double cross. A bruja? Maybe. This one chose Mary. Catholics make…interesting lovers. When anything can be repented, everything is up for grabs you know?
Outside of the midnight romps with the lights off, she was exactly what he expected. Nothing more, nothing less. Adorable and all the more hateful for it.