Jesse Goolsby - I'd Walk with My Friends If I Could Find Them

Lately Torres has talked about his international speaking gigs, memories of Big Dax, the Denver Broncos, the weather, the Rockies, and his wife, but Wintric hasn’t heard him talk about his daughter, Mia, in over a year. Wintric closes his bedroom door and lies on his bed, phone on speaker. Torres seems sober.

“I don’t know about regrets,” Torres says. “It’s the great thing about life. You don’t know the alternative. Make your decisions and press on. Mia made her choices. She wants to raise that poor child on her own, let her. She wants to live in Cortez and do it alone, let her. When you walk away from family, you walk away. Life is hard, but some people like it that way.”

“Yeah,” Wintric says. “Doesn’t make it easy.”

“Nothing’s easy, I guess.”

“I don’t know,” Wintric says.

“I thought she’d come back. It’s been four years. I haven’t seen my granddaughter. Most days I don’t care, but sometimes I do.”

“That makes sense.”

“Does it?”

“It’s family,” Wintric says. “Everything and nothing makes sense. It’s your kid, doesn’t matter if they’re six or twenty-six.”

“They’re not always your kid.”

“No?”

“Mia doesn’t get that you have to choose to be in a family. After a while it’s not guaranteed. If she were to show up right now, I don’t know if I’d let her in. I’d like to think that I wouldn’t. There have to be consequences. Listen, I don’t pretend there’s justice in the world. Only fools think that. She’ll probably win the damn lottery or something.”

“I don’t know,” Wintric says.

“There’s no justice, but there are rules. You don’t have to like them, but they’re there. You want to get pregnant, move out, turn your back on your family, fine, but you’re not going to be sailing the Mediterranean on your yacht. And I get it. It’s not all about money. But she chooses the hardest way possible.”

“I get it.”

“All of that, and if she showed up, I’d probably let her in. Why wouldn’t I?”

“I guess you would,” Wintric says.

“It wouldn’t be about forgiveness, just about the kid. It’s my only grandkid.”

“Old man.”

“Old enough.”

“Drop her a note and see what happens.”

“A note?”

“Write it out, old school,” Wintric says. “You might be surprised.”

“You’d forgive everyone. That’s your rehab talking.”

“You never know. Things grow out of control, but sometimes there’s a good reason. I mean that things may be okay after a while. Maybe she comes back different and things are good.”

“Do you feel different?”

“I feel how I feel. I try to remember how I used to feel, but I never know if it’s better or worse. I don’t believe people when they say, ‘This is the worst I’ve ever felt.’ I don’t think anyone remembers how good or bad things were.”

“Maybe.”

“I think about being on the drugs,” Wintric says. “I remember being calm. I remember feeling good, but I don’t know. I don’t trust myself.” He pauses. “What if it felt good but it could’ve been better? The only way to know would be to try it again.”

“Dangerous.”

“That’s the problem with drugs,” Wintric says. “They work.”

“I was on good stuff after the accident. You’re damn right they work. I’d be lying there in the hospital thinking that I’d walk again, I felt that good. I remember weeks after, still thinking I’d walk. Get me drunk enough and I’d probably tell you I still imagine it. It’s not good to think that way.”

“You never know.”

“Stop. It’s been long enough to know. But put it this way — if a miracle happens and I stand again, I’ll throw a party. I’ll fly out all the friends I can find. We’ll all hold hands and go on a walk together.”

“Am I on the list?”

“Hell, you are the list.”

“I don’t believe you,” Wintric says.

“I’m not drunk.”

“How’s your liver?”

“How’s yours?”

“That fair, I guess,” Wintric says.

“It’s not about fairness.”

“Okay.”

“I don’t know what it’s about.”

“We’re older now. It can be about anything.”

“I remember being a kid on the playground at school and watching the cars driving by and wondering where all of them were going. It fascinated me that all these people could just go wherever the hell they wanted. And come to find out it’s true. You grow up and you can go wherever the hell you want. Just hop in the car and go. You get older and all of a sudden you have all these choices.”

“Independence,” Wintric says.

“In a way.”

“Yeah.”

“But you still have places to be.”

“Hopefully, places you want to be,” Wintric says.

“Your choice, my friend. Grab the family, hop in the car, and go. That easy. One-way trip. But I’ve been preaching at you for years. You know this. You aren’t going anywhere, because you like it there.”

“You’re guessing.”

“What’s the name of the lake?”

“Almanor.”

“You love it.”

“You’re guessing.”

“I’ve known you a long time.”

“That’s true,” Wintric says.

“You like getting up in the morning?”

“What?”

“Do you like waking up and thinking you have a day in front of you?”

“Sure.”

“My father used to rant all the time about random crap and most of it was worthless, but as I got older one thing he used to ask me was, ‘Why are you waking up today?’ I guess what he meant was that I’d better have something worth waking up for, and if I ever got to a place where I didn’t, I’d better make a change quick. But you ask that question too often and it gets tough. Doesn’t matter what you’ve been through. Don’t ask me to answer my own question.”

“You don’t have to think like that when you’re a kid.”

“You don’t ever have to think about it, but it helps sometimes.”

“We all got reasons to get up,” Wintric says.

“Do you know yours?”

“Maybe he didn’t mean the big stuff. Maybe it’s a small thing.”

“Could be.”

“Something simple,” Wintric says.

“It has to be simple or no one would understand. Has to be enough to get you out of bed.”

“Yeah,” Wintric says. “Something simple.”

The game is on ESPN2. An afternoon bowl game five days before Christmas. Channel flipping, home alone and bored, Wintric sees the game appear, and an unrecognized moment of peace passes before he focuses on the screen. Wyoming versus Oregon State. Flung into paralysis, he stares at Wyoming’s brown-and-yellow uniforms, the helmets: the saddled cowboy and bronco. Wyoming. Jettisoned to Nelson’s white door, Nelson’s dog, now huge and savage, the white door in the heat, the AFG sticker on Nelson’s Jeep, the dog pressing him, the McDonald’s parking lot, a white door, a garbage truck, desert and gunpowder, a postcard in his hand. He won’t write his name on it. He won’t send it. Wyoming is a white door. Trapped, Wintric holds the remote in his living room. He can’t move his fingers. He holds the remote. Wyoming is an exit off I-80. He stares at the television through credit card and beer commercials, through a missed field goal and an ACL tear. Wyoming is a gun in his waistband. He won’t use it. Wyoming is a white door. No one is there.

Wintric stands. He’s off the couch. His coat is on. He’s on a nearby street, squinting. The sun reflects off the ice-packed road.

The dealer’s house is in a row of shotgun homes. Someone has left a square of red Christmas lights on around the front window. The fence has been fixed and the home has been painted yellow since Wintric was last here, ten months ago. There used to be kids’ toys everywhere, but now there’s only this sturdy fence and two feet of snow.