Outside Cafe Abandon, night has fallen in earnest, though you would never know from inside this windowless place. Next to me at the bar, a man orders a bourbon by name known by afficianados but yet obscure to the general public, a small batch specialty from a distillery not yet famous, but hopeful to be someday for this delicate bourbon on the expensive side of affordable.
He asks to add a splash of water, then takes his time tasting with each sip. It is to the glass he tells his tale, almost as if I were not there at all.
And the band plays...
Unforgettable
That’s why, Darling, it’s incredible
That someone so unforgettable
Thinks that I’m
Unforgettable,
Too.
They’re not all gone. The memories. Everything after I first visited this place is ensconced. It was to be rid of what came before that I came. Memories I could not live with. Memories? Or a memory? Does it matter? Can it? They are as far gone now as the summer breeze and the winter winds. I suppose that’s a blessing. I suppose their taking what I could not bear to remember was the greatest gift I could have wished for. That I lost a few more as collateral damage, that they took more than I intended to give was, perhaps, simply the cost they exacted for their service. How can I know?
Tis gone.
Tis gone.
But this place. This place I remember. This place so many say is cursed.
And this bourbon. cursed or not, no one could easily forget this bourbon. I still have that, at least.
I had been fighting with my...girlfriend? boyfriend? Wife? Girlfriend doesn’t sound quite right, but who knows? Tis gone.
Tis gone.
I’d been fighting with someone, anyway. Long enough and hard enough that I finally came here in desperation.
Came here because...because...I remember someone saying I had to get over it. That I had to move on with my life. Stop wallowing in self-pity and put it behind me. Forget once and for all, or leave and never come back.
That much I remember. I remember that I couldn’t forget. That I was desperate to. But forget what, I don’t suppose I will ever know. Never again, anyway. Tis gone.
Tis gone.
There was loss. Not of memory. I don’t mean that. I mean the memory I was so desperate to be rid of was a memory of loss. Unbearable loss. Unspeakable loss. Unforgettable loss.
Unforgettable.
So I thought, anyway. No matter. Tis gone.
Tis gone.
He brought me here. He? She? they? They brought me in one final desperate attempt. After 3 years of failure. After therapy and hypnosis and doctors and snake oil salesmen. One last chance to be rid of the memory that was tearing us apart. That would tear me apart next. One last chance to put the pain behind me forever.
Well...this place did that, I cannot deny.
I do remember the woman who met me at the door. I remember her telling me it would not take long. That my partner probably had time for a short walk or a cigarette if they wanted. A little but not a long while. Not enough time to go home and come back, perhaps, but maybe enough for a coffee or cocktail at the bar. I followed her to the bar, my stomach twisting with anxiety...with maybe it was something I ate. With maybe I just needed a glass of water. With maybe I needed to step back outside and get some fresh air.
No such luck. I followed her to this very stool where I joined her for a cocktail. She told me she would take me below in a few minutes, but that perhaps we could start with a few questions first between the two of us. She came across like a nurse or physician’s assistant asking me a slate of questions before meeting the actual doctor. A sort of protocol necessary before descending to visit the doctor in earnest, so to speak. She suggested we talk over a cocktail and asked what I liked to drink. I told her a liked a good bourbon, and she ordered a glass of this this one for me. I’d never seen it anywhere else, but I’d long been adventurous with my bourbon, and I found it relaxing to taste something new. I thanked her and she smiled. Like you, she asked me to tell her my story. Why I had come. What had brought me to so desperate a place. I was standoffish, annoyed that soon enough she would only repeat it all for the doctor, when I could easily enough just tell him myself.
I remember not wanting to tell her. Remember feeling that , like that disaster of a therapist, she had not yet earned the right to hear me bare my soul. I remember expecting that I would ultimately only tell the doctor, so to speak. That I would hold back until I was properly in the catacomb below. That’s how I remember it today, anyway. The bourbon was a little sharp at first, but a splash of water opened it up, and me as well. Maybe it was no more than the alcohol falling on an empty stomach, or the way her smile led to a comfortable bedside manner. Maybe it was my hope, the myth of this place. Maybe it was the music. Or maybe I was just finally ready. Whatever it was, I could feel myself slowly getting ready to tell her. Tell anyone, really. To let myself go at long last and vomit the painful memories that had roiled my stomach for so long. Memories that had been ruining my life, breaking apart my relationships, keeping me up at night and turning me into a ball of anger ready to lash out at anyone who dared try to know me. Memories of the loss I could not bear. Of...
Of...
Of...well...what can it matter? Tis gone...
Tis gone.
What I did remember was my desperation to be rid of the pain. To forget forever. To abandon my memory. To hell with the doctor, I thought. To hell with whatever was waiting for me below. If this charming woman was willing to listen, I thought, as the bourbon coursed through me, why not let go and say the words? Why not free myself of the nausea from the bile of memory roiling my stomach? So what if she would only repeat it all when we finally arrived below?
What did it matter? I supposed she was part of the service. That if they said I had to start with the nurse, what difference could it make to me? Let them have their protocols. Do it their way. The sooner I got through the preliminaries, I told myself, the sooner I could be done with the pain. Abandon my cursed memory forever. I had been holding back for so long, burying it inside me so deep, the sooner I could get to the catacombs, I thought, the better. The sooner I could open up myself and let the vomit out, so to speak, the sooner I would be free. And who better to do that with than this delightful woman with a way of making me immediately comfortable in her presence. With warm whiskey coursing through my body, pulling a smile to my face. I told her I was ready. Ready to abandon my memory forever.
She warned me that I might lose the good ones along with the bad. That if I dared tell her of my loss, the doctor would free me of it, but that it was delicate work. That sometimes patients lost more than they intended. That memories all feed off one another, that they are crammed together so tightly it can be difficult at best to break them apart, to pull out one without damaging another. That though she commended the doctor’s skill, he could only do so well. I accepted her warning and continued my story, thinking I would soon enough find myself below and rid myself of the cursed memory at last. I gave up. I gave in. I let myself go and told her everything she wanted to hear. All the painful memories I could no longer live with, was desperate to abandon. She smiled in understanding, took my hand, and walked me to the top of the stairs, sending me on alone to the room below where she told me I would be met very soon by the doctor.
I did as she instructed, and walked down the stairs, carefully holding the railing as the bourbon had made me a little heavy on my feet. At the bottom, where I expected to find a dank basement, I found only a brightly lit and clean examination room. A man I assumed was some sort of doctor came in and met me. He sat at his computer and appeared to look through a series of notes saying very little if anything, shaking his head at every stopping point. Heaving a few sighs along the way, he looked mostly at his screen, and only at me for the briefest of moments. At most, he occasionally said, “Hmm...,”and went back to his reading. He would shake his head again, say something like, “interesting...hmmm..., “and I would be left to wait with him in awkward silence.
At last, he sighed again, shook his head and said, “I’m sorry sir, There’s really nothing I can do for you,” before turning back to his screen and ignoring me completely. After what felt an interminable wait, he turned off his screen and said, I’m sorry we couldn’t do anything for you today. “Not every visit can end in success. “Carla can show you the way out.” He then turned and opened his door me, motioning with his hand for me to leave, after which he walked back to his desk and got back to whatever his work was. I walked back up here, expecting to see the charming woman still waiting for me, but I recognized no one. All I saw was a bar crowded with strangers drinking quietly as the band played on. I walked past them, dejected, toward the door I had come in, no sign of the woman who I thought would be there to guide me home. At the bar, I sat alone until a stranger called my name. “Yes? I said. He replied by asking me how it went. Assuming he was just making small talk, I told him I supposed it went fine. He asked if everything was ok, looking, perhaps, a little worried. Not knowing him well enough to answer in a meaningful way, and not taking him very seriously, I told the stranger I was fine and made my way past him to the door.
“Honey,” he cried. “What’s wrong?”
I ignored him and made my way to the exit, lost in a lightheaded haze, not sure where to go. I started walking down the sidewalk, no idea where I was going, and the man followed me. He said, “Honey. Over here. I’m parked around the corner,” and held out his hand. I took the stranger’s hand and let him lead me to his car before taking me home for dinner. Or what seemed, perhaps, like home. It was a one-bedroom apartment dark for the evening, with faded black crepe on the windows of the nursery, and dusty cobwebs in the corners. Was it his home or mine? Both? Who knows?
Tis gone.
Tis gone.