My ex-wife Pamela called tonight, which reminded me of this dream I've been having since I moved out to Jackson, Mississippi, a year ago. Even though it worries me whenever I have it, for some reason, I didn't get to really thinking about it until after I hung up the phone. As usual, she called at about one in the morning, just as I'd finally gotten around to feeling tired.

I knew it was her before I even answered. All night I'd had one of those feelings that something was up. I figured it’d be her because she calls late at night every couple of weeks or so anyway, either to pry some money out of me or tell me how irresponsible I am. Sometimes she does both during the same conversation, which doesn’t exactly help me in giving up drinking, which is why I came out here to Jackson in the first place. At any rate, I figured I must be due for another chewing out to make quitting more interesting. When the phone rang, I muted the TV and took a deep breath. For better or worse, I picked it up and said hello.

"Tommy is sick again," she said. She went right into it, speaking quickly. Her voice faltered a little as she talked and I had to struggle to catch the gist of what she was saying. "I need money, Gene, I need it bad," she was telling me.

Tommy is my son by Pamela. She’s the only wife I’ve ever had and we’ve been separated now for about a year. Being separated is different from being divorced, but I call her my ex anyway just to get used to the sound of it. Tommy is four. He has this gastro-intestinal disease, which sounds intimidating but thankfully turned out to be pretty mild. His stomach lining is thin and for a while the doctors told us it was in danger of eroding in a few places, not that you can believe everything they tell you anyway. He’s doing better now, thanks to the expensive medicine he takes, but still I’d like to see him to believe it. I haven’t seen him since my wife and I separated, which might be for the better judging from the amount of drinking I’ve been trying not to do recently.

I didn’t worry too much about Tommy when Pamela told me he was sick because she tends to trouble too much about things. Chances were he wasn’t even sick at all. Instead of worrying, I stayed calm and waited for her to continue, thinking she’d calm herself down as she went. She didn’t say anything else, so I asked her what had happened, was it bad, wasn’t the medicine working, and so on. I played like I didn’t know she was bullshitting me. She answered as best she could, fumbling over the names of the medicine, like she does. Of course I knew Tommy wasn’t sick, at least not any worse than usual.

At any rate, nothing his medicine and maybe a trip to the doctor in the morning wouldn’t fix. I told her that and on the other end of the line I could hear her open and close her mouth a few times. She was trying not to cry, I could tell. I could tell she was ashamed, too. I couldn’t help but feel a little sorry for her. It seemed like every week she was slipping more and more and trying to drag me down with her. She had me curious as to what was really up, so I took the line she was baiting me.

"Pamela," I said, "Pamela, tell me what's really bothering you."

I turned up the volume a little bit on the TV. There was a show on about the Wild West. I used to really love those old John Wayne cowboy movies. As I turned the volume up a bit, I knew she was winding the phone cord around her fingers. I could see it. She’d probably wound it so tight that her fingers were white—even the one that used to wear the wedding ring I gave her ten years ago. That’s a curious thing about people—that they don’t come out and say what they want to say when they want to say it. Now John Wayne—there’s a guy who says exactly what he means. I thought about that while I watched more about the Wild West on TV.

"Gene," she said softly after I don't remember how long. "Gary left me."

I muted the TV again and said "Yeah" as if I'd seen it coming even though I hadn't. Not by a mile, I admit it. I didn't think they were finished dragging each other down yet. I reached for my drink and took a big swig before I remembered it was just RC Cola. I guess I also admit that I’ve thought a lot about Pam. About just driving back to Birmingham to get her. But then there was always my health to consider. It's not that I don't want to help Pam, or see Tommy; it's just that I'm busy trying to stay clean. Drinking RC Colas. with lime juice to give it the feeling of something mixed into it.

Now Gary—there’s someone I definitely think about. Gary and I used to work together at the plant. He oversaw the assembly line and I worked as an independent electrician and then after awhile as his subordinate directly for the company. Before we became friends, Gare—that’s what I always called him before he went behind my back with my wife—he used to call the house and leave messages about work and company-sponsored picnics and things like that. He didn’t know us and we didn’t know him at first, but Pam and I used to chuckle at his messages. They had this screwy cadence to them. We’d play them over dinner and laugh.

He'd say, "Hello... Gary here... callingformisterGene... Reynolds..."

"Who is this guy?" Pamela would ask. I would tell her it was some friend of hers, not mine, and we'd laugh and then maybe drink some wine and fool around a little. I miss nights like those. We used to kid about that kind of stuff a lot, before the kidding turned into accusations.

But to cut to the chase, Gare and I became friends. I thought he was a real stand-up guy. Sure, he did a few drugs, but then I did too. The drugs didn’t become a real problem for him until later. We’d go for a drink after work every now and again, and then every night after work after awhile. He ate dinner at our place and us at his. He had a girlfriend… Jennifer, I think, but that doesn’t matter now because the point is that he started seeing my wife behind my back, Tuesdays and Thursdays, I found out later, at the Motel 6 behind the hardware store and wherever else they had the chance. And now he’d left her. And had I seen it coming? Hell no.

But apparently he did it and Pamela had called me up to tell me about it and to try to get some money out of me, to boot. I was mad about that and I had a right to be mad. I guess I’m still a long way from forgiving her even after a year away. I might never completely forgive her for what she did. I held the phone out a little from my ear so that I could just hear her voice.

"He left me, Gene... me and Tommy," she was saying. “Your son, Gene—do you remember him? All those nights you’d come home…. Where are you, Gene? Will you tell me that? Will you pay me that privilege—to know where the father of my child is?”

She’d managed to talk herself into anger. I didn’t say anything. I swished an ice cube around in my mouth and wished for a glass of straight vodka. She kept talking.

“Gene.” She was talking quickly now. “Give me your address and I’ll drive over tomorrow, huh? Are you there, Gene? Gene. Come on, I’ll bring Tommy. He misses you. I miss you, Gene. Gene? You there? Are you listening? Answer me, you bastard. You never gave a fuck about us anyway. Wire me some money. I gotta get outta here, Gene.” Now she was crying. “Not everyone can just pick up and leave when things get bad, Gene.”

“Yeah, some people just have affairs, huh, Pamela,” I said. I was glad I said it. It felt good.

That’s not fair, Gene. Wire me some money. Where are you…?”

A sacred bond, Pamela. Between a man and his wife, goddamit.”

She was getting hysterical like she does and I didn’t feel like talking to her anymore so I hung up. It would only be a matter of time before she’d bring up my drinking, anyway. Calling me a drunk, asking me if I could see salvation looking through the bottom of an upturned bottle of vodka. She was particularly proud of that one. She liked to talk about salvation when she found herself in a corner, especially my salvation. I went to the kitchen to fix myself a small toddy from my emergency stash and unplugged the phone.

She didn’t used to get hysterical like that. Of course, for that matter I wasn’t always a drunk. We met in high school and married soon after graduation, before I went to technical college to be an electrician and before she started working as a secretary. We met though a random assignment of lab partners in a high school chemistry class, not that it really matters. We used to tell people that there was chemistry between us right when we first met, just to make people gag. People say odd things when they’re in love. We were happy for a while too, after we married. We were poor, but we were happy. At least I think we were happy then. It’s hard to remember after all the other stuff that happened.

But back then we used to talk about our future. Our future together. Husband and wife. We talked about having a baby and about how we were gonna raise it. We said things to each other that should have been eternal. Pamela wanted to have a baby. We tried real hard. That part was fun. Then, for a while Pamela thought there was something wrong with her, something that couldn’t be fixed. Things got tense. Looking back, I blamed her for not getting pregnant. I think, in a funny way, she wanted to be blamed, too. Like maybe being some kind of martyr made things easier on her. Sometimes I don’t understand that girl. Other times, I think I understand her too much and that’s why we have problems. Like there’s a part of me in her now that I can’t stand to see.

But about the baby, things went on like that for a year or two. Having sex became an assignment and then it stopped altogether. I started going to the bar after work and not coming back home until late. We started to really quarrel. We even started talking about other words that can be eternal, like divorce. But then, miraculously, it happened—Pamela got pregnant with Tommy. I imagined that things would get better between us. Both of us did, really. I was even getting used to the idea of being a father. It didn’t really scare me as much anymore.

>But Pamela started acting weird after Tommy was born. She started acting crazy, losing her temper a lot—getting hysterical over things. Sure, I’d go out drinking, but now if I came home drunk she wouldn’t let me near Tommy, and sometimes not even into my own house. When I’d come home and find the door locked, I’d do the only reasonable thing a man could do—turn around and do some more drinking, sometimes renting a hotel room somewhere in town, sometimes bringing someone back to it to keep me company.

But the one thing I never did during those times was hit her. Well, she says I hit her once, one night when I forced the front door open. She said I threatened to take Tommy and then hit her. I was drunk, she says. I don’t remember doing any of that.

It wasn’t long before Pamela quit her job as a secretary at the doctor’s office, even though having somewhere to be everyday might have helped her out. We didn’t talk hardly at all after that. We didn’t make love either. About that time I really laid into the drinking.

I drank gin, bourbon, and wine—mostly the bad, cheap wine you find at gas stations. I tried not to discriminate, especially if money was low. But most of all, I drank vodka. I’d drink vodka and ice, vodka and orange juice, or any kind of juice that I could find. I drank vodka and coffee. I even used vodka to thin out pancake batter once, before I remembered that the heat would kill the alcohol, and ended up sitting in front of the TV eating the batter with a spoon, trying to keep Tommy from crawling away where I couldn’t keep my eye on him.

Even though I was pretty out of it then, I found out about her and Gary and the Motel 6 and probably in my bed when I was at work and God knows where else. There was a fight. Things were thrown. I finished off a bottle of vodka and threw it at her. I moved to Jackson, Mississippi. Just packed up and moved one day. Collected my final check and flat out moved to Jackson. I bought a week’s supply of booze, loaded my car up with some juices in a cardboard box, and started driving for one last binge. What can I say? It seemed like a good idea at the time. I moved because I couldn’t take one day longer around Pamela and Gary. I couldn’t take one more day in that house. So I told Tommy goodbye—he was only two, then—and drove off. Somewhere between Birmingham and Jackson I lost my wedding band. Either that or sold it. Not that it was worth much anyway.

Eventually I found my way to an Econo Lodge just outside of Jackson, which is where I’m staying now, trying to give up the drink for good. The owner lets me mow the lawn and water the plants and do odd jobs in exchange for a free room and a little bit to live on. I also work on the electrical outlets and things like that, seeing how that’s what I’m trained to do. He’s a good guy, the owner. His name is Mike and he’s always wearing these bright Bermuda shorts and a wide-brimmed straw hat. I told him what I was going through and he told me he understood. He told me he and his wife separated a few years back, and they’d only just now gotten divorced officially. He told me she ended up marrying her divorce lawyer. Imagine that.

For a while after I moved into my room at the Econo Lodge, I tortured myself with the idea that Pam and Gary might get married. After all, Pamela wasn’t sad when I left her—not really anyway—so why wouldn’t she marry him?  The thought of Gary raising Tommy made me furious. More than once Mike found me drunk in the parking lot late at night, trying to drive back to get my son, not that I had a clue what I’d do with him once I got him. It’s a bumpy ride in the wagon, Mike would tell me, so it’s okay to fall out every now and again as long as you keep jumping back on. He’d tell me stuff like that as he pulled me away from my car—his bright blue Bermuda shorts giving off this glow, reflecting the hotel lights.

But it turns out I didn’t even need to worry about Gary being a father to the son I hadn’t seen in a year. Instead of things getting better for Pamela and Gary after I left, things started to get worse. She started reading the Bible more, but only got more scared and anxious about everything. That’s when she started using words like ‘salvation.’

Sure, she had Tommy, but even he had his stomach problems she had to deal with. I tried to send money to them whenever I could, for Tommy that is, and I sent a card on his birthday but I don’t think she gave it to him. At least I’m pretty sure I sent it—I definitely bought it. On top of that, from my understanding, Gary started drinking more and his other habits got worse as well. They were flat broke. Broker than me. Probably the only two people in the world broker than me.

But here’s the kicker: I try not to, but I worry about her sometimes when I can’t sleep. On those nights I’m up real late pacing and trying not to drink. My hands tremble and I get the shakes all over. Instead of Pamela, I usually think about Tommy, about how I haven’t seen him, about how I want to see him, but that leads me back to Pamela and then to Gary and her, and so on. I told myself for a while that once I cleaned up, maybe we’d give it another shot. It’s foolish, I know. But Pamela seems to keep running herself into the ground lately, and I don’t know how I could help her. I’ve got enough problems myself that I’m still trying to work through. Honest to God, sometimes I feel like I’m paralyzed out here. Like I’m stuck. Like I can’t breathe.

Which, after I unplugged the phone, is really what got me thinking about the dream. I finished my drink as I thought about it. I sat for a second and let the dream play back in my mind, trying to remember all the details of it, and wondering why I hadn’t thought much about it earlier. What happens in the dream is this: I’m at a party. I don’t know whose party it is or why I’m there, and I guess it’s not important. I don’t feel out of place at the party, but I’m standing alone with my drink, which was a gin and tonic in the first dream and vodka with a splash of water in the second. Then, all of a sudden, I know that Gary is there, and that Pamela is there too, even though I don’t see them. It doesn’t seem to bother me too much, because I keep drinking my drink and kind of leaning against the wall as people I don’t know pass me.

>Then I see Pamela. She’s wearing this blue gauzy dress, and I recognize it as a dress she would wear when we used to drive out into the country with some wine and packed lunches. I see her in glimpses because people keep passing in between us. Then, I see her reach for some crackers or something on a table next to her. She starts to eat them and the next thing I know, she’s choking. She clutches at her throat and starts looking back and forth and her eyes get real big. I can see her neck turn red against the blue of her dress. She looks straight at me and falls to the floor. That’s when the other people at the party, people I don’t know, move in to try to help. I don’t know where Gary is, but in the dream I don’t even think about him.

Someone stoops down to help her. Again, some guy I don’t know. He starts shaking her, and then tries to give her the Heimlich. After a few attempts, he looks up and looks straight at me. I mean he looks right at me and points at me and says, “You, call 911.” He says that as he looks right at me like in a high school health film. I don’t think anyone’s ever looked at me more directly than he does then. “Can you hear? Are you listening? Are you drunk? Call 911.” He keeps saying this to me all the while pointing and looking right at me. And about then, I usually wake up.

>Right now outside my window I hear cars pulling into the hotel even though it’s well after three in the morning. Mike insists on doing the booking himself, even late at night. He sleeps on this old leather couch full of holes with the stuffing coming out like some kind of gutted animal. I’ve tried to convince him to let me do the booking, seeing as how I’m up all hours anyway. But that’s one good thing about Mike: he’s always up, and if I catch him after someone’s just hit him up for a room, he’s usually game for a drink or two, and maybe a good John Wayne movie, both of which sound like good ideas to me right now. I need to distract myself from all of this. I need to get some sleep.

You see, the thing that always gets me about the dream, the thing that won’t get out of my head, is that I don’t move when Pamela starts choking. I start getting the shakes all over like I need a drink, even though I have one in my hand. I’m watching Pamela and soon I can’t breathe myself but everyone’s looking at me, expecting me to do something. It’s not that I don’t want to help Pamela; it’s just that I keep standing there against the wall watching her, trying to catch my own breath. I don't move an inch. I try to take a drink from my glass. I can feel the liquid hit my tongue, but I don’t move at all. And that’s what gets me the most about the dream: I don't move at all.