He Doesn't Know Why

From Where I‘m Calling From:

“So she and J.P. saw some movies together. They went to a few dances. But mainly the courtship revolved around their cleaning chimneys together. Before you know it, J.P. says, they’re talking about tying the knot. And after a while they do it, they get married. J.P.’s new father-in-law takes him in as a full partner. In a year or so, Roxy has a kid. She’s quit being a chimney sweep. At any rate, she’s quit doing the work. Pretty soon she has another kid. J.P.’s in his mid-twenties by now. He’s buying a house. He says he was happy with his life. “I was happy with the way things were going,” he says. “I had everything I wanted. I had a wife and kids I loved, and I was doing what I wanted to do with my life.” but for some reason - who knows why we do what we do? - his drinking picks up. For a long time he drinks beer and beer only. Any kind of beer - it didn’t matter. He says he could drink beer twenty-four hours a day. He’d drink beer at night while he watched TV. Sure, once in a while he drank hard stuff. But that was only if they went out on the town, which was not often, or else when they had company over. Then a time comes, he doesn’t know why, when he makes the switch from beer to gin-and-tonic. And he’d have more gin-and-tonic after dinner, sitting in front of the TV. There was always a glass of gin-and-tonic in his hand. He says he actually liked the taste of it. He began stopping off after work drinks before he went home to have more drinks. Then he began missing some dinners. He just wouldn’t show up. Or else he’d show up, but he wouldn’t want anything to eat. He’d filled up on snacks at the bar. Sometimes he’d walk in the door and for no good reason throw his lunch pail across the living room. When Roxy yelled at him, he’d turn around and go out again. He moved his drinking time up to early afternoon, while he was still supposed to be working. He tells me that he was starting off the morning with a couple of drinks. He’d have a belt of the stuff before he brushed his teeth. Then he’d have his coffee. He’d go to work with a thermos bottle of vodka in his lunch pail.”