On Friday night, we went fishing at Shorncliffe again. Eddie caught another stingray, and as usual, people crowded around to check out the catch.
Two swaggering drunks joined in the commotion. One of them hung around Eddie and kept talking to him.
A group of friendly Serbian youths packed up and gave us a nearly-full bottle of Ricadonna they couldn't finish. I took the big bottle, gulped a mouthful, swayed around and said to Eddie, "Look, I'm an alcoholic!" (intending to be comical, not to offend the real drunk in any way)
The drunk snorted and muttered something along the lines of "Pfft right. If you're looking for a REAL alcoholic, here's one for you."
God, he reeked of alcohol.
"I've got a bigger bottle than you," I smiled back, while at the back of my head thinking- At least I'm not you, you sad fella. How can people like you be so stupid and choose to piss their lives away like this?
I put the heavy bottle of sparkling down and continued to busy myself trying to get a nibble from something other than a puffie or an eel-tailed cattie.
Anne and Afiq and their friends arrived shortly.
Now I have always admired Eddie for keeping an open mind, unlike me being skeptical of everything and everybody. However, I was starting to get a little annoyed at the hovering drunk because we had come all this way to fish, the tide was high, and my boyfriend had stopped fishing because he was sitting on the bench at the end of the jetty yakking away to the smelly drunkard like old friends.
The drunk guy hung around, plastic cup of wine in hand, all the way until we packed up. As we left, he waved us goodbye. "See ya Eddie!" he beamed, and to me, "see ya babe!"
I looked at Eddie and screwed up my nose, repulsed. "Did he just call me BABE??"
On the road home, I asked Eddie why he had kept chatting to the drunk guy.
So he told me his story.
The man had just come out of jail only two days ago. He had been in jail for six years for accidental manslaughter. He got into a fight at a pub, and because he knew muay thai (Thai kickboxing), his moves came out and he elbowed a guy. That guy slammed into a pole nearby and died. The drunk was sentenced to ten years, but he got out early. He had never meant to kill anyone, and Eddie said, "You could tell he was definitely not the sort of person to kill someone". He was out on the jetty drinking by himself to celebrate his early release, soeaking up the fact that he was free again, and was excited about going to visit his son the next day.
I burned with shame.
Here was an innocent man holed up for more than half a decade, who was celebrating his newly regained freedom alone, and I had looked down on this poor man and labelled him a smelly useless drunk without knowing anything about him.
Here was a man eager to share his story and celebrate with anybody who would share in his happiness, but people don't want to have anything to do with him because they see him like I see him- a smelly useless drunk.
And if Eddie hadn't been there, maybe he would've been convinced that the world had turned its back on him.
Sigh.
I have so much to learn. And more than anything else, I need to remember that people are not always who they may seem to be.
- Reinhold Niebuhr
