Inseparable

"What do you want, Fred? Don't you know this isn't an appropriate thing to do? Because it isn't, in case, you were on the fence about things."

Fred Stevens stood before me, a defiant look on his face. One might have thought that a man doing something as weird as this would have the decency to look a little embarrassed, but I didn't see a trace of that on Stevens. That wasn't the only thing I noticed about him, either. It was pretty hard not to be caught off guard by how terrible he looked.

He looked like total shit. His face had gone unshaven for at least a week, and his hair looked greasy and unwashed. His clothes were rumpled and unkempt, giving me the impression that they hadn't been washed or changed for several days at the very least. On top of all of that, he positively stank of alcohol.

It clung to him like an invisible cloak, reminding me of that Peanuts character who was always surrounded by a cloud of dirt. This was the perfect picture of a man who had tried very hard to obliterate himself completely with drinking, and when he hadn't been able to manage it, he'd come looking for me.

“Don’t you try to lecture me on decorum, pretty boy! You don’t have a fucking leg to stand on. You know it, too!”

"What the fuck do you want, Fred? I just got off a long flight, and I'm tired. Too tired to deal with your bullshit right now. I'm ready to unwind."

“Ready to unwind, huh?” he asked, sending another cloud of noxious alcohol fumes in my direction. “Ready to unwind? What you mean is ready to have a goddamn drink!”

“So what if I do? There’s nothing wrong with that, Stevens.”

“Nothing wrong with it! Ha, nothing wrong with it, he says! That’s a fucking riot, coming from you!”

“Lower your voice, Stevens,” I said.

“Don’t fucking tell me what to do!”

"Fine, either lower it or don't. You're yelling, though, and if you keep on doing so, you'll attract the attention of security. If that's what you're going for, then by all means, continue. It makes no difference to me."

“I bet it doesn’t,” Stevens continued, his expression like that of a wounded animal, but he still had enough sense to quiet down. “I bet nothing matters to you. I bet you sleep like a fucking baby at night, don’t you?”

I laughed. “Do I wake up in the middle of the night crying, after having pissed and shit myself? No, that sounds more like how you sleep.”

Fred scowled at me. “Real fucking funny. Here you are, headed out for a fucking drink like it’s nothing, when that’s the exact fucking thing you tried to ruin my life over. Fucking hypocrite, that’s what you are. Fucking pretty boy hypocrite.”

“Fred, come on. I know you think I’m pretty, but I just don’t feel the same way about you. It’s nothing personal. You’re just a disgusting drunk asshole, that’s all.”

“Always with the jokes,” he said.

I sighed. “Fine, you want to get serious? You know damn well there’s a big difference between me having a drink after work and you being drunk in the middle of a flight. If you can’t see that, you’ve got bigger problems than I thought.”

He stared at me with wide, hollow looking eyes, and his lower lip began to quiver. I couldn’t tell whether he was going to cry or start screaming again. I couldn’t even tell which one would have been worse. All I knew was that I wanted no part of this conversation. I didn’t even want to stop off in the Lounge anymore. I only wanted to go home and be done with this whole fucked up mess.

“You really think you’re better than me, don’t you, Drew? That’s it. You think you’re better than me. You think you deserve to be up in the air, and I don’t.”

"No," I answered tightly, feeling myself losing my grip on my temper and doing my best to keep my grip. "I don’t think I’m better than you. But no, you don’t deserve to be up in the air, not the way you are now. You have a problem, and it’s not my fault or anyone else’s fault but yours. And nobody can fix it for you, either. You're the one who needs to fix it."

“I don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about.”

“You need to get help. It’s a big city, Stevens. There are plenty of meetings, AA and that kind of thing. Go find one. Get yourself back under control. Then you can earn your place back in the sky.”

"You know they took me off all of the flight schedules?” he asked, sounding miserable. “They haven't outright fired me, but they might as well have. My whole fucking life was flying, and now I'm on the ground."

“Good. Maybe that’s the wakeup call you need to get your shit together. Get clean and prove that you deserve another chance. You’ll be back in the air in no time, and better yet, you’ll be flying again without putting people’s lives in jeopardy.”

"But I don't have a problem, Drew. Honest to God, I don't. I just need a little bit to get me through the day, you know? My wife left me six months ago. I think it was six months. Might have been a year. The time blends, you know?"

“Yeah, I bet it does.”

Fred, who had been shuffling back and forth as he spoke, turned on me. He was like a genuine Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, the way he was acting, which didn't really surprise me. That was how alcoholics were. They turned on a dime. They had no control over their emotions and were willing to do whatever it took to get what they wanted.

Fred was no different. There was feral viciousness in him, and when he heard the sarcasm in my voice, it all came pouring out.

"Listen to me, Drew. You're a fucking