David Miller

The nearly empty van sped through monotonous farm country. My iPod had run out of batteries and, for once, I could not retreat into my own world. The driver was a talkative man who delighted in having a captive audience, although he admitted that he would not have been so eager to engage in catharsis had it not been a doctor in the passenger seat. But his rambling was an imposition. I was tired after a long day of job interviews, and reluctantly indulged him only because I had no choice in the matter.

The theme of the conversation was his alcoholism, which was the last thing I wanted to talk about with a driver entrusted with safely transporting me from the hospital to the airport. Although he spoke mostly in the past tense, his jerky gesticulations were not reassuring. Fists shaking for emphasis, often turning to look straight at me to make sure I was listening, he appeared to forget the speed at which we were barreling down the straight but narrow road.

He was fearless when it came to traffic. He had, after all, survived being run over at least 7 times while stumbling through town in the dark of night. He had been a full-time drunk. “Even my own mama had me pegged as weak-willed, lazy, and dumb,” he explained. The stupidest thing he said he ever did was trying in earnest to kill himself. “I had the shotgun pressed up on my forehead. But I was too drunk even to have the sense to pull the damned trigger.”

There were 2 people he credited for his recovery. The first was his son: “I wanted to be a good dad to him,” he said. In his rare sober moments, they fished in the …