The Jack I Knew

       When I arrived at his apartment, Jack was drunk. He was leaning against the wall, legs sprawled out in front of him and empty bottles from his wine collection littered about. He went on absently plucking a discordant melody on his violin for several moments before noticing my presence. "Klaus, my old friend! Whatever brings you to this neighborhood?" He slurred at me before tipping over. He blinked and looked up at me, "Nick," a brief moment of sobriety came over him, "thank you for stopping by; may I offer you a drink?"
       "I'm fine, Jack. What's going on? Are you celebrating?" His eyes met mine; I have never seen such grief and agony. The sunken look of him made me instantly aware that he was more than simply drunk. But even more worrisome was that he was obviously desperately holding back tears. His eyes looked completely defeated, void of all life. He would blink rapidly in bursts while clenching his jaw so hard that it seemed as if it would cause permanent damage. "God, Jack; what's wrong?"
       He looked at me with a dead gaze and slid a folded letter and his open notebook over to me without saying a word. The notebook contained what appeared to be the rough draft of a letter; it contained many crossed out passages and corrections written in the margins. Omitting the mistakes, it read:

           My dearest Elizabeth,

Forgive me for burdening you with this letter, but my drunken, half-mumbled confession seemed woefully insufficient. I chose to write a letter over an actual conversation, not out of cowardice, but necessity. Whenever I attempt to tell you how I feel, my normally silver-lined tongue goes numb and the words catch in my throat.

I'm sure it comes as no surprise that I am completely mad about you. My time spent with you leaves me happier than words are capable of expressing. I know you claim that I compliment you too much but it is so hard not to, and every word uttered is sincere--no matter how rakish the accompanying grin. I will not claim that you are the most beautiful woman on earth, you would scoff if I told you that your personality negates the existence of all other females. What I can tell you, with complete honesty, is that to me you are perfect exactly the way you are. Your beauty is an ideal by which all else is judged in my mind; your personality and mannerisms can fill me with joy on the darkest day; and your mind is absolutely intoxicating to me; I would not change a single thing about you. 

And I think we are grand together. We have such a wonderful balance of similarities and differences which meld together brilliantly. I always have an incredible time when I'm with you and I hope you have fun with me as well. And you have to admit that we are absolutely adorable together; we definitely win cutest non-dating couple every time we go out.

Our friendship means more to me than almost anything and I would be devastated if this letter were to do anything to jeopardize that friendship; but if I don't at least try, I will live forever in regret. Tell me to bugger off and I'll go on being your close friend; but if you feel any of what I feel, give me a chance and I promise to make you as happy as you make me.

As ever, I am always yours,

Jack

     

     I was shocked on several levels. This was not the confident and arrogant man I thought I knew; the roguish dandy who sneered at emotions could not have written this declaration of love. I was also confused that he would need to essentially ask her to court him. Jack and Elizabeth  had been spending every waking hour together for the last three weeks. He constantly told us that they were not dating, although he wished they were, but we had assumed that he was just being coy. The idea of Jack Newhouse not capturing the heart of a young lady had never occurred to us.

      I shook my head, stunned, "Jesus, Jack; you really love her, don't you?" He was overtaken by a fit of blinking, he bit his lip so hard that I saw blood, and motioned for me to read the letter. I unfolded it, it was written in a feminine hand--more feminine that Jack's--and seemed to be covered in drops of what I could only imagine to be tears.

Jack,

Wow! I am so flattered by this, I don't know what to say! I could never hold this against you. I want you to feel like you can always be honest with me. I have to be honest with you as well, though. The truth is, I have feelings for someone else and it wouldn't be fair for you not to have all of someone's heart. It's hard to say what the future holds but whatever it has in store, I hope it includes you.

Your friend,

Elizabeth

      I looked back at Jack, tears were freely streaming down his face and he was moving his lips, silently reciting the words of the letter. "Shit." It was all I could think to say. He laughed, a hollow laugh, but it was still good to hear. "So what have you taken?" He smiled at me.

     "How well you know me, my friend. I have perfected the ideal cocktail of drugs and alcohol. It allows me to function and maintain my cognitive abilities, yet cuts off most of my emotions; you know how I feel about emotions." I carefully looked him up and down, if this cocktail was blocking his emotions, I was terrified to see what kind of mess he would be when faced with sobriety.

       "Opiates?" I asked. He nodded. "And alcohol, you told me that; wine or liquor?" He motioned to his kitchen counter, there was a bottle of vodka, Riesling, and his prized French absinthe. "Christ, this is not going to solve anything, Jack! What pills have you taken?" He tossed a plastic bag at me, it was full of various opiate based drugs. I sighed, "Well where do you go from here?" 

       He looked slightly confused, "I'm going to smoke a cigarette, would you like one?" 

       "That's not what I meant, what are you going to do about Elizabeth? Are you going to move on? Keep pursuing her? Drink yourself to death?" He smiled a very frightening smile,

        "Ah, don't I wish I had that luxury. I shall remain her friend, whatever happens happens. I would love to move on or drink myself to death but neither option seems viable at the moment." 

         "He needs to play hard to get. Tell her to fuck off and make her come to him." A voice came from the bedroom. Jack's brother, Cavall emerged, clad in a pair of boxer shorts and nothing else. 

          "It's pointless playing hard to get when she's not actually trying to get me." Jack flung his tie in Cavall's general direction, missing him by several feet. Jack's dog came charging out of the bedroom, quickly followed by Cavall's dog; they tussled for a bit over the tie and then came to rest next to Jack, doing their best to comfort him. Cavall walked into the kitchen and came out with two beers, he opened one and handed the other to me. I opened it and we both sat down in the drawing room, Jack eventually crawled after us and collapsed on the couch. 

       I turned to Cavall, "Did you see this coming?" He shook his head,

       "I thought he was going to get married again, this one seemed a lot better than Lillian, though." I laughed, I had never known Jack's ex wife but I had heard plenty of stories. 

       "But has he ever been like this before? I'm worried about him." Cavall's usually mocking demeanor gave way to genuine concern.

       "He was pretty crushed when Lillian left him but that was more his fear of change than heartbreak. I haven't seen him like this since he was really young. You know he's high, too." I didn't believe him for a moment. Jack hated marijuana, he claimed that one as meta-cognitive as himself could not handle the debilitating mental effects. 

       "What the shit, Jack? You said your cocktail allowed you to maintain your cognizance." He half rolled over on the couch to face me, displacing the two dogs who had curled up on top of him. 

        "Only in the evenings, Klaus; I don't need to think in the evenings. And I don't want to think in the evenings." He turned on some old BBC reruns and lay there whimpering at what he must have thought to be an inaudible level until he fell asleep. Cavall eventually covered him with a blanket and went off into the guest bedroom. I sat for several hours, half watching the television, half reflecting on the entirely new Jack Newhouse presented to me that night.

        Only three weeks earlier I had stood in this very room, listening to a manic Jack profess his love for Elizabeth.

       When I arrived at his apartment that day, Jack was sprawled out in his favorite chair, languidly smoking one of his noxious imported cigarettes. I eyed him suspiciously, his tie was loosened, his top button was undone, and his coat was carelessly tossed across the back of the chair. He smiled at me, I frowned. "What's this emergency which required me to abandon my date?" He jumped up, tossed the cigarette out of the open window, and began pacing around the drawing room.

      "It's happened, Nick, I'm in love, it's finally bloody happened."

      "You were in love last week, Jack; it was hardly worth interrupting my date."

       "No!" He replied forcefully as he lit another cigarette and emptied his flask with one swallow. "That was a minor distraction; this, my friend, is love, true goddamn love." His use of commonplace vulgarity caused me to worry for his sanity.

       "What makes this one different, then? What separates her from any other girl who wins your affection by paying attention to you?"

       "True love, Nick, do you not understand true love?"

       "Apparently not," I replied rather crossly, "why don't you explain it to me, Jack?" He beamed a wildly unstable grin at me. 

       "True love, my friend, is when she calls you posh instead of pretentious!" I left the apartment.

     This was the Jack I knew, the Jack that he rarely revealed. Below the façade of the womanizing rake was a desperate romantic. And this is the Jack of whom I will write, some of the stories will match the tales, and some will fly in the face of the legend. It will be the truth, though; my tribute to the man who I loathed, loved, resented, and worshipped; Jack Newhouse.