“Red Flags”, a poem by Kit Andis

To read a recent interview with Kit Andis and his memoir Halfway House about his recovery from alcoholism, click here.

Some Wednesday nights,
after our meeting,
Joe & I drive by the place:
Buds.
It’s an ordinary neighborhood tavern.
But as we drive by
my head turns.
I watch the patrons through the big
plate-glass window: men & women on stools
along the bar,
pool players, dart throwers.
“Thirsty?” Joe asks.
He asks me that almost every time
we drive by.
“No,” I tell him.
And he looks at me for a moment,
a little grin pulling at the line of his mouth.
“It was my first time,” I tell him. “Well, the first time
I knew, anyway.”
“Yeah?” he asks.
“Twenty-five years ago. I went in for lunch,
a bowl of chili and a beer. I had about an hour to
kill before delivering a paper on Emily Dickinson.
I remember the waitress.
A redhead with freckles. ‘Whataya have, hon’?’ I
told her, and a minute later she was back with a cold
longneck. I took the first pull and looked out the big
window, thinking about my professor and the other students.
I could picture
their mouths dropping open
upon hearing my brilliant insights into “A Certain
Slant of Light.” And then in a quickness that cannot be
measured, the redhead was back. ‘That be all, hon’?’ She
dropped my check next to my half-eaten bowl of chili.
A dozen empty longnecks stood around the bowl, their red
labels like warning flags. I looked at my watch. ‘Fuck,’ I
muttered. The warning flags waved at me. I had driven
through some invisible barrier, full-speed, on a one-lane,
one-way highway.”
Joe nods, still grinning. “Yeah,
I know.”