My father was the first person to hand me and my brother a beer. We were only fourteen and fifteen when he did. He said to us, “Boys, I know you’re going to drink sometime. I ‘spose its better that I’m here to watch you so you don’t do nothing stupid.”

On my 21st birthday both my father and brother went to the bars with me. It was my father who bought me my first legal shot. He handed it to me and said, “It’s time that I let you go from my watchful eye. I hope I was able to make you think and to only drink responsibly.”

I smiled and nodded, “Of course you did, Dad, of course you did.”

That was twenty years ago and now he is gone. It has only been a week since he passed; it was liver failure that took him. We had known that it was going for some time. He had put his name on the donor list for a new one, but he didn’t have much hope of getting one. My brother and I knew that he wanted to keep on living his life despite him telling us that he thought a liver should go to someone younger who could use it longer. Even though the inevitable was on its way, there was no way to prepare ourselves for how it would feel once he had finally been taken.

Now each night for the past week, I have ended up here; sitting in the same chair at the same table in the same bar. It’s the bar from my 21st birthday. For the past week I have tried to drink enough to forget the pain and the sorrow that came with losing him.

I know my brother has been doing the same as I have been doing for this past week. Out at a different bar each night trying desperately to forget and at the same time desperately trying to remember everything that he could that made our father the man that he was.

The first night after our father’s death my brother joined me at this table. Together we drank glass after glass of our father’s favorite drink. We passed that night with stories of our father.

I have not been able to drink his favorite drink since. I have resorted to things he despised; the drinks he referred to as girlie drinks. If ever I had one of these drinks in my hand when he was around, he would come over and tell me to, “Dump that piss out of your glass and fill it with a man’s drink.” Which he proceeded to do. Maybe I can’t be the man that he was.

I looked down at my empty glass, the ice cubes sitting at the bottom with a faint sweet, but sour smell of a Long Island Ice Tea rising from its depths. He would never have approved, but I ordered it because the strength of it would help me forget sooner.

I was the only person in this corner of the bar. I think the other people in the bar knew what I was trying to do and they pitied me. None of them would come near me or make eye contact; except for the bartender and that was only when I beckoned him over. Everyone else just stayed far from me and drank away their happy lives.

I motioned for the bartender to come over. My drink was empty but I could still remember everything. The old man finished serving the customer at the bar and lumbered over to me.

“Another Long Island for you?”

“No, they’re not doing it for me tonight. Bring me a scotch on the rocks; he would have wanted me to have it.”

All of a sudden, I felt a burst of cold air as a man threw open the door. He stood there with his eyes searching the room for someone or something. Snow blew in from outside.

As the man entered I saw that he was a police officer. He strode over to the bartender and me. As he removed his hat I recognized his face, Officer Greene. He was my brother’s partner down at the station.

Officer Greene turned to me and said, “There has been an accident. Your brother, he left the bar after drinking too much. The roads were icy and…and he drove into a tree. I need you to come with me.”