About Charlie.

Years ago, I sat at the end of the bar at Asheville Pizza and Brewing Company, drinking a beer. I sat at the end because Bryan, my ex-husband, told me that if you sit at the end of the bar, you only have to worry about that one empty seat being occupied by a lunatic. Makes sense. Of course, one empty seat is still a big liability.

I was writing on this day. In my journal. It was just a cheap-o wirebound notebook that I'd pasted with photographs from National Geographic Explorer and the Weekly World News. And, as I said, I was drinking a beer. And there was the one empty seat to my right.

Before too long, the seat was filled by a gray-haired, bearded man in a plaid shirt and jeans. He ordered a beer and looked at me. I saw this out of the corner of my eye. I had determined not to make eye contact because I didn't want to get into a long drawn out discussion about the chill in the wind or the price of gas or, worse still, his marital problems. I have that sort of face. A bartender face, I guess.

He took a swallow from his beer, continuing to glance at me every once in a while. He cleared his throat. I made a point of not looking.

Finally, he said, "What're you writing about?"

I stared at the notebook, realizing that this guy was not going to not talk to me. So I may as well accept the fact and just get it over with.

"It's a journal," I said.

"So you're a writer?"

"No, not really. I just write in this journal."

"But you write?"

"Yes, but just in the journal. I'm not a writer."

"If you write," he said, "then you're a writer."

Anyway, the conversation went on in this vein for a while. And then the guy began to tell me about himself.

His name, for example. Charlie. And that he worked in the coffee shop at the university library. And that his girlfriend had red hair and was a firecracker. And that he'd like to possibly marry her, but he suspected that she was about to dump him.

And the whole time he's telling me all this, he's drinking. Starting to slur. Repeat himself. Make cryptic, philosophical statements.

He said, for instance, "I'm glad that you were here to be a witness to my existence."

I thought that it was a Sartrean sort of thing to say in a pizza place while drinking beer.

And he asked me if I would write about him in my journal. Maybe about his red-haired girlfriend, too. So I jotted down a few notes. That seemed to make him happy.

Well, he obviously wasn't much of a drinker because after his fifth or so beer he passed out with his wrinkled forehead just grazing the little pool of grease that had collected in a dent on his pizza slice. I took the opportunity to skedaddle, being somewhat tired of strange, sad existential musings on red-heads and libraries.

But two days later I found myself at the library, so I thought that I'd check in on Charlie. The young, pimply guy at the counter gave me a weird look when I asked if Charlie was around. Like he felt awkward. Like the doctor coming to tell family that the operation didn't go as well as planned.

He looked around and then whispered, "He shot himself in the head last night."

You could have knocked me over with a feather. I felt guilty. I'd laughed at him a little. I'd been annoyed by him. I hadn't wanted to be bothered. And it was sad that he had considered me a suitable witness to his existence. Someone who didn't know him at all. Someone who didn't even care. I didn't even want to see him, much less listen to him, and maybe I was the last friendly face he saw. And I wasn't even that friendly.

I feel for him now because he was just alone and lonely and looking for any sort of human contact. Sometimes maybe a groan and a grimace have to make do.

Oddly, my mind went to Charlie after I received an email from an old college acquaintance. I was so delighted to be remembered. I wonder if we all have this fear of being forgotten or, worse, not perceived at all.