We sat around a fire which was the only thing keeping the air warm around us. It was one of those odd places in Texas that more closely resembled the Arizona desert air rather than the standard, saturated and thick air. It was a large stone circle that held the fire, surrounded by a larger broken ring of stone benches.

The crowd was diverse, meaning that is extended beyond my usual group, and their normal debate intense conversation. It was casual, relaxing. The woman I was with sat close by, content to rest her head on my shoulder and listen to the soft rises and lulls in the conversation.

A couple, married for 12 years, as I’d later learn, sat close by. The woman was obviously quite drunk and crying in that leaking-eye way that said she was trying to hold it all in. Emotional drunks never clicked with me. I’ve always viewed them like liars, capable of release and honesty when they could blame it on their inability to hold their drink. The man, visibly upset, was speaking with a friend of mine quite loudly that pretty much put their problems up for the debate.

I’ll spare you the details of it, mostly because I was doing my best to ignore the bulk of it. I don’t do spontaneous relationship counseling unless its an emergency and you’re a friend, and rarely even then. My companion was sitting up now, her head turned to the people, as most of them were now, watching and listening to him tell my friend, who was trying to calm him down, how ‘worthless’ she was, how she makes him ’sick.’

The woman in question, who in spite of the excess of alcohol she’d consumed, was obviously quite conscientious of the conversation. She sat there with a sort of whipped dog posture, her head down, her face scrubbing away tears with the arm and hand that held her beer.

Someone who I can assume knew him, came over and intervened and said something along the lines of not ‘putting her business out there.’ I believe the answer was ‘fuck off.’

At this point, I looked over at one from my group, and then over at another friend. My companion (G) scooted off with J’s girl (D) to take the drunk woman off for a group bathroom trip. Other people quietly filtered off, unwilling to be a participant in the conversation, or at very least, witnesses. Aware of the blossoming tension in the air perhaps, or maybe the lessening diversity in gender, the husband quieted, and later walked off to parts unknown.

It was a subtle battle. When the J’s girl and mine returned without the woman, they smiled.

‘She won’t remember a thing in the morning.’ G said.

‘Yep, tossed off her ass.’ D confirmed. ‘but, she will definitely find the divorce attorney’s card and the domestic violence cards we left in her purse.’

‘Carry those around with you everywhere you go?’ J smirked. ‘Or do you have the yellow pages in your panties?’

‘Neither. The female attorney followed us to the bathroom and we ran across the hotline lady while we were in there.’

Clearly, we have something to learn when it comes to subtle.

Now, a question for you. Why did I name this post honor?