upright. After you realize you’re okay, you suck back a half-dozen pulls from the bottle on the floor by the bed. You smoke a cigarette. Two. If you’ve had enough whiskey, you can fall back to sleep. Sometimes.
In the morning you come to and start puking. But you must drink again right away to hold off the heebie-jeebies. So you drink and you puke some more, because the booze won’t stay down.
You try eating food to settle yourself. Anything. Stale bread. Dry cereal. Peanut butter by the spoon. Anything.
Eventually the food stays in your stomach, and you’re okay and you can start again. The best thing, of course, is vodka in orange juice. Or ginger ale. Cold. Cold is always best. If you haven’t got vodka, a beer. But it has to be cold. If it’s not cold, you’ll puke again. And that’s how it goes—if you have money. If you’ve got money, you’ve got no worries—not a care in the world.
Sometimes my runs lasted ten days. Two weeks. How long they go on depends on how much my body can take. When your ankles and feet stay numb all day, it’s time to ease off.
The day I started back, I had a fistful of hundred dollar bills,clean socks and underwear in my drawer, and a 5.00 p.m dentist appointment for an examination because my gums bleed all the time. I was thinking constantly about Jimmi, but I had made no conscious decision to drink again or even had any thoughts about it. The morning after Kammegian fired me, I was up early, slurping coffee in the communal breakfast room at my recovery house, re-reading my story, ‘Compatibility’. I remember for once liking what I had written. Straight up fiction. Dashiell Hammett. Boom boom short sentences. Like my father’s stuff. Hemingway. My twenty-five pages were just right for the high-end man’s magazine market. I had made up my mind to send the story off.
My plan for that day, except for the dentist, was to completely re-read my story, attend the movies, and go to an AA meeting with Liquor Store Dave. Because money was no problem, I told myself that I’d start looking for a new telemarketing gig in a week or so.
After more coffee, upstairs at the hall payphone, unable to stop myself, I dialed her number again and again. I wanted to say I was sorry and say hello.
Jimmi’s sister, Sema, with the two kids, answered the phone. One of them was crying in the background. Sis said Jimmi was in the bathroom and asked me to hold on. There was yelling through the door—Jimmi shouting something back. Sema asked me my name. I told her, ‘Bruno’. Jimmi yelled something in Mexican, then the phone clicked dead.
On my way to the movies, I stopped at the 7—11 for cigarettes. A guy was sitting against the wall outside the store—a street guy. Shaking one out. He wanted chump change for some beer. We talked for a minute.
Thinking back, that was how it started. I bought him twocans of Coor’s and brought them out. I didn’t drink with him, but my mind did. I never let go of the impulse.
Parking my Chrysler at the movies, I was twenty minutes early. I hate the fuckasshole commercials and trailers and the hard-sell stuff they make you watch for fifteen minutes before the feature, so, with ‘Compatability’ under my arm, I walked to the bookstore nearby to kill some time, to see if they stocked any titles by the dead writer, Jonathan Dante.
The bookstore was closed. The sign in the window said opening time was one o’clock (the same time as the movie). Next door was an air conditioned sports bar: the Alibi Room. I walked in. Not a second thought—no hesitation at all—found a stool, set ‘Compatibility’ down on the bar, then ordered a double Stoli shooter with a beer back. One sip and I was home.
An hour later, Cin walked in. It was the beginning of the second inning of a Mets/Dodgers game on TV. I had finished re-reading my story about a dating service salesman being seduced by the red-haired manager of a uniform store.
Cin was short for Cynthia.
In the morning you come to and start puking. But you must drink again right away to hold off the heebie-jeebies. So you drink and you puke some more, because the booze won’t stay down.
You try eating food to settle yourself. Anything. Stale bread. Dry cereal. Peanut butter by the spoon. Anything.
Eventually the food stays in your stomach, and you’re okay and you can start again. The best thing, of course, is vodka in orange juice. Or ginger ale. Cold. Cold is always best. If you haven’t got vodka, a beer. But it has to be cold. If it’s not cold, you’ll puke again. And that’s how it goes—if you have money. If you’ve got money, you’ve got no worries—not a care in the world.
Sometimes my runs lasted ten days. Two weeks. How long they go on depends on how much my body can take. When your ankles and feet stay numb all day, it’s time to ease off.
The day I started back, I had a fistful of hundred dollar bills,clean socks and underwear in my drawer, and a 5.00 p.m dentist appointment for an examination because my gums bleed all the time. I was thinking constantly about Jimmi, but I had made no conscious decision to drink again or even had any thoughts about it. The morning after Kammegian fired me, I was up early, slurping coffee in the communal breakfast room at my recovery house, re-reading my story, ‘Compatibility’. I remember for once liking what I had written. Straight up fiction. Dashiell Hammett. Boom boom short sentences. Like my father’s stuff. Hemingway. My twenty-five pages were just right for the high-end man’s magazine market. I had made up my mind to send the story off.
My plan for that day, except for the dentist, was to completely re-read my story, attend the movies, and go to an AA meeting with Liquor Store Dave. Because money was no problem, I told myself that I’d start looking for a new telemarketing gig in a week or so.
After more coffee, upstairs at the hall payphone, unable to stop myself, I dialed her number again and again. I wanted to say I was sorry and say hello.
Jimmi’s sister, Sema, with the two kids, answered the phone. One of them was crying in the background. Sis said Jimmi was in the bathroom and asked me to hold on. There was yelling through the door—Jimmi shouting something back. Sema asked me my name. I told her, ‘Bruno’. Jimmi yelled something in Mexican, then the phone clicked dead.
On my way to the movies, I stopped at the 7—11 for cigarettes. A guy was sitting against the wall outside the store—a street guy. Shaking one out. He wanted chump change for some beer. We talked for a minute.
Thinking back, that was how it started. I bought him twocans of Coor’s and brought them out. I didn’t drink with him, but my mind did. I never let go of the impulse.
Parking my Chrysler at the movies, I was twenty minutes early. I hate the fuckasshole commercials and trailers and the hard-sell stuff they make you watch for fifteen minutes before the feature, so, with ‘Compatability’ under my arm, I walked to the bookstore nearby to kill some time, to see if they stocked any titles by the dead writer, Jonathan Dante.
The bookstore was closed. The sign in the window said opening time was one o’clock (the same time as the movie). Next door was an air conditioned sports bar: the Alibi Room. I walked in. Not a second thought—no hesitation at all—found a stool, set ‘Compatibility’ down on the bar, then ordered a double Stoli shooter with a beer back. One sip and I was home.
An hour later, Cin walked in. It was the beginning of the second inning of a Mets/Dodgers game on TV. I had finished re-reading my story about a dating service salesman being seduced by the red-haired manager of a uniform store.
Cin was short for Cynthia.
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