closed at two he’d be on his way. Open his eyes in the morning and hope there was still some vodka in the cupboard. Or else get dressed and go out and find a seven o’clock opener, a workingman’s bar. Then serve a few papers, get that done. Have lunch, a few beers. Go through the motions of looking for Denise Leary, who wasn’t anywhere around Pontiac, Drayton Plains, Clarkston, or Keego Harbor. Rochester was next, maybe Rochester. And finally, by late afternoon, feeling a drunk’s idea of normal as he started on the bourbon and sailed with it through the evening, becoming more talkative, confident, funny, interesting…
“I’ll have another one.”
“Same way?”
“No, I’ll have a double bourbon mist this time.”
The bartender gave him the look again. He made the drink, placed it in front of Ryan, and picked up the two empties.
“I saw I couldn’t get near the group backstage,” Ryan said, “so I waited till they went on and started playing and I walked right out there, in all the lights and the crowd screaming, walked right up to the lead guitar.”
“Excuse me,” the bartender said. He walked off with the empty glasses.
So interesting the bartender could hardly wait to hear the rest. He was aware of what he was doing. He asked himself, why do you want to fuck up? He had said to the girl, Because it’s so much fun?
It didn’t make sense. How could he sit here drinking? Like running out in front of cars on the expressway and saying he might not get hit. Since Monday afternoon…
Tired, getting the down feeling again, sitting in a bar on M-59 having a Coke. Feeling down-was that the excuse? The bartender had said, “You want something else?” Meaning, You ready to pay? and he had said, “Yeah, give me another one,” and paused and said, “With a bourbon this time.” Not thinking about it and getting an excuse ready first, but coming right out with it. He could come up with all kinds of excuses if he had to.
Because he was depressed.
Because he deserved a drink.
Because he couldn’t keep walking into bars and ordering Cokes. It didn’t seem natural.
Because he was tired and depressed was the best. He needed a drink to pick him up.
Then the next rationalization. He could have one or two and not go berserk, for Christ’s sake. That was a lot of shit about one drink and you’re off again. He had had one drink Monday afternoon. No trouble.
He had had eight drinks Monday evening. Okay, that was it, the urge had been satisfied.
He had had two Bloody Marys at lunch Tuesday in Clarkston. He had had four vodkas and tonic during the afternoon. Eight, maybe ten bourbons that evening. And he’d bought the pint of vodka and had one with root beer before going to bed. He had seen an outdoor sign on the highway advertising Smirnoff and root beer. It was a Charlie something.
Then, this morning, a couple of vodkas and orange juice. At lunch in Drayton Plains he’d decided to pass on the Bloody Marys and had two beers with his chili. Then another bowl, it was so good, and another couple of beers. Then, two bars before this one, four bourbons. Two, three more here with the friendly bartender. That was thirteen drinks and it was only a quarter to five.
His wife or somebody had told him once, his problem was he didn’t count his drinks. Okay, he was counting them. He could continue to drink socially till midnight and bring the total to thirty without any trouble. A good two whole fifths’ worth of booze. But why stop at midnight? He wouldn’t; he’d keep going.
He didn’t have to, though. Right now he was at the border. With a relatively clear head he could say, “Good- bye brains,” and start pouring them down. Or he could quit right now. Except it would seem like stopping right in the middle, before he’d taken advantage of getting drunk, before he’d had any fun. Maybe a couple more days. Relax and let it happen. Look into some of the interesting afternoon lady drinkers he’d seen, the housewives with their gimlets and stingers and Black Russians. Tell them about serving the papers to the rock group and how he’d got his picture in the
By tomorrow afternoon he wouldn’t be thinking about it, he’d be doing it. Half in the bag trying to do it, sweating, and nothing happening. Or quit right now. Four years ago he was ready to quit on September 28, but he had put it off a few days because October 1 would be easier to remember as the day he quit and joined AA. He had quit six or seven times since then and wasn’t sure of the last date. It didn’t matter. He had been clean three and a half years and now, for some reason, he was sitting in a bar drinking. Deciding if he should keep going. Actually considering it, knowing the pain he would experience when he finally stopped cold and withdrew. It wasn’t a hangover pain; that was simple, you could numb it with aspirin. The pain in withdrawal was the extreme feeling of anxiety that Ryan remembered well-a raw, hypersensitive feeling, like a sunburned nervous system-wanting to either take a drink or go out the window. With Ryan it would last a couple of days while he paced and filled himself with liquids and ate B-12 tablets like peanuts.
The question, was it worth it? Of course not? But that didn’t seem to matter, because it didn’t have anything to do with now.
Why he was drinking didn’t matter either. Because he was Irish or basically insecure? He was drinking. He could admit he was powerless over it once he got going, and he was still drinking. Sitting quietly in a bar, looking at his options and his reflection. He looked good, tan in the tinted bar mirror. His memory wasn’t too sharp, though. He wasn’t sure of the exact date, April 25 or 26. May 1 was a little too far off. The thing to do was call one of his friends in AA, admit he was fucking up and needed help, a kick in the ass. Or he could go to a meeting tonight. He hadn’t been to a meeting in about four months, and maybe that was his problem. Find one in the area. Call the main office and find out where to go in Pontiac. Go home and take a shower and a quick nap first, have something to eat. Pay and get out of here.
Or have just one more.
14
“I WOKE UP last night and looked at the ceiling,” the woman across from Ryan said. “And you know what? It wasn’t spinning around. I got up to go to the bathroom and I found it without bumping into furniture or knocking anything over. It was right where it was supposed to be. Sometimes I used to wake up in the morning on the floor and I’d say a prayer, before opening my eyes, that I’d know where I was.”
The table leader said, “I know what you mean. The first six months to a year in the program, I’d still wake up in the morning expecting to be hung over. I was amazed I actually felt normal.”
The meeting was in a windowless basement room of Saint Joseph Mercy Hospital, Pontiac. Cinder-block wall, fluorescent lights, lunchroom tables and folding chairs, the coffeemaker, the Styrofoam cups, the cookies. It could be an AA meeting anywhere, with groups of eight to twelve people at the five tables.
Another of the women was saying that sometimes she’d wake up in a motel room and there’d be a man with her she’d never seen before in her life and she’d scream at him, “What’re you doing here! Get out!” The poor guy would be baffled-after the beautiful evening they’d had that she didn’t remember.
There were four women and seven men at the table, including Ryan. He wasn’t sure if he was going to say anything when the table leader got to him. He might pass, say he just wanted to listen this evening. He wondered if there might be a trace of whiskey on his breath. He asked himself then, Would it matter? Like someone might point to him and they’d throw him out of the program. Amazing, two days of drinking and the guilt feelings were back. He had stayed away from meetings too long. He knew it, but he didn’t feel part of it tonight. At least not yet.
A man two chairs away from him said, “Thank you. I’m Paul, I’m an alcoholic, and I’m very glad to be here. You know, there’s a big difference between admitting you’re an alcoholic and accepting the fact. That’s why I like to sit at a First Step table every so often. Not only to listen, but to keep reminding myself that I’m powerless over alcohol. I wasn’t like Ed there, who mentioned binge drinking, go off for a couple of weeks and then straighten out, stay sober awhile. Shit, I was drunk
What were you? Ryan was thinking, a moderate drunk? A neat drunk. He had always hung up his clothes at night and only wet his pants once.
A woman about forty-five said that Saturday night finally did it when she came home drunk and had a fight
