He had several of the bottles stashed away in the apartment and the store, as well as in the shed. They were all carefully hidden where Edna wan’t liable to find them. Fortunately, she wasn’t much on cleaning lately, so most of the bottles went undiscovered. The place was a damn mess.
He uncapped the bottle and put it to his lips, taking several healthy slugs. It burned deliciously as it went down. God, how he’d needed that! The doctor had warned him about cutting back on the booze—well, what he’d actually said was, “If you don’t stop drinking, Harold, you’ll kill yourself”—but if having a rattlesnake almost bite your nose off wasn’t enough excuse for a man to have a drink, he didn’t know what was. Jesus, just being married to Edna was enough to drive a man to drink, he thought, knocking back anouther slug.
She was always on his back about his eating. Well, he thought, what the hell was there to do around here except eat? And drink a little on the sly. He hoisted the bottle once again. She was always complaining that he wasn’t the man he used to be, that he wasn’t the guy she’d married. He grimaced at the thought. Well, she wasn’t exactly the girl he’d married, either. He remembered what she looked like back in high school. God, he thought, she was enough to make your heart stop. Long blond hair, incredible legs, and the way she had filled out her cheerleader’s sweater, man, the guys used to fumble the ball every time she jumped into the air, shaking her pom-poms.
Now, she was always padding around the house in those ridiculous pink furry slippers, with her hair up in those pink plastic curlers and that flannel print housecoat covering what was still actually a pretty nice body come to think of it—only every time he tried to do anything she would groan and roll over on her side, saying, “God, not tonight, Harold, I’m really tired and I’ve got a headache.”
Okay, so maybe he had put on some weight and maybe his hair had started falling out. Maybe he wasn’t the same handsome, young quarterback she’d married, but hell, a guy couldn’t help getting older, could he? She was always complaining that there was no more romance in their marriage. Romance! Try getting romantic with somebody whose head looks like a heating coil and whose face has about a pound of cold cream on it every night. Try getting romantic with someone who was always getting on your case about one thing or another, scolding you as if she was your mother, for cryin’ out loud.
“Who can live like this?” she always said, spreading out her arms and looking up, as if expecting an answer from God.
“You tell me,” he always replied. “This ain’t no kind of life at all, if you ask me! Hell, the way things are goin’, I might as well drop dead!”
“I sometimes wish you would!” she’d shout back.
“And I wish I would, too!” he’d yell back, and then he’d stomp out of the room and go out to the shed, where he’d have a whiskey bottle stashed away.
He drained the whiskey bottle and wiped the liquor off his chin. I’m in the toilet, all right, he thought. For a moment, he felt like throwing the empty bottle against the wall, but then Edna wouldn’t clean it up and he’d only wind up stepping on the broken glass the next time he came into the bathroom barefoot. He resisted the impulse and put the empty bottle down on the floor, reminding himself to get rid of it so that Edna wouldn’t find it and give him a hard time.
He put the bottle behind the toilet, and as he straightened up, he noticed the dusty curtain opposite him move slightly.
The bathroom had two large cupboards in it, from which Harold had removed the shelves to make storage closets. One of the closets had a makeshift wooden door; the other was covered by a cloth curtain. The door had been missing for years and Harold kept meaning to replace it, but he never got around to it. Now he stared at the moving curtain, and it occurred to him that whoever had put the rattlesnake in with the rabbits might easily still be around. The closets were both deep enough for a prowler to hide in.
Harold swallowed nervously and pulled up his pants. He slowly moved over to the curtain and reached out to draw it aside. He hesistated. What if there was someone hiding in there? What would he do?
Hell, it’s probably just my imagination, he told himself. That damn rattlesnake has got me spooked. He’d have to call someone tomorrow to get that damn snake out of the shed, because he sure as hell wasn’t going back inside there . . . On the other hand, maybe he’d send Edna in there.
Just to convince himself that he was getting worked up over nothing, Harold summoned up his nerve and jerked the curtain aside. There was nothing behind it except a pile of dusty
