Then I'd pop a handful of aspirins on the cab ride over to the office in the city, have Caroline brew up a pot of dark coffee, and escape into a whole new mountain of work.
An announcement came over the speakers, and I tapped my fingers on the bar top to order another scotch and water. The bartender eyed my still half-filled drink. I rolled my eyes before tipping it back and draining the burning liquid down my throat.
"Afraid of flying," the bartender said as he hesitantly slid me another drink on a cocktail napkin.
"No," I grumbled irritably, "afraid of nosy bartenders not minding their own fucking business."
Needless to say, I was already three rounds in.
The bartender shot me a nasty glance. "I have the right not to serve you, you know?"
I sighed and dragged my wallet out of the back pocket of my slacks. I peeled out three hundred-dollar bills and wiggled them in the air for the guy to see.
"What was that?"
To his credit the bartender managed to wait a second or two before snatching the bills from between my fingers.
"Don't have to be an asshole about it," he muttered under his breath as he went to serve another customer, leaving me with my medicine.
I ran my finger along the top of the glass and tried to figure out how many I would need to pass out right when the plane took off. Really it was a tricky situation, requiring a lot of tough, focused, all-consuming brain power. If I drank too little I would be literally strapped into a chair with nothing but my regrets for as long as it took for the economy passengers to board, for the flight attendants to win Tetris with a family of six's baggage and close the doors and give a twenty-five minute theatre performance about plane safety and remind that one asshole that the bathrooms were locked until after take-off, for the pilot to say something unintelligible over the crackly announcement system and taxi into an endless line of planes that for some unknown reason get priority over ours and after what would feel like hours, take off and get to cruising altitude and, barring any inclement weather that would push things back even further, give the okay for the flight attendants to get up and start serving alcoholic beverages. That sounded like a nightmare, but the alternative was no prettier. If I drank too much and instead passed out on the bar top instead of on the plane, I'd miss my flight and be stuck on the ground with nothing to do but think about how terribly I fucked up the one thing that ever made me feel anything.
"Another," I said, tapping the bar as the bartender passed with two beers for businessmen across from me.
My words were already starting to slur, but the bartender, reassured by the three Benjamins in his pocket, gave me a quick nod.
"Sure thing."
Whatever math I'd planned on doing to perfectly time my descent into blissful unconsciousness flitted away in my mind as the warm, fuzzy sensation in my forehead took over. I glanced at my wristwatch to see how much time I'd managed to kill and groaned that it was still an hour and a half till boarding. At this rate I'd be under the table before they even started calling for passengers with young babies and people in wheelchairs. But the warm, fuzzy sensation was nice, and I didn't want it to go away.
So when the bartender placed yet another scotch and water along with a please-wait-till-the-next-guy's-shift-to-get-alcohol-poisoning tray of bar mix in front of me, I raised the glass immediately to my lips. I was closing my eyes to cherish the drowning when I heard a disturbing noise over the airport speakers. It was like the blare of an alarm clock when you were in a warm cocoon of sleep; all I wanted to do was tug the covers up higher around my ears and turn away from the disruption.
"Flight T299 to Albuquerque is now beginning its preboarding," some woman said.
I cursed over my scotch. Of fucking course you couldn't make out a single word from those announcements when you actually needed the information, but the one time you would rather cut off your ears than hear it, every goddamn word came through crystal fucking, fucking, fucking clear.
"Fuck."
"What's that?" the bartender asked at the sink.
I looked down at my still mostly full drink.
"Once again, ladies and gentlemen, Flight T299 to Albuquerque is now beginning its preboarding."
I gritted my teeth and looked up at the bartender, who was eyeing me still. "I said, I'll have another, please and thank you."
By the time my new best friend returned with a refill, I'd drained my current drink. My brain was thick as wool, my vision was swimming, and my fingers moved without a trace of coordination, but somehow my ears alone managed to maintain perfect function under the barrage of alcohol.
"Alrighty folks, if anyone needs assistance boarding, please come on up now," the cursed woman said, her voice clear as if she'd been sitting right there on the barstool next to mine. "Those with young children may proceed to board as well. This is flight T299 to Albuquerque at Gate C32."
I grumbled irritably at the pale-yellow liquid in my glass like any good drunk. Did she really need to keep repeating Albuquerque? I mean, we got it, right? It was flight T299 to Albuquerque.
"For anyone with wheelchairs or young children who need assistance boarding, please come on up to Gate C32 for Flight T299 to Albuquerque."
"God fucking damn
