I waited for the compressed-air hiss of the elevator doors shutting behind me before closing my eyes. Then, gathering up the pieces of my mind, I started off on the sixteen steps down the hall to my apartment door. Eyes closed, exactly sixteen steps. No more, no less. My head blank from the whiskey, my mouth reeking from cigarettes.
Drunk as I get, I can walk those sixteen steps straight as a ruled line. The fruit of many years of pointless self-discipline. Whenever drunk, I’d throw back my shoulders, straighten my spine, hold my head up, and draw a deep lungful of the cool morning air in the concrete hallway. Then I’d close my eyes and walk sixteen steps straight through the whiskey fog.
Within the bounds of that sixteen-step world, I bear the title of “Most Courteous of Drunks.” A simple achievement. One has only to accept the fact of being drunk at face value.
No ifs, ands, or buts. Only the statement “I am drunk,” plain and simple.
That’s all it takes for me to become the Most Courteous Drunk. The Earliest to Rise, the Last Boxcar over the Bridge.
Five, six, seven, …
Stopping on the eighth step, I opened my eyes and took a deep breath. A slight humming in my ears. Like a sea breeze whistling through a rusty wire screen. Come to think of it, when was the last time I was at the beach?
Let’s see. July 24, 6:30 A.M. Ideal time of year for the beach, ideal time of day. The beach still unspoiled by people. Seabird tracks scattered about the surf’s edge like pine needles after a brisk wind.
The beach, hmm …
I began walking again. Forget the beach. All that’s ages past.
On the sixteenth step, I halted, opened my eyes, and found myself planted square in front of my doorknob, as always. Taking two days’ worth of newspapers and two envelopes from the mailbox, I tucked the lot under my arm. Then I fished my keys out of the recesses of my pocket and leaned forward, forehead against the icy iron door. From somewhere behind my ears, a click. Me, a wad of cotton soaked through with alcohol. With only a modicum of control of my senses.
Just great.
The door maybe one-third open, I slid my body in, shutting the door behind me. The entryway was dead silent. More silent than it ought to be.
That’s when I noticed the red pumps at my feet. Red pumps I’ve seen before. Parked in between my mud- caked tennis shoes and a pair of cheap beach sandals, like some out-of-season Christmas present. A silence hovered about them, fine as dust.
She was slumped over the kitchen table, forehead on her arms, profile hidden by straight black hair. A patch of untanned white neckline showed between the strands of hair, through the open sleeve of her print dress—one I’d never seen before—a glimpse of a brassiere strap.
I removed my jacket, undid my black tie, took off my watch, with not a flinch from her the whole while. Looking at her back called up memories. Memories of times before I’d met her.
“Well then,” I spoke up in a voice not quite my own, the sound piped in.
As expected, there was no reply. She could have been asleep, could have been crying, could have been dead.
I sat down opposite her and rubbed my eyes. A short ray of sunlight divided the table, me in light, her in shadow. Colorless shadow. A withered potted geranium sat on the table. Outside, someone was watering down the street. Splash on the pavement, smell of wet asphalt.
“Want some coffee?”
No reply.
So I got up and went over to grind coffee for two cups. It occurred to me after I ground the coffee that what I really wanted was ice tea. I’m forever realizing things too late.
The transistor radio played a succession of innocuous pop songs. A perfect morning sound track. The world had barely changed in ten years. Only the singers and song titles. And my age.
The water came to a boil. I shut off the gas, let the water cool thirty seconds, poured it over the coffee. The grounds absorbed all they could and slowly swelled, filling the room with aroma.
“Been here since last night?” I asked, kettle in hand.
An ever so slight nod of her head.
“You’ve been waiting all this time?”
No answer.
The room had steamed up from the boiling water and strong sun. I shut the window and switched on the air conditioner, then set the two mugs of coffee on the table.
“Drink,” I said, reclaiming my own voice.
Silence.
“Be better if you drank something.”
It was thirty seconds before she raised her head slowly, evenly, and gazed absently at the potted plant. A few fine strands of hair lay plastered against her dampened cheeks, an aura of wetness about her.
“Don’t mind me,” she said. “I didn’t mean to cry.”
I held out a box of tissues to her. She quietly blew her nose, then brushed the hair from her cheek.
“Actually, I planned on being gone by the time you returned. I didn’t want to see you.”
“But you changed your mind, I see.”
“Not at all. I didn’t have anywhere else I wanted to go. But I’m going now, don’t worry.”
“Well, have some coffee anyway.”
I tuned in to the radio traffic report as I sipped my coffee and slit open the two pieces of mail. One was an announcement from a furniture store where everything was twenty percent off. The second was a letter from someone I didn’t want to think about, much less read a letter from. I crumpled them up and tossed them into the wastebasket, then nibbled on leftover cheese crackers. She cupped her hands around the coffee cup as if to warm herself and fixed her eyes on me, her lip lightly riding the rim of the mug.
“There’s salad in the fridge,” she said.
“Salad?”
“Tomatoes and string beans. There wasn’t anything else. The cucumbers had gone bad, so I threw them out.”
“Oh.”
I went to the refrigerator and took out the blue Okinawa glass salad bowl and sprinkled on the last drops from the bottle of dressing. The tomatoes and string beans were but chilled shadows. Tasteless shadows. Nor was there any taste to the coffee or crackers. Maybe because of the morning sun? The light of morning decomposes everything. I gave up on the coffee midway, dug a bent cigarette out of my pocket, and lit up with matches that I’d never seen before. The tip of the cigarette crackled dryly as its lavender smoke formed a tracery in the morning light.
“I went to a funeral. When it was over, I went to Shinjuku, by myself.”
The cat appeared out of nowhere, yawned at length, then sprang into her lap. She scratched him behind the ears.
“You don’t need to explain anything to me,” she said. “I’m out of the picture already.”
“I’m not explaining. I’m just making conversation.”
She shrugged and pushed her brassiere strap back inside her dress. Her face had no expression, like a photograph of a sunken city on the ocean floor.
“An acquaintance of sorts from years back. No one you knew.”
“Oh really?”
The cat gave his legs a good stretch, topped it off with a puff of a breath.
I glanced at the burning tip of the cigarette in my mouth.
“How did this acquaintance die?”
