“I didn’t do anything about that, keeping them off of you. I might have thought about it, but I never had the chance. You whipped their asses. It was funny to see it. It was like you were stumbling, but everything you did was right. I think you broke one of ’em’s knee.”
“No shit?”
“No shit. How’d you do it, drunk like that?”
“Lucky.”
“I don’t think so. Was it some kind of martial arts?”
“Something like that. You want to know something? I don’t remember doing it.”
“Do you remember taking their money?”
“Money?”
“You went through their wallets, took their money, stuck it in your front pocket.”
The man reached in his front pocket, pulled out a wad of bills. “I’ll be damned…. Hell, I made forty-two dollars.”
“And you don’t remember doing it?”
“Nope. Guess it was a sense of fair play. Tit for tat. You said they were going to take my money, didn’t you?”
“Looked that way.”
“Guess I wasn’t as drunk as I thought…. But I was drunk enough I don’t remember much.” The man moved away from the wall and stuck out his hand. “My name is Tad. Tad Peters. Thanks for not leaving me in the alley. Drunk luck only goes so far.”
They shook and Harry told him his name.
“Drunk as I was, you’re lucky I wasn’t one more beer ahead,” Harry said. “I might not have left the table. And you’d be lying out there in the alley, passed out. You did, you know? Pass out, I mean. Right after you took them down and took their money.”
“You drank and you drove?”
“Guess so.”
“You don’t look like a stupid kid. If you knew you were gonna drink, you don’t drive there. You get someone that isn’t going to drink to drive you. Or you walk. Sobers some folks up. That’s what I do. I walk home.”
“For someone who robbed three fellas, I don’t know if you should be giving advice.”
“I’m hell on advice, just not too good at following it. This Joey, this friend of yours, guess I owe him too.”
“Naw. Not really. I mean, he helped get you to the car. But he wanted to leave you. Figured it was your problem.”
“He’s not all wrong, kid. I’m a drunk, plain and simple.”
Tad lay down on the pallet, doubled the pillow over, stuck it under his head, crossed his hands over his chest. “I don’t go a night I’m not ripped.”
“That must be tough on your career.”
“I don’t have a career. I have what you might call a trust fund, or something like that. I don’t know. Stock market, never understood it. They send me a little check each month. I made some investments before I was a drunk. They’ve panned out, though it isn’t much. Pays the bills, keeps me in beer and whiskey.”
“What did you used to do?”
“I taught martial arts.”
“No shit?”
“No shit, kid, and I was a thing of beauty. Not like now.”
“What I saw was pretty amazing. Never seen anything like it. It wasn’t a bunch of jumping around and yelling. It was quick, to the point, and it looked like it hurt like hell.”
“Sure it did. Thing is, if I wasn’t a drunk, I wouldn’t have been in that position. So you see, it’s all my fault. Let me give you some of that advice I’m free about giving. Quit drinking. You might have some sort of chemical reaction makes you hooked, or DNA, or genetics. Whatever that shit is. Some people, they got the tendency, you see.”
“You?”
“Nope. I can quit anytime I want. I just don’t want to. It ain’t genetics with me, kid. Not at all. Me, I’m a self-made man.”
Harry didn’t have classes that day, and no work schedule at the store, so he slept in. When he awoke, sat up on the couch, and rubbed his face, Tad was at the hot plate, making coffee.
“Couldn’t find any coffee filters,” he said, “so I used one of your socks.”
“What?”
“Just fucking with you. I used some napkins. Coffee might be a bit strong for you. Wasn’t sure how you liked it. I ate one of your snack bars, which, by the way, taste like solidified chicken shit, and I left you one on the table there. No wonder you’re so skinny, eating that crap. I bet you don’t have a steady girlfriend either.”
Harry shook his head. “No. I don’t have time. I work part-time in the school bookstore, and go to school.”
“Tell me you’re out of high school.”
“Of course, I’m twenty. I go to the university.”
“Shit, I can’t tell age anymore. Unless you’re my age, you’re a kid. What I like seeing is people older than me. I practically live for it. You gettin’ any pussy?”
This question startled Harry. It was like an ambush.
“Now and again.”
“Naw you ain’t.”
“Just said I was.”
“Naw, you ain’t gettin’ any. Way you said it, I can tell, already told me you don’t have a girlfriend.”
“You can’t tell shit.”
“Let’s try it again, kid. Are you gettin’ any pussy?”
“No.”
“There you are. Guy your age, you ought to be out there banging hole like there’s no tomorrow. Later on you’ll wish you had.”
“Hole?”
“Pretty nasty, huh?”
“I’ll say.”
“Hell, boy, when you’re my age it isn’t nasty, it’s just colorful.”
“Well, what about you? You asked me, so now I’m asking you. You getting any?”
“No. I don’t think about it much anymore. Just when they have a swimsuit special on TV. Most of the time I think about other things.”
“What do you think about?”
“Actually, I wish a lot.”
“About what?”
“I wish my wife wasn’t dead, that’s what I wish. I wish my son wasn’t dead. That’s what I wish.”
Harry let that go, said, “I had a girlfriend, but she got religion. She was a lot more fun when she didn’t have it. Though, I guess the truth was, I didn’t really care all that much for her, and she wasn’t all that enraptured with me either.”
“Religion sure can fuck you up.”
“She let me feel her up good, but anything other than that, she wasn’t into. God didn’t mind titty rubbing, I guess. But the other stuff, that wasn’t on his okay list.”
“He’s quite the stickler. But it matters who it’s with and what it means. Before I married Dorothy, I had girlfriends, and I had one that got religion now and then. Mostly between fucks, but then she’d get the remorse, you know. Jesus this, Jesus that. But after a time, Jesus, he’d take a nap or somethin’, and I’d get a trip to the cavern.”
“You sound very romantic.”
“I can fool you, kid.”
