And so he sat in the bar, all manner of talk going on around him, about this and that, how good a lay so- and-so is, and she’s extra good because she swallows, and what about them damn Cowboys, couldn’t they put together a good team, like the old days, and someone said, “You know, they’re going to reinstate the draft,” and someone said, “Yeah, we ought to just kill them all. We go all the way over there, give them freedom, sons a’ bitches don’t want it, ought to kill them all, just drop the big one,” and someone else says, “Wouldn’t Jesus be against that,” and Harry kind of thinks he hears this guy being hit, puts his head on the table and thinks right before he passes out that it was him who said it.
20
Tad woke up certain that during the night a cat had shit in his mouth, but not owning any cats, he decided that, unless he left a window open somewhere, this wasn’t likely.
He sat up in his bed, only to discover he wasn’t in his bed.
He was under the dining room table, him and some empty glass and aluminum soldiers lying this way and that.
He managed to bump his head on the table bottom, as well as rattle his noggin by disturbing the cans and bottles around him. The sound of them being touched, moved, was loud in his head, and in that moment he thought:
What if that kid is telling the truth?
Maybe he does hear sounds.
And maybe, like me, he’s just a drunk.
Either way, he’s fucked-up. And if the sounds are real, he’s double-screwed.
Tad crawled out from under the table, got to his feet, which only seemed to take about a week, made a quick wobble to the bathroom, got down on his knees, dunked his head over the toilet bowl and let it fly.
It was like his insides were going to come up with it, not to mention his balls.
Goddamn, he thought. I been drinking quite professionally for a long time, but I must have tied a good one on last night.
He vomited repeatedly.
When he finished, he noted there were drops of blood in the vomit.
Rawness from his throat.
That was it.
God, he hoped that was it.
He reached up, flushed, then fell back against the wall.
He sat that way until his brain came back down from outer space, bringing along with it an anvil that dropped right on top of his head. Using the toilet bowl as an aid, he got to his feet, wandered into the kitchen, got a beer out of the fridge, and sipped it.
Hair of the dog that bit him.
He stood by the refrigerator for a while, stumbled into the dining room, sat at the table.
In front of him was the note Harry had dropped off.
He read it.
“Shit,” he said.
21
As Tad got out of his car, a light rain was falling, pushed about by a chill, brisk wind.
He stood a moment by the car and lifted his face into it. The air smelled fresh, and he knew when the rain passed the world would smell like a crisp starched shirt. Somewhere a police car made with a
Tad looked at the stairs to Harry’s apartment, noticed that since he had been here last the railing on the right side of the stairway had been broken, a couple of slats knocked asunder.
He went up the stairs and knocked on the door, lightly at first, then, when no one answered, harder.
Still nothing.
He took a notepad from his shirt pocket, a pen, wrote:
As he started down the stairs, through the gap in the railing, in the shrubs that surrounded the stairs on that side, lying there like a big bird that had fallen, he saw Harry, his shirt ripped, one shoe missing. His pants were torn and there were blood spots on his face.
Tad went down quickly and pushed into the shrubs, squatted, and held Harry’s head up.
“Kid, you all right?”
Harry made a strained noise that sounded a bit like someone trying to pass a stubborn fart.
“Hey, kid. It’s me, Tad.”
Harry opened one sticky, bloodshot eye; the other eyelid quivered, but the curtain did not go up. It was black under the bloodshot eye. Harry had taken quite a lick there.
Tad tried again. “It’s Tad. You know, the drunk you helped?”
Harry smacked his lips, said, “I had some beer.”
“Yeah, I can smell it. Think you had something besides beer, maybe some whiskey, some hair tonic, maybe an ass whippin’. You’re lookin’ rough, Harry.”
“I fell.”
“Figured as much, part of the reason you look rough.”
Harry contemplated this, finally got his other eye open.
“Think it’s rough out there on the surface, ought to see inside my head.”
“I’m only a few hours and two pots of coffee ahead of you, kid.”
“Coffee. My kingdom for a pot.”
“Come on, kid, let me help you up.”
“You got a car?” Harry said. “Told me you walked everywhere.”
Tad leaned over and fastened Harry’s seat belt for him.
“Said I walked when I drank. Tonight I’m coffee’d up after a drunk, and I’m your designated driver.”
“Cool. What kind of car is this?”
“Mercedes,” Tad said, buckling himself in.
“No shit?”
“No shit.”
“I’ll be damned.”
“If there actually was a hell, we all would be.”
“That’s the goddamn truth. Hey. Karate guy. Ain’t you supposed to be monklike or something? Got this car, that house. That ain’t no fuckin’ monk stuff.”
“Actually, what I do is not, strictly speaking, karate. Or jujitsu. It’s a cousin. And, to make another fine point that will most likely go in one drunk ear and out the other, I’m a capitalist who is too often too drunk to work. Thank goodness for all my money. If the Republicans knew I broke ranks and voted Democrat, they’d probably take away my tax cuts. But if it makes you feel any better, the car is not new, the house is inherited, and me, I’m too lazy to work.”
“Damn right it makes me feel better. That’s more monkish.”
Harry laid his head against the door as Tad pulled away from the curb, and was asleep and snoring before they had gone twenty feet.
When they were almost to Tad’s place, Harry suddenly awoke, sat up straight in his seat, said as if in midconversation, “I ran me a tab. Problem was, I didn’t have enough to cover it. Offered an IOU, signed and everything. Bartender offered me a fist in the eye, then took a hammer handle to my head. I got more bumps on it than bubble wrap. Tried to do what you did, you know, that loose fighting. Just made me fall down.”
“It’ll happen, kid.”
“And some guy, he poked me for saying something about Jesus. I don’t remember if it was good or bad, what
