Unknown Man #89

13

WEDNESDAY AFTERNOON, Ryan was sitting in a bar on Saginaw Street in Pontiac. It was about four-thirty, a nice sunny day. Ryan was about an hour away from being drunk.

The bartender said, “Same way?”

“Yeah, do it again.”

“That was a bourbon mist?”

“Early Times over crushed ice.”

The bartender gave him the look that meant That’s what I said. He didn’t say it. Shit no, the guy was made of wood, he didn’t say anything. You had to drag things out of him. Ryan watched the bartender make the drink. He was neat and methodical and slow. He used a chrome shot glass to measure the whiskey and poured it carefully over the crushed ice.

“You don’t do it by sight, huh?” Ryan said. “Pour it right from the bottle, give it that turn with the wrist, little extra hit? You know what I mean?”

“You want a double?” the bartender asked him.

“Yeah, I guess so. If I can’t talk you into anything.”

The bartender got the bottle from the backbar again and picked up the chrome shot glass.

It was too bad. Ryan felt confident and alert, not the least bit down, the way he’d felt the last week or so. He felt like talking to somebody, doing something. Not with Rita, though. He wanted something to happen. It was too quiet in here. It wasn’t a friendly place where you heard people talking and laughing. The bartender didn’t give a shit. He wasn’t paid to talk. Maybe listen, if you held him against the bar and threatened to punch him out.

He placed a fresh napkin and the mist in front of Ryan. Ryan said, “What I started to tell you before.”

“Sir?”

“About the time I was serving papers to the rock group.”

Either the bartender didn’t remember or it didn’t matter. He stood with his hands behind him, at parade rest.

“They were being sued by some hotel where they wrecked the place,” Ryan said. “I was backstage, see, but I couldn’t get near them, all the security cops and groupies and different people. I can’t remember their name. It was something like Norfolk and Western. It sounded like a railroad.”

“Excuse me,” the bartender said. He moved off to serve a customer.

Fuck you, Ryan thought. He drank the bourbon and sat without moving, staring at his reflection in the rose-tinted mirror.

What was he doing sitting here? He could go home right now, take a nap, have dinner, feel a little shitty this evening, get a good night’s sleep, and feel about 75 percent okay in the morning. But if he kept going until the bars closed at two he’d be on his way. Open his eyes in the morning and hope there was still some vodka in the cupboard. Or else get dressed and go out and find a seven o’clock opener, a workingman’s bar. Then serve a few papers, get that done. Have lunch, a few beers. Go through the motions of looking for Denise Leary, who wasn’t anywhere around Pontiac, Drayton Plains, Clarkston, or Keego Harbor. Rochester was next, maybe Rochester. And finally, by late afternoon, feeling a drunk’s idea of normal as he started on the bourbon and sailed with it through the evening, becoming more talkative, confident, funny, interesting…

“I’ll have another one.”

“Same way?”

“No, I’ll have a double bourbon mist this time.”

The bartender gave him the look again. He made the drink, placed it in front of Ryan, and picked up the two empties.

“I saw I couldn’t get near the group backstage,” Ryan said, “so I waited till they went on and started playing and I walked right out there, in all the lights and the crowd screaming, walked right up to the lead guitar.”

“Excuse me,” the bartender said. He walked off with the empty glasses.

So interesting the bartender could hardly wait to hear the rest. He was aware of what he was doing. He asked himself, why do you want to fuck up? He had said to the girl, Because it’s so much fun?

It didn’t make sense. How could he sit here drinking? Like running out in front of cars on the expressway and saying he might not get hit. Since Monday afternoon…

Tired, getting the down feeling again, sitting in a bar on M-59 having a Coke. Feeling down-was that the excuse? The bartender had said, “You want something else?” Meaning, You ready to pay? and he had said, “Yeah, give me another one,” and paused and said, “With a bourbon this time.” Not thinking about it and getting an excuse ready first, but coming right out with it. He could come up with all kinds of excuses if he had to.

Because he was depressed.

Because he deserved a drink.

Because he couldn’t keep walking into bars and ordering Cokes. It didn’t seem natural.

Because he was tired and depressed was the best. He needed a drink to pick him up.

Then the next rationalization. He could have one or two and not go berserk, for Christ’s sake. That was a lot of shit about one drink and you’re off again. He had had one drink Monday afternoon. No trouble.

He had had eight drinks Monday evening. Okay, that was it, the urge had been satisfied.

He had had two Bloody Marys at lunch Tuesday in Clarkston. He had had four vodkas and tonic during the afternoon. Eight, maybe ten bourbons that evening. And he’d bought the pint of vodka and had one with root beer before going to bed. He had seen an outdoor sign on the highway advertising Smirnoff and root beer. It was a Charlie something.

Then, this morning, a couple of vodkas and orange juice. At lunch in Drayton Plains he’d decided to pass on the Bloody Marys and had two beers with his chili. Then another bowl, it was so good, and another couple of beers. Then, two bars before this one, four bourbons. Two, three more here with the friendly bartender. That was thirteen drinks and it was only a quarter to five.

His wife or somebody had told him once, his problem was he didn’t count his drinks. Okay, he was counting them. He could continue to drink socially till midnight and bring the total to thirty without any trouble. A good two whole fifths’ worth of booze. But why stop at midnight? He wouldn’t; he’d keep going.

He didn’t have to, though. Right now he was at the border. With a relatively clear head he could say, “Good-bye brains,” and start pouring them down. Or he could quit right now. Except it would seem like stopping right in the middle, before he’d taken advantage of getting drunk, before he’d had any fun. Maybe a couple more days. Relax and let it happen. Look into some of the interesting afternoon lady drinkers he’d seen, the housewives with their gimlets and stingers and Black Russians. Tell them about serving the papers to the rock group and how he’d got his picture in the Free Press. Tell that one a few more times. Show the housewives what a funny guy he was. Score in a motel on Telegraph with a fifth of vodka, pop out of the machine. Or cold duck, because the housewife thought cold duck was romantic.

By tomorrow afternoon he wouldn’t be thinking about it, he’d be doing it. Half in the bag trying to do it, sweating, and nothing happening. Or quit right now. Four years ago he was ready to quit on September 28, but he had put it off a few days because October 1 would be easier to remember as the day he quit and joined AA. He had quit six or seven times since then and wasn’t sure of the last date. It didn’t matter. He had been clean three and a half years and now, for some reason, he was sitting in a bar drinking. Deciding if he should keep going. Actually considering it, knowing the pain he would experience when he finally stopped cold and withdrew. It wasn’t a hangover pain; that was simple, you could numb it with aspirin. The pain in withdrawal was the extreme feeling of anxiety that Ryan remembered well-a raw, hypersensitive feeling, like a sunburned nervous system-wanting to either take a drink or go out the window. With Ryan it would last a couple of days while he paced and filled himself with liquids and ate B-12 tablets like peanuts.

The question, was it worth it? Of course not? But that didn’t seem to matter, because it didn’t have anything to do with now.

Why he was drinking didn’t matter either. Because he was Irish or basically insecure? He was drinking. He could admit he was powerless over it once he got going, and he was still drinking. Sitting quietly in a bar, looking at his options and his reflection. He looked good, tan in the tinted bar mirror. His memory wasn’t too sharp, though. He wasn’t sure of the exact date, April 25 or 26. May 1 was a little too far off. The thing to do was call one of his friends in AA, admit he was fucking up and needed help, a kick in the ass. Or he could go to a meeting tonight. He hadn’t been to a meeting in about four months, and maybe that was his problem. Find one in the area. Call the main office and find out where to go in Pontiac. Go home and take a shower and a quick nap first, have something to eat. Pay and get out of here.

Or have just one more.