by John O'Brien
Money, money. He’s going through a ton of money these days. When he lost his job last week he gained a sizable final check; his former employer really liked him and felt terribly guilty about having to fire him. Never mind that he unwittingly delayed the dismissal meeting by staying all morning at the bar and, after checking in with the receptionist, was on his way out for an early lunch when his boss caught up with him. Ironically, had he known what was in store for him that morning, he would have made it a point to be on time; he is very conscientious in that way. So they called him in—by then he did know what for—and asked him to leave. He felt so bad, not that he was being fired, but because his boss was on the verge of tears. How could he blame them? For the last year and a half his daily routine had been: Come in late, say eleven; flirt with the receptionist; go to lunch early, eleven-thirty; return from lunch late, about three; copy must-do list from today’s calendar page to tomorrow’s; walk fast around the office; leave early, no later that four-thirty. Everyone knew it for almost as long as he did, and he knew that they knew. It all just flowed so nicely that no one wanted to fuck with it. Not that he didn’t have his value, he did. He could be counted on to, at least, not let anything become a crisis, and he fixed everything that broke. The latter was not even required of him, but he could, so he did. He knew that being handy is the kind of conspicuous skill that makes it easier for others to tolerate you. They tolerated, and even liked him, for as long as they could. They eased their guilt by cutting him a padded check. Chockful of make believe vacation pay and sick leave, and iced with severance play pay, it was intended to help him get back on his feet while he looked for another job. But they knew and he knew that what it really represented was a whole fucking lot of booze.
Money, money. His final paycheck, added to what was left of his once substantial savings, gives him a net worth of around five thousand dollars. On top of that, he can wring at least that much again out of his credit cards; he’s always been a good boy, and it will be sixty to ninety days before little flags start appearing next to his name on monitors and printouts from here to Arizona.
Money, money. That gives him ten thousand dollars in drinking money. If he stops paying his bills, and only pays, say, one month’s rent, and keeps up his virtually non-existent social life and eating habits, then it can pretty much all stay drinking money. If he drinks one hundred dollars a day—and he can—he’s got one hundred days to drink. It’s just an arithmetic operation, simple logic.
In his kitchen he picks up the bottle of vodka. Center stage on the white tile counter and always threatening depletion, this is his home bottle. This is his sick bottle, his too-late bottle, his one for the road bottle. This is his utility bottle; it keeps him at his default setting. He pours a tall glass and cuts it with a splash of tonic. It’s quite a lot of vodka, and it represents his last hurdle of the morning. He feels all right now, but if he can get this down he knows that he won’t embarrass himself in public. Throwing up at your barstool is frowned upon in Beverly Hills. He carries the full glass into the shower with him, just to be on the safe side.
All goes well, and by the end of the shower he’s feeling great. Craving music now, he drips over to the stereo without waiting to dry and plays one of the twenty-some cuts that he tends to play over and over again when he’s been drinking, that he tends to play over and over again. He pours another drink and dances back into the bathroom for an ambitious morning shave.
To Ben, shaving is evidence that everything’s fine. These few minutes of socially suggested practicality tend to convince him that he, like the rest of the normal world, is just living his life. He’s just another guy that gets up and goes through a regular routine, wades through a non-spectacular day, and comes home and goes to sleep. He’s a cog in the machine. He’s a soma-driven epsilon who happens to be plagued with imagination. For instance, his habit is to shave around his mouth first; that way, he can sip his drink even if he’s not finished shaving—his mind never rests.
He looks in the mirror and doesn’t care that he is an alcoholic. The issue is entirely irrelevant to him. He does all this deliberately, with purpose. Yes, of course I’m an ale, he thinks. What about it? It’s not what the story is about. There are a million ways to croak; he’s only plucking a piece of life. Let go and fuck God. There are a thousand mind manipulations. As he and his friend used to joke about: It’s time to cut your hair, get a job, and just give up. Ha Ha. The crime is not that he’s an alcoholic; big deal! The crime is that he’s disoriented, big time.
He gets dressed to the music, sometimes dancing with himself in the mirror: will you go out with me? He puts on too much too expensive cologne so he can stink of a different kind of alcohol. Tie done up right and suit looking sharp, he spins on his heel and walks into the living room, where he trips over the low coffee table and crashes through its glass top. He groans once and then starts snoring.
Very still now in the apartment, much like it must be in any empty apartment or house, families at work, perhaps on vacation. Ben is in communion with the rest of the motionless stuff that patiently occupies space and waits to be fucked with; he is an object of his own device. The refrigerator clicks on and off, faithfully cooling its near-empty interior, pursuant to its agreement as a major appliance. A hand moves on a clock—actually, all the hands move on all the clocks—but to all intents and purposes, it is silent. A heart is beating. Organs are deteriorating. There is something forbidding about this place. It can be felt between the thumb and the index finger, like noxious paint fumes to a blind man. The sighted might observe that the paint is a very bad color indeed and either leave now or pine for the previous coat.
When Ben awakens it is dark. Panicked, he instinctively looks at his watch. It’s ten-thirty and he relaxes a little. Disturbed glass clinks and crunches as he gets to his feet and shakes himself. This day is shot, but everything else seems to be in operating order. By way of a test he walks to the kitchen: slight soreness, no blood so far. What a fucking mess. He drains the vodka bottle into his glass and goes to the mirror, no blood at all. After brushing the broken glass out of his hair and replacing his ripped suit coat with a sports jacket, he walks down the block to the liquor store and buys a couple of fifths, so he can deal with this unfortunate twist in his day and come up with a plan for tonight. Actually, he feels pretty well rested.
He can make the walk to the liquor store okay now, other times just barely. He misses walking, the brisk hikes down the boardwalk in Venice, or along the canals, or not so brisk walks on the sand, where the outcome of each step is too unfamiliar to master. Walking made him feel independent, a fast moving visitor observing the lives of those whom he passed. He used to walk fast, faster than anyone else, though it was never an effort for him. He would just cruise along comfortably at his normal speed, passing everyone on the sidewalk and causing any unfortunate companion to alternately walk fast and jog in order to keep few their trailing paces. He used to walk everywhere—the library, the grocery store, the mall in Santa Monica—now he drives. Physically crippled with alcoholism and psychologically afraid of being too far from its source, his walking radius has become the distance from his front door to his car. The liquor store falls just a half block outside of this parameter, so he makes an exception. But he does miss those long fast walks. That was something he could do better than anyone he’s ever known, or known about.
On his way home from the liquor store he falls behind a beautiful girl walking her dog. He hasn’t seen her face, but she is beautiful from behind. Not just her shape, which is quite nice, but her whole walk, her feeling and movement. This girl is pleased with herself. He considers for a moment that this may be the only art that he remembers how to appreciate, and he’s not sure if that’s a good, bad, or neutral aspect of his personality. She is beautiful right now. If he never sees her face, or if he sees her face and doesn’t like it, she is still beautiful. He views this particular opinion as a refined and matured version of how he would have felt as a boy;
back then he would have hoped that she had a pretty face. He still does, of course, but her beauty is, for him, no longer dependent on her face. He thinks about her panties as his mind wanders, encompassing her in an overstated fantasy. Panties may be a bit too specific for a short walk behind an unknown girl. Again he wonders if the mental twist is positive or negative. Positive, he decides, you can never be too specific. But then, the infinitesimal must be, by definition, as infinite as the infinite. She has stopped. All of a sudden he is beside her, looking into her inquisitive face. Disappointed, he smiles and walks on. She is very young indeed.
Back at home he has a couple of glasses of vodka, washes up, gets dressed again, and refills his glass on his way out the door. He’s decided to drive to Beverly Hills and catch last call at one or two places before wrapping up his night at some of the grittier bars which are closer to home. His driving, as usual, is pretty even. Weaving is for amateur drunks, not for him. More than once he has driven alongside a black and white for miles, totally stoned and unconcerned. He knows that he won’t fuck up by driving sloppily and getting busted; he’ll just fail to react quickly to a situation one day and either kill himself or someone else. He finds this latter possibility, murder, intolerable, so he tries not to think about it.
Last year he got stopped on the 405, the San Diego Freeway. It was four a.m. and the road was almost empty, so he was going ninety-five down the hill. That type of overt violation was unusual for him, but he had snorted a lot of cocaine that night—even more unusual. He didn’t like drugs and was anxious to get home to his nth drink to help cut the coke; he really didn’t like drugs. He happened to look out the open window to his left, only to find a CHP motorcycle cop pacing him—no lights, just pacing him. The cop waved and he waved and smiled. The cop indicated with his hand that Ben should pull over, so he did. Ben got out of the car and stood by the driver’s door waiting for the cuffs.
“Going pretty fast,” said the helmet clad cop.
“Yeah, I guess so. I’m pretty late getting home. Is there any lipstick on my face?” said Ben, stretching out his neck for inspection, and surprised that he had said this before thinking it over.
“Where’s home?” asked the cop.
“Venice,” said Ben. Without being asked he extracted his license from his wallet and handed it to the cop, who ignored it.
“Slow down,” said the cop as he mounted his motorcycle. “Go home. It’s okay.”
So Ben got in his car and pulled away. Driving home carefully, he turned the thing over again and again in his mind. He didn’t feel the slightest bit cocky or smart, just intrigued. He never understood that little piece of good fortune.
Apart from speeding on the 405, the only other really silly thing that he did while driving drunk was to break his own car window. He had just finished a bottle of beer and dropped it on the car floor. This was a habit he had, preferring to dump his empties in a trash can rather than litter the streets with them. This little bit of environmental consideration worked fine, but on a few occasions the likelihood of an official presence—say, a toll booth, or an impending U-turn—compelled him to purge the vehicle of what might become evidence, that is, empty beer bottles. This happened in Laurel Canyon one night. Not going especially fast, he nevertheless thought he saw a cop pull out of a speed trap behind him. Just then the thickly foliaged road went around a sharp bend, so to be on the safe side, he picked the empty beer bottle up off of the floor and chucked it out what he thought was the open passenger window. Next came a tremendous pop, as safety glass showered the car’s interior. The cop turned out to be a false alarm and Ben couldn’t stop laughing about the window, which he purposefully never had replaced. The next day he even found the bottle, unbroken on the back seat.
As he crosses into Beverly Hills he is extra cautious, wary of that city’s super-saturated police coverage. He parks on Crescent Drive, in a semi-residential section, far enough from the bars to not be seen walking directly from car to bar and back to car, one of many extra precautions that must be taken when drinking hard in Beverly Hills.
The lights are already up at what was to be his first stop, and though they know him well there and would serve him after last call, he passes by. He needs to use his plastic whenever possible now and save his cash for the days ahead. Beverly Hills is much better suited to alcoholism on credit than Venice is. But to go into a place that does the courtesy of serving you after last call, only to have you pay with a credit card, well that’s just bad etiquette. There are other options, it’s only midnight.
Miles from, but heading towards the water, he strolls down Dayton Way. The way streets run perpendicular to the drive streets, but that’s about where the right angles end. If Wilshire is considered as the x-axis, then there aren’t too many verticals and horizontals to be found in Beverly Hills. If Santa Monica is x, then you don’t know your north from your south. The streets are nice, but not that nice. This city has an exaggerated reputation. There’s plenty of money here, but that’s true of a lot of places. The daytime population couldn’t be anymore average, at least not in southern California, and at night the restaurants are filled with tourists and valley people, rechecking their check totals and calculating tips. Beverly Hills is just a nice part of LA, without the meaning, even though it isn’t really part of Los Angeles at all.
He slips into a place that stays open a little later. The bar is half full, and most of the patrons look as though they’ve been there awhile. He likes bars at this hour. People who are still drinking at midnight tend to like drinking, enough, if not as much as he. It’s the next best thing to a bar at six a.m.. That’s the best, no pretense. People drinking at six a.m. are people drinking all the time. It’s out on the table: Good morning… Mornin’… Good morning… Hi… What can I get you?… How are you this morning?… Scotch and milk… Good Morning… I’ll have a whiskey and water, please… Say, have you ever tried seven and seven?… Oh please! I can’t take all that sugar first thing in the morning… Good morning. Ben orders and receives a double shot of one hundred and one proof Wild Turkey and a bottle of German beer. He sits and drinks, orders more and hands over his American Express card as collateral. He sees a girl sitting alone at the bar. Actually, he was aware of her the moment he walked in. Now he looks at her. She smiles and looks back at her drink. He walks over to her.
“Good Evening,” he says.
She pulls away and wrinkles her nose. “Been drinking all day?” she says.
“But of course. I’m Benjamin—Ben,” he says. He hates that. For the life of him he can’t understand how everyone can smell him a mile away. It’s very frustrating. No matter how much he bathes or gargles or perfumes, he still smells like booze. It must be such an integral part of him now that it has become his natural odor. That would explain why he can never smell it, neither on himself nor on anybody else, not even other drunks.
“I’m Teri,” she says. Ben extends his hand, and pretending not to notice it, she cups her glass with both hands and drains it through the straw. She lets it gurgle for an extra beat to make sure that he gets the point.
“I’ll get you another one,” he says, downing his own double bourbon, “and me too. Mind if I join you?”
She forces a smile, but she also wears the expression of a dog getting a bath with a cold hose. Seeing that he is very drunk, she is disappointed. When he walked into the bar she had imagined a different situation.
“Why don’t we have our drinks and go to my apartment at the beach. We can watch a movie and I’ll mix you up a gooey blender drink,” he says. Inside he winces. Part of him realizes how stupid this is. It’s his little defense mechanism that kicks in and trashes his credibility whenever someone is threatening to show an interest in him. It dawns on him that he has crossed over the line that runs between maintaining alcoholic and sloppy, stupid, obnoxious drunk. But at least he is cognizant of it this time; he’ll try to ease off.
“Oh, thank you, but I don’t think so. I’ll just finish my drink
and go. I have to get up pretty early tomorrow,” she says.
They get their drinks and both take long swallows. By now Ben is obscured from himself. He can no longer monitor his actions. He can’t edit himself. Later he will know, but right now he doesn’t, that this is not him.
“I really wish that you’d come home with me,” he says, slurring and breaking his words. “Yourso cute, and I’m really good in bed… believe me… yousmell good too.” He stops and frowns. “No, okay,” he mutters into his glass. He swivels on his stool and his arms find the bar for support.
She starts to speak and then doesn’t. Looking at him, she gets a look of great sadness in her eyes, sadness so intense that it goes beyond what her face has made you believe she could feel. Ben does not see it, but it is not wasted. It serves more purpose to her than it possibly could to him right now; she did not consciously author it, and she is surprised.
“Maybe you shouldn’t drink so much,” she says. “I have to go. Thanks for the drink.” She gets up and walks quickly to the door.
Her understatement seems to give him a spark. “Maybe I shouldn’t breathe so much, Teri!” he calls after her. “Ha! ha!” But she is gone. The bartender shakes his head and puts down the glass that he is washing.
“Time to go, bud,” he says. “We’re closing up.”
He puts Ben’s credit card on the bar and waits for the signature. Ben fills out the tip and total and signs the slip, then removes his receipt and adds it to the growing collection in his wallet. He must remember to throw those things out.
