Any doctor? How about that intern at Roosevelt? I could feel his hand on my shoulder, right where the mugger had grabbed me to shove me into the alley. “Look at me. Listen to me. You’re an alcoholic. If you drink you’ll die.”

I’d die anyway, in one of eight million ways. But if I had the choice, at least I could die closer to home.

I walked over to the curb. A gypsy cab, the only kind that cruises Harlem, slowed as it approached. The driver, a middle-aged Hispanic woman wearing a brimmed cap over kinky red hair, decided I looked all right. I got in the back seat, closed the door, told her to take me to Fifty-eighth and Ninth.

On the way there my mind was all over the place. My hands were still trembling, though not so violently as before, but the internal shakes were as bad as ever. The ride seemed to take forever, and then before I knew it the woman was asking me which corner I wanted. I told her to pull up in front of Armstrong’s. When the light changed she nosed the cab across the intersection and stopped where I’d told her. When I made no move she turned around to see what was wrong.

I’d just remembered that I couldn’t get a drink at Armstrong’s. Of course they might have forgotten by now that Jimmy had eighty-sixed me, but maybe they hadn’t, and I felt myself burning with resentment already at the thought of walking in there and being refused service. No, fuck them, I wouldn’t walk through their goddamned door.

Where, then? Polly’s would be closed, they never ran all the way to closing hour. Farrell’s?

That was where I’d had the first drink after Kim’s death. I’d had eight sober days before I picked up that drink. I remembered that drink. Early Times, it was.

Funny how I always remember what brand I was drinking. It’s all the same crap, but that’s the sort of detail that sticks in your mind.

I’d heard someone make that very observation at a meeting a while back.

What did I have now? Four days? I could go up to my room and just make myself stay there and when I woke up I’d be starting my fifth day.

Except that I’d never fall asleep. I wouldn’t even stay in the room. I’d try, but I couldn’t stay anywhere, not the way I felt right now, not with only my own whirling mind to keep me company. If I didn’t drink now I’d drink an hour from now.

“Mister? You okay?”