I thought, My name is Matt and I’m an alcoholic and we sit around in these goddamned rooms and say the same damned things all the time and meanwhile out there all the animals are killing each other. We say Don’t drink and go to meetings and we say The important thing is you’re sober and we say Easy does it and we say One day at a time and while we natter on like brainwashed zombies the world is coming to an end.

I thought, My name is Matt and I’m an alcoholic and I need help.

When they got to me I said, “My name is Matt. Thanks for your qualification. I enjoyed it. I think I’ll just listen tonight.”

I left right after the prayer. I didn’t go to Cobb’s Corner and I didn’t go to Armstrong’s, either. Instead I walked to my hotel and past it and halfway around the block to Joey Farrell’s on Fifty-eighth Street.

They didn’t have much of a crowd. There was a Tony Bennett record on the jukebox. The bartender was nobody I knew.

I looked at the back bar. The first bourbon that caught my eye was Early Times. I ordered a straight shot with water back. The bartender poured it and set it on the bar in front of me.

I picked it up and looked at it. I wonder what I expected to see.

I drank it down.

Chapter 7

Chapter 7

It was no big deal. I didn’t even feel the drink at first, and then what I experienced was a vague headache and the suggestion of nausea.

Well, my system wasn’t used to it. I’d been away from it for a week. When was the last time I’d gone a full week without a drink?

I couldn’t remember. Maybe fifteen years, I thought. Maybe twenty, maybe more.

I stood there, a forearm on the bar, one foot on the bottom rung of the bar stool beside me, and I tried to determine just what it was that I felt. I decided that something didn’t hurt quite so much as it had a few minutes ago. On the other hand, I felt a curious sense of loss. But of what?

“Another?”

I started to nod, then caught myself and shook my head. “Not right now,” I said. “You want to let me have some dimes? I have to make a couple of calls.”