Slowly We Rot

by Bryan Smith

  She didn’t respond. She didn’t even stir.

  He frowned and gave her bare shoulder a nudge. “Linda?”

  Nothing.

  Noah felt a scream rising in his throat.

  She wasn’t breathing.

  32.

  Six years ago…

  By the time he pulled into the little fenced parking lot outside the apartment building where Luke Garraty lived, Noah’s head was swimming from the four cans of Bud he’d already downed. It was the kind of pleasant buzz he liked best. He was slightly beyond the point of mild inebriation, but he wasn’t really drunk yet. This was that perfect in-between place where everything felt wonderful. His many worries had slipped away and no longer seemed so important. So much of his sober time was spent fighting desperately to stay sober and do the things necessary to get his life back on track. It was a grim, joyless, unrelenting struggle, and it felt so damn good to just let go of it all.

  In a fair world, this was how intoxication would always be. This pleasant, slightly beyond tipsy buzz would be the pinnacle of inebriation. Every additional drink would simply maintain this glorious feeling rather than resulting in a state of deepening impairment. But this wasn’t a fair world. There’d been ample proof of that in Noah’s life already. Even in the midst of feeling good, he was aware of the darkness waiting for him just a little farther down the line. He would keep drinking because he wouldn’t want to be sober again. Not for a good, long while, anyway. It was the alcoholic’s catch-22. Easing back on the booze at this early stage would result in a premature return to sobriety. Continuing to knock the drinks back, on the other hand, would eventually bring about a state of severe intoxication as well as a dramatically increased risk of dangerous consequences.

  But Noah’s fear of the self-loathing he would experience if he let himself sober up was greater than his fear of what might happen if he kept drinking. Which was why he took another can from the Bud 12-pack and popped the tab on it as soon as he was parked in front of the building. Right now he didn’t want to think about the people he was in the process of letting down. Nor did he want to spend any time ruminating on the eventual confrontation with his parents. There was no room in his head for those things when he was feeling this good.

  He took a deep gulp from the can and stared at the building’s nondescript façade. The tri-level building had twelve apartments, six on each side. Luke lived close to downtown and was near a lot of cool stuff. This building, though, was on the opposite side of Broadway and several blocks down from all that cool stuff. In terms of actual distance, it was close to all that, but it was just far enough away to make the area right around the building kind of sketchy. The building had security doors that required a code for entrance.

  Noah didn’t know the code. He also didn’t know what side of the building housed Luke’s apartment. After a few more big gulps of Bud, he set the can—moist now with condensation—in a cup-holder and retrieved his cell phone from the Pontiac’s dash. He pulled up Luke’s number and hit the call button.

  Luke answered on the first ring. “You’re late.”

  “Yeah, well, I’m here now. And I’m fashionably late, like all the cool kids.”

  There was a brief hesitation from Luke’s end. This was followed by a barely audible sigh. “You sound a little strange.”

  “Strange how?”

  “Just, I don’t know, strange.”

  Noah grabbed the Bud can with his free hand and took a little sip. “Whatever, man. I just sound strange. You actually are strange.”

  Luke chuckled. “You know what? I can’t argue with that. I’ll be right down.”

  The line went dead and Noah put the phone back on the dash. A few minutes passed and then the security door on the right-hand side of the building swung open and out came Luke. He was dressed all in black and his spiky blond hair was taller now. Noah leaned over to pull up the lock on the Pontiac’s passenger side door, leaning back again as Luke dropped into the car and pulled the door shut.

  Luke had inadvertently kicked over the partially depleted 12-pack while settling into the passenger seat. Noah had left it on the floor there, either neglecting to hide it or sensing that doing so would be pointless. He tensed in anticipation of a rebuke from Luke, but that didn’t happen. It was what he’d expected. After all, the whole point of this excursion was so they could go to an AA meeting. Not only that, but it was happening at Luke’s suggestion.

  Instead, Luke fished a dripping wet can out of the 12-pack, popped the tab, and took a long drink, downing half its contents in one go. He belched when he came up for air and slumped down some in the seat. “All right, then, let’s get this party started. Where do you want to go first?”

  And that was that, they were off to the races, alcoholically speaking, with no recriminations and no “should we or shouldn’t we?” debate. The only time the AA meeting was referenced was when Noah ventured the idea of dropping in on it while buzzed, which Luke rejected with a hearty “fuck that.” Though Noah found Luke’s accommodating attitude about the unplanned change in their agenda easy to roll with, he did think it more than a little strange. It was almost as if his new drinking buddy had been expecting this to happen. More than that, like he was counting on it. There was something a bit unsettling in that insight and so Noah chose not to examine it too closely.

  Noah didn’t know the bars and nightspots of Nashville anywhere near as well as Luke, who was a few years older and had a deep well of knowledge regarding local watering holes. At Luke’s suggestion, they left the touristy downtown stuff behind and first went to Elliston Place, an area not far from the Vanderbilt University campus. Noah was game. Despite being underage, he was never denied admission to bars. At a glance, he looked borderline old enough. Maybe right around legal age, most would guess. What sealed the deal was a high quality fake ID he’d managed to hang onto through his many travails.

  Things started out in a reserved way at The Gold Rush, where they nursed a couple beers for just under an hour. During that time, Noah had to listen to Luke rant about how the bar used to be a much cooler place with more of a dive bar atmosphere. Once upon a time, he said, there had been a second floor to The Gold Rush, which had housed another bar, some pool tables, a jukebox, and a small dance floor. But The Gold Rush had been renovated since then, ditching the sleazy vibe in exchange for a more upscale one. The second floor, apparently the location of many great times for Luke, had been sealed off and was now presumably office space or something stupid like that.

  Listening to him go on about it was wearying. He was borderline obsessed, maybe even a little bitter. This struck Noah as odd, given that there were many other bars in the area that more or less fit his description of his old favorite hangout. Later it hit him that Luke was possessed by a desperate yearning to recapture something in his life that had been lost, something important to him, regardless of how trivial it seemed to others. When this occurred to Noah, he became a little more forgiving of Luke’s behavior. After all, he could relate.

  After deciding it was time to move on, they each did a shot of tequila before paying their tabs. Noah would later view those tequila shots as akin to lighting the fuse on a stick of dynamite. The warmup was over and it was time for the serious drinking to begin. After leaving The Gold Rush, they crossed the street and ducked into The Corner Bar. This place had a more down-to-earth atmosphere than the renovated Gold Rush and Noah felt more relaxed there from the moment they arrived.

  First thing they did at The Corner Bar was have another shot of tequila. Past experience had taught Noah to be wary of tequila, but the first shot had gone down so easily another seemed like a great idea, maybe the greatest idea ever. From there they transitioned back to beer for a while, neither of them wishing to get falling down wasted before it’d even gotten dark out. This would be the last gesture toward restraint they would make that night.

  Next they went to the Villager Tavern in Hillsboro Village, another little area adjacent to Vanderbilt. T
he Villager was a tiny beer-only joint. It was popular with the locals and got crowded in the early evening hours. They moved on to a sports bar a couple blocks down after just one round of Shiner Bocks. The sports bar was significantly larger than the Villager, which meant it was louder and even more crowded. The clientele was younger and not as laid back. It was here that the booze began to catch up with them.

  For Noah, this meant an increasing tendency toward sloppiness. He became less coordinated, nearly tipping his glass over numerous times. In Luke’s case, deepening intoxication manifested in loud belligerence. He started hitting on every girl who so much as glanced his way, even the ones who were clearly with dates or boyfriends. But he didn’t just flirt. The advances were lewd bordering on obscene. This resulted in some near-altercations, the last of which prompted Noah to drop some bills on the bar and drag Luke out of there.

  After that, they visited several more places in the general Vanderbilt area, at some point along the line moving into dangerous levels of intoxication. Noah mostly managed to keep his Pontiac steadily between the lines each time they hit the road, an impressive feat considering he felt like he was swimming in a sea of alcohol the entire time.

  Eventually, they entered a bar where the staff refused to serve them. A bartender there offered to call them a cab. Rather than taking this for the conscientious gesture it was, Luke stormed out of the place, but not before knocking several glasses off a table. The sound of all that glass shattering on the floor cut through Noah’s alcohol haze for a fleeting moment. He knew he should tell the bartender to call that cab. But then he heard Luke yelling at him from outside. He stifled that final urge to do the right thing and walked out of there.

  The next place also refused to serve them. So did the next. Getting increasingly frustrated, they stopped at a convenience store. Luke waited in the Pontiac while Noah went in to buy beer. In the store, he was able to hold himself steady enough when he approached the counter that the clerk didn’t refuse to sell him the beer. It probably helped that the guy was behind glass and thus avoided a direct blast of Noah’s booze breath.

  They took the beer to a BYOB strip club, where they were not denied entry, amazingly enough. By then it was almost one in the morning. Noah spent most of his remaining cash at the club, most of it on an amazingly long-legged and big-busted brunette who did a couch dance for him. The strip club made for a nice break from the bars. They could cut loose a little more without being hassled by wait staff. But, once again, Luke ruined it, this time by violating the club’s strict “no touching” rule for the dancers. This time they didn’t just get kicked out. They were chased out of the club and threatened by hulking bouncers.

  At that point it was close to two in the morning. Noah figured he’d had enough and suggested they go back to Luke’s place to crash for the night. But Luke was adamant about finding a particular nightclub, one where he insisted they would have no problems because everybody there was “chill”. Noah reluctantly went along with this in exchange for a promise that they would be done for the night after visiting this one last place.

  There was just one problem. They couldn’t find the nightclub. Noah became frustrated as Luke led him through a confusing maze of dark city streets, most virtually empty at this late hour. He’d completely lost his bearings and realized finding his way back to the interstate would have been almost impossible on his own. He just hoped Luke would know how to get back to his place when the time finally came. At quarter past two, he’d had enough and insisted that Luke direct him back to the apartment building.

  But Luke ignored this, abruptly sitting bolt upright in the passenger seat. He pointed at something up ahead as the Pontiac slowly cruised down yet another dark city street. “Up there! It’s up there!”

  Noah tried reasoning with Luke. It was time to head back. Surely he could see that. But Luke vehemently disagreed, calling Noah a “fucking pussy.” His face, normally very pale, was a bright shade of red as he said this. Noah was a little afraid of him in that moment, so he surrendered and continued down the street. A block and a half later, they came to a more brightly lit intersection, where Luke unhesitatingly told Noah to take a left turn. His seeming certainty made Noah feel a little better.

  Noah took the turn.

  And almost immediately realized they were heading the wrong way down a one-way street. He slammed on the brake, shifted gears, and backed out onto the street he’d just turned from. He’d just changed gears again when he saw the flashing lights appear in his rearview mirror. Next came a stuttering blip of siren noise.

  Terror seized Noah in that moment. The night was ending in the worst possible way. In a way that felt almost predestined. He couldn’t drink without calamity of some sort happening. This had been demonstrated many times, yet eventually there always came a time when he failed to heed the lesson. He was about to go to jail. Again. His parents would soon be getting another late night phone call. If a gun had been in reach just then, Noah felt sure he would have put it in his mouth and pulled the trigger.

  Instead, he pulled over and awaited the inevitable.

  Soon a cop appeared at the door.

  Noah rolled down his window.

  “You boys been drinking?”

  Something inside Noah—something born from the terror of temporary incarceration, perhaps—reached out and took control with a stunning laser focus. He kept his voice steady and did not slur his words as he said, “Only a beer or two, sir. We were just on our way home.”

  “Uh-huh.” The officer frowned and glanced back down the street for a moment before saying, “I’ll need your license.”

  Carefully extracting the real one from his wallet rather than the fake, Noah handed it over and waited in silence as the cop returned to his cruiser. Noah stayed silent after that, ignoring Luke’s loudly stage-whispered advice about how to handle the situation. The cop stayed in his cruiser for a period that seemed to go on forever but was probably no more than five minutes. When he came back to the Pontiac, he asked Noah to step out of the car and onto the sidewalk.

  That laser focus, so eerily precise and unwavering, came into play again as Noah got out of the car and approached the sidewalk. He did this smoothly, without once stumbling or otherwise appearing visibly intoxicated. On the sidewalk, the cop administered a field sobriety test. Noah was instructed to walk back and forth along a crack in the sidewalk, which he did, again performing as instructed with absolute perfection. Next he was told to extend both arms outward and touch the tip of his nose with his index fingers. Again, utter perfection. He was then asked to recite the alphabet. Noah did it, rattling all twenty-six letters off in just seconds. He didn’t skip a single letter or slur any of them.

  The cop’s frown deepened throughout this process. By the end of it, the expression on his face was maybe the most exasperated-looking one Noah had ever seen. He didn’t say anything at first and spent some more time looking up and down the street, at what Noah had no idea. There was no one else around.

  At last, he sighed and looked Noah in the eye. “Look, I know you’re drunk. You smell like a brewery. I know if I administered a breathalyzer, your BA would be off the charts. But you passed the field sobriety test. So here’s what we’re gonna do. You know anyone who can come pick you up?”

  Noah was too stunned by what the cop was telling him to reply right away. His terror aside, he’d taken it for granted that this episode would end with his drunk ass sitting in jail. At no point had he envisioned any possibility of somehow getting out of it. As fucked up as he was, the idea was absurd.

  Finally, Luke piped up from inside the Pontiac, saying he could call someone to come get them. The officer listened as Luke took out his cell phone and called some mystery person. Soon he hung up and told the cop his brother would be along shortly to collect them.

  The cop told Noah to get back in the Pontiac, which he did, feeling almost numb with disbelief as he slid in behind the wheel. When he pulled the door shut, the cop leaned down to ta
lk to them through the open window.

  “Listen up, assholes.” His voice was thick with disdain. He sounded like he wanted to hit them. Noah couldn’t blame him. “I’m heading back up to Broadway, but I’ll swing back around in about ten minutes. Your ride won’t get here that fast. You better still be here. Otherwise you will be picked up and you will be arrested. Understood?”

  Noah nodded.

  Luke said, “You got it, man.”

  The cop’s eyes narrowed as he gave Luke a long look full of malice. Then he shook his head and stalked away to the cruiser without another word. About a minute later, the cruiser headed away, taking a left turn a block down the street.

  They sat there in near silence for several minutes. Luke tried talking to Noah a few times, but Noah stayed quiet. Part of it was fury with Luke over initiating the search for the elusive club. But he was also angry with himself. It was his fault he kept winding up in these situations.

  He had his hands clenched tight around the steering wheel when headlights appeared up ahead. A car was coming their way. Noah hoped it was Luke’s brother coming to get them, but it was the cop making his promised swing back by to check on them. He drove by slowly, taking a long look at them. Then the cruiser accelerated and Noah watched its taillights recede in the rearview mirror.

  Luke twisted around and watched it go, too. Then he sat forward again and glanced at Noah. “Shit, man, let’s go. He’s gone.”

  Noah shook his head. “No fucking way.”

  Luke laughed. “Don’t you get what’s happening? He’s letting us go. He’s not gonna be back.”

  Noah frowned. “Huh.” Despite his reluctance to disobey the cop’s instructions, the idea of not waiting around any longer held a strong appeal. “Do you know the way back to your place from here?”

  “Yep.”

  “You sure? Because I will fucking kill you if we take even one wrong turn. Swear to God I will.”