by Jeff Somers
“Bick,” Tom said calmly, “let him alone.”
“Fuck you,” I muttered.
Bickerman stared at me. “What did you say, you little cocksucker?”
“Bick!” Tom snapped.
“I said fuck you.” My voice was level. Quiet. I lacked the energy for more volume. “I said get the fuck out of my apartment. I said I was drinking alone because I didn’t want to see either of you. That’s what I said.”
For a moment, nothing but the sound of breathing in my small place.
Bickerman stared at me with his half-smile, his pre-fight face, like he was still in high school. Tom stood up and stepped between him and me, and I was grateful, because I felt like all my bodily fluids had pooled in my feet, and I doubt I could’ve raised my arms to fight. I was sweating.
“All right, Henry,” Tom said quietly. “We’ve obviously imposed on you. Let’s go, Bicky.”
Tom, contemptuous of Bickerman as always. I listened to them shuffle out, eyes closed and head down. The click of the door shutting behind them followed me down into sleep.
• • •
The next morning: Christmas Day. Children and religious types wetting themselves in excitement, the rest of us greeting it as the overgrown commercial hell it really was, wandering through the day in wide-eyed despair for the whole race. Or at least the Christians. My head came up off the table and out of the little lake of drool I’d created. I winced, collapsing into a stiff-shouldered scream of cramped muscles, my entire body demanding that I return to my original position and soak in the drool for a bit longer. I resisted and was punished by the cascading misery of headache, nausea, and numb legs. I knew that if I stood up, I’d have to throw up, and if I didn’t stand up, my head would explode. And I wasn’t sure I’d be able to stand up anyway. And I wasn’t even sure my head wouldn’t explode in any event, no matter what I did.
Twisting minimally and straining my eyes, I turned to see the clock on the wall behind me. It was one in the afternoon, and I was late for so many things that the only reasonable response was to put my head back down and close my eyes.
Then the phone rang, and I once again popped up into sudden, horrifying pain. I jumped up, fell over my own feet, and landed ass-first on the kitchen floor.
“My God,” I muttered from somewhere above myself, “is this the end of Henry?”
With no better options, I began to crawl to the phone, dragging my useless body behind me like a shell. It was freezing, though I remembered feeling burnt by blasting heat the night before. I pulled myself across ice, across Freon, across internal weather I hadn’t suspected existed in my small apartment. Four seasons in one apartment—maybe there was a Sahara in the bathroom.
At my desk, I pulled myself up into my chair with amazing reserves of desperation, thinking to myself that I didn’t want to be an invalid, that I had to figure out ingenious ways of living without the use of my legs, which had obviously withered away while the circulation was cut off overnight. I lifted the receiver and put it gently against my ear, thinking that this would be how I ended my days, dragging my useless husk of a body behind me, clumping along the floor, hung over forever.
“Hello?”
The number six was blinking red on my answering machine.
“Henry? Are you okay?”
It was Denise. I hadn’t spoken to her in a long time.
“Fine.” Aside from having lost my legs, which will likely have to be cut off and my torso glued to some sort of wheeled dolly so I can pull myself along. “Why?”
“It’s the afternoon, everyone’s wondering when you’re coming? And—” I could hear her clicking her teeth together, which was what she did when she was unsure. “And Bick and Tom said they saw you last night and you weren’t looking too good.”
“I’m fine.” I will be begging for dimes from the good people who will look down on my truncated form with pity. “I wasn’t feeling well. They were very drunk. You know how that story ends.”
Another moment of teeth clicking. “Well, are you coming? Flo’s got quite a spread here. It’s really impressive.”
The number six again, blinking. “Well, as I’ve already missed most of the family events scheduled for today, I guess I’ve got nothing cluttering up my schedule.” Except possibly filling out loan applications for the shockingly expensive surgery to remove my blackening, rotted legs and purchasing their plastic replacements.
“Okay. I’ll tell everyone you’re still coming.” More teeth clicking. “Hank? I’m glad you’re coming.”
Will she still find me charming when I’m a horrible cyborg with mechanical legs? “See you there, Neesie.”
I hung up and regarded my stiff, numb limbs. Pins and needles had begun to torture me.
• • •
Flo, we’d all discovered shortly after acquiring her as a friend through Mary, threw a huge, no-holds-barred party every Christmas Day. It goes on all night and is designed for people to come to after they’ve been driven crazy by their families. It was the sort of party that can potentially break leases.
Already a few brain cells lighter from the night before, I considered, briefly, teetotaling. As the afternoon progressed and the blood returned to my legs, the poison seeping out of my stomach, and my own family berating me telephonically for what seemed like days for missing all the important family events, I changed my strategy and decided that having a few less brain cells was exactly what I needed. I showered, neglected the shave, and dressed up in nice pants, a crisp white shirt, and a natty old sport coat. I was an unshaven mess, but managed, I thought, to look halfway disreputable, instead of just seedy.
I flipped my wine bottle in the air and rang the bell. Flo lived in a cheap, one-story house that she loved, she said, precisely because she could beat the shit out of it and not lose much on the investment.
The door tore open. Flo, wearing tight black jeans and a flimsy white blouse, pulled me in for a wet kiss on the lips and a fierce hug. Her red hair was slicked back and pulled into a ponytail. She felt wonderful. She smelled better.
“Henry!” she breathed in my ear. “I was worried you weren’t coming!”
To avoid having her sense my sudden and improbable erection, I pushed away and struck a pose.
“Dahling!” I shouted joyously. “I wouldn’t miss it! Now,” I continued in a more businesslike tone, “where is the liquor?”
“In me, mostly,” she giggled, putting her arms around my neck and leaning forward, looking up at me. “I’m wasted.” She pulled me inside. “Come on in! I gotta go hostess. By the way, Bick was looking for you before.”
I held onto her arm tightly. “You don’t go anywhere until you show me where the goddamn liquor is.”
She laughed and pulled me into a warm, damp sea of people until we stood before a card table piled high with bottles, damp and cool, an oasis. “Here you are. Poor Henry. Mix whatever you like. There’s food around here, too. Somewhere.”
I shook my head. Even though she had gone, I muttered. “No food, thanks. Food just makes me sick.”
I examined the bottles with delight. Not top-shelf stuff, but adequate. I poured three fingers of bourbon into a plastic cup and then a finger or so of soda. I drank it fast, coughed, almost died from blood rushing into my spongy brain, bursting vessels, and then stood there gasping, warm again, burning. I poured four more fingers of bourbon into the cup, and another finger of soda. Armed, I turned to face the crowd, and found Tom grinning at me, not a foot away.
“You’re looking better,” he said around a stubby cigarette.
“Working on it, trust me,” I said as brightly as I could, holding up my cup. “Merry Christmas.”
“Yeah, yeah, merry fucking corporate holiday,” he replied. “Neesie’s been asking for you.”
I stared at him, conscious of having nothing to say. Tom and I used to chat amiably for hours, saying nothing but not feeling it. Just making noises at each other. Waiting for newbies to walk by so we could skewer them. I
stared at him, then knocked back the rest of my drink.
“Make you one?”
I was already drunk, five minutes in. As I waited for Tom to reply, seeing him devise some sort of witty response to a simple question, I knew I’d need every drop.
“Sure, though I could just stand near you and breathe the fumes,” he finally said, eyes twinkling.
I nodded desperately, slopping booze into plastic cups. Christmas carols in the air.
“Cheers!” I shouted and sipped my drink for a change, feeling a little flushed and woozy.
“Listen, didn’t mean to impose on you last night, buddy,” he said with what passed, for Tommy, for sincerity. “Bick had a load on, and he got an idea in his head. Shit, we stood freezing our asses off on your stoop for a fucking hour. The drink is good, but the drink makes you fucking stupid.”
I knocked my cup against his. “Amen, brother. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to mingle with my people, before they grow wroth that I have ignored them.” I winked, sucking more life-giving booze. “My fans, you know.”
“Sure,” he winked back obscenely. “The women have been asking after you. You know their judgment has been clouded by the drink, too.”
I forced a smile. “I’m popular, huh?”
He nodded. “Don’t let it go to your head.”
• • •
I moved through people I knew, people I’d known for years. Some of them made faces at me, as if they wanted to say hello, touch base, get caught up. I hadn’t spoken to many of them in quite a while. I gave them all my best polite smile and kept moving. I had no time. I had no energy. And I was not nearly drunk enough.
I didn’t know where I was going, but what I found there was Miriam.
She was standing almost directly in my way, as if she’d plotted my physics, and, knowing my speed and my direction, knew where I would end up. She stood looking in the other direction, wearing a pair of low-riding faded jeans apparently painted onto her hips, and a halter top that reminded you that she had nothing on beneath it. Her hair was loose and long. She was standing with a wine glass in one hand, the other hand on her hip, lazy, just a girl who knew she was gorgeous. You hated it about her, but you couldn’t help yourself. It terrified me.
I stopped and stared at her, too long, mouth open, hands forgotten, locked up; she turned, saw me, and smiled. It looked like any other smile a pretty girl gives to a guy she doesn’t dislike, or maybe even likes. Wide eyes, goofy grin. Nipples and no make-up. I broke out into a sweat of terror, took an involuntary step back.
“Well?” she said over the noise. “Come here and give me a hug, dammit!”
I made my legs work and she enveloped me in an embrace, pressing herself against me fiercely. She surprised me with a kiss on the lips, a quick peck of wine.
I pushed her away as gently as I could. She went partway, keeping her hand on my elbow. I felt like a jackass: We’d just been at the funeral not two months ago, crying, drunk as lords and not a sinful thought in our heads.
We stood that way for what seemed like a very long time.
“So, how are you?” I asked, making noise. I wished I’d taken more booze with me.
“Okay,” she said somberly. Then she brightened. “Tonight is the first night I’ve really been out somewhere, and I decided it was going to be the beginning of a new leaf for me. I’m going to get drunk and dance and relax.”
I licked my lips. She was looking for a response from me, but I felt made of tinder, dry and spidery. I opened my mouth and small, white spiders came out.
“Me, I’m just looking to pass out soon.”
I followed this with a smile, or what I imagined was a smile; it may have been a gash in my face or a deepening chasm of darkness welling up to swallow me, the party, the whole world. Based on Miriam’s expression, the latter seemed most likely.
And then there was Luis.
He came to us in slow, silent motion, a drunken smile on his face, a hand on my shoulder, then an arm around my shoulders. He stood there a moment nodding and looking from me to Miriam.
“You are,” he said slowly, his English particularly elastic, “beautiful.”
“Me? Or her?”
Miriam giggled. Luis collapsed in what looked to me to be faked laughter. When he came up for air, I realized he wasn’t faking.
Suddenly, he grew mock-serious. “Naturally, I cannot mean you, Henry, for you are not beautiful. I referred to the lady.”
Miriam offered a half-assed curtsy. “Thank you, sir.”
“Henry, where have you been? I was making myself ridiculous last night and you were not there to enjoy it.”
I shrugged. “I was hiding from mine enemies, Luis. But I’m here now. Do something ridiculous, and I’ll enjoy it.”
He smiled craftily. “That will require more drinking, as it did last night. I will come find you when I am sufficiently ridiculous.” He turned away. Miriam giggled again.
“I miss you guys,” she said, looking me in the eye. I looked away.
“Uh, I need a drink,” I said, meaning it. I turned and walked away from her, sweating, desperate. But the room was seeded with mines, and Denise caught me by the jacket before I’d made it halfway to the bar. In self-defense I finished the watery remains of my cocktail in one gulp and split my face into the biggest grin I could manage.
“Neesie!” I enthused. “You look great!”
I quivered with the effort.
“So do you,” she replied without conviction. I appreciated the lie. I knew how I’d woken up in the morning; I knew it was stamped on my face, the latticework of the scratches in my kitchen table imprinted on my papery drunkard’s skin.
I wasn’t lying, though; she looked fantastic, the usual post-breakup glow that made all your ex-lovers briefly burn brighter than ever before. Maybe it was the sudden weight loss associated with grief, maybe it was the decision to start actively attracting men again. Maybe it was just the way they were suddenly free of you, the dead weight that had been clawing at their feet all this time, making them tired.
“Tommy said—”
I held up my hand. “Don’t ever believe Tom. I sure don’t. I categorically deny anything he said.”
“You used to like each other’s dark sides. You were even beginning to look alike.”
I squinted at her as I practiced my one-handed cigarette light. I puffed smoke. “I didn’t believe a word he said then, either.”
She seemed at a loss for words for a moment. “How are things? How’s work?”
I looked at her sadly. Work. We’d never had to talk about bullshit polite crap like that before. How’s work, the weather’s been, at least you have your health …
“Work’s good.”
… not the heat the humidity another day another dollar you’ve lost weight …
“What else have you been up to?”
I opened my mouth. Then shrugged. “Drinking, mostly.”
She smiled at first, a familiar and heart-wrenching there-you-go-again smile. Then she lost it. I thought, where the hell is Luis when you need him?
“Why don’t you and Tommy hang out anymore?” she asked.
“To hell with that. He was sitting at my kitchen table last night. Him and Bickerman. Bickerman and him. We were all drunk as lords.”
She nodded, still looking at me with intolerable sadness. “They were looking for you last night.”
“They found me.” I glanced at my empty glass as if just noticing that it was empty. “You want a drink? I’m heading to the bar.”
“What? No—Henry, wait.”
I paused and kept my eyes away from hers.
“Why do you have to hate me?”
How could I answer that? She had broken up with me, but that wasn’t it. I didn’t blame her. I didn’t want to be with me, either, but I couldn’t explain, especially not then. Maybe there had been a slight window of opportunity for honesty. If so, it had been very brief, and in my booze-logged condition back in November I’d
had zero chance of noticing it.
I gave her the only truth I could.
“I don’t hate you,” I said, turning away. I almost made it to the bar, when I saw that Tom and Bick had made themselves at home there, mixing their own brands of drinks. I spun on my heels and froze, unsure until I spied the bathroom, marked with both a male and female reindeer, invitingly open, unoccupied. I pushed for it and kicked as hard as I could, drifting into it, shutting the door slowly, inconspicuously, eyes shut against the jinx, wishing myself temporarily invisible. Almost making it, until someone pushed gently against the other side.
“Henry, what in hell are you doing?”
Good Christ, I thought, it’s Miriam; where does she find the energy?
I sank back onto the toilet and slumped there, and she pushed her way in carefully, shutting the door behind her and leaning against it. She smelled wonderful and listed slightly until she located her balance, buried somewhere under the gallon or so of wine she’d taken on. A full glass, dark red, was in one hand. When had that happened? Time was getting away from me. I considered reaching out and taking the glass.
“You’re hiding,” she accused.
I nodded, staring at the floor. “I’m trying to.”
When I glanced back up, half the wine was gone. I blinked in amazement. She looked to weigh about ten pounds; I had no idea how it was possible for her to drink like that.
“What’s wrong? Henry, I wish you would tell me.”
I wanted to. Suddenly, sitting on the toilet in Flo’s house with the surviving Harrows sister, I wanted to tell everything and be absolved, or damned, but rid of it just the same. I looked up at her beautiful face and might have opened my mouth to tell it all. I think I even opened my mouth, but it just hung there, useless. As I watched, she drained her glass and set it with drunken care on the sink.
She was on me. She was soft hair and diffused perfume and heat and soft, yielding skin. I was frozen, I was stone, I was hard and useless, and my mouth hung there as she kissed it.
My whole body was in slow motion.
First there was the return kiss, ancient instinct, genes struggling and informing my involuntary muscles that there was a good genetic chance, decent hips, good long-term child survival. Just the minute and graceful movement of a few muscles, in perfect sync, meeting her and leading her and following her. This seemed to go on for an hour, and that low, rising volume roar in the back of my head was—