by Tom Schreck
The guys greeted me, said hello, and ordered their drinks. Then, they just watched the TV and the pre-game show for a preseason football game. I waited and they never mentioned anything about the fight.
It made it worse.
I decided that the Schlitz wasn’t getting me where I wanted to be, so I ordered a Beam on the rocks. I saw Jerry Number One look at my drink from the corner of his eye like he was trying not to get caught. I thought to myself just how pitiful my existence had become when the Fearsome Foursome had begun to feel sorry for me.
By three o’clock I had that woozy drunk feeling where it becomes difficult to think about your own thoughts. Things kept coming in and out of focus and nothing stayed in my head clearly for more than a thought or two. I remembered the ref counting seven through ten and how I wanted to get up but I couldn’t. I remembered how it felt to have my body not respond to my brain’s commands. That’s what happens when you get knocked out-time goes by quickly and it takes a while for your body to get your brain’s messages. It’s why you always see fighters arguing after they’ve been counted out. Besides being embarrassed, they don’t believe enough time has gone by and they’re pissed off at their bodies for not doing what the brain told them to do.
At four o’clock AJ hesitated when I ordered my bourbon. Even as bombed as I was, I knew it took a lot to get AJ to hesitate. The Foursome were back to talking and they were kicking around something about whether cows lay down when it rains because they’re tired or because of the dew point. TC thought the dew point had something to do when the cow had to move its bowels. It faded off after that.
At eight, I awoke in a puddle of my own drool, my face flat on the bar. Kelley had come in to watch the Yankees game, which was being shown on the ESPN Sunday Game of the Week.
“Welcome back,” Kelley said.
“What time is it?” I said.
“Eight.”
“Shit.”
“You all right?”
“Yeah.”
“Sorry how last night turned out.”
“Yeah.”
That was all he said, but I appreciated him saying it. We sat mostly in silence watching the Yankees lose to Boston eight to nothing. The Yankees got just two hits in the whole game. I nursed a few Schlitzes during the game, and I was probably still drunk by some official drunkenness measurement. It wasn’t a fun drunk or even an escapist drunk, but rather it was the shitty part of being drunk without any of the positive aspects of it.
I still couldn’t walk right and I couldn’t think clearly but I felt sick to my stomach, not from the booze but from the fight. It was the type of feeling that drinking will numb a little for about a half an hour while you’re building your drunk. After that there’s no use and you know it, but you keep drinking anyway to avoid feeling that feeling that will now be worsened by the shaky feeling of losing your buzz.
Kelley took me home and I didn’t argue about him giving me a lift. Al kicked me in the nuts when I came through the door and just like the night before with Strife I didn’t move quick enough to defend against it. My drunkenness was probably scarring Al and I was sure it wouldn’t be long until he would soon start attending BOA meetings-that’s Bassets of Alcoholics meetings.
I grabbed another Schlitz to help me be drunk enough to sleep. I spilled some down my face trying to drink it with my head on a pillow. Al jumped into bed with me and walked up the length of my body making sure to stride right on my left testicle on the way up. He licked my face and stuck his tongue in my ears and chewed a little. Then he spun around twice and paused with his ass in my face for effect and finally laid down next to me, his back spooning into my gut.
Apparently, Al didn’t care about me getting knocked out by a fat guy.
17
Drunk sleep sucks.
I was in and out of it most of the night and somewhere around four in the morning I think enough of the alcohol had left my system that I could get some quality sleep. That gave me four or four and half hours of sleep, if I pushed it, before work.
It wasn’t meant to be.
First there was the yells, then the loud thwack sound going on outside the Moody Blue. Finally, there was Al’s objection.
“WOOF, WOOF”- thwack — “WOOF, WOOF.”
Oh, how I hated life.
I sat up in bed and got a rush of that queasy, not-quite-pukey feeling. I stood up and realized my equilibrium was off and thought for a second that I was going to blow my cookies right there on my bedspread. Al didn’t help by running circles around me and incessantly offering me his opinion on the yelling and the thwacking.
Al did one last circle and stopped directly in front of me.
“WOOF, WOOF, WOOF, WOOF,” Al said, clearly upset that he wasn’t getting the response he wanted from me. Then he jumped up and kicked me in the nuts. I decided that now was as good a time as any to go barf. Al followed me with a steady chorus of WOOFs.
Having heaved through the basset din, I thought I’d go check out the five a.m. commotion in front of my house. There he was, decked out in yet another Karateka Bad-Breath ninja getup. He was yelling about horseradish and throwing something at the tree in front of the Blue. Against my better judgment, I opened the door.
“Sir, good morning, sir,” Billy said.
“Billy, we’ve been over this,” I said.
“Sir?”
“Never mind. What are you throwing against my tree?”
“Sir, permission to demonstrate, sir?”
“Knock yourself out.”
“Sir?”
“Throw the fuckin’ things, will ya!”
“Sir, yes sir.”
Billy reared back, yelled “WASABIIIIII!” and threw a metal object into my tree from about forty feet.
“Nice, kid, what are they?” I said.
“Sir, they’re Karateka-Brand Titanium Throwing Stars. This one is the six-pointed Okinawan Starfire and the one I just threw is the Yomiuri Four-Pointed Annihilator.”
“Kid, that shit is illegal as hell.”
“Actually, sir, as a practicing martial artist, I am allowed to practice with them.”
“If you say so. Look, kid, I’m going back to bed.”
“Sir, when will we train again?”
“Kid, I’ll let you know. I’m taking a bit of a break.”
“A break, sir?”
He looked at me in disbelief and sadness. It was tough to handle, but I didn’t feel up to heading to the gym and going through the motions with this kid. I didn’t feel like facing Smitty, and I certainly wasn’t up to the sensei routine.
“Yes, sir,” he said. He bowed and turned to head home, but today he walked.
I went back to bed and tried to sleep, but it was useless. Hungover and pissed off was not the ideal way to go to any job, but it was definitely not the best way for me to face the Michelin Woman and Abadon. On this particular Monday, we had a treatment team meeting and that meant a double dose of Claudia’s officiousness and Abadon’s patronizing arrogance.
The queasiness didn’t get better as the early morning wore on. In fact, it got worse. I felt carsick driving to the clinic, and I felt carsick walking to my cubicle.
“You all right?” Monique asked when she got a look at me.
“It wasn’t the best weekend I ever had,” I said.
“Didn’t you have a big fight?”
“Yeah, I got knocked out. Suffice to say, it didn’t go well.”
“I’m sorry, Duff,” Monique said.
I tried to round up the files I needed for the meeting, but I just couldn’t muster the energy or work through the apathy. I grabbed a handful of some of the charts and headed in ten minutes late. Claudia was at the head of the table with her ultra-cool clipboard with the calculator built in, and Abadon was at her right hand like some sort of twisted version of that last supper painting. I sat down, trying to minimize any attention, and Michelin flashed me a dirty look for being late.
Monique continued to present the ca
se that I interrupted and updated us on Sabrina Shakala, a woman who was mandated to treatment for beating the shit out of her drug-dealing boyfriend. She was on probation and the boyfriend wound up in jail and frankly, I thought Sabrina was functioning pretty well. Anyone who can knock out a dealer’s front teeth with a portable CD player was all right with me.
I must’ve let my eyes close because I heard Abadon’s voice and it startled me.
“Duffy, are you with us or are you still on the canvas?” he said.
“What did you just say?” I felt my neck twitch.
“Sometimes an individual who has had a concussive episode will have delayed neurological reactions-like narcolepsy.”
Both sides of my neck twitched and my face felt on fire. Monique kicked me twice under the table. When I get angry enough it’s tough for me to speak, and that’s not a good thing because I wind up expressing myself physically.
“C’mon, Duff, or I’ll start counting to ten…,” Abadon said.
That was it.
I threw my hot cup of coffee at Abadon’s head. I missed but it smashed against the wall and splattered all over Claudia. I was on my feet and on my way toward him when Monique got in between me. At five foot four and a sleek 130 pounds, it wasn’t her physical presence but her innate authority that stopped me. Abadon was on his feet, beet red and breathing heavy.
“C’mon, asshole. I’ll show you some fuckin’ neurological damage,” I said, my ability to speak returned.
Abadon gritted his jaw and flexed his weight-room muscles but before he could say anything, Claudia ordered me into her office. Her big blousy polyester top was splattered with coffee. I didn’t move right away and neither did Abadon, but Monique touched my shoulder and sort of steered me out of the conference room toward Claudia’s office.
“Effective immediately, you are suspended pending termination approval from the board of directors. You are to go home immediately and not be on these premises until you are notified in writing,” Claudia said. She was even more humorless than usual.
I didn’t feel like saying anything.
Instead, I signed the suspension form and headed home. My blood pressure was up from the combination of alcohol withdrawal and dealing with Abadon. It wasn’t Claudia’s authority that kept me silent, it was the desire to get the hell out of the office and go home. I knew the consequences were significant, but in the immediate moment it was good to get out of there. I grabbed my keys and split.
I would’ve joined the Foursome for an early start on drinking, but the thought of it made my stomach flip. That, and I wasn’t crazy about the potential future I was developing as an alcoholic. I figured the safest thing to do would be to head home, get kicked in the nuts, lie on the couch, and do nothing until I could think straight.
Al was confused by my early arrival, but he quickly adjusted and we watched Hawaii Five-O together. It was one of the episodes where McGarrett is pitted against his archrival, Wo Fat, who was played by the same guy who I think wound up as the funky blind Kung Fu master on David Carradine’s Kung Fu TV show. I thought about why I knew that and also about how unfair it was that just because an actor was Asian it meant he was limited to playing stereotyped roles. Then, I thought, when you’re a short, fat, bald guy with slanted eyes, you really would struggle to get the Cary Grant roles, wouldn’t you?
I went in and out of sleep until about four when I must have really fallen out, because it was a knocking on the door followed by Al’s alarm system that rousted me at about eight thirty. I came to and dreaded seeing my pizza-faced ninja falling on his head on my front lawn. It took me a while to get off the couch, but when I went to the door I was pleasantly surprised. It was Trina.
“What are you doing here?” I said at the door.
“There’s a sweet greeting,” she said.
“Sorry, I’m just surprised. C’mon in, the place’s a mess.”
Al ran to Trina and snuggled up to her. Trina and I have a bit of a history. On more than one occasion we’ve gotten involved, usually when one or both of us has just gotten out of a failed relationship. My relationships failed regularly and Trina’s weren’t much better.
“Where’s Todd?” I said referring to her current BF.
“Todd’s an asshole,” she said.
“I always thought so, but I didn’t want to say anything.”
“How about Marcia?”
“She’s in therapy and her therapist says she can’t go out with me.”
We found our way to the couch and I wiped Al’s slobber off the cushions before Trina sat down.
“Duff, you’ve really done it this time, you know. I don’t know how you’re going to save your job,” she said.
“Yeah, I fucked up royally,” I said.
“I’m sorry about the fight. I was there, you know.”
“I thought you hated boxing.”
“I do.”
She touched a small raspberry on the side of my head. It was the only remnant of the knockout.
“God, I worry about you,” Trina said, looking into my eyes. I could feel what was about to happen. She put her hand gently on my knee and let it stay there. I put my hand under her shoulder-length chestnut hair and lightly rubbed her neck.
Instinctively she leaned into me and kissed me hard. I took her roughly into my arms and in one motion turned and laid her down on the couch. She stopped kissing me for a moment and let out a breath that was filled with something that was part emotion and part desire. We went back to kissing and her hand slipped inside my shirt and grabbed at the muscles in my back.
Trina pushed me off her just enough to start struggling to get my shirt over my head. She got it halfway and I did the rest, propping myself up on my knees. She undid the buttons on her white tapered blouse with fury and then the front clasp of her bra. We rolled over and she was out of both her blouse and bra. She was a sight, her hair softly falling on just the top of her shoulders, her flat waist, with just a hint of muscle and maybe, most of all, a glint in her eye showing that she was totally in the moment.
She reached to the snap on my jeans and I felt my heart race while I closed my eyes. The tongue was warm and wet and just a bit rough against my side, and I felt Trina shift off my lower body. I kept my eyes closed to heighten the anticipation. Again, with the tongue, only this time it felt scratchier.
“Ewwww. Make him go!” Trina shouted, startling me out of my bliss.
“WOOF, WOOF, WOOF, WOOF,” Al said, frightened by Trina’s yelling.
I looked up and there was Al’s nose. He was poised to lick me in the face to make sure I was all right from whatever it was that this intruder was about to do to me. I tried to shoo him away but instead he climbed up on my bare chest and sat on it with his back to Trina, who was now sitting on the couch with her head in her hands.
Al had a satisfied look on his face, as if he was experiencing a sense of success in protecting his master. Trina’s expression was less than satisfied as she fumbled to put on her clothes. Just a moment ago, when she was fumbling to get out of her clothes, she looked incredibly sexy. Now, with the process in reverse, she looked incredibly awkward.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I really don’t know what to say.”
“That’s okay, I got carried away. It probably wasn’t a good idea anyway,” Trina said.
I didn’t know how to respond to that because the whole thing seemed like a swell idea to me, but I realized women aren’t like men. It was one of those things where if I disagreed I think I would’ve come off like a sexually desirous pig-which of course I am. I just didn’t want to state the obvious.
In an effort to ease the awkwardness, I got Trina and myself a drink even though she didn’t ask for one. I threw on the TV just to have some noise other than our silence. The Crawford station was in a special report. The attractive female correspondent was live at the McDonough High football field next to the bleachers. There was police tape, flashing lights, and a lot of activity.
“Cra
wford appears to have another murder victim on its hands. The victim is seventeen-year-old Elisa Madnick and though police officials and the FBI are releasing very little information, News Channel 13 has learned that the victim was sexually assaulted, sodomized, and then stabbed repeatedly in the neck and chest.”
“Oh my God,” Trina said.
“Yeah.” It was all I could think of to say.
The reporter continued.
“Police still have not determined the whereabouts of Howard Rheinhart, the serial killer who was recently paroled from prison. Rheinhart disappeared around the time of the murder of Connie Carter, the McDonough High cheerleader who disappeared several weeks ago,” she said.
“How many is that now?” Trina asked.
“Five, I think,” I said.
“Oh my God.”
18
The next morning was the start of my unofficial vacation. I didn’t have to go to work and I didn’t have a fight to train for, but I didn’t feel like working out either. My new karateka was conspicuous by his absence, which was a bit of a relief but it also made me sad because I hadn’t wanted to hurt his feelings.
I was into my third cup of coffee and trying to ignore Al, who was whipping around the house like I spiked his dish with Sudafed when the phone rang. It was Hymie and I dreaded talking to him.
“Son, what is this latest mess you’ve got yourself into? That Claudia is meshugenah with anger, you know,” he said.
“Yeah, I know, Hymie. I’m sorry. It’s my fault,” I said.
“You threw a coffee cup at the doctor?”
“Yeah.”
“Son, I’m sorry about your fight. It’s okay, there’ll be others.”
“I’m not sure there will be, Hymie.”
“Son, you’ve got to let it go. You’re a crazy Irishman and the Polish doesn’t help, but you know better.”
“Yes, I do, Hymie.”
“What did this doctor do?”
“He believes Rheinhart is the murderer. That, and he took a shot at me about my fight.”