Hard Rain Falling - Don Carpenter [54]
In Portland, before they threw him into reform school, he had wanted things, too. Very simple things, that you could buy with money. Such as whiskey. Or women. A fast car. Well, he had all those things now, except the fast car, and he did not want any of them. No, that was not true. He had them, and he didn’t want to be without them, but they didn’t work. They didn’t make him feel better. They just helped him stay alive.
For a moment he felt a drifting nausea as his mind helplessly moved toward the idea of suicide. He steadied himself and faced it, as he had known all the time he must: I am going to die. Why not now? He felt cold and sick. Well, why not? What the fuck have I got to live for?
The whiskey bottle was in his hand, and he lifted it, holding it up before his eyes. Do I want some of this? Do I want another drink? Suddenly it was very important to know. If he did not want a drink, he did not want anything. If he did not want anything, he might as well die. Because he was already dead.
“Bullshit,” he said aloud. “Bullshit. I’m just in a bad mood.” He tilted the bottle to his mouth and drank, his eyes closed.
He ran out of whiskey about six in the evening, and started to get up to go after some more. But he could not move. He was on the bed and he could not find the right nerves to activate to swing himself off the bed. He decided to take a nap instead. He kept his grip on the neck of the empty fifth as an anchor, and began to drift off into dizzy dreams, among them a dream in which the girls came into the room and hovered over him, their faces white and cruel, and then vanished before he could sit up. Later on, when he awakened, he remembered that dream and checked his pockets and knew it had been real. He was still groggy and drunk, and it all seemed very funny to him. The girls had gotten away with more than a hundred dollars. But he had more stashed in the closet, the last of the money Castelli had saved for him, and he got it all out and put it in his pocket and went down and bought three fifths of Canadian Club and carried them back to the room. He was not hungry, but he got it into his head somehow that he would like a piece of ass, and he decided to sit there on the edge of the bed and wait for Mona to come back. Very slowly he undid the first bottle and took a drink. He remembered how bad he had felt earlier in the day, and how he had secretly known, all the time he had been thinking those bad silly angry thoughts, that sooner or later he would feel better. He giggled to himself. Every time it happened he got drunk and felt better. Even the hangovers were good, because they made him think clearly but without agony. He wanted Mona. That was a good thing.
He knew she would be back; the room was still littered with her things. When she came back he was going to fuck hell out of her and throw her out. He felt cruel and mean. He would not let her take her stuff. He was going to tell her it was his stuff, since he had paid for most of it, and he was going to keep it for the next two-bit whore he shacked up with. That was a laugh. Mona was so prudish. To call her a whore was so accurate; the burr would hit the nerve and she would screech and hit him. He wouldn’t mind. He would laugh at her and rip off her clothes and screw her once again, and then throw her out in the hall naked. That would be a good lesson for her. And maybe she would finally be a good lay if he could just get her mad enough to thrash around.
But it palled; everything finally got old if you dreamed about it to much; everything but drinking, and with drinking you could always throw up and start over. Eventually, he passed out.
He awakened in the middle of the morning. Mona was not there, but her junk was still littered all over the place. He took a drink of whiskey and just made it into the bathroom in time to throw up. He felt light and empty, but there was only one thing to do; get another shot of whiskey into himself and keep it down. He finally made it, sitting very still to keep the nausea from bulging up