Sober Ten Years, Seven Months, Twenty-One Days:a Lament
The wife and I were holed up
in some place, not even sure
which wife, they all blend together
after a while. Might have been
the third one, that’s when I was
at my worst, though it could just
as easily been the fourth one.
I was bad then too.
All I know for sure was we had
all this cash on us, well, I had
all this cash, and it seemed like
totally necessary, vital even, to hide
some, bury it good, you know, just in case,
you know, for like one of those unknown
contingencies that inevitably turn up
when you’re drunk. So we started
putting stuff in places: under mattresses,
cushion covers, under lamps, even in
the room safe and off we go to do
some damage, though, we called it
something else euphemistic, something
like a, night out of the town. There was
gambling where we were, either Vegas
or Atlantic City, you know how drunks
love to gamble and casinos love drunks.
Anyway, I’m sure I had some cards too.
Once I shot my wad at craps and cards,
but they would have been in my wallet
which I shrewdly left back at the hotel,
whichever one we were staying at,
like no one forgets where they are staying,
right? This is back when hotels still
had room keys. We’d lost those a long
time ago along with the car keys.
Who knew what car we were driving?
I sure as hell didn’t. I had lots of cars
back then. And money too. You think
stuff like that is going to last forever
when it’s going good. Ha! So, I asked
the wife, “You know which car
we had? And she says, “The red one.”
“They’re all red. (….)
“So.”
“What am I supposed to do, go out in
the parking lot and look for a red car?”
“Why not?”
Now you understand why I got divorced.
Anyway, we’re in the lobby of
wherever, no room key, no car keys,
all my money in the room somewhere
and I’m tapped, so I ask the wife,
“Babe, you have any cash on you?”
“Gee, honey, I don’t know.
You always say for me not to carry
cash because I spend too much when I do.”
“Could you look, just in case. We’re
going to have to crash some place
and we can figure out where the rest
of our stuff is later on. That’s what
room service is for.”
I’m leaning on the front desk counter
while she’s rummaging through Pandora’s
handbag, and I’m starting to freak
at all the stuff that’s flying out of there.
I’m thinking, I’m going to need a fifth
of Jack Daniels to settle my nerves like,
pronto, when the night clerk taps me on
the shoulder and says, “Your room key, Sir.”
It’s almost enough to make you believe
in God. Actually, it was the drunk’s precaution
of folding up a portrait of Andy Jackson
and slipping it to the kid on the way out
“to remember me by, in case I forget later on”
that saved the day. Still, I was so relieved,
I could have kissed the guy but I restrained
myself. For all I know, the wife is still
down in the lobby rummaging through
her bag. A sensible man would have
given up drinking right then and there
but no one ever accused me of having
a grain of sense. It would take something
a whole lot worse than losing a couple
of grand, a room key, a wife, and a car to
knock some sense into me.
The European Tour
“She was the type of woman who would
have brought tears to the eyes of John Ruskin"
Maurice Dekobra
Her idea for a gap year was
to save all the tips she made
working as a cocktail waitress in
an upscale pub and from some soft
core hooking on the side. Soft core
hooking, to her, meant causal tricking
without a pimp, casual hints dropped,
beverage napkin dates, cell phone
numbers exchanged. “I like the older
guys. They have more money,
are more than likely married,
and don’t ask questions and, man,
they expect the same. I don’t do
perverted. Not for money anyway.”
Was planning on doing the European
tour, on her back, first hand, in depth
research for a Baedeker’s Guide
to Getting Laid, she was going to
call, Do it on the Rails: Getting
the Most from Your Euro Pass
and Have Fun Doing It. Something
like that, anyway. If that didn’t work
out, her back up plan was a Sociological
study on the sexual habits of the horny
European Male: You Don’t Need
a Translator to Have Good Sex.
Sociology wasn’t her major, and she
couldn’t write worth shit, but that
was something she’d worry about after
the research was finished, and recorded
in a diary she’d lose somewhere between
Buda and Pest. Thought protection during
intercourse was “for wimps, was like playing
Russian Roulette with an empty gun,”
when it was more like playing with one
chamber empty, high stakes stud poker
with someone else’s money, drawing a card
for an inside straight.
Bio: Alan Catlin is a former barman with way too much experience in that unchosen profession. His most recent full-length books include, Bar Guide for the Seriously Deranged (Roadside Press) and How Will the Heart Endure (Kelsay Press)
