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“Is your buddy okay?” John asked.
“Tucked up and ready to go tomorrow morning at seven a.m. John, I feel like drinking.”
“Oh, nooo!” John cried in a trembling falsetto. “Not booooze!”
And just like that the urge was gone. Dan laughed. “Okay, I needed that. But if you ever do the
Michael Jackson voice again, I will drink.”
“You should hear me on ‘Billie Jean.’ I’m a karaoke monster. Can I ask you something?”
“Sure.” Through the windshield, Dan could see the Cowboy Boot patrons come and go, probably
not talking of Michelangelo.
“Whatever you’ve got, did drinking . . . I don’t know . . . shut it up?”
“Muffled it. Put a pillow over its face and made it struggle for air.”
“And now?”
“Like Superman, I use my powers to promote truth, justice, and the American Way.”
“Meaning you don’t want to talk about it.”
“No,” Dan said. “I don’t. But it’s better now. Better than I ever thought it could be. When I was a
teenager . . .” He trailed off. When he’d been a teenager, every day had been a struggle for sanity. The
voices in his head were bad; the pictures were frequently worse. He had promised both his mother and
himself that he would never drink like his father, but when he finally began, as a freshman in high
school, it had been such a huge relief that he had—at first—only wished he’d started sooner. Morning
hangovers were a thousand times better than nightmares all night long. All of which sort of led to a
question: How much of his father’s son was he? In how many ways?
“When you were a teenager, what?” John asked.
“Nothing. It doesn’t matter. Listen, I better get moving. I’m sitting in a bar parking lot.”
“Really?” John sounded interested. “Which bar?”
“Place called the Cowboy Boot. It’s two-buck pitchers until nine o’clock.”
“Dan.”
“Yes, John.”
“I know that place from the old days. If you’re going to flush your life down the toilet, don’t start
there. The ladies are skanks with meth-mouth and the men’s room smells like moldy jockstraps. The
Boot is strictly for when you hit your bottom.”
There it was, that phrase again.
“We all have a bottom,” Dan said. “Don’t we?”
“Get out of there, Dan.” John sounded dead serious now. “Right this second. No more fucking
around. And stay on the phone with me until that big neon cowboy boot on the roof is out of your
rearview mirror.”
Dan started his car, pulled out of the lot, and back onto Route 11.
“It’s going,” he said. “It’s going . . . annnd . . . it’s gone.” He felt inexpressible relief. He also felt
bitter regret—how many two-buck pitchers could he have gotten through before nine o’clock?
“Not going to pick up a six or a bottle of wine before you get back to Frazier, are you?”
“No. I’m good.”
“Then I’ll see you Thursday night. Come early, I’m making the coffee. Folgers, from my special
stash.”
“I’ll be there,” Dan said.
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