could argue with that?
The coffee was strong and its smell filled the room. After pouring a cup he slid open a drawer of the bed stand and pulled out a quart of Old Kentucky bourbon. He added a splash to the cup and returned the bottle to the drawer. He sat on the side of the bed in his boxer shorts and rubbed his knotted graying chest hair as he sipped.
Maggie would kill him if she knew he had taken to drinking in the morning. But the dull ache of despair knew nothing of time. Bourbon dulled despair’s pangs for a while and brought heavy sleep. Then it crawled into the hours between lunch and dinner, chains rattling, sneering at him with contempt, and Sam drank more bourbon until despair retreated once again. But lately even the bourbon did not work. Despair woke when he woke and stretched when he stretched and pissed when he pissed.
Before Sam knew Jack DeShane despair had certain limits. It did not own Sam’s soul. But destiny moved the young cop into the house across the street and pushed him into Sam’s life. Despair began to tell tales of old age and weakening desire, sodden drunkenness, and a replay of his own gradual, forty-year decay in the guise of the rookie cop.
Of course Sam knew he could always run. There were alternatives. He had a small savings and an early retirement pension. He could move out of Maggie’s pleasant house and go home to the Georgia hills. He could go to Atlantic City and doze on park benches with other old rummies and play the slot machines with his laundry money. He could move to Key West and luxuriate in aqua waters, catch tarpon, drink in the same bars Hemingway frequented.
The truth, however, could not be circumvented; no one needed Sam Bartholomew in Georgia, in Atlantic City, in Key West. He would only be another shipwrecked piece of debris. At least in Houston where he had worked for forty years to clean up the scum from the streets he had Maggie Richler with her blue-tinted hair and voluptuous, amazingly preserved body. She needed him. It was a startling revelation. Sam did not know why exactly, but Maggie needed him. And now the rookie needed him too. If he turned his back on either of those needs, it would not matter where he ran. Despair would tag along. It was only when he was with either one of those people that despair backed off and hid in the corners.
He heard Maggie’s tread on the stairs. In three painful gulps he downed the doctored coffee before she reached his door. She always knocked before entering, which struck Sam as funny since most nights he slept in her bed, but he paid for room and board by the month and Maggie never let him forget it. Not until he was willing to join his life with hers under the law and a marriage certificate hung on the wall.
“Sam? Can I come in, honey?”
Maggie Richler claimed to be fifty-one, but Sam figured she lied. She was probably his age: sixty, the magic, tragic six-oh. It did not matter. Sam would have loved her if she were a hundred and two, but how do you convince a woman of that?
She stood in the doorway looking at him in his shabby shorts, potbelly stretching out his waistband, fly half open and revealing thick pubic hair, his bald pate showing delicate skull bones. She smiled and Sam thought someone had switched on a light in the room.
“I have to be going,” she announced.
“A court reporter’s job is never ending,” he said, patting the bed beside him for her to sit.
“What are you going to do today?” She asked the same question every day. She sat beside him and caressed his thigh. Within seconds she had a thatch of wiry curls in her palm and pulled at them gently, teasingly.
“I don’t know what I’ll do today,” Sam answered honestly. Enforced idleness was harder to manage than a full working day, and he had not yet found the trick. The old black despair covered his shoulders, and for a minute he thought of the three revolvers in his closet.
“I’ll come home and fix you lunch. How’s that?”
The coffee was strong and its smell filled the room. After pouring a cup he slid open a drawer of the bed stand and pulled out a quart of Old Kentucky bourbon. He added a splash to the cup and returned the bottle to the drawer. He sat on the side of the bed in his boxer shorts and rubbed his knotted graying chest hair as he sipped.
Maggie would kill him if she knew he had taken to drinking in the morning. But the dull ache of despair knew nothing of time. Bourbon dulled despair’s pangs for a while and brought heavy sleep. Then it crawled into the hours between lunch and dinner, chains rattling, sneering at him with contempt, and Sam drank more bourbon until despair retreated once again. But lately even the bourbon did not work. Despair woke when he woke and stretched when he stretched and pissed when he pissed.
Before Sam knew Jack DeShane despair had certain limits. It did not own Sam’s soul. But destiny moved the young cop into the house across the street and pushed him into Sam’s life. Despair began to tell tales of old age and weakening desire, sodden drunkenness, and a replay of his own gradual, forty-year decay in the guise of the rookie cop.
Of course Sam knew he could always run. There were alternatives. He had a small savings and an early retirement pension. He could move out of Maggie’s pleasant house and go home to the Georgia hills. He could go to Atlantic City and doze on park benches with other old rummies and play the slot machines with his laundry money. He could move to Key West and luxuriate in aqua waters, catch tarpon, drink in the same bars Hemingway frequented.
The truth, however, could not be circumvented; no one needed Sam Bartholomew in Georgia, in Atlantic City, in Key West. He would only be another shipwrecked piece of debris. At least in Houston where he had worked for forty years to clean up the scum from the streets he had Maggie Richler with her blue-tinted hair and voluptuous, amazingly preserved body. She needed him. It was a startling revelation. Sam did not know why exactly, but Maggie needed him. And now the rookie needed him too. If he turned his back on either of those needs, it would not matter where he ran. Despair would tag along. It was only when he was with either one of those people that despair backed off and hid in the corners.
He heard Maggie’s tread on the stairs. In three painful gulps he downed the doctored coffee before she reached his door. She always knocked before entering, which struck Sam as funny since most nights he slept in her bed, but he paid for room and board by the month and Maggie never let him forget it. Not until he was willing to join his life with hers under the law and a marriage certificate hung on the wall.
“Sam? Can I come in, honey?”
Maggie Richler claimed to be fifty-one, but Sam figured she lied. She was probably his age: sixty, the magic, tragic six-oh. It did not matter. Sam would have loved her if she were a hundred and two, but how do you convince a woman of that?
She stood in the doorway looking at him in his shabby shorts, potbelly stretching out his waistband, fly half open and revealing thick pubic hair, his bald pate showing delicate skull bones. She smiled and Sam thought someone had switched on a light in the room.
“I have to be going,” she announced.
“A court reporter’s job is never ending,” he said, patting the bed beside him for her to sit.
“What are you going to do today?” She asked the same question every day. She sat beside him and caressed his thigh. Within seconds she had a thatch of wiry curls in her palm and pulled at them gently, teasingly.
“I don’t know what I’ll do today,” Sam answered honestly. Enforced idleness was harder to manage than a full working day, and he had not yet found the trick. The old black despair covered his shoulders, and for a minute he thought of the three revolvers in his closet.
“I’ll come home and fix you lunch. How’s that?”
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