The Man Who Killed His Brother by Stephen R. Donaldson Page A

into the elevator. Then she muttered, “You big ape, you’ve got to learn to keep your temper.”
    “Dear God,” I said. “Did I lose my temper? I’m pitifully sorry. It’s never happened to me before.”
    She said, “Aw, shut up.” But she didn’t sound so angry anymore. After a minute, she asked, “What was that he called me?”
    “ ‘Hija de la puta.’ Daughter of a whore.”
    She considered that briefly, then grinned. “It sounds nastier in Spanish.” When the elevator doors opened, she led the way out.
    Following her toward the exit, I had a wild urge to put my arms around her and kiss the back of her neck. But when we walked out into the late afternoon, the sun hit me in the eyes like a hammer. Suddenly my head was reeling for a drink. It was coming, and there was nothing I could do about it. Except get a drink. My nerves pleaded for the stuff. Get a drink get a drink get a drink. Feel the alcohol flow like bliss through the sore lining of my stomach straight into my blood.
    Usually when I go sober, I have three big withdrawal crises—along with half a dozen or so smaller ones—before my body gives up on pain and starts looking for other arguments. So far this time I’d only had one. One coming on, and after that at least one more to go. With the sun in my eyes, and my brain aching, I didn’t think I was going to make it.
    I didn’t realize I was just standing there with my fingers clamped over my face until Ginny came back for me. She put her hands on my arm. “It’s that bad?”
    “All of a sudden. Doesn’t usually come on this fast.”
    She said, “Is there anything I can do?” But she knew there
wasn’t. She’d done everything anybody could do when she came looking for me in the first place.
    I said, “Take me home.”
    She shook my arm. “No chance. We’ve got all those friends of Alathea’s to go see, remember? We’re late already.”
    I said it again. “Take me home.”
    “Brew,” she whispered, “I don’t want to leave you alone.”
    With an effort, I pulled my hands off my face. I must’ve looked pretty fierce, because she winced. “I want to be alone. It’s bad enough when I’m alone. This morning was easy. It’s going to get worse. Do you think I like having you watch me fall apart?”
    That reached her. It didn’t ease the tight worry in her face, but it got me what I wanted. She took me home.
    By the time she got me up to my apartment, the pressure in my skull was squeezing sweat out of my face like beads of thirst. I shook like a cripple. It was all I could do to get across the room and sit down on the convertible couch I use for a bed.
    This one was going to be a sonofabitch.
    Had it ever been this bad before? I couldn’t remember. Probably not. Every time is always the worst.
    Ginny sat down beside me for a while. She looked like she wanted to hold my hand. “Are you going to be all right?”
    From somewhere, I dredged up the energy to say, “There’s nothing here. I never keep the stuff in my apartment.”
    “That isn’t what I asked. I asked you if you’re going to be all right.”
    I said, “You go on.” If she didn’t leave soon I was going to scream. “Talk to Alathea’s friends. I’m going to sit here. As long as I have to. Then I’ll get something to eat. Then I’ll go to bed. Pick me up in the morning.”
    “All right.” She didn’t like it, but she swallowed it. “I’ll make sure the answering service knows where I am.” A minute later she was gone.
    A minute after that, I wanted to cry out, Ginny !

    But this mess was one I’d made for myself, and I was going to have to live with it. So I just sat where I was and watched the sunlight in the room get dimmer.
    Soon there were red-hot bugs crawling along my nerves, ticks and chiggers and cockroaches of need, and at one point I thought I could hear high-pitched mewling sounds coming from somewhere in the vicinity of my face. But I just sat where I was and waited. Waited for the sun