I told Katie at Fresh Start about Jason. She said she was sorry but she didn’t know him. How sorry can she be? Maybe she was sorry for me because he was my friend, but she didn’t know that. She might have assumed it or why else would I have told her? She said, Sorry, like most people say, Good morning. You say it just to say it. Anyway, I’m happy for her. Katie and I used to run the streets together before she got sober. I miss her. It’s hard to hang out with someone you used to drink with who has stopped drinking. Sort of like a rich bitch spending time with a poor gal. So I don’t see her much unless she’s working when I’m in detox. There’s too much that separates us now. But I can’t get mad at her. She has this kind face, pebbled with pale freckles as if she’s still a kid. How do I get angry with someone who looks like that? Her street name was Sunshine. Everyone just called me Carol. Sunshine and Carol. Katie’s one of those people who can smile and look sad at the same time. You’re going to die, Carol, she told me the last time I was in detox. She’s right, and after I’m gone, she’ll still be alive—another thing that will separate us. I’ve offered her a drink more than a few times when I’ve seen her walking to work but she won’t have it. I’m always glad she turns me down but a little jealous too. I know she doesn’t think she’s better than me, but sometimes it feels that way. She’s given up on me, I know, but we were partners at one time, I remind myself, the best of friends. Still are but aren’t. It feels weird for her to tell me I’m going to die, like I’m terminal with cancer or something. In a way, I suppose I am. Terminal, I mean. I’m not going to stop drinking, so that’s terminal. Good for Katie to quit but not for me. I think about it but it scares me. To wake up one morning knowing this is it. Life is going to come at me and I won’t be high or nothing. That I’ll just have to deal with it. That’s frightening, for real. On the bright side, if I die like she says I will, I won’t disappoint. I can die. I can do that much right.
I might go to detox tonight to have some company. I got pretty used to Jason and now he’s left me. He moved in about a month after I did. He took the room that a guy named Lyle had. I didn’t know Lyle but Katie did. Said the three of us had drunk together, but I don’t remember him. Two days before Jason showed up, the manager found Lyle dead on his bed, arms spread like Jesus on the cross, a mickey of Thunderbird in one hand, sheets stained red with spilled wine. The manager left Lyle’s door open when he ran to his office to call the paramedics and I looked in. Lyle’s eyes were open, staring, the expression on his face like someone who had just remembered something he wanted to say and died before he could get it out. Now that would be frustrating. He wasn’t wearing a shirt or pants, just a pair of drawers. His bare feet hovered above the floor. Maybe he was getting ready for bed. The glow from the ceiling light haloed his bald head. A jacket and a pair of jeans hung off the back of a chair. Beneath the chair, dark socks and a pair of sneakers. Two rats on the windowsill rose on their feet like curious neighbors peering through the glass. The paramedics came, covered him with a sheet, and wheeled him out on a gurney. A couple of days later, Jason moved in.
I was coming out of my room one morning when I met him for the first time. Everyone calls me Tenderloin Jason, he told me, or sometimes Louisiana Jason because I hail from Baton Rouge. Shit, I’ve been here for years, know everyone, so I’m more Tenderloin than Louisiana now.
He pronounced every sound of every letter of every word he spoke. Even when he said, Shit, he came down hard on the “t” like a pencil snapping, the rhythm of his Southern accent rolling that snap into the next word like dominoes. I do not hold conversations, he told me. I declaim.
He told me how he stopped at Fred’s Liquor on Sixth most mornings and then at Walgreens to pick up blood pressure meds from the pharmacy, how he would then wander home past St. Anthony’s soup kitchen, sometimes stopping at the Comeback Club, until he returned to the McLeod and to his room to imbibe, as he put it. He stopped talking only long enough to raise a bottle of peach schnapps to his mouth. When he drained the last drop, he would point in my direction and sing out, Her name is Carol, and she’s a helluva gal! and I’d blush. Not too many people can make me blush, but he could, and it felt kind of good to feel that rush of red to my face, tingling and hot.
Jason dressed pretty snazzy. He liked to wear gray pants and white button-down shirts he collected from Salvation Army thrift stores. On the first of the month, he used some of what was left of his general assistance check to have his clothes pressed at a Guerrero Street dry cleaner. He showered and shaved every day and combed his hair. Like he had a job in the Financial District or something. I have to say, he kind of inspired me. I started bathing more or less regularly, sometimes in the bathroom down the hall but mostly I used the sink in my room, and every other morning before I started drinking I’d make it a point to get a change of clothes at Fresh Start. Even tidied up my room by putting my bottles in the wastebasket before I passed out so I wouldn’t wake up to a mess on the floor.
One night, Jason took out his phone and showed me black-and-white photos of a studio apartment he had rented decades ago: a sleeper sofa against one wall, a circular rug, a desk, and a rack of suits in a closet. He pointed out a photograph of himself on the wall behind the sofa. In the picture, he was wearing a suit and tie. His brown hair, combed up from his forehead, stood out against the gray wall, and he had a smile, the kind of smile that creases your face and you feel confident as hell. It was sort of a posed, swept-back kind of look that made me think of Hollywood celebrity photos from back in the day, like in the 1930s or ’40s or something. He was twenty-five then, he said. I could hear in his voice, the soft way he spoke, how long ago that was. He taught ballroom dancing on cruise ships. Bullshit, I said. Au contraire, Carol, he scolded. Standing, a little wobbly from drinking, he began moving across my room, dipping and turning, arms out like he was holding a partner. When he stopped, I clapped. I half hoped he’d ask me to dance, but he just stared at me and then kind of slowly he gave me one of Katie’s sad smiles and bowed. He looked almost the same as he did in that old photo. His stomach protruded like a bowling ball but his gray hair remained just as thick, his face almost free of wrinkles. That’s pretty good for a drinker. My hair is as gray as an overcast sky and I got bags under my eyes the size of hammocks. But I wasn’t as sad as Walter. I wasn’t trying to hide my looks. He wore a black toupee that sat on his head like a helmet. White bits of hair stuck out around his ears, and sometimes he’d swagger in, boozed up, and looking all smug because he had a beat down ten-dollar crack whore with him. That toupee made me laugh, but not Jason. He didn’t make fun of Walter or any of the other people here, at least not with me. He’d just go and talk about himself like he was the only one that mattered. Maybe by taking up so much oxygen he figured no one would have enough air to say anything bad about him. He told me he used to work at a furniture warehouse in Oakland with a gal named Jerry. The ballroom dancing stuff had been a summer job, a young man’s job. Rich, middle-aged ladies wanted pretty young things. We only stay pretty so long, Carol, Jason told me. The warehouse wasn’t bad. Lifting sofas and tables kept him in shape, even if it didn’t keep him pretty. I thought of Jason hefting furniture. I thought of him lifting me in his arms on the dance floor like I was nothing. That feeling of holding someone and of being held and I was lost for a moment. Then Jason brought me back by asking if I had a towel. I gave him one. He wiped sweat from his forehead and took deep breaths. I offered him my bottle of T-bird. He shook his head. Not my vintage, Carol, he said. He reached into his back pocket for his blood pressure meds. He popped two tablets into his mouth and took a deep swallow from his schnapps bottle.
Jason and I could stay sober for two or three days when we wanted. It was easier on warm days. With the sun out, I didn’t feel so desolate. We’d watch TV in the lobby. Bored, sure, but not depressed. Well, maybe a little. We’d look through the windows and watch all the people on the sidewalk and think we had plenty of time to go outside and enjoy the sun, and then before we knew it, it was dark and we were still in the lobby and that was that. Jason, I said one night, we waste a lot of time drinking. Maybe we should do something like try a program again. But which one would take us? he’d say. And what agency would refer us that hadn’t before? It got kind of overwhelming thinking about it and we started drinking again because of all our options that was the one sure thing.
On cold days when the air could get kind of weepy with fog, we drank without thinking we’d do something else. My mom drank on cloudy days. Sunny days too, but she’d start early if it was overcast. If it was nice out, she’d hold off until night and rush around the house trying to keep occupied by cleaning windows or vacuuming. I get it now. Her nerves were shot, and she couldn’t sit still. She and my dad had divorced when I was so little that I can’t remember him; he didn’t come around, and mom cleaned houses but she didn’t get work every day. On her off days, she’d go out to get coffee and then run out again to buy bread whether we needed it or not, and then she’d go out and get something else. She was wound up from not drinking. I stayed away from her until about midday when she seemed to adjust to not having any booze. She slowed down, napped. At night, she’d hold off until after we ate dinner, pizza or something, and then she’d ask me for a glass of sherry. I was a kid, not even a teenager, and I’d sit next to her and do my homework until she got drunk enough she let me have a glass. I had no tolerance then. I’d be out after a couple of swallows, my head on her lap.
The sun was shining when Jason died like fifteen, maybe thirty minutes, after he’d stopped to sit down with me in the hotel lobby. I was pretty-well lit from drinking that morning. He had walked in holding a Walgreens bag, took a chair, and talked about the kind of food he once ate on Easter. That was Jason. He’d just come up with these thoughts like from nowhere. He sipped from his bottle making a face with each swallow. Not going down with its natural flow today, he said. Then Walter came around and got played by a prostitute. I nodded off in my chair and didn’t hear Jason leave. I don’t know how long I was out. When I woke up my mouth tasted like paste. I stood and went to my room, my whole body shaking. I was out of Thunderbird and I thought I’d have to hit up Jason for some of his schnapps. Too sweet for me, but all I needed was one swallow to get right enough to walk to the liquor store. When I reached my floor, the hall seemed really long and the light seemed kind of weak and I saw Jason on his side on the floor outside his room. I moved slow. I knew something bad had happened, but I was just in a fog and stuck in first gear. I touched his shoulders, noticed his schnapps bottle poking out of his pocket. His chest wasn’t moving. My heart started racing, clearing my head. Call 911, I began yelling to no one, Call 911. But I knew it was too late. Walter stumbled out of his room all herky-jerky. He had probably been passed out. He looked at me, trying to understand what was happening. What’s wrong? What’s wrong? he said again and again, as other doors opened down the hall. I grabbed Jason’s schnapps before Walter got any ideas and put it in my pocket. I wanted to call Katie. It was after six. She wouldn’t be at work. By the time I’d get around to seeing her, she’d know and it wouldn’t matter. Jason wasn’t her client.
This sucks, Jason, I said.
Someone must have called the police because they showed up with two paramedics. One of the paramedics carried a red box that resembled a tool kit. I told them what I knew, which wasn’t anything. The police told me to move. The paramedics examined Jason. He’s gone, one of them said. They put him on a gurney and covered him just like they’d done with Lyle. I stared at the outline of Jason’s body. It occurred to me I didn’t know his last name.
The paramedics left. They never did open that red box. The hall emptied, snap, just like that, as if Jason had never been there. I mean I stared at the floor where he had collapsed but I didn’t even see a spot, an impression on the carpet, nothing. I went to my room and sat on the edge of my bed. This is my life, I thought. It was one thing to be told I was drinking myself to death. It was another thing to see someone who did. He was gone, like really gone. I unscrewed the cap of the schnapps and took a swallow. Too sweet, really, but I could get used to it. It gave me a buzz, for sure, chilled my nerves. Late afternoon light shone through the windows. I wanted to cry. Or, I guess, I thought I should cry but nothing came. He was so gone. I wondered if I’d even really known him. Of course I had, but it was just me now, no Jason, and I had questions like: Where were you born? Where’d you grow up? Little things like that. Just who the fuck are you, Jason? I went through my empty T-bird bottles and shook them over a glass to see what dregs I could get after I finished the schnapps. I got some. I sat back on my bed and thought of Jason. I imagined him beside me drinking. I could feel him squeeze my right hand, lean close to my face and say in that way he liked to talk, Au revoir mon cher amour, and then in my mind I watched him go to his room. Fuck him, he could make me blush! In the morning, suffering, as he liked to say, from the turbulence of a frightful hangover––where did he come up with this way of talking?––he would get up and make his schnapps run. He’d come back, face all red from walking and tell me about how the streets were jammed with people doing the buying and selling of, Well, Carol, we are not talking Girl Scout cookies. We mean crack cocaine and heroin and any prescription drug you can name.
I sat with his schnapps bottle and could just see him doing the weave and duck on McAllister Street until I felt myself becoming him, swaying on my bed like I’m Jason walking. Excuse me, excuse me, watch out sweethearts, I said in that voice of his. Excuse me, excuse me, and Carol, I saw the police cruisers coasting their slow crawl, checking out people––who all of a sudden walked away, I’m cool officer, I’m cool––looking for a dealer, an informant, someone in the middle of a score, whoever the cops could find to make their quota of arrests for that day, and I saw a young man, short hair, blue jeans, T-shirt, fake leather jacket, rolling up his sleeve in front of this other guy. He wasn’t showing off his latest tattoo, no, he was showing the dealer his track marks, his need. The dealer saw the black lines, waited for the cops to pass out of sight, and then relaxed and waved the guy, a kid really, forward, digging into a shirt pocket for a baggy of the white stuff, and I kept going, downhill on Leavenworth and across Civic Center Plaza to Fred’s.
Standing in front of a shelf of bottles, I drummed my fingers against my legs until I found peach schnapps and took two bottles.
Here you go, Larry, I said to the man behind the counter.
Ahh, Jason, he said. How are you?
Fragile as glass, Larry, but I’ll make it.
He put each bottle in a bag and twisted the tops. I paid him.
His name is Larry, and he’s a helluva guy.
See you, Jason.
Larry reminded me of Jerry, my supervisor at a furniture warehouse in Oakland. He’d always say “job site.” I got to go to the Richmond job site, he’d say, I got to go to the Concord job site. When we got off work, he said, Are you going to drink tonight? and before I could answer, he’d go, I was going to stop by a bar and have one. I’d go with him and we always had more than one, but that was the routine. We worked mornings, six to two, then my schedule changed to the swing shift. That gave me too much time to kill before work and I’d have one or two or three in the morning and after a while, you know, I lost count and I started clocking in late until I just stopped clocking in. Things would have been different if I’d kept my morning hours.
At the corner of Sixth and Market, I turned into Walgreens to pick up my blood pressure meds. As I waited for the pharmacist to ring them up, I noticed a basket of chocolate rabbits displayed on the shelf.
Is it almost Easter? I asked.
Yes, she said. Almost, like tomorrow.
She dropped two bottles in a bag and handed it to me. I looked at her name tag.
Her name is Michelle, and she’s a helluva gal.
She smiled, shaking her head.
I followed Post Street uphill to Ellis, past St. Anthony’s and the line of men and women waiting for the cafeteria to open. The sidewalk, grimed black from trash and spilled food, pulled at the bottom of my shoes. I felt hot as if I’d been running and I took off my jacket and opened one of the schnapps bottles. Pigeons hopped out of my way and I passed a barefoot man, his jacket spattered with bird shit, who talked to himself in a harsh, fevered whisper, spitting out words between the gaps of his yellowed teeth. He warned away invisible tormentors. I walked two more blocks before I reached Ellis, stepping around a man hosing down the sidewalk outside a convenience store. Hookers trolled the sidewalk, clomping stiff-legged in their square, black platform shoes.
When I reached the McLeod, I saw you, Carol, half asleep, in the lobby and I sat down. Her name is Carol, and she’s a helluva gal! but you did not wake up until I shook you. I asked you if you thought it was hot out and you said, No. I drank from my bottle but I felt bloated. I unscrewed the caps of my blood pressure meds, took two tablets. Carol, I said, I saw a chocolate bunny at Walgreens. It’s Easter tomorrow. Do you remember Easter? My mother made ham. What did your family have? I had to shake you again and repeat myself. You said, What? I repeated myself before you told me your mother made ham too. Turkey on Christmas, ham on Easter.
Yes, I agreed. We should get some ham tomorrow.
OK, you said. Where would we cook it?
Good point, I said. No ham for tomorrow.
There’s always St. Anthony’s.
There is that, I agreed.
The door opened and I raised my arms against the light until it closed. Carol, wouldn’t you know it was Walter sauntering in with one of the hookers I’d just seen. He stopped and fingered through an ashtray for a smoke. All class, our Walter. The prostitute stood stiffly beside him. Circles of pink rouge made her pale, tense face appear even paler. Walter winked at me and started walking upstairs. She followed him. Where’s my money? she said. I got it, he said. I want to see your money first, she said, her voice pushing him. I got it, he snapped. I looked at you, Carol, and rolled my eyes, and you shook your head. I took another swallow of schnapps. I heard someone running down the stairs and Walter yelled, Hey! and the prostitute rushed by us out the door, and Walter stumbled after her a few feet behind. After a moment, he walked back in, out of breath.
She took my money, he said.
His fly was open, unseemly to say the least. He stared at the floor as if it was speaking to him. He looked more hopeless than angry. A car horn blared outside. The hotel doors opened, pushed by the wind. Walter chewed on his lower lip. He turned to me like he was about to say something, but I looked away. He kicked the ashtray. It wobbled but did not fall. He walked upstairs. A sense of embarrassment for him spread through me, and I resented him for imposing on me in that way. I had experienced enough of my own humiliations. I did not need to share his. I looked at you, Carol, but your eyes were half-closed. She’s Carol, and she’s a helluva gal! But you did not wake up and this time I did not shake you. I stood and felt sick to my stomach. I sat back down. My left arm tingled. Standing again I gripped the banister and began walking up the stairs shaking my arm to get rid of the prickly sensation. When I reached my room, I felt an incredible pain in my chest that webbed out and up into my throat and I gasped and before I had time to find my keys, before I understood I would be leaving you alone for this night and all the other nights to follow, before you even entered my mind, Carol, I was gone.
Katie
I clock in.
