Kelley took me home and I didn’t argue about him giving me a lift. Al kicked me in the nuts when I came through the door and just like the night before with Strife I didn’t move quick enough to defend against it. My drunkenness was probably scarring Al and I was sure it wouldn’t be long until he would soon start attending BOA meetings—that’s Bassets of Alcoholics meetings.
I grabbed another Schlitz to help me be drunk enough to sleep. I spilled some down my face trying to drink it with my head on a pillow. Al jumped into bed with me and walked up the length of my body making sure to stride right on my left testicle on the way up. He licked my face and stuck his tongue in my ears and chewed a little. Then he spun around twice and paused with his ass in my face for effect and finally laid down next to me, his back spooning into my gut.
Apparently, Al didn’t care about me getting knocked out by a fat guy.
17
Drunk sleep sucks.
I was in and out of it most of the night and somewhere around four in the morning I think enough of the alcohol had left my system that I could get some quality sleep. That gave me four or four and half hours of sleep, if I pushed it, before work.
It wasn’t meant to be.
First there was the yells, then the loud
thwack
sound going on outside the Moody Blue. Finally, there was Al’s objection.
“WOOF, WOOF”—
thwack
—“WOOF, WOOF.”
Oh, how I hated life.
I sat up in bed and got a rush of that queasy, not-quite-pukey feeling. I stood up and realized my equilibrium was off and thought for a second that I was going to blow my cookies right there on my bedspread. Al didn’t help by running circles around me and incessantly offering me his opinion on the yelling and the thwacking.
Al did one last circle and stopped directly in front of me.
“WOOF, WOOF, WOOF, WOOF,” Al said, clearly upset that he wasn’t getting the response he wanted from me. Then he jumped up and kicked me in the nuts. I decided that now was as good a time as any to go barf. Al followed me with a steady chorus of WOOFs.
Having heaved through the basset din, I thought I’d go check out the five a.m. commotion in front of my house. There he was, decked out in yet another Karateka Bad-Breath ninja getup. He was yelling about horseradish and throwing something at the tree in front of the Blue. Against my better judgment, I opened the door.
“Sir, good morning, sir,” Billy said.
“Billy, we’ve been over this,” I said.
“Sir?”
“Never mind. What are you throwing against my tree?”
“Sir, permission to demonstrate, sir?”
“Knock yourself out.”
“Sir?”
“Throw the fuckin’ things, will ya!”
“Sir, yes sir.”
Billy reared back, yelled “WASABIIIIII!” and threw a metal object into my tree from about forty feet.
“Nice, kid, what are they?” I said.
“Sir, they’re Karateka-Brand Titanium Throwing Stars. This one is the six-pointed Okinawan Starfire and the one I just threw is the Yomiuri Four-Pointed Annihilator.”
“Kid, that shit is illegal as hell.”
“Actually, sir, as a practicing martial artist, I am allowed to practice with them.”
“If you say so. Look, kid, I’m going back to bed.”
“Sir, when will we train again?”
“Kid, I’ll let you know. I’m taking a bit of a break.”
“A break, sir?”
He looked at me in disbelief and sadness. It was tough to handle, but I didn’t feel up to heading to the gym and going through the motions with this kid. I didn’t feel like facing Smitty, and I certainly wasn’t up to the sensei routine.
“Yes, sir,” he said. He bowed and turned to head home, but today he walked.
I went back to bed and tried to sleep, but it was useless. Hungover and pissed off was not the ideal way to go to any job, but it was definitely not the best way for me to face the Michelin Woman and Abadon. On this particular Monday, we had a treatment team meeting and that meant a double dose of Claudia’s officiousness and Abadon’s patronizing arrogance.
The queasiness didn’t get better as the early morning wore on. In fact, it got worse. I felt carsick driving to the clinic, and I felt carsick walking to my cubicle.
“You all right?” Monique asked when she got a look at me.
“It wasn’t the best weekend I ever had,” I said.
“Didn’t you have a big fight?”
“Yeah, I got knocked out. Suffice to say, it didn’t go well.”
“I’m sorry, Duff,” Monique said.
I tried to round up the files I needed for the meeting, but I just couldn’t muster the energy or work through the apathy. I grabbed a handful of some of the charts and headed in ten minutes late. Claudia was at the head of the table with her ultra-cool clipboard with the calculator built in, and Abadon was at her right hand like some sort of twisted version of that last supper painting. I sat down, trying to minimize any attention, and Michelin flashed me a dirty look for being late.
Monique continued to present the case that I interrupted and updated us on Sabrina Shakala, a woman who was mandated to treatment for beating the shit out of her drug-dealing boyfriend. She was on probation and the boyfriend wound up in jail and frankly, I thought Sabrina was functioning pretty well. Anyone who can knock out a dealer’s front teeth with a portable CD player was all right with me.
I must’ve let my eyes close because I heard Abadon’s voice and it startled me.
“Duffy, are you with us or are you still on the canvas?” he said.
“What did you just say?” I felt my neck twitch.
“Sometimes an individual who has had a concussive episode will have delayed neurological reactions—like narcolepsy.”
Both sides of my neck twitched and my face felt on fire. Monique kicked me twice under the table. When I get angry enough it’s tough for me to speak, and that’s not a good thing because I wind up expressing myself physically.
“C’mon, Duff, or I’ll start counting to ten … ,” Abadon said.
That was it.
I threw my hot cup of coffee at Abadon’s head. I missed but it smashed against the wall and splattered all over Claudia. I was on my feet and on my way toward him when Monique got in between me. At five foot four and a sleek 130 pounds, it wasn’t her physical presence but her innate authority that stopped me. Abadon was on his feet, beet red and breathing heavy.
“C’mon, asshole. I’ll show you some fuckin’ neurological damage,” I said, my ability to speak returned.
Abadon gritted his jaw and flexed his weight-room muscles but before he could say anything, Claudia ordered me into her office. Her big blousy polyester top was splattered with coffee. I didn’t move right away and neither did Abadon, but Monique touched my shoulder and sort of steered me out of the conference room toward Claudia’s office.
“Effective immediately, you are suspended pending termination approval from the board of directors. You are to go home immediately and not be on these premises until you are notified in writing,” Claudia said. She was even more humorless than usual.
I didn’t feel like saying anything.
Instead, I signed the suspension form and headed home. My blood pressure was up from the combination of alcohol withdrawal and dealing with Abadon. It wasn’t Claudia’s authority that kept me silent, it was the desire to get the hell out of the office and go home. I knew the consequences were significant, but in the immediate moment it was good to get out of there. I grabbed my keys and split.
I would’ve joined the Foursome for an early start on drinking, but the thought of it made my stomach flip. That, and I wasn’t crazy about the potential future I was developing as an alcoholic. I figured the safest thing to do would be to head home, get kicked in the nuts, lie on the couch, and do nothing until I could think straight.
Al was confused by my early arrival, but he quickly adjusted and we watched
Hawaii Five-O
together. It was one of the episodes where McGarrett is pitted against his archrival, Wo Fat, who was played by the same guy who I think wound up as the funky blind Kung Fu master on David Carradine’s
Kung Fu
TV show. I thought about why I knew that and also about how unfair it was that just because an actor was Asian it meant he was limited to playing stereotyped roles. Then, I thought, when you’re a short, fat, bald guy with slanted eyes, you really would struggle to get the Cary Grant roles, wouldn’t you?
I went in and out of sleep until about four when I must have really fallen out, because it was a knocking on the door followed by Al’s alarm system that rousted me at about eight thirty. I came to and dreaded seeing my pizza-faced ninja falling on his head on my front lawn. It took me a while to get off the couch, but when I went to the door I was pleasantly surprised. It was Trina.
“What are you doing here?” I said at the door.
“There’s a sweet greeting,” she said.
“Sorry, I’m just surprised. C’mon in, the place’s a mess.”
Al ran to Trina and snuggled up to her. Trina and I have a bit of a history. On more than one occasion we’ve gotten involved, usually when one or both of us has just gotten out of a failed relationship. My relationships failed regularly and Trina’s weren’t much better.
“Where’s Todd?” I said referring to her current BF.
“Todd’s an asshole,” she said.
“I always thought so, but I didn’t want to say anything.”
“How about Marcia?”
“She’s in therapy and her therapist says she can’t go out with me.”
We found our way to the couch and I wiped Al’s slobber off the cushions before Trina sat down.
“Duff, you’ve really done it this time, you know. I don’t know how you’re going to save your job,” she said.
“Yeah, I fucked up royally,” I said.
“I’m sorry about the fight. I was there, you know.”
“I thought you hated boxing.”
“I do.”
She touched a small raspberry on the side of my head. It was the only remnant of the knockout.
“God, I worry about you,” Trina said, looking into my eyes. I could feel what was about to happen. She put her hand gently on my knee and let it stay there. I put my hand under her shoulder-length chestnut hair and lightly rubbed her neck.
Instinctively she leaned into me and kissed me hard. I took her roughly into my arms and in one motion turned and laid her down on the couch. She stopped kissing me for a moment and let out a breath that was filled with something that was part emotion and part desire. We went back to kissing and her hand slipped inside my shirt and grabbed at the muscles in my back.
Trina pushed me off her just enough to start struggling to get my shirt over my head. She got it halfway and I did the rest, propping myself up on my knees. She undid the buttons on her white tapered blouse with fury and then the front clasp of her bra. We rolled over and she was out of both her blouse and bra. She was a sight, her hair softly falling on just the top of her shoulders, her flat waist, with just a hint of muscle and maybe, most of all, a glint in her eye showing that she was totally in the moment.
She reached to the snap on my jeans and I felt my heart race while I closed my eyes. The tongue was warm and wet and just a bit rough against my side, and I felt Trina shift off my lower body. I kept my eyes closed to heighten the anticipation. Again, with the tongue, only this time it felt scratchier.
“Ewwww. Make him go!” Trina shouted, startling me out of my bliss.
“WOOF, WOOF, WOOF, WOOF,” Al said, frightened by Trina’s yelling.
I looked up and there was Al’s nose. He was poised to lick me in the face to make sure I was all right from whatever it was that this intruder was about to do to me. I tried to shoo him away but instead he climbed up on my bare chest and sat on it with his back to Trina, who was now sitting on the couch with her head in her hands.
Al had a satisfied look on his face, as if he was experiencing a sense of success in protecting his master. Trina’s expression was less than satisfied as she fumbled to put on her clothes. Just a moment ago, when she was fumbling to get out of her clothes, she looked incredibly sexy. Now, with the process in reverse, she looked incredibly awkward.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I really don’t know what to say.”
“That’s okay, I got carried away. It probably wasn’t a good idea anyway,” Trina said.
I didn’t know how to respond to that because the whole thing seemed like a swell idea to me, but I realized women aren’t like men. It was one of those things where if I disagreed I think I would’ve come off like a sexually desirous pig—which of course I am. I just didn’t want to state the obvious.
In an effort to ease the awkwardness, I got Trina and myself a drink even though she didn’t ask for one. I threw on the TV just to have some noise other than our silence. The Crawford station was in a special report. The attractive female correspondent was live at the McDonough High football field next to the bleachers. There was police tape, flashing lights, and a lot of activity.