LatinosUSA

Paulie sat in the lurid orange beanbag chair in what passed for the living room of his hovel. He extended his thin legs, and his house slippers hung off his feet, then slipped to the uncarpeted floor with a little plop.

Paulie gazed at his cell phone and saw a blank screen. He forgot to charge it again. Cursing mildly, he reached into the mini-fridge and extracted another bottle of porter. Twisting off the cap, he tipped back the brown-hued bottle and took a swig.

“Ah,” he murmured, smacking his lips, “nectar of the gods!”  

Cell phone in hand, he reached to plug it into the charger, which dangled from the outlet. Looking again at the screen, he noted the time: 6 am.

“Huh,” he grunted. He was getting an early start this morning. He remembered that it was only a continuation of the night before. Sadie would be vexed, he thought guiltily. His daughter, at 29, was an expert at all things and didn’t hesitate to let her pappy know about it.

“You’ve got to stop taking the damn oxy, dad,” she raged for months before he’d finally pulled the plug. Hardest thing he ever did, he recalled, but was Sadie content with that triumph? No, she was not. Paulie lofted the now-empty bottle in the direction of a cardboard box that served as a waste receptacle.

“Two points,”  he shouted, punching the air with his fist.

He rarely missed, no matter how intoxicated he was. He saw it as a victory, a small victory, it’s true, but a win nonetheless.

Paulie felt hyper, the way he always did when he drank beer on an empty stomach. He couldn’t recall when he last had a meal. He quite forgot how many bottles of the black beer he’d drunk as well. His memories were becoming more problematic recently. He shrugged. Probably not important in the vast scheme of things.

He pulled his pot stash from under the coffee table. Sequestered in a small oaken case, the fixings were more of a PITA than a convenience. Paulie’s hands developed a tremor, which he couldn’t account for, making it harder to roll a decent joint. Frustrated, he replaced the little box and pulled out instead a small Rubbermaid container, where he kept his hashish and a small soapstone opium pipe. It was a newlywed gift from his late wife, Jessica. Paulie frowned. The bitch up and died on him during childbirth, that most sacrosanct of human experiences. He never quite forgave her. Since then, it was just him and Sadie.

Pressing the gaumy blotch of hash into the little pipe, he fired it up and inhaled deeply. The effect was almost instantaneous. No longer wired and treading on broken glass, he grew mellow, almost catatonic. Thinking to regain a happy middle ground, Paulie extracted another chilled bottle of porter. After a few moments, it was all better again. Copasetic, he thought with a wry smile.

Some hours later, Paulie noted that the sunlight, blazing through the east-facing windows when he’d awakened, was now streaming in at a more indirect angle. One of these days, he thought, he’d have to invest in some drapes, or at least some curtains. This idea, like most thoughts, spilled, like grains of sand, from his mind. A sudden thought gripped him: Sadie was stopping by for lunch today! He had to clean this joint up; it was a real pigsty. While Paulie had few standards, his only child was a stickler for neatness. He glanced at his cell: 11 am.

He clambered to his feet and began picking detritus off the floor, took out the sweeper and hurriedly vacuumed the throw rugs and emptied the box that served as his waste basket into a large, black trash bag, then stashed the bag in the closet.

“Dad,”  Sadie scolded the last time he’d seen her, “If you don’t start living like a human being, I’m going to petition the court to have you institutionalized.” Paulie’s eyes opened wide. This wasn’t an idle threat. Sadie was an attorney, a member of the bar like her mother and father before her, and was at the top of her game. But the softness in her beautiful green eyes gave her away, and he knew she’d never turn on him. Paulie sighed with relief.

As he tidied up the apartment, Paulie came upon several empty bottles of cold meds. There remained a dollop of fluid in the bottom of one of the transparent plastic containers. He took up a small plastic cup and decanted the glop of syrupy green liquid and then tossed it back like a shot of tequila. He licked his lips, enjoying the minty flavor.

He breathed into his palm and sniffed his fingers. Ugh! He needed to brush his teeth. To do otherwise was to incur the wrath of Hurricane Sadie. He rushed to the bathroom and performed his ablutions.

He glanced down at himself. He looked like a tramp, he thought, or a panhandler. And the last thing that Paulie wanted to do was to prompt his only child, his only living relative, his only friend, for God’s sake, to take pity on the old man and offer him handouts. Maybe he was a bum, a wasto, but Paulie had a certain measure of pride. Besides, he didn’t want to be a source of worry for his Sadie.

Luckily, he found a clean pair of jeans and a fresh shirt. Paulie rubbed his jaw and felt the stubble. He hadn’t shaved with a razor in years, but he used a beard trimmer to keep the facial growth at bay. He did so now.

Paulie was startled anew. What should he fix for lunch? But then he remembered: Sadie always took him out as her guest. She was well-heeled, proud of her promotion at Benson and Stein, the most prestigious law firm in the city. Paulie smiled. He was so proud of her. Sadie was the one good thing remaining to him. She should be here at any moment.

When noon came round, and then 12:30 and finally one o’clock, Paulie became concerned. Like his late wife, Sadie was never tardy. Sweating even in the air conditioning, he took up his phone to call her, but found he couldn’t remember the number. He searched his phone’s address book, but the number was unaccountably absent. Turning desperately to the web, Paulie couldn’t remember Sadie’s married name! Although she divorced…what was his name?…she kept her wedded name for the sake of the children. Paulie blinked in confusion. Sadie had two children, a boy and a girl, but trying to imagine them now, he drew a complete blank.

What was happening? Was he having a stroke, a drug-induced delusion? Maybe Sadie was right… He stood immobile. He could no longer recall Sadie’s face. Paulie drew a great breath and released it, then plunked back down in the beanbag chair, which was bleeding beans across the floor of the hovel. It began to come back to Paulie, slowly at first, but then in a painful avalanche of unwanted memories. He took yet another bottle from the mini-fridge, opened it and drained it. He felt a gentle buzz once more.

Jessica and Paulie wanted children. But the pregnancy went tragically wrong, and in the delivery room, she hemorrhaged and spontaneously aborted. They wanted to name their firstborn Sadie. He tossed the bottle at the box. It missed.