Out on the Cutting Edge

"He said emphatically. You drank, therefore you don't."

"Something like that."

"I sort of figured as much. Somehow you don't remind me of any of the lifelong abstainers I've known. I don't usually get along too well with that type."

She was sitting crosslegged on top of the bed. I was lying on my side, propped up on one arm. I reached out a hand and touched her bare thigh. She rested her hand on top of mine.

"Does it bother you that I don't drink?"

"No. Does it bother you that I do?"

"I don't know yet."

"When you find out, be sure and let me know."

"All right."

She tilted the can, drank a little beer. She said, "Is there anything I can offer you? I can make coffee, such as it is. Do you want some?"

"No."

"I don't have any fruit juice or soft drinks, but it wouldn't take me a minute to run to the corner. What would you like?"

I took the beer can out of her hand and put it on the table next to the bed. "Come here," I said, easing her down onto the mattress. "I'll show you."

Around eight I groped around until I found my shorts. She had dozed off, but she woke up while I was dressing. "I have to go out for a while," I told her.

"What time is it?" She looked at her watch and made a clucking sound with her tongue. "Already," she said. "What a lovely way to while away the hours. You must be starving."

"And you must have a short memory."

Her laugh was richly lewd. "For nourishment. Why don't I make us something to eat."

"I have to be someplace."

"Oh."

"But I'll be done around ten. Can you hold out until then? We'll go out for hamburgers or something.

Unless you're too ravenous to wait."

"That sounds good."

"I'll be back around ten-thirty, no later than that."

"Just ring my bell, honey. And, incidentally, you do. Loud and clear."

I went to St. Paul's. I walked down the steps to the basement entrance, and the minute I got inside I felt a sense of relief, as if I'd been holding something in check and could let go of it now.

I remember, years ago, waking up and needing a drink bad. And going downstairs to McGovern's, just next door to the hotel, where they opened early and where the man behind the stick knew what it was like to need a morning drink. I can remember how it felt in my body, the pure physical need for a drink, and how that need was actually slaked before I got the drink down. As soon as it was poured, as soon as I had my hand on the glass, some inner tension relaxed. The simple knowledge that relief was just a swallow away banished half the symptoms.

Funny how it works. I needed a meeting, I needed the company of my fellows, I needed to hear the wise and foolish things that got said at meetings. I needed, too, to talk about my day as a way of releasing it, and thus integrate the experience.

I hadn't done any of this yet, but I was safe now. I was in the room, and it would get done in due course.

So I felt better already.

I went over to the coffee urn and drew myself a cup. It wasn't a great deal better than the instant decaf I'd had at Willa's. But I drank it down and went back for more.

The speaker was a member of our group, celebrating a two-year anniversary. Most of the people in the room had heard her drinking story at one time or another, so she talked instead about what her life had been like during the past two years. It was an emotional qualification, and the applause when she finished was more than perfunctory.

I raised my hand after the break and talked about finding Eddie's body, and about spending the rest of the day with someone who was drinking. I didn't go into detail, just spoke about what I'd felt then, and what I was feeling now.

After the meeting several members came up to me with questions.

Some of them weren't too clear on who Eddie was and wanted to determine if he was someone they knew. He wasn't a regular at St.

Paul's, and he didn't speak up a lot, so not many people knew who I was talking about.

Several who did wanted to know the cause of death. I didn't know how to answer that. If I said he'd hanged himself they'd assume he'd committed suicide. If I explained further I'd have to get into a deeper discussion of the matter than I felt comfortable with. I was deliberately vague, saying that the cause of death hadn't been officially determined, that it looked like accidental death. That was the truth, if not the whole truth.

A fellow named Frank, long sober himself, had only one question.

Had Eddie died sober?

"I think so," I told him. "There weren't any bottles around the room, nothing to suggest he was on a slip."

"Thank God for that," Frank said.

Thank God for what? Drunk or sober, wasn't he just as dead?

Jim Faber was waiting for me at the door. We walked out together and he asked me if I was going for coffee. I said I had to meet someone.

"The woman you spent the afternoon with? The one who was drinking?"

"I don't think I mentioned it was a woman."