This guy’s looking down at me. I’m on the ground, against a tree in Golden Gate Park, and he just stands there staring. A band’s playing. There’s kind of like a festival going on, I guess. This is the third band up since I got here, I don’t know, maybe two hours ago. Has sort of a country vibe going.
The grass smells sharp and sweet like it’s just been cut. There’s a fresh and gentle breeze carrying salt air from the Bay. Couples sit on blankets with Tupperware and plastic forks and spoons and bottles of wine. I snatched one when this guy and this gal weren’t looking. They were dancing and I picked it up off their blanket. Really they were more like swaying, arms out, barefoot, faces turned to the sky, eyes closed. Maybe they’re a little tight and that’s why they’re dancing. I understand that. I don’t dance unless I’m drunk. Whatever. They didn’t see me and still don’t know that anything’s missing. They’re still listening to the music, their backs to me. Other people stand and sway to the rhythm. Young colts and old fucks like me. A warm day, all shorts and crop tops, and dudes bare-chested.
I remember working construction one summer as a kid, teenager really. Pushing wheelbarrows filled with concrete, laying tar paper, the sun above us, our bodies sucking in the heat. My skin turned to bronze. I walked home draping my T-shirt around my neck, a sweat-soaked scarf. Girls in halter tops and short shorts walking past, do a double take, dragging their cunts on the sidewalk for me, I knew. I felt my power. Went to The Spot, ordered a pitcher of beer I drank by myself. I got drunk with friends one night and bit my glass, breaking it. I spit the broken pieces out of my mouth, laughed, wiped my cut lips with the back of my hand.
Have I seen you before? the guy goes.
I squint up at him, raise my chin.
Huh?
Have I seen you before?
I don’t know. Maybe. Why? What do you want?
The guy shrugs, shakes his head. Nothing.
He’s got on a wrinkled button-down shirt that’s a little large for him and blue jeans, also too big. Thrift store clothes or some agency’s donation closet, I’m thinking. That kind of stuff never fits right. That kind of need isn’t too particular either. His wet hair dampens his shoulders. I don’t know him, don’t think so anyway.
At Fresh Start, he says. You were in detox. I was in the bed next to you.
I turn to the band. An older woman’s singing a John Prine tune, “Angel from Montgomery.” I’m trying to think, When was I in detox? Four days ago, maybe. I had pneumonia. I didn’t know it then, but I was coughing so much that Katie sent me to General the next morning and the doctors there kept me for a minute. I was in a bed with beeping machines on either side, and I had an IV in my left arm filling me with antibiotics and Valium too, so I could ease off the booze without major withdrawal. It was a nice feeling, a different kind of buzz, I got to say, smooth and nice like the colors of a fall day when you first wake up and feel the cool dawn air, and it lifted me and I felt myself sailing through air, more like floating, really, no speed to it at all, and I thought of my mom’s driveway and the heavy branches of elms that stretched over it and the shadows and squirrels in the shadows and how I came home from that construction job, the squirrels running, and my mother said, Put your shirt on. You look like a common laborer, and the girls cruising past as I tugged it back on, felt it stick to my sweating arms, cling to my chest, cicadas buzzing through the humidity.
I don’t remember you, I tell the guy.
Yeah, it was you next to me. You were sick. You left in the morning, I think.
I look at him.
Sounds like me.
He nods. It doesn’t matter to him if I remember. He keeps talking anyway.
I needed shelter. I’d been sleeping in my car and wanted a break. There was this social worker, I forget his name.
Oscar, I say.
Yeah, that’s right. That’s his name. He said the shelter was full but he could get me into detox. Are you an alcoholic? he goes, and I go, No, and he goes, Listen to me. The shelter is full but I can get you into detox if you’re an alcoholic, understand? So I’m going to ask you again. Are you an alcoholic? I didn’t even know what detox was, man. Hell, I’d never heard of Fresh Start. A cop made me move my car that morning and told me about it. Anyway, I got it, you know what I’m saying? I got Oscar’s drift, so I said, Yes, I’m an alcoholic, and he put me in detox.
Oscar always has his game on.
I suppose, the guy says.
I close my eyes. My chest still hurts from the pneumonia every time I take a deep breath. The woman has stopped singing. A guitar player strums something low and slow, kind of twangy. A harmonica kicks in. The sun warms my face. Before I was discharged from General, the social worker gave me a two-week referral to the Apollo, one of the shittier welfare hotels on Sixth Street. She also found some clean clothes—a 49ers T-shirt, blue jeans, and white socks. I took off my hospital gown, dressed, wondered who the clothes had belonged to—who died and left me their rags? Would somebody see me in the dead guy’s clothes and think I’m him? Would he be alive again for just that moment? Oh, sorry, I thought you were somebody else, I can hear someone saying to me. The social worker told me not to think like that. But I do. I think that way about myself in my room at the Apollo with just my radio and a Penthouse magazine I found. How many dead guys have worn these clothes? No one knows, I’m sure. I feel bad for them. Not bad, I guess, just weird. Like putting on someone else’s skin. I’ll be one of them: dead someday. I’ve been wearing these duds now for three days. They got my stink. Whoever wore them before is totally gone. They’re fucking mine now. I could use a comb. Some deodorant and toothpaste too.
The woman starts singing again. I don’t recognize the song. I didn’t know there’d be music. I just wanted out of the Apollo. There are so many rats on the sill I won’t open the windows. The hall shower doesn’t work and the cracked sink in my room sags off the wall, leaking. Cockroaches converge at night on the brown carpet. Rice Krispies, I say when I step on them. I stay up nights and sleep in the day, avoiding the funk of my room behind closed eyes. I turn the radio on at night for the company of better-off voices. This morning, that wasn’t enough. I needed real people, people I could see, so I caught the Muni for the Haight, got off at Masonic and walked to the park.
How long were you in detox? I ask the guy.
I’m still there, he says. They’re letting me stay till next week when I go into a forty-five-day recovery program. I don’t need it. I’m not a drunk, but they say that after you complete it they’ll send you to a halfway house and help you find a job. So I’m thinking, Why not? That Oscar guy gave me a day pass today because I’ve been going a little crazy sitting around Fresh Start.
I hear you. You want a drink?
No, man. Shit, what did I just say? I can’t go back with booze on my breath. They’d throw me out and that’d be that.
You said you’re not an alcoholic.
I’m not.
One drink won’t fuck up your breath.
Sure it will. I’m no drunk but I’ve had a few drinks in my time. I know.
I bet. He doesn’t say anything more but he’s thinking about it, I can see it in his face. That look that says he’s getting a contact high just talking about drinking. I got the bottle I stole behind me. I feel it against the small of my back. The couple’s still dancing, the sun beating down on them, their long hair sticking to their necks. I remember this woman I met in a bar, The Déjà Vu, in my construction days. She worked at a Pizza Hut and asked me to dance. It was a slow number. A mirror ball turned slowly above our heads, all sorts of colored lights spinning on the floor and covering our bodies with thin hues of pink and purple and green that barely penetrated the dark. I held her, felt her tits on my chest, her waist against my belt buckle, the feel of her back against the palm of my hand. The press of her against me.
Well, if you change your mind, I say, and lean to one side and show him the bottle.
No thanks.
OK. You can sit down.
I don’t know.
OK.
I’m not drinking.
You can sit. No one will smell sitting on your breath.
He gives me a smirk, lowers himself to the ground, and crosses his legs. The band stops playing and exits the platform. I watch the couple return to their blanket. They don’t seem to notice the missing wine. She unzips a shoulder pack and takes out two plastic bags with sandwiches, and then she works her hand around inside it and removes a bag full of grapes. After handing the guy a sandwich, she takes out two glasses, looks left and right, and frowns. She says something to him and they get up and turn in circles, staring down at the blanket. OK, they’ve noticed now. I don’t want them to see me watching them, so I stop staring. I can’t resist though, and after a second or two I shoot a sidelong glance in their direction. Looks like they’re arguing, probably blaming each other for forgetting the wine. I feel sort of bad about that, but not too bad.
You sure you don’t want a drink?
I wouldn’t mind one, but what’ve I been telling you? I can’t.
More for me.
The guy smiles.
You know what they say.
What? the guy asks.
I don’t know. They say a lot of things.
He laughed.
You’re crazy.
Yeah, maybe.
I really want to get to work again, he says. I had a maintenance job at a country club in Walnut Creek, but I got laid off. I’ve been driving for Uber and Lyft but that doesn’t pay the bills. So I gave up my apartment and started staying in my car. I got to tell you when they put me in detox and I laid out in a real bed after weeks in my car—well, it was a cot, but you know what I’m saying—and I could stretch my legs, oh, man, did it feel good.
What kind of car?
Honda Civic.
Little thing.
Tell me about it.
I’m going to drink.
Do your thing, bro.
I reach behind me for the bottle. A new band has come on. A man growls out the Johnny Cash tune “Folsom Prison Blues.” The couple lean against each other like nothing else matters. That’s nice, I think. Good for them. It’s only a bottle of wine. I don’t feel anything about taking their wine now. Everything’s worked out. They can get another one without thinking. I can’t. The guy with me watches the couple too. Or maybe he’s just looking in their direction; I don’t know what’s going on in his head. That Pizza Hut gal kissed me on the cheek when we stopped dancing. Thank you, she said and went back to her table and the girls with her. I stood like a dumbass in the middle of the floor beneath the disco ball. I should’ve gone after her, but I wasn’t drunk enough to hit on her. By the time I was, she was gone. I wonder what would have happened if she and I had dated. I’d’ve taken her to a movie and a restaurant and shit like that. I’d’ve fucked with her, absolutely, but there’d be nights I’d sneak off to the bars. I was a drinker even then. I can hear the arguments we’d’ve had. I had them with other girlfriends. I’d’ve fucked it up like I did with them.
What you got there? the guy asks me.
I look at the wine label on the bottle.
Zinfandel, red.
You got the good shit.
Yeah.
No Thunderbird for you.
You know Thunderbird?
Oh, yeah. Those nights in my car, yeah. You hit the lottery.
Just got lucky.
It’s a corked bottle, not a twist-off. Like the guy said, This is the good shit. Searching the ground, I take a stick and press it against the cork inching it down until it drops into the bottle spurting wine. I scooch back to avoid the geyser. Raising the bottle to my mouth, I drink, spit out bits of cork. Sweet, but not as sweet as Thunderbird. That’s pure sugar compared to this. I take another hit. A warmth spreads through my body, rises to my head, expanding before it settles like a quilt and fills me with quiet. I close my eyes. This is what love feels like, I think, sinking deep into it. After a moment, I let out a deep breath, cringe at the pain in my chest. That brings me back. I open my eyes and raise the bottle toward the guy.
You sure?
He shakes his head.
All yours.
C’mon, man. One swallow. Won’t kill you. When do you have to be back?
Five.
Plenty of time. Get something to eat and you’ll be fine.
With what money? he asks.
Dumpster dive, I say.
No way am I digging in trash for food. I’m not there yet. They’ll have some soup in detox.
I hold the bottle out to him. He stares at it, shakes his head again.
C’mon.
What do you care? Do you want to fuck things up for me?
I take a swallow.
No. I’m just in a sociable mood.
Have you been in a program?
I have, I say, lowering the bottle.
What do you do in them? I mean, how do they work? I guess if they figure out I’m not a drunk they’ll just kick me out, right? And I’ll be back in my car. But I really want a halfway house and a job.
Listen, I tell him. You just sit around and go to AA meetings and talk about your emotions and stuff and how to deal with shit without drinking. You admit alcohol calls all the shots in your life, and you promise to swear off it a day at a time. They’ll talk about a higher power. Go all in on that. When they ask you stuff, just talk about times you’ve been drunk and make it sound like it was a daily thing. Don’t trip. It’s easy.
Do you know the one in Redwood City?
I was there. It’s nice. Lots of woods around it. Guys only. That’s kind of a drag. But all in all, it’s not bad. Good food.
Let’s see. I was at Redwood a year ago, maybe a little more. I graduated and got into Hospital Center, a halfway house in the Mission. I was doing good for almost two, no, three weeks. Yeah, three, and it was the strangest thing that happened that fucked things up. I’m out and about one afternoon, had gone by Fresh Start to show Katie how good I was doing, and then I left to go back to the Mission. I got to the corner of Van Ness and Golden Gate to catch a bus when I heard, Stop him! and this dude ran past me shoving people out of his way and tossing a purse I guess he’d snatched. Everyone kind of pulled back like, What the fuck? and he just barreled through us and then all these people chased after him. They crossed an intersection, stoplight flashing don’t walk, and knocked down a woman in a purple dress, and her purse fell and bounced off the sidewalk and onto Golden Gate, and I saw two twenty-dollar bills spin out of it, rising on currents, and I caught them, those twenties in my hand like pennants, and I’m so happy that I started running, like I don’t know what, man, I’m just so happy, I mean two twenties, who would’ve thought? But then some guy saw me and shouted, What’s he doing?, and the crowd took off after me, and man, I couldn’t run fast enough. Turning a corner, I plowed right into a cop. Whoa! he said, and then all these people came up behind me shouting shit about me, and I tried to explain I’d done nothing, but it was me against all those people who said they saw me steal money from a woman’s purse and some of them even said I stole the purse, and I’m going, The worst thing I did was take money from a fallen purse, but I was outnumbered and the cop wasn’t going to listen to me. I spent two nights in county before someone sorted things out and I got released. But by then I’d been kicked out of Hospitality Center for being absent without permission. I told my counselor what happened, but he wouldn’t let me back until he spoke to the police and verified my story. I could’ve stayed in a shelter and waited, but I was pissed off and bummed out and pissed off some more. Maybe I was relieved too. I had a hell of a good reason to start drinking again and I took it. When my counselor saw me on the street a few weeks later, he said, Walter, you live down to peoples’ expectations. He’s probably right, but I did have a good three weeks.
Trust me, I tell the guy. Do what I said. Tell some war stories about when you’ve been drunk, talk about how you’re turning your life over to your higher power and you’ll be cool.
My what?
It’s like God. You’ll see. Just do it.
OK, he says.
No one’s on the bandstand now. I feel a little chill, shiver, squint up at the sky. Blue mostly. Some haze coming in from the Richmond. I stretch and make a face at the ache in my chest. A doctor gave me pain pills but I left them in my room. He said they’re good for those special kinds of headaches. Hangovers I guess is what he was getting at.
Are you married?
Yeah, the guy says. I mean when I lost my job things got kind of bad between me and my wife. We started fighting and stuff. We were doing that before, but we really got into it when I didn’t have any money coming in. I mean good money, not what I was getting from Uber and Lyft. When we couldn’t afford our apartment, she left me to stay with her mom. But we’ve been talking and texting. If I get right with a job, I think she’ll come back.
And then you’ll just have regular fights.
Yeah, he says.
We both laugh.
That was a good one.
Redwood lets families visit on weekends, I say.
OK, he says.
He gets up. I raise my bottle but he shakes his head.
Good luck, I tell him.
See you.
I’ll be here.
He shoves his hands in his pockets and walks away. I thought maybe he’d reconsider, look back, turn around, and have a swallow, but he doesn’t. I guess he really doesn’t drink. Or he’s stopped for now. He’ll do his thing, his little scam, and I’m thinking he’ll pull it off too. I hope he does. I’m for anyone who can get over with some shit. He was OK. I guess I enjoyed talking to him. Enough anyway, but he was kind of an asshole. I mean, even if he wasn’t going to drink, he could’ve stuck around so I wouldn’t be left just sitting here.
The couple I stole the wine from are holding hands, their heads tilted, touching. Too late now, but I wonder what would’ve happened if I’d returned their wine. You know, I could’ve taken it and walked a few feet behind them and put it on the ground and pretended to stumble over it or something. Shit, I’d shout, and they’d turn to me and I’d hold up the bottle and say, Someone left their bottle and I almost broke my neck. That’s ours, they’d go, and I’d say, Oh, and give it to them. I could sue you, I’d say, making a joke. They’d laugh and thank me and laugh again wondering how it rolled off their blanket, and the guy’d shake my hand and she’d hug me. I’d feel every part of her and I’d hold her for as long as she’d let me, absorbing that feeling.
People around me start moving. No one’s followed that last group onto the bandstand so maybe this thing is over. I take another hit from my bottle. I wonder if anyone is watching me, like they do when I go through trash looking for to-go boxes with half-eaten McDonald’s and Chick-fil-A. I hate it when they stare and look sad for me. It makes me feel so alone and small. In a few months the guy who was just with me might be doing the staring. He might have a job and a place of his own again and be back with his wife. I bet he’s a drinker. I wonder if he’d recognize me. I don’t think so. Or maybe he would but he wouldn’t want me to see him. I’d be in on his secret.
I wish I hadn’t ruined the cork. I’ll stopper the bottle with something and go to my room and finish it there. I’d wanted to get out, but now that I’m here I’m thinking that if I’m going to be alone, I’d rather be alone out of sight. But I’m a little buzzed and don’t want to move. I close my eyes and see myself in my room nodding out. I wake up a couple of hours later, take one of those special pills and get out of bed and watch the sunset over the East Bay. In the fading light, shadows hide the fucked-up sink and cracked walls that remind me of the attic in my mom’s house with its cobwebs and mildew. I take out my Penthouse and speak to the foldout. I tell her about the guy I met and how he’s playing the system and how I hope he pulls it off, and about this young couple in love whose wine I took and how the woman reminded me of this girl I danced with like a hundred years ago in the Déjà Vu and how I can still feel her in my arms.
Miss June listens patiently, holding a bottle of wine between her tits. I’ll look after you, she tells me, tapping the wine with a finger. Surf bubbles up in surging foam around her ankles, and salty ocean air puffs up her hair carelessly, thick and wild about her face. She holds a wet, blond strand with her tongue and smiles. Shhh, she goes, but I keep talking. I apologize for the cockroaches and the rats. I tell her that before inviting people over I normally sweep the floor, clean the hot plate, pots, everything, leaving not a crumb to attract bugs or pests. I won’t be here long, I say. My referral will be up soon. Besides, living in a room is not me. With every breath I feel the silence. The walls hold the emptiness. I want to cry but I can’t reach that far down in me for the tears.
Miss June looks concerned. Then she smiles. Her eyes beckon me with a wink. I lift her above me toward the columned skyline. The reflected glow of city lights burns gold across the evening sky, tanning her body. She puckers her lips over the bottle and blows me a kiss. I lean forward, crying. I don’t know why but I’m carrying on like a child and she wipes my eyes and presses her fingers against my mouth and whispers, Shh, let’s not worry about anything now.