DRIVING TO THE STATION IN THE STILL-DARK MORNING, FIELDING flipped down the visor mirror and looked at himself.
Dang, he said.
I wasn’t going to say anything, Batey said.
Well yeh should have. I look like a crazy man.
You might be.
Yeh got any eye drops?
Batey pointed to the glove box.
If I do, he said, they’re in there.
Fielding opened the glove box and picked through the contents and found a small bottle at the bottom. He unscrewed the cap and squirted in a few drops and then did the other eye.
Looks like I’m cryin, he said.
That’s not unreasonable, Batey said. Given all this.
I haven’t been drunk in years, Fielding said. Maybe ten. Fifteen. Didn’t even get drunk when Sara passed. Can’t say I really care for it.
Well there’s not any good in it, Batey said. I’ll tell you that.
Yeh ain’t a drinker are yeh? Unless yeh hide somethin in that ginger ale.
No I am not, Batey said. Not anymore.
It a problem for yeh? Alcohol?
Problem don’t even scratch the enamel, partner.
Sorry that I showed up like this then, Fielding said. Probably stirs a few things up. For both you and Coraline.
Batey waved off the notion.
You got no problem with it, he said. I can tell. The ones who are invested are invested all the way. I can see it a mile off.
It’s only a bunch of trouble ain’t it?
Can be, Batey said. In the wrong hands.
How long yeh been?
Sober?
Yeah.
Well, Batey thought. Lola is twenty so that puts it at nine. Nine years.
That ain’t easy. Quittin and all.
No it isn’t.
Batey sipped some of his coffee.
Who was that fella, he continued, who had to push that boulder up the mountain for eternity?
Sisyphus.
Yeah, Batey said. Well, I believe old Sisyphus had the better deal.
Yeh both cheated death anyway.
I certainly cheated myself, Batey said. There’re big blocks of time I don’t even remember living through. That’s what I missed out on. Lots of time. And that’s a kind of death of its own. Years of my life. Years when the girls were just babies. Toddlers. Their first steps. First words. That’s all a void to me. One big empty space. True darkness, partner. I might as well have been dead.
He sipped his coffee again. The road thrummed under the tires. The wind came at the Bronco sideways and tried to heel the truck like a boat.
I locked horns with the devil, Batey said. And the only thing the devil isn’t ever going to do is lose. That’s up to us. The thing about real good drinking is that when you’re good at it, you’re good at it. It’s pedal to the metal. Time stops in your head and you start acting like you missed something and need to catch up for all that lost time.
Batey said, You know Cora loves to garden and when things got really bad, I used to watch her out there pulling up all them weeds around the carrots and the beans and lettuce and I remember thinking: if only she could pull out the weeds in me. And when I finally kicked it I told her that really dedicated drinking lets things get out of hand and when you ultimately want to kick it the addiction is like a weed that you’ve let go too long and when you finally do something about it and tear it up you can’t tell which is which and you start pulling out all the good stuff too. That’s what I was afraid of. By that point I didn’t know what was good or bad in me. In a lot of ways it’s like learning to walk again. But then one day a mountain of water rushes over you and you hear things more vividly and the sun feels good again and all that patience and all that perseverance—it pays you back. You tell the devil you’ve had enough. You tell him he won and then when his back is turned you run like hell.
Batey raised his mug of coffee.
And that’s what I’ve been doing. Just trying to stay a few miles ahead of the devil.
Sounds exhausting, Fielding said.
You bet, Batey said. But Cora picks up on it. She can see it. Can see it when I’m worn out. Not a day she makes me go it alone.
You’re a lucky man, Fielding said.
You bet, Batey said. Luckiest goddamn guy in the world. Back from the dead. Full-on Lazarus.
A stoplight turned red. He stopped the Bronco. Batey leaned forward on the wheel with his wrist curled over the top and looked out the windshield. Said, I’m sorry I brought you into all this. I really am. We could’ve just been coffee and cigar buddies. Talking about the past and spitting in the dirt. But now. Well . . .
We still got time to smoke cigars, Fielding said.
Yeah, Batey said. But the devil’s got his horns in this mess too. And this isn’t something we can outrun.
No it ain’t, Fielding said. Only way this ends is if the devil loses.