Half A Dozen Beers Before Lunch
Stanley caught a glimpse of waking and grabbed it. He pulled himself hand over hand out of a tepid fen of dream and unconsciousness. He forced one elbow under his back then another and lifted himself up on them. He shook his head. He opened his eyes. He climbed out of bed, lost his balance, corrected it, reached to the porcelain basin and turned on the water. He washed his face in hot water, shaved, washed his face in cold water, flicked water under his arms, dressed himself in corduroy and wrinkled cotton.
As he plodded to the door, he glanced at his watch. It was nine in the morning. The fog out the window hung no higher than the ceiling of his room. He had a cold, and the air burned his nose and throat.
The streets were empty and wet from a lifting mist. Before lumbering off, Stanley ran his finger through his auburn hair, patted his beer belly and admitted to himself that he was bored to death with San Francisco.
At a bus stop, he joined two men with greased hair, maroon and henna, and stiletto sunglasses. Stanley commented on the weather. They smiled. The bus pulled up and the three of them got on. The men sat in the front next to the driver. Stanley moved to the back.
Stanley stared blankly out the window and tried to remember the times when he had loved this town at every view, at every Victorian. That was years ago during a warm summer, or rather an early summer that lasted longer than usual before sinking into the fog and rain that Stanley had once considered ethereal. There had been no summer this year. It was the end of August. August used to afford such luxuriously hot nights fit only for prowling the town until closing time, drinking with friends, walking the streets, even riding the cable cars.
But it was such a bore now. For all the changes that he and the city had gone through, Stanley could ponder his estrangement with the town that he had chosen for a home no more than that. What a bore.
He resigned himself to the bad taste in his mouth. The possibility that he felt the way he did because of his inability to find work occurred to him. He remembered when he tended bar at the hottest meat rack in town and had all the money he needed as well as all the nose, sex, booze dope, clothes. He caught the reflection of his curled lip in the bus window as it passed through a tunnel. He had no fond memories of those times. If he had that kind of money now, he'd get out of this town, but where would he - Stanley managed to force the train of thought out of his mind. The bus stopped at a light, and he found himself looking at the sign of a tanning parlor. He would go someplace where it was warm, for God's sake. What the hell was he doing in a town where the hot summer night is as rare as -.
He got off at Stockton Street and decided to walk the five blocks through Chinatown to North Beach. The Chinese never used to bother him. Now he sometimes wanted to scream at them for squawking on the bus. An old Chinese woman stood at a sidewalk shop sorting through a box of roots. She dropped one in Stanley's path. Without breaking his rambling stride, he picked it up and handed it back to her. She thanked him. He'd done his good deed for the day. He felt better. He looked down towards the bay as he crossed an intersection and found the view completely uninspiring.
He realized that he was becoming redundant, but he remembered that the day before yesterday he had decided that it didn't matter whether he was redundant of not. He looked about himself and noticed other landmarks reminiscing how he had once loved them and thinking how they bored him.
The smell of marzipan almost strangled him as he entered North Beach just across Broadway. That's almost as bad as the overall ripeness of Chinatown, he thought. Wind gusted out of nowhere and slapped Stanley in the face. He looked up at the fog just to see the sun break through. Big deal, thought Stanley.
He walked into a dim bar and ignored anyone he recognized. He ordered a beer. The bartender commented on Stanley's funk as he slid the beer towards him. Stanley did not respond. The beer and the darkness calmed him. The night before came to mind.
He hated it when the room spins around him on a late night, when he finally makes it home alone, when he can't find a bar dark enough to hide his muddy, drunken expression or loud enough to disguise his slurred words that isn't filled with sour mouthed drunks trying for a last chance for a pickup or one more person to bemoan the state of their affairs to. He always starts out in the right direction. He goes to the proper bars pulsing with the latest Brazilian chanteuse and filled with a well-dressed crowd looking for dinner dates and bed mates. But he can't break the barriers of sober diffidence, of pretentious reserve, his or anyone else's. So he gets drunk and ends up in a dark bar for a while before giving up and going home to watch the walls do their dance.
For some reason he couldn't sit the evening out in one particular bar. He knew he wasn't alone in that respect because all or any of the people who seemed interesting to him in the indirectly lit bars seemed to leave before they got drunk. He would drop into innumerable bars, have a quick drink and glance around to see if there was anyone worth thinking about talking to. If there was, he'd think about it, and they left. Once in a while someone would come up to him and try and start a conversation. He'd always be very polite and really make a genuine attempt to find something interesting about them. But he knew in the back of his mind that the mere fact that they made themselves available to him canceled out any chance of something exciting developing. Maybe he ought to get used to those spinning walls or go home with some drunk he met in a dark bar. Personally, he would rather go home to his spinning walls than with some blurry face. No, that's not true.
The bartender stood in front of Stanley and asked if he wanted another beer. Stanley nodded. The bartender asked if his unemployment had run out. Stanley shook his big head and crinkled his eyes shut.
“It’s a crazy world out there.”, grumbled the bartender. “Always was, always will be. A lady friend of mine just joined a Christian cult and killed her pet cat because it was a link to her past.” The bartender turned and left Stanley to his funk.
Stanley recently heard a story from an acquaintance of his told in candid confidence, unfurled unexpectedly. He was raised in a time and place most exemplary of the era that we now so cherish with Madison Avenue nostalgia - The Golden Fifties. At nineteen, he had finished high school and, presumably before his entrance into college found a job at a sporting goods store, not just a run of the mill sporting goods store that sold pup tents and basket balls but the very best of the burgeoning sports fashion industry. It was owned and run by seventy-year-old man who had decided to invest his savings and open his business in an exclusive suburb. The acquaintance had entered into the old man's employ innocently enough but within two weeks, he was participating with the rest of the employees in flagrant larceny. All of them were young, well off and bored. They maintained a constant theft that eventually bankrupted the owner. It was a crime inspired out of post adolescent male competition. None of the young thieves, all or most of whom had been members of the high school football team and promised to be top candidates for scholarships at the local and nationally renowned university needed any of the merchandise they stole. They never used the majority of it. None of the never convicted felons experienced any more than fleeting guilt even when the owner placed a placard in the window of his shop claiming that he was being robbed and forced out of business. The community took the whole thing in stride, undoubtedly turning a very blind eye to a large number of overstuffed closets and garages. Most of the parents were too busy watching the president play golf.
The bartender was back to replace Stanley's empty beer bottle with a full one. He tried a paternal approach this time, buying the beer for Stanley and telling him that a friend of his could get Stanley a job driving a cab. Stanley smiled and did not respond. The bartender shrugged.
Stanley pictured a small apartment of the coast of California. Daylight was filtering through cheap but clean curtains. A woman was rushing frantically from room to room. A child was sitting on a worn couch listening to the muttering of his mother. "One suitcase and three dresses and two uniforms. And there's the diapers and the baby's blanket. He'll wear his coat. He'll wear his shoes. And there's this pants and shirts, two and three, and the bunnyfoot pyjamas. The nylons! Can't forget the nylons! And my coat. I'll wear my coat. Put it on. No! Put it on the way out the door. Set it here by the - there's no pictures. There's the baby pictures, and mom and dad and the big family shot with the boys. Those damn books. Where in heaven's name am I going to put my Merk's manual? Thank God the baby's quiet. Judah's priest! Half an hour! Yes please, 1618 Green Street. I have a plane to catch in half an hour. Christ on a crutch! I can't close the suitcase. What was that crack? Am I breaking it? I heard a - what? What's this? Tingling? My hands are tingling! Christ, there's no feeling in my hands! There's no - Stanley's crying! We're going on a trip, honey. A vacation. We're going to San Francisco, Stanley. A great big city that's all white. God! My hands. Come on, honey. Come on. Here's the blanket. Here we go. One suitcase. There's the door. Sh! It's the nice man in the taxi to take us to the airport. There we go. One suitcase and the baby. Be right there. Oh, yes. Thank you. Yes. In twenty minutes. My coat! I forgot my coat! Be right there. Damn. It's starting to rain. No, Stanley. Listen to the rain. Isn't it refreshing? And the wind is refreshing, blowing away all the - be quiet, honey. Oh, thank you. Yes, the airport. Only twenty minutes. Stop crying, honey. No, daddy isn't coming. Daddy is at work. He'll see us later. Now be quiet and let's look at the cars in the rain. Look honey, a DeSoto. There's a Chevy. Chevy. Chevrolet! I can't feel a damn thing in my hands. What? No! It's nothing. I have to catch a plane in fifteen - a door. I ran into a door! Is it that bad? I'm not crying! The baby's crying! We’re getting in now, honey. Here we go, honey. No, we’ll see daddy later. Look! There’s the airport and there’s our plane! Up to the gate as close as you can, driver! Oh my God! The ramp’s empty! They’ve already loaded! There’s the gate! Open the door! Get my suitcase! I’m gonna miss the plane! Close your eyes, Stanley! We’re gonna take a run in the rain! Thank you, driver! I have the baby! Gimme the suitcase! We’re gonna run, Stanley! We’re gonna make it, Stanley! We’re gonna make it!”
Stanley shook his head and pressed his eyes. "I'll have another one, Bill."
The bartender swaggered up and looked Stanley in the eyes. "Say, Stanley, if you're broke, why don't you get those five hundred bucks back from your friend the dealer? After all, you lent it to him when you couldn't afford to."
"His wife left him and took their kid back east."
"The rat.", snarled the bartender. "If I ever see him, I'd get it back for you."
Stanley smiled into his beer. "No need, Bill. He hit seventeen with a five."
The air was almost icy. There was no wind. He stretched his legs in an invigorated pace and felt enthralled with the fact that he was racing along a hill high above the beautiful city of San Francisco on his way to purchase a gram of coke.
Tom lived at the end of a brick alley. Stanley walked through a manicured Italian garden that fronted the house and knocked on the door. Dianna answered. Tom made a very good choice in marrying this woman. Behind her drug induced ebullience stood the strength of a sincere and intelligent person. She welcomed Stanley in and offered him a drink. They talked about the Christmas tree that filled a quarter of the living room. Dianna commented on how nice it was to have the house smell of pine. She swept the loose needles from around the tree and wondered out loud whether Tom ever missed his sense of smell.
Tom came in and welcomed Stanley. They immediately began talking about the quality of the coke - from the same chemist, from dear friends who Tom trusted completely, how Tom never stepped on the stuff. He started to bring Stanley into the kitchen but there was some problem with Dianna that Stanley didn't catch so they returned to the living room. Tom asked if Stanley had the time to have it sifted. He did and they ended up in the kitchen anyway. Tom brought out a bag containing a couple of ounces and rolled and stroked it as he talked about its quality - no speed, a cerebral high, very little burn. Since Stanley had made the effort to pick it up, he should have a little treat. They both shared a long line then Stanley stretched back in a kitchen chair as Tom weighed and poured the gram onto a screen then ground it through, flaking the already snowy cocaine into a fine, fluffy powder. When he finished, he emptied the aerated dust into a paper with the chemical formula of cocaine printed on it.
Before Stanley could get out the door, Tom asked him if he would like to smoke some Persian heroin. He had talked of it before, wanting to share some with Stanley. He said Stanley should take the opportunity to experience the ritual of chasing the dragon. He rummaged through the living room awhile before coming up with a folded piece of tin foil and tin foil tube. He unfolded the foil and showed Stanley a light brown maze traced on the inside. At one end was a small round blob. He lit a match and with one hand holding the foil pipe, heated the blob from beneath, tilted the foil and followed it slowly with the tube as it slid away issuing a barely visible trace of smoke which he inhaled deeply. He repeated the process while Stanley inhaled. The heroin immediately cut any jitters from the coke. Dianna appeared in the doorway and the two of them finished off the rest of it. Stanley remembered Dianna's smuggling bust in Florida, the horrible fear of being extradited, the success of her lawyers in getting her tried in California. He remembered the time he was out with the two of them and a friend had asked her about her time in prison. She had made a sudden violent effort to control her emotions. But the paranoid memories began to fade as the heroin took effect. The three of them talked about getting together Christmas day and Tom informed Stanley that he would be dealing only up until the first of the year as was Dianna's request. After all, the baby was due in four months.
Stanley thanked them and said that he was glad that they would be out of business soon. He stood by the Christmas tree for a moment noticing its perfume for the first time. Then he was off and into the bracing cold night.
A rotund man in a tee shirt too small for him bought Stanley the next round. "Say, Stanley, I hear you're broke! I'm sorry to hear that. Don't you have any rich relatives? What a guy like you need is an inheritance, Stanley." He cuffed Stanley on the shoulder and walked over to a trio sitting at a table. "Everybody needs an inheritance at least once in their life!"
Stanley lifted his beer.
Though they were delirious with each other during their intense affair and became best friends after it was over, Stanley never managed to get along with her two brothers and sister. When he arrived at her grave ceremony they were huddled together over the open grave. At least a hundred people stood in clumps and semi-circles around her flower smothered coffin as the non-sectarian minister gave the eulogy. Stanley knew that she would not have wanted to be sent off this way, but she had always been too busy enjoying herself to bother with the sufficient planning necessary to convince the myriad of acquaintances, friends, loved ones and lovers gathered around her grave that the best way to bid her adieu would be to consume themselves with whatever sort of pleasure they saw fit.
Stanley mentioned something on that line to her youngest brother. He was informed frigidly that a tragic death required tragic mourning. Any further attempt at conversation with any of the three was cut short with looks so cold they bordered on hostility. Stanley fell into a quiet brooding as the minister droned on. He was taken aback by their animosity. He smiled at the older brother who glared back hatefully. Shocked by the response, he stepped back. He tried smiling warmly at the sister. When she realized he was looking at her, she began to whimper then burst into sobs startling the minister and halting the eulogy.
This launched the two brothers into such vehement vituperation that Stanley became concerned they were going to physically attack him. The sister overcame her hysteria and joined in. Stanley was about to leave the grave site entirely when one spurt of verbal abuse came out perfectly clear. Stanley was the sole beneficiary of her will.
Why was it only him? How could he have known? How could he be at fault? Questions packed his mind and made a frantic attempt to express themselves simultaneously resulting in incomprehensible sputtering. A piece of saliva flew out of Stanley's mouth and into the mouth of the sister. The woman screamed horribly and came at him with scarlet fingernails and lipstick-stained teeth bared. He swung out of panic and self-defense and caught her square across the jaw. She staggered back howling and clutched the youngest brother who, in his attempt to support her and swing at him, slipped against the oldest brother with such force that the three of them tumbled into the open grave.
Stanley felt half hungry, half high and much better as he ordered his sixth beer. He glanced at his watch. It was eleven thirty. Stanley yearned for the sudden hot, muggy nights that appear and vanish rarely in San Francisco at any time of the year, sometimes even in the middle of winter. He lifted his beer and took three long, luxurious gulps.
She smiled and looked down at the bar. A few strands of hair drifted in front of her face and brushed the lime in her gin and tonic. Her pale blue eyes rolled up and looked at Stanley.
"Your skin is exceedingly white."
"Not so popular these days.", she smiled.
"Almost translucent." he whispered, tracing her cheek with his thumb.
"I have difficulty keeping a tan."
"Alabaster."
"How sweet.", she mumbled.
The small, well-formed fingers of her hand tapped the table top. Stanley covered them with his big square fingers.
"You're awfully big, Stanley. I'm only five foot five."
"I've seen few women's hands as pretty as yours."
She looked at him with whimsical lust. When he asked her to his place, she got up to make for the door. He mentioned that she had left her purse next to her half empty glass. She batted the air as if trying to slap down an annoying insect, grabbed his hand, pulled him to his feet and out the door. He took her down the block and into the middle of the next. They stopped between two bars in front of a small alcove framed by a latticed steel door. They walked up two flights of steps then up a narrow, twisting stairway.
"The penthouse.", Stanley muttered as he unlocked two deadbolts and ushered her into a room framed in brown shuttered windows and furnished with worn oriental rugs and stuffed furniture. She said that the cluttered, nonchalant order of the place reminded her of the tents of Bedouin merchants depicted in faded color illustrations from adventure novels she had read as a child. She noticed a large, dimly lit aquarium blurred with slowly waving plants, lazy bubbles and a very large drifting garibaldi staring at her with bored indifference.
She heard a grunt behind her and turned to see Stanley sprawled on a sunken bed enclosed by three walls of paneled mirrors. Later, she would laugh at the memory of her good taste in interior design shattered by the defiant delight she took in watching the two of them writhing away. She sat on the edge of the bed which gave in as though it were stuffed with down and threw her on top of him. She asked if he actually slept on feather cushions, but a telltale spring announced that he slept on something far more rare, a perfectly broken down mattress.
Stanley smiled. "Well?"
"Well, what?"
"Take off your clothes."
She was taken aback less by his demand than by herself for being charmed by it. "Why don't you take off your clothes?"
Stanley shrugged and obliged. She watched him remove each piece of clothing. "Of all the designer's layers of cashmere overcoats, Egyptian cotton shirts, pressed wool pants, silk under pants and socks all pushed on the premise that God and country are searching for the height of desirability, you fit into crumpled corduroy pants, a worn plastic windbreaker, a wrinkled cotton button down and cotton under pants with more sexual allure than any haute couture model could dream of."
Stanley grinned and patted his beer belly. "And there's this."
She informed him that a body without fat was inhuman, that people are programmed to store fat and if there ever was a real test for survival, those with a good proportion of stored fat would have the best chance of making it. Health fanatics reminded her of insects. She could never make love to an insect. Then she blushed. She realized that Stanley was naked, and she was fully clothed. He helped her pull open the buttons of her blouse. He spread his fingers over her breasts, caressing them and exposing them. He lifted them gently then let them rest against her body. He followed through with the rest of her clothes. They lowered themselves into each other's arms. They devoured each other. The mattress did not squeak.
"Oh, you have a little Christmas tree.", she murmured, untangling herself from Stanley with a sigh and sitting up. " I didn't notice it."
"To tell you the truth, I believe more in a Christmas tree than I believe in the God awful trial of Christmas.”, Stanley muttered. "There's something about Ol' Tannenbaum that sticks to you like a dog you picked up at the pound. You can't get rid of it until it's had its time. It sort of sits there smiling at me, nothing but a God damned tree with baubles on it. I don't know what comes over me putting up some kind of tree like some kind of sap."
"But that tree is beautiful. You can't talk that way. You should always get a tree if you can afford it. You said it yourself. It's more real than Christmas to you. It's something beautiful and temporary that you adopted, you made. Do you always hang bus transfers on it?"
"The last couple of years."
"I love it. You are no sap, Stanley. You are a beacon."
"You know, that was really great.", Stanly purred, curling up around her knees and breathing the hot, thick hair that hung in the room. "Won't you stay the night?"
She looked at the bloated fish suspended in the aquarium and the Christmas tree lights glowing in soft pastels amongst the bus transfers. Stanley rubbed his cheek against her thigh. "Won't you stay the night?"
Stanley finished the last beer, said goodbye to the bartender and left the bar reveling in a warm buzz. The sun had burned through the fog and the wind played havoc with the hair of passersby. This city always looks better with half a heat on, thought Stanley. Ah, marzipan.
