When I’m done, I throw all the bottles and cans into a blue plastic recycling bag and take it down two flights and out to the curb, where it will sit for God knows how many days before it’s picked up. It’s a fantastic day at the very beginning of fall. The air is clear, with the slightest chill. I go back in and get the piled-up mail from my box. I go upstairs and sort through all the bills, the advertising and credit card and calling card and insurance card offers, which leaves me with a letter from my mom and a jury duty notice. I empty the cat box. Yvonne filled Bud’s food thing and made sure he had plenty of water, but she left the crap for me. That’s all right. I take the bag with the kitty litter and junk mail out to the curb and put it next to the blue bag full of empty booze bottles. I wonder if I missed something, if maybe there’s still a full can of beer in there or the dregs of that sake. The air is just as cool as it was before, but I break a little sweat. This could be harder than I thought. I go back up, grab the phone, call my dealer and tell him I need some grass. He says he’ll be right over.

The days I spent in the hospital got me through the worst of the shakes and nausea of coming off a binge, but I had a little help from the morphine they gave me. Before I checked out, the doctor set me up with a bottle ofVicodin, but I don’t like pills, they make me feel stupid. The bag Tim is bringing over should bridge the gap.

Tim is a regular from Paul’s. He’s a forty-four-year-old jazz head and boozer who got lucky. A few years ago, Tim was a junkie living off welfare and the aluminum cans he picked out of other people’s trash. Then he fell into a great job and got himself off junk. The job: deliveryman for a dealer. Every morning, Tim goes to his boss’s office, where he and the other delivery guys pick up a list of clients and the product. They handle pot, hash, mushrooms, acid, and coke, and they will deliver to your home or office for no additional fee. Tim wanders all over the city, receiving a per-delivery commission and carefully saving his taxi receipts so he can get reimbursed at the end of the day. He carries a little extra grass so he can make impromptu deals on the side. He will also, in the course of the day, consume at least a fifth of Irish whiskey and some beer. Let’s faceit, you don’t kick junk without filling that hole with something else. Everyone has to figure out a way to get through the day and booze is a very popular strategy. Tim is what we call a functioning alcoholic.

I let him into the apartment and he flops on the couch. Tim was at the bar when I got worked over. He holds his backpack in his lap and looks me over.

– Hey, man, how you feel?

I tell him I feel OK. We chat about folks from the bar while I slipKind of Blue into the CD player and Tim rolls a joint. We light up. Tim is a professional and informs me in detail about the weed we are smoking: it is a Virginian crossbreed of a classic skunk and a very potent Thai stick.

– Most importantly, this shit was raised in the wild, not in a hydroponics tank by some mad scientist. Hold the smoke. Hold the smoke,man, you can taste the mountain air.

I cannot, in fact, taste the mountain air, but I am getting high and, as I do, I start to think less about having a drink.

– Hey, you got anything to drink around here?

So much for that.

Tim takes off a short while later. He’s a true boozer; if he doesn’t have a belt soon, his hands will start to shake. On his way out, I give him some cash for the bag and he waves as he goes down the hall, then stops for a moment.

– Hey, did you ever find out what was up with those assholes, why they had it in for you?

I tell him it beats me and he says so did they and gives a lame laugh, realizing it’s a bad joke. Then he leaves. Itis a bad joke, but it’s a great question, and as soon as I can think straight, I’ll deal with it.

You can only smoke so much pot. I have smoked a great deal already and it’s time for a break. I really just want to have it around to smooth out the edges for the next week or so. I figure after that I should be in good shape. This is not the first time I’ve stopped drinking. I’ve hopped on the wagon a couple of times to see how it would go and, the fact is, with the kind of motivation I have, I don’t expect to have much trouble.Just as soon as I get the system all flushed out. But right now I’m just sitting here alone in my apartment with someone else’s cat in my lap, listening to the Clash’sCombat Rock, being unemployed and in debt and thinking about beer. I decide to do the laundry.

Tasks are good when you’re trying to give up something. They keep you occupied and make your life seem useful. I stuff my dirty clothes in a sack. I grab a handful of quarters from my change jar, but on the way to the door, I stop. Bud has a little blanket in his carry box and I decide to wash that too. Russ should be back in a day or two and it would be nice if Bud has a clean blanket. This is the way I think. It’s my mom’s fault. I grab the blanket and pull and it snags on something in the box. I tug harder and hear the blanket rip a little. I put the laundry sack down, get on my hands and knees, and reach into the box tounsnag the blanket.

Paul’sBar closes at 4:00A.M. On a Thursday it’s usually all regulars by 2:00A.M. So when I’m working, that’s when I start my serious drinking. Last Thursday there were about ten regulars hanging out in the place and I was starting to get my head on when the big guys came in. They plop down at the far end of the bar and I wander over. These guys are genuinely big; even sitting on the stools, they loom a little. But big means nothing, I’m more curious about the way they’re dressed. Both guys are wearing Nike tracksuits: one in black, one in white. They are sporting several gold chains each, which go well with the gold-rimmed Armani sunglasses they both have propped up on their shaved heads. These guys are not our usual crowd. I take them for Poles or Ukrainians left over from the old neighborhood before the East Village went Latino and then arty and now yuppie. They order anAmstel Light and a cosmopolitan.Each. They haveRussianic accents. And this is still far from the weirdest pair we’ve ever had in the place, so I fix the drinks and take the cash and they say thank you.

As I walk back down the bar to get my own drink and resume my game of movie trivia on theMegaTouch, I hear cursing behind me. I turn and the guy in the white tracksuit is holding hiscosmo like the glass is full of vomit.

– This is shit.

He turns the glass upside down and spills it on the bar. The guy in black tastes his and promptly spits it back up, also on the bar.

– This is also shit. I cannot drink this.

To prove his point, he takes another sip and spits it on the bar,then he stands and walks to the trash and drops the drink, glass and all, into the can.

I don’t like to fight. I have fought very little in my life, but what I have noticed is that even when you win, you get hurt. I work out four days a week and take boxing and self-defense on the weekends. I have steel-toed boots and a Buck knife. I have an ax handle behind the bar. None of this will help, because I don’t want to fight and these guys clearly do. I smile. I walk down the bar to the two tracksuits, a smile plastered on mysemidrunk face, radiating joy and love. I am Martin Luther King. I am Gandhi. I will ask these gentlemen if they would prefer another drink or their money back. I will carefully wipe their spit off the bar and all will be at peace, because I don’t want to fight. They sit at the end of the bar,Amstels untouched, the one upturnedcosmo glass before them and, as I approach, they both slip their sunglasses over their eyes like they’ve been blinded by my smile. And that is when I notice the small, girlish and simply beautiful hands they both have. I am not afraid. These men are lovers, not fighters. These men are concert pianists with graceful digits made for music, not pugilism.