We’ve Gotta Go Downstairs.
In my quest to get away from Larry without actually leaving him, I started fights with him and then disappeared to bars. I walked to the Sharwood, then drank with whatever guy bought me drinks.
But one night I wanted to go to my favorite bar, Paul’s Place, across the bridge, so I took the car. I settled in with the dinner crowd, and I was still drinking when the bar closed.
I was smashed.
Owner Paul was the bartender. A man in his mid-forties, Paul never struck me as being particularly interesting or attractive. But on this night, with Larry nowhere around, Paul suddenly showed great interest in me. I drank for free all night long and at the end of the night, Paul had a surprise.
“Wanna do a line?” he asked.
I had never known him to do cocaine so I was very enthusiastic. When would I not want to do a line? “Sure!” I said.
“We’ve gotta go downstairs,” he said. “I don’t want to share with just anybody.” I looked around at the smattering of people – all old, wasted men – and I nodded. I didn’t want to share with them, either.
So Paul and I went downstairs.
We walked into a bedroom – a bed, a dresser, even a bathroom in the basement under a cinder block building. No windows, no light.
Paul turned on a tiny lamp and pulled out a vial of cocaine. He laid out two lines on a mirror and snorted one immediately. He held the mirror for me carefully, and I snorted my line obediently. Paul took the mirror and straw – a rolled bill – and put them down.
Then he kissed me. Hard.
Oh, I thought. I guess we’re doing this now.
Paul and I were on the bed before I knew what was happening. I wanted more cocaine, but it wasn’t my cocaine to dole out, so I just had the sex instead.
At some point, when I was having sex with the bartender I did not like, there was a knock on the door.
Paul yelled, “Come in!” as though it were a party.
In walked Rich, a man I really didn’t like.
“Hey,” Paul said. He hopped up, naked, and laid out three lines of cocaine.
We each did one, two of us naked.
Paul tossed himself back down on the bed. “C’mere, Sweetheart,” he beckoned.
I sat down on the edge of the bed. Rich was still standing there, staring.
I started to get up and walk away, back to upstairs, back to the safety of the bar, but Rich blocked my exit with his whole self.
Paul laughed. Then Rich laughed.
I was happy about the new cocaine. But I did not laugh.
“Just join in whenever,” Paul said, and he started kissing me again, both of us falling together onto the bed in the tiny room.
As though my payment for the cocaine was to do whatever Paul wanted me to do. And I guess it was.
I’d been drinking for eight hours, at least. I’d had two lines of cocaine and four million beers. My head was fuzzy and spinning, and there was nothing in me that deemed this little game “okay” but I figured it made more sense to go through with it than to try and fight these two old men.
When it was over I begged for another line, and they laughed.
They laughed a lot.
I got another line. I’d paid for it.
Upstairs, I ordered another beer and drank until the knocking started.
And the yelling.
Larry was outside.