Death Will Get You Sober: A New York Mystery; Bruce Kohler #1 (Bruce Kohler Series) Read Online Free PDF Page B

ex-wife and I put it on rewind for a few hours. It was a relief in more ways than one. My mental checklist for sobriety: One, don’t drink. Two, go to a meeting. Three, see if I can still get it up. I could.
    Seeing Barbara had been weird but nice. Jimmy lucked out with her. I usually got the girls. Jimmy thought he would end up with one of those Catholic girls from Queens who wouldn’t wear patent leather shoes because they might reflect up their dress. Barbara’s smart, she’s funny, she can talk the hind leg off a donkey, and she’s crazy about Jimmy. I enjoy her little foibles and the way she tries to take care of me, an uphill task if I ever saw one.
    God and I got back at about the same time. He was still the closest thing I had to a friend in detox. His ugly side hadn’t turned toward me yet. No one else was exempt. God didn’t worry about getting knifed because he didn’t plan to stick around on the Bowery. I couldn’t curb my curiosity about him. He had a presence. You couldn’t ignore him. I wanted to hear more about his family. What hadn’t he told me? Why had they stopped speaking to him? Why did he clam up? I asked how his day out had been.
    “Interesting. Made a few overdue calls. Annoyed a few people.” He smiled rather nastily.
    Dinner featured mystery meat as usual. A culinary arts training program that served as work release for felons did the detox catering. I’m not making this up. Everyone kept more than usually silent during the meal. It had been a stressful day for some. Three guys hadn’t made it back. They were out there copping drugs or in a doorway with a bottle. Two more had tried to get back in but been kicked out as soon as the breathalyzer lit up on them. Those were the Strike Threes. One or two more would most likely get thrown out when the lab results came back in a day or two. I didn’t see any empty seats, though. Business in these places always booms after major holidays. Especially New Year’s Eve. Now there’s a holiday with no traditions whatsoever. If you don’t count getting blitzed and counting backwards from twelve.
    A video provided the evening’s entertainment. Big thrill. Foreplay consisted of the usual squabble between what the guys wanted and what the staff wanted. That meant something with a lot of noise, automatic weapons, explosions, and at least one car chase versus something silly and harmless that they thought might make us laugh, like
I Love Lucy
. Even drunks on the Bowery laugh at Lucy.
    I had seen too many movies and TV shows on acid to find whatever they chose anything but boring. Instead, I hung out in the smoking room trying to decide what I wanted to do when they discharged me tomorrow. The lady or the tiger? A meeting or the nearest bar? By 9:30 I hadn’t even figured out if AA or the booze was the tiger. I went and lay on my bed, staring at the ceiling until the movie ended and the guys started drifting in. Just after lights out, about 10:30, I heard the small sounds of God undressing and getting into the bed next to mine. He called out a gruff good night. I mumbled one back without opening my eyes.
    I couldn’t sleep. Alcoholic jet lag. My old sleep pattern, up all night and zonked all day, wouldn’t do if I stayed sober. About half an hour passed. Then I heard God get out of bed, presumably to go to the bathroom. I must have dozed and missed him coming back, because later I heard him get up again. When he came back, I propped myself up on one elbow. It never got really dark in the ward. The unshaded windows looked out on streetlights and neon signs outside the stores and bars across the street.
    “You okay, fella?”
    “Terrible cramps.” He sat doubled up on the edge of the bed looking kind of greenish, though some of that was the light from the nearest sign. Beads of sweat glistened on his forehead.
    “You want me to get the night nurse?”
    “No, I’ll be fine,” he said on a gasp. “Just want to lie here.”
    I lay back down.