Man Who Killed His Brother

I Was sitting at the bar of the Hegira that night when Ginny came in. The barkeep, an ancient sad-eyed patriarch named Jose, had just poured me another drink, and I was having one of those rare moments any serious drunk can tell you about. A piece of real quiet. Jose's cheeks bristled because he didn't shave very often, and his apron was dingy because it didn't get washed very often, and his fingernails had little crescents of grime under them. The glass he poured for me wasn't all that clean. But the stuff he poured was golden-amber and beautiful, like distilled sunlight, and it made the whole place soothing as sleepwhich drunks know how to value because they don't get much of it. It made the dull old fly-brownsantosagainst the wall behind the bottles look like the saints knew what they were doing and it made the drinkers at the tables look peaceful and happy. It made the men playing pool in the back of the room look like they were moving in slow motion, flowing through the air as if it were syrup. It made Jose look wise and patient behind his stubble and his groggy eyes. It was one of those rare moments when everything is in the right place, and there's soft gold light shining on it, and you feel like you're being healed. It never lastsbut you always think it will, if you just stay where you are and don't stop drinking. By the curious logic of the drunk, I felt I'd earned it. After all, I'd been drinking most of the time for several days now, just trying to create that amber glow for myself. So when Ginny walked in the doorwhen every head in the bar turned to stare at herI didn't know which to feel first, surprise or resentment. There wasn't any doubt she was looking for me. I had the right to be surprised. For one thing, she had no business walking into the Hegira like thatespecially at night. The Hegira is down in the old part of Puerta del Sol, on Eighth Street between Oak and Maple. Cities are like that: The old partswhere the descendants and countrymen of the founders livehave street names like "Eighth" and "Oak." The rich suburbshalf of them built in the last ten yearshave flashier names like "Tenochtitlan" and "Montezuma." And in the old part of town women don't go into bars at all. When the Chicano and Mestizo and Indian women want their men to come out, they stand on the sidewalk and send in their children. As Ginny pushed her way through the door, scanned the room, and came striding over toward me, the quiet buzz of voices stopped. Jose's eyes went blank and emptyyou could tell if she spoke to him he was going to say he didn't speak English. The men with the pool cues stood very still, as if they were waiting to start a different kind of game. But I also had another reason to be surprised. This wasn't the way Ginny was supposed to come looking for me. She came looking for me often enoughI would've probably drunk myself to death by now if she hadn't been so faithful about itbut this wasn't the way. We had a system worked out, and she was breaking it. What the system did was let me get ready. She didn't bother me in the morning, when I was taking those first stiff drinks, trying to push the sickness back down my throat where it belonged. She didn't bother me during the day, when I was drinking slow and steady to control the shakes. She didn't bother me in the afternoon, when I started to hit the bottle harder because the stuff didn't seem to be having any effect. She didn't bother meDonaldson, Stephen R. is the author of 'Man Who Killed His Brother' with ISBN 9780765341259 and ISBN 0765341255.