Xander

 

How long have I been drinking? I try and work it out but everything is way more difficult than it ought to be right now. A long time, at any right, a damn long time. I know I’ve been drinking for a long time in the same way other fellas know they’ve been … I close my eyes, rub my face. Other fellas—somethin’ about other fellas. I stand up and goddamn if walking ain’t a pain in the ass. I walk through four, five, six whisky bottles, and I’m holding one, so maybe I’ve drunk somethin’ like seven bottles of whisky. That’s pretty good going, even if the floor is so sticky I know I must’ve spilt some.

 

I’ve got no damn clue where Kayla’s gone, or if Kayla was here yesterday or the day before or the day before that, or if I even met her. Maybe that was all just a drunken dream. Maybe when I wake up I’ll find out that that was all a lie. I don’t know how I’d feel about that, my mind lying to me in that way. Mind, mind a mind and it’ll mind you. My dad said that to me; no, he didn’t.

 

“Ah!” I twist my neck side to side, trying to lean down so I can splash some water in my face. I’ve never been this wasted, and that’s a fact. Or have I? I can’t remember what the question was.

 

I piss as best I can into the toilet bowl and then return to the living room, dropping onto the couch. I shot a man in chinos, just to watch him try … Somethin’ ain’t right about that.

 

My phone screen is blurrier than a pair of tits pushed up against rain-spattered glass, but I manage to focus on it by squinting real hard. Kayla’s called me nineteen times and left me one voicemail. Nineteen goddamn times. What would make a woman call a man nineteen times? Surely it must be something serious. Maybe she’s in trouble. Maybe the kid is in trouble. That’s the thing, Arsen’s kid. That’s family right there. That’s blood. You got the club and then you got blood, and you’ve gotta protect blood just as much as you’d protect the patch. That’s what a man does. That’s how a man works. I listen to the voicemail. Shit, she is in trouble.

 

“All right,” I mutter. “Time to sober up. Time to get after her.”

 

I walk around the apartment for what feels like a long time, looking for my car keys. The problem is I keep forgetting where I’ve already looked, so I’ll search under the somewhere and then the someplace and then come back to the somewhere wondering if my keys might be there. The way I discover that this is happening is ’cause the couch dances across the room, ending up pressed right against the wall from how much I’ve lifted it up to look underneath it. In the end I come to terms with the fact that my car keys have just disappeared and I grab my bike keys instead, pull on my leather pants and my boots and my jacket—gotta be safe now, since I might still be a little drunk—and head for the door with my helmet under my arm.

 

The elevator is busted so it’s the stairs or fly down, but the stairs are harder today than usual, steeper, it feels like. I grasp onto the railing and take it slowly, one slow-motion step at a time. I think a few people walk by me but I’m not sure, since walking down these damn stairs is taking so much effort. Why am I doing this again? Oh, yeah, Kayla. Shit, Kayla! I hope nothing bad has happened to her. She wouldn’t call me twenty-nine times for no reason, would she? A woman who calls a man thirty-nine times must have somethin’ to say.

 

Finally I make it outside. I put on my helmet and go over to my bike. I don’t know if it’s the reflection of the sun off the visor or the drink or what, but it looks like my car has vanished. I climb onto my bike and fuck around with the key for a long time, trying to get it in the ignition. I need to find Kayla, to keep her safe, to make sure that nothing bad happens to her or the kid. Why isn’t she with me? It was silly of her to leave. She should’ve stayed where I could keep her safe. I have no idea what would possess her to waltz off like that. It was a damn stupid decision, if you ask me.

 

“Come on,” I mutter, finally getting the key in. I start the bike and kick away the stand, and then pull onto the road. I go slow ’cause riding is more difficult today, like the world has turned sideways and gravity is upside-down. I turn the corners slowly, better safe than sorry and all that, and then I realize I’ve got no clue where I’m going. I just ride. I should stop—streetlamp, wall, the world turns over and over and over.

 

I lie on the floor looking up at the sky through a web pattern of cracked plastic, my body roaring at me that I’m a fucking idiot, a real jerk. I lean up and look around me: my bike, wrapped around a streetlamp, a couple of people walking toward me, no one else involved. That’s something, at least.

 

“Nothing will sober you up like a crash,” I whisper, wondering what the hell’s the matter with me. I must have a screw loose, or several.

 

I try to stand up, but my head feels groggy and my legs feel weak. I collapse back to the concrete, wondering if this is what folks mean when they talk about rock bottom.