Part 23 (2/2)

”That's what I thought you'd say,” Syd replied, as the last piece of the puzzle fell smack into place. He smiled as he got up off his stool. ”May I?”

The whole room went silent as Syd went around the bar. Big Dan stared, too amazed to react. Syd, for his part, was just as amazed that Dan even had the ingredients. It was a good sign. As he pulled them out, whipped down a gla.s.s, and started to pour, he realized that it felt more than natural. It felt absolutely right.

He thought about Jules, and the road to redemption. The brain came out perfect.

And Syd began to live again.

27.

It took about ten weeks to ready himself. Syd had fallen into more than just psychological disrepair. The first law of bartending was you gotta look good; and right now, quite honestly, he looked anything but. He had a dumb-looking beard and an even dumber-looking beer gut, and he could pack two weeks' luggage into the bags under his eyes.

It was considerable damage. But not irreversible.

One step at a time was the way to go.

There was no small irony in Syd's selection of the phrase; his exposure to the grinding machineries of the State had not sold him on the earnestly lockstep programming of the Twelve Step hordes. He had no interest in becoming just another A.A. addict, sweet and well-intentioned though so many of them were. He'd been to enough meetings now to know of what he spoke. They were a tight-knit circle of folks who were hanging on to hanging on: strung out on mutual confession, circulating the bottomless pipe of shame. In that sense, A.A. was like a gateway drug to Jesus that they just kept pa.s.sing around and around.

Syd understood the attraction, didn't fault them for their reliance upon it. It just didn't speak to him. Not to mention the fact that he had other problems to contend with that were best not shared with a group.

No, Syd's personal journey back from h.e.l.l was by necessity a solitary one. But he did borrow from them their most important rule. The fundamental keystone of recovery.

One step at a time.

Syd's first step was to leave Danny D.'s, thank them for their hospitality, and never look back. It was one of the most painless procedures Syd had ever undergone. The next step was only eight trillion times harder: quitting drinking.

At first he'd balked at the concept. He'd always felt that, in a binge-or-cringe culture, moderation made more sense than abstinence or excess. And moderation was the hardest: both to achieve, and to sustain.

In the beginning he tried to weasel deals with himself. Well, I'll just have two beers a night, except for the nights when I have four. And I won't start drinking until at least nine each night, except of course on those nights I start at six. . . .

Ultimately he realized that he was only fooling himself; that moderation was great in theory, but that he had developed a very real problem-maybe not full-blown alcoholism yet, but well on the way. And that until he could muster the will to break his reliance upon alcohol on a daily basis, to not need to have it in his life, moderation was a joke.

He quit that day.

The next month was h.e.l.l. But he did it, by sheer dint of will. In the process, he dropped twelve pounds, all of it bloat. And he broke the constant craving, the knee-jerk reflex that made him squirm in his seat every time a beer commercial came on. He felt stronger.

That strength made it easier to take the next step: starting-and sticking to-an exercise program: running, swimming, lifting weights, working his way up from fifty to three hundred sit-ups a day. There was plenty of stuff at the Y to work with, now that he was of a mind. As he acquired a taste for the pain of exertion he realized it was a pleasure to feel the intricate mechanism that was his body at work. The subtle play of muscle and sinew made him feel more human, helped to beat back other, darker memories. It was worth the effort.

It was still incredibly hard. But he did it religiously. And it got easier.

The next step was to pick up every bartending guide and mixological dictionary on the market. He studied and crammed and crammed and studied every nuance of bartending protocol and lore: comparing every recipe to his memory of Jules's; cross-referencing every suggested technique with the ones that he'd watched in action a thousand times.

He locked down the difference between Collins and Highball, Sour Rocks and Cordial, Sham Pilsner and Goblet. He learned that the difference between Seagram's 7 and Seagram's V.O. was the Canadian border and six-point-eight proof. He practiced slicing and arranging fruit till he had it down to an art.

Meanwhile, of course, he continued to work. He became a regular at Manpower and every other temp agency in town: taking any job, no matter how seemingly demeaning, finding the value in it. He worked steadily, slowly paid off his bills. The day he zeroed out his credit card he even splurged a little, bought himself a little Sony CD/ca.s.sette boombox. With cash. Otherwise, he lived on very little.

Frugal living allowed him to save. When a '68 Cougar showed up in the papers for three hundred dollars, Syd checked it out. His suspension was up; he had his license reinstated. His insurance premiums were brutal; he paid in full and on time, and didn't lose any sleep over it.

By the end of ten weeks, he had lost both his beard and the puffiness that had buried his cheekbones. His gut was tapered. His clothes fit for the first time in ages. His body felt strong, his mind alert. Except for the eyes, he looked five years younger.

As a bartender, he had everything he needed but experience.

Then, and only then, did he take the next step. . .

The road to Chameleon's looked completely the same. It was almost as if that nightmare year-and-change had never happened. He didn't know why he felt so surprised; the world, of course, had kept right on going. It was only his life that had gone up in flames. His and Jules's.

And possibly Nora's, as well.

No, he told himself, quas.h.i.+ng the spiking pang of memory. Forget about her. He couldn't allow himself to think about Nora; at least not anymore than he could help. She's history, she's gone, and good riddance. Eradicating her from his mind was excruciating but necessary, like sc.r.a.ping an infected wound clean. He blotted out all thought of her, told himself that if he never saw her again, it would be way too soon.

But it was hard, it was hard, to negotiate the turns where he'd watched his friend's face smack and slide against the gla.s.s. It was hard to keep driving and try to ignore the ruthless tug of memory, atrocity and rage.

It was important, at this point, to keep himself focused. That was all in the past. He was here for a reason. It would not do to derail.

But, G.o.d, did it ever make him want a drink.

It was slightly easier going on the straightaway, with the familiar sign in the narrowing distance. Nostalgia began to replace the harsher memories, whittle away at the pain. He started thinking about the people he was liable to see-Trent, Jane, Red, the regular crowd-and it took a little tension off the edge of his smile.

Most important, of course, was Randy Sanders: the owner of the bar, with whom Syd had set up this appointment. Randy always did the hiring and firing, even if he did leave the lion's share of responsibility to Jules-or whoever had taken his place. He was a good guy, and they'd always gotten along, though in reality they were no more than pleasant acquaintances. There were no illusions of loyalty or enduring friends.h.i.+p to bank on. At least not at this point.

At least not from Randy's side. Syd's agenda, on the other hand, rested almost entirely on those essential building blocks. He had loyalties to honor. Sins to atone for. And a friends.h.i.+p to redeem. Even if that redemption came after the fact.

Even if it was a matter of too little, too late.

Pulling into the parking lot, Syd felt his throat tighten and his stomach constrict. Jesus, he was nervous. He took a last drag of his Camel, snubbed the b.u.t.t in the ashtray. He'd cut down a good bit since he'd started working out. But for all his overt healthifying, he still couldn't bring himself to quit, much less suck on a filtered cigarette. Might as well snap a nipple on a bottle of Bud, toss a condom over your p.e.c.k.e.r just to jack yourself off.

Syd caught himself automatically steering for his old parking spot, froze with his foot on the brake. There were a trillion other available s.p.a.ces in the near-empty lot, most of them closer than his traditional spot. And none of them made him feel like he had just danced all over his own grave. He wheeled right up to a spot by the door, parked, and took a long sixty seconds to calm himself down before cutting the engine and heading inside.

The tunes, as always, were booming: at the moment, a bit of vintage Sonny Terry and Brownie McGee. Scared as he was, it brought a smile to his face. He took off his shades, let his eyes adjust to the dimness.

He didn't see her until she was almost upon him.

”Wow.” Coming to a stop three paces away and staring at him, head c.o.c.ked in thoughtful scrutiny. ”I was starting to think we'd never see you again.”

”Hi, Jane.” He was almost afraid to meet her eye-to-eye. He forced himself to, was glad he did. Her gaze was penetrating yet open, questioning without the overreaching taint of suspicion.

”Hey, stranger.” She smiled, and it was clear that she was happy to see him, too. He smiled back, and they hesitated awkwardly, on the brink of friendly embrace, just long enough to make them laugh at the absurdity before at last they came together. He squeezed her hard. She squeezed back.

”It's so good to see you,” he said.

”Good to see you, too.” She punctuated the hug with a kiss on the cheek. It had been ages since anybody had held him close, even for a second. Nine months ago, Tommy'd given him a terse little hug-a stiff upper-body, two-slaps-on-the-back, soldier, may G.o.d go with you sort of male-bonding embrace-just before showing his a.s.s the door.

Syd didn't want to break the connection; he had forgotten how much he craved the contact, body and soul. He rocked her back and forth, went mmmm. She laughed, gave one last punctuating squeeze, and gently pulled away.

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