Alastair could feel the lean yet muscled arm of Ari...yes, Ari, that was her name, flung across his shoulders. She rambled drunkenly in his ear about him being lost and having friends, which of course he had friends, but none of them were here. None of them would comment on how he was falling other than jokingly asking if he was sneaking extra portions of dessert and patting his stomach. He dwelled on his friends now as he finished off his second parfait and took a swill of his martini. Was it his third, fourth?
One of Ari's friends was among the cavorting figures dancing over on the main floor. That was where there would be trouble, where he could get lost, but there was not as easy an access to cheese and alcohol, was there?
Now her words were a faint buzz. He couldn't distinguish them. He just stared into his empty glass and wondered where the alcohol had gone. He was certain he had not had all of it so quickly! It was too delicious, and strong, and he did not want to overdo it. The ethanol still burned in his mouth and esophagus and all the way down to the frothing gastric pit that sat to the left of and beneath his liver.
The martinis were supposed to help him not feel overwhelmingly morose. They were alcoholic and thus a twisted form of comfort no one else could see. He was careful, oh so careful, not to let anyone know, because they would not understand that it was therapeutic and would instead say he was hurting himself. Wait, yes, they'd been saying that for years. Decades.
Though she was wrapping herself around his elephantine midsection in a rather constricting hug, he still did not move. He wanted more alcohol. He needed more alcohol. But he had definitely had too much, but more would make him feel better, oh so much better. He'd lose sight of how much he needed it and be lost in the primal haze that overtook his mind. He would have no notions of failure or sense of dread that he was initiating his own destruction. He would feel numb, more numb than he was now, but woozier and with less coherent thinking.
He took a glass of Scotch that probably belonged to someone else and drained the whole thing in one sip. Other than that, he was empty. He did not feel or hear anything outside of his own mind.
"Hey, uh, you wan' do the music in the, uh, the music box together? Like, those modern songs, the ones with the beats, and the, uh, the music? An' the drums, those are cool!"
Drums? Drums rhymed with
rum. And the music box, yes, the music box was very good. He loved music. He did. There were several songs that he like, but there was a war criminal singing now and he was not sure if he knew all of the song's words. Did he recognize it, yeah, it was about funky music playing white boys--no, that was not right. Playing funky music boys? White funky music playing boys?
He liked the idea of the music playing the boys, for once.
"Yeah they was
Dancin' and singin' and movin' to the groovin'
And just when it hit me somebody turned around and shouted:PLAY THAT FUNKY MUSIC, WHITE B--"THONK.Alastair was standing up now. Glass of scotch and dragging Ari, yes, he was dragging Ari very much. The girl was always sticking out her tongue. He'd have to have a sticking-out-tongue contest at some point with her to make her feel better. She was an alcoholic with a failing career and family who hated her. No, no, no, no, not she. Someone else. He. Him. Alastair.
Was he an alcoholic because he liked it so much and used it as an escape, no, a dream? Was being drunk not the same as dreaming? If so, that meant he was sleeping, and he was alright if he was asleep. No, nothing hurt him in his sleep. Alcohol was sleep, sleeping was alcoholic. Normal, fine, it was fine! He was just doing things humans did, which was drinking, and he needed drink to live.
No one was singing except the machine now. And there was a human lump, two humans lumps on the ground like putty. Ari was putty and he was asleep. Scotch kicking in now. Or martinis? End song. End song. "EEEN SOONG!" he proclaimed. He lugged Ari who was hugging him toward the machine it was called
Mele Kalikimaka or something like that and punched in yes scrolled yes screen screening screen. His finger moved. Weird! His finger was moving! And the screen moved, too! And the letters swam but he could read them! Pictures that made sense in his brain and became things he got. This was an incredible invention on his part and surely a sign of sleep genius. Anyway, he picked a song, this one, it needed
a recorder that he did not have. Hamlet had one, but he was a book, wasn't he? A book.
He still had bad thoughts. He was not numb enough. He was helding up Ari under his arms or shoulders and he was belting out lines like he was an archangel. Because he still knew through his raucous singing that his father had died and was not coming back. A large, magnanimous man grown bald and emaciated with tubes and pills and unable to move or speak and he only stared. Did he recognize Alastair anymore or was he just a set of bones held together by cancer? Cold, so cold, his father had been so cold and now he was even colder and dead.
Desperate desperate for alcohol...
and then....He was infinitely, infinitely better, and he was better than the original woman, definitely. His own voice in his ears drowning out his breath. Floppy Ari. Oh, right! Ari! He looked at her. She had no glass. He needed a drink like now. Could she be sweaty? Was she a tasty thing of rummy rum? Yes, there was nothing he feared, his heart would go on, and he had to try. Maybe her culture was of alcoholians. Alcohol people. Excellent. He then seized the opportunity to lick her on the face, her left cheek, not smexily but because he needed a drink, and she was not rum enough. She was not. Was Ross still on the--no, never, never lick Ross. Never.
The machine! Of course the machine was it! Hence its greatness! So he was hauling Ari again and he studied the machine for a long, long time. And then he ran his tongue along the edge of the
Karen to taste it.