“A Pint of Smirnoff, Please.”

After an extensive and painful withdrawal from alcohol a few days ago, I swore off drinking at home, by myself ever again. I am still recovering from the withdrawal, and sleeping without first having drunk several shots’ worth is painful. Also, the idea of stepping outside, in view of the world, without having first drunk enough to have induced an analgesic effect not only in my body but in my brain and self-image, was a little scary this afternoon as I set out for the first time in days – having been mainly confined to my sickbed – and the first time in months without having drunk first.

And so, as luck would have it, with my fragile, barely-there self-respect eventually propelling me outside and towards my destination, what do you think happens? A Hispanic teenage girl randomly calls out at me, “Hello, white boy.” Mind you, I am well more than a decade her senior and, although I’d like to think on my better days that I like youngish, I’m hardly boyish. Mind you also that my chest still aches from a full day’s worth of a horrendous hiccuping and belching fit. Nevertheless, after a brief and futile exchange I chase after her. She freaks out and starts screaming, almost gets run over by a taxi cab, and races around the nearest corner. Meanwhile, her sister is yelling at me something like, “Why would you do that to my sister? You could have hurt her!” And I yell back, out of breath, that she shouldn’t be so fucking rude.

I was supposed to pick up my parents’-in-law medication, but I still have another day. I realized, though, about five stops down on the train that I was still out of breath and stressed out, sweating my smear-on tan right off. I probably looked like death to some of my fellow passengers – deadly pale and sweating pale orange. So I headed back home, bought a pint of Smirnoff from a local death-dealer, and now here I am in bed, writing this. I can feel the burn.