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JOHNNY WAKES with the first light of a gray dawn. The table lamp is still on,
the Madonna presiding solemnly over the scene. The small room is close now, and
the stale air heavy with the smell of sex mixed with Mary's subtle perfume. He
slips carefully from between the sheets and quickly dresses, his eyes never
leaving her face as she goes on sleeping peacefully, impressing an image in his
mind for all time: the healthy flush of color in her cheek, her long, long
eyelashes, the freckles on her nose, mouth slightly open showing the bottom of a
pure white tooth, the sweet breath coming regularly on the pillow. Resisting the
temptation to plant a kiss on her cheek, Johnny slips out the door. On the
landing he tries the door on the right and finds it exits down to the street. He
hurries back to his hotel, showers and changes clothes, and heads for the
library.
Johnny works the morning away, mechanically thumbing through books,
filling up and filing away note cards for future reference. But his mind is
elsewhere. Every few minutes his pen stops and he looks up, staring off into
space, his thoughts flying back to that little room above the pub, drawn as if
by a siren song to the strange, beautiful creature who bewitched him. He sits at
a long table with school kids doing study projects and homeless alcoholics
reading the free newspapers, and he makes love to her again and again. He sees
her exquisite face and hears her musical voice, feels her warm flesh pressed to
his, smells that heady combination of French perfume and the fragrant, musky
secretions of a young woman making love. And it's all so real, almost as if she
has added a new dimension to him.
At eleven-thirty, Johnny leaves the library,
has a quick bacon sandwich and cup of tea at a small lunchroom, then heads for
Shandon Church. The events of the past twentyfour hours have fired him up so much
he can't wait to get the meeting out of the way to head back and see Mary.
He
soon finds himself at the head of the table in a smoky church basement, once
more being introduced to a collection of Cork alcoholics. He recognizes several
people from last night's meeting.
"I heard Johnny's message yestiddy on Saint
Patrick's Hill," says Michael, "an' I t'ink you're gonna 'preciate it as much
as I did. So, I'll jes' turn da meetin' over ta ye, Johnny."
"Thank you,
Michael," says Johnny, looking around the table. "I seem to find myself on a
speaking marathon in Cork, since with this meeting and the one tonight I'll have
spoken three times in twenty-four hours. I've no problem with that, but since
I see some faces here from last night's meeting, it'll be less boring for you if
I pick up where I left off. So the drunkalogue continues."
This discourse is greeted with smiles and chuckles around the room, and Johnny
launches into the
second part of his story. By way of introduction, he quickly relates how be
began drinking as an adolescent and how he became an "instant" alcoholic, with
all the problems related to intoxication, blackouts, sickness and troubles with
the police right from the beginning. In a few minutes he takes them up to the
incident at the Tarrytown Country Club, remarking: "That was a blackout I'll
remember the rest of my life," and provoking their laughter again. Soon each
member of the group is involved in Johnny's story in his own way, more or less
identifying with the drunken escapades, the problems and frustrations, the fears
and resentments, the misery and suffering and hopelessness of the drinking
alcoholic. And even though most of the people had never seen the man until a
few minutes ago, and even though he comes from a foreign country and speaks
their language with a strange accent, from his story they know that he is one of
them and that they have more in common than not. Johnny senses this and he is
at ease as he sits back and continues his tale. And, here again, the listeners
get the standard account while the unexpurgated version unrolls in his mind.
And it goes like this:
So that experience at the Tarrytown Country Club gave
me some bad moments, but, as always, time passes and attenuates, and when I got
back to school a few weeks later I had put all thought of it out of my head, and
was even looking around to see if I could find a part-time job to make my newly
acquired bartending talents pay off. Since Madison is a big drinking town and
loaded with taverns, it wasn't long before I found just what I was looking for.
The name of the place was the Rainbow Lounge, and it was located just off
Capitol Square. It was owned by two partners, Dan and Harry, and as cocktail
lounges go, it was pretty much second-class. Whereas just down the street the
Senate Lounge welcomed state legislators and other notable persons, the Rainbow
tended to get people like the construction workers building the new Holiday Inn.
In fact, after a busy Saturday night I was more than likely to be mopping blood
up off the floors after the place closed. Fistfights and whores and loud drunks
were never tolerated in the Senate Lounge. They all came over to the Rainbow.
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