will not blunt the edge of sorrow; it can help that latter only by making it easier for a man to curse or weep. But alcohol is great for happiness: it can actually intensify joy. It was perfect for the occasion, then; it anesthetized me against the unaccustomed aches of my first hangover, and enhanced my euphoria. My Lady was saved, she would sing again. My friends, who had shared my loss, shared my joy. I danced with Josie and Eddie and Rachel and Leslie; I solved Category iii of Doc’s riddle and swept it without a mistake; I jollied Tommy out of being worried about some old friend of his, and made him laugh; with Eddie on piano and everybody else in the joint as the Raelettes I sang “What’d I Say” for seventeen choruses; for at least half an hour I studied the grain on the bartop and learned therefrom a great deal about the structure and purpose of the Universe; I leaped up on the same bartop and perfonned a hornpipe-on my hands. After that it all got a bit vague and hallucinatory-at least, I don’t think there were any real horses present.
A short while later it seemed to be. unusually quiet. The only sound was the steady cursing of my Pontiac and the hissing of the air that it sliced through. I opened my eyes and watched white lines come at me.
“Pyoir. Stout fellow. No-water fellow~ won’t drink stout. Why don’t you drink, Pyotr? S’nice.”
“Weak stomach. Rest, Jake. Soon we are home.”
“Hope I’m-not hung over again tomorrow. That was awful. Cripes, my neck still hurts.…” I started to rub it; Pyotr took my hand away.
“Leave it alone, Jake. Rest. Tonight I will make sure you take two aspirins.”
“Yeah. You’re the lily of the valley, man.”
A short while later wetness occurred within my mouth in alarming proportions, and when I swallowed I felt the aspirins going down. “Good old Pyolr.” Then the ship’s engines shut down and we went into free fall.
Next morning I decided that hangovers are like sex-the second time isn’t quite as painful. If the analogy held, by tomorrow I’d be enjoying it.
Oh, I hurt, all right. No mistake about that. But I hurt like a man with a medium bad case of the flu, whereas the day before I had hurt like a man systematically tortured for information over a period of weeks. This time sensory stimuli were only about twice the intensity I could handle, and a considerably younger and smaller mouse had died in my mouth, and my skull was no more than a half size too small. The only-thing that hurt as much as it had the previous morning was my neck, as I learned when I made an illadvised attempt to consult the clock beside me on the night table. For a horrified moment I actually believed that I had unscrewed my skull and now it was falling off. I put it back on with my hands, and it felt like I nearly stripped the threads until I got it right. I must have emitted sound. The door opened and Pyotr looked in. “Are you all right, Jake?”
“Of course not-half of me is left. Saved the for last again, eh?”
“You insisted. In fact you could not be persuaded to leave at all, until you lost cOnsciousness altogether.”
“Well, I-OH! My guitar. Oh, Pyotr, I think I’m going to do something that will hurt me very much.”
“What?”
“I am going to smile.”
It did hurt. If you don’t happen to be hung over, relax your face and put a finger just behind and beneath each ear, and concentrate. Now smile. The back of my neck was a knot of pain, and those two muscles you just felt move were the ends of the knot. Smiling tightened it. But I had to smile, and didn’t mind the pain. Lady Macbeth was alive! Life was good.
That didn’t last; my metabolism just wasn’t up to supporting good cheer. The Lady was not alive. Back from the dead, perhaps-but still in deep coma in Intensive Care. Attended, to be sure, by the world’s best surgeon. But she did not have youth going for her-and neither did the surgeon.
Pyotr must have seen the smile fade and
A short while later it seemed to be. unusually quiet. The only sound was the steady cursing of my Pontiac and the hissing of the air that it sliced through. I opened my eyes and watched white lines come at me.
“Pyoir. Stout fellow. No-water fellow~ won’t drink stout. Why don’t you drink, Pyotr? S’nice.”
“Weak stomach. Rest, Jake. Soon we are home.”
“Hope I’m-not hung over again tomorrow. That was awful. Cripes, my neck still hurts.…” I started to rub it; Pyotr took my hand away.
“Leave it alone, Jake. Rest. Tonight I will make sure you take two aspirins.”
“Yeah. You’re the lily of the valley, man.”
A short while later wetness occurred within my mouth in alarming proportions, and when I swallowed I felt the aspirins going down. “Good old Pyolr.” Then the ship’s engines shut down and we went into free fall.
Next morning I decided that hangovers are like sex-the second time isn’t quite as painful. If the analogy held, by tomorrow I’d be enjoying it.
Oh, I hurt, all right. No mistake about that. But I hurt like a man with a medium bad case of the flu, whereas the day before I had hurt like a man systematically tortured for information over a period of weeks. This time sensory stimuli were only about twice the intensity I could handle, and a considerably younger and smaller mouse had died in my mouth, and my skull was no more than a half size too small. The only-thing that hurt as much as it had the previous morning was my neck, as I learned when I made an illadvised attempt to consult the clock beside me on the night table. For a horrified moment I actually believed that I had unscrewed my skull and now it was falling off. I put it back on with my hands, and it felt like I nearly stripped the threads until I got it right. I must have emitted sound. The door opened and Pyotr looked in. “Are you all right, Jake?”
“Of course not-half of me is left. Saved the for last again, eh?”
“You insisted. In fact you could not be persuaded to leave at all, until you lost cOnsciousness altogether.”
“Well, I-OH! My guitar. Oh, Pyotr, I think I’m going to do something that will hurt me very much.”
“What?”
“I am going to smile.”
It did hurt. If you don’t happen to be hung over, relax your face and put a finger just behind and beneath each ear, and concentrate. Now smile. The back of my neck was a knot of pain, and those two muscles you just felt move were the ends of the knot. Smiling tightened it. But I had to smile, and didn’t mind the pain. Lady Macbeth was alive! Life was good.
That didn’t last; my metabolism just wasn’t up to supporting good cheer. The Lady was not alive. Back from the dead, perhaps-but still in deep coma in Intensive Care. Attended, to be sure, by the world’s best surgeon. But she did not have youth going for her-and neither did the surgeon.
Pyotr must have seen the smile fade and
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