I Don't Like Where This Is Going by John Dufresne

cigarette machine, and at Twyla behind the bar, smoking a cigarette, sipping a Tom Collins, and watching NASCAR on TV, and said, “A lot of memories here.”
    We ended up at Georgia’s. We ordered lamb shawarma and Moroccan fish, and we drank even more. We looked through a photo album of our life together and grew mawkish. Nothinghad changed in the house except my cluttered office. Now my books were in a storage unit on Lantana, and the office had been converted into what Georgia called a meditation room. Mats and cushions on the floor, potted plants in every corner, candles on the windowsills, Japanese prints on the walls, and a hand-of-Buddha indoor water fountain on the coffee table, burbling away. Eventually, Georgia cut Marty loose and found the man she would marry, Tripp Morris, and had two kids of her own. Georgia and I were like DeFonda and Abrel and should never have been together to begin with. She was Beatles; I was Stones.
    TWO WOMEN OF MY casual acquaintance, Desirée and Baby, were sitting at a shaded table on the Wayside patio enjoying their highballs and a blunt. Baby had her shoes off and her feet up on a chair. Desirée wore a hairnet.
    Baby held up the blunt and said, “Kind bud, Wylie.”
    Desirée said, “Hawaiian black.”
    I thanked them for their thoughtfulness, walked into the bar, ordered a Bloody Mary, and asked Zeke, the bartender, what was up with the eye patch. He said it helped with his double vision. “The headaches are a bitch.”
    â€œHow long has this been going on?”
    â€œSix, seven weeks.”
    â€œThis is serious.”
    â€œNo shit.” He stuck a celery stalk in my drink on the second try and slid the glass to my hand.
    â€œYou need to see a doctor.”
    â€œOr two.” He smiled and held up his hands. “No dinero.”
    I told him I was calling a doctor friend to make an appointment. “Won’t cost you.”
    While I was on hold, Baby and Desirée came in and sat at the bar. Baby handed Zeke a plastic sack full of meat ends from the Italian market where she worked, and he poured them each a Dewar’s and water.
    I explained to Zeke that Dr. Chao was a holistic ophthalmologist and would probably talk with him about his diet and his supplements, so he might want to keep the meat ends a secret. I told Walter to send me the bill, but he probably wouldn’t—he’d be so fascinated with the mystery of Zeke’s vision that he’d consider it a privilege to have a go at him.
    Patience walked in and gave me a kiss. I ordered another Bloody Mary, and we went to a table. She slid her hand over mine and squeezed. We toasted our reunion. I said, “When are you coming to visit?”
    â€œSoon, I hope.”
    An orbiculate fellow wearing a VIRGINITY ROCKS! T-shirt and carrying a tub of fried chicken from Chicken Lickin’ ( It’s So Clucking Good! ) under his arm, walked in, put the tub on the bar, pulled up a stool, and asked Zeke to turn on the bowling channel. He ordered a pitcher of beer.
    Zeke said, “Don’t you have high cholesterol, Warren?”
    â€œIf you call six forty-seven high.”
    â€œHow the hell are you even standing?”
    â€œIn fact, I’m sitting.” Warren pulled a drumstick from the tub, held it up, and admired its succulence.
    And that’s when my cell phone played “Abracadabra.” I answered. Bay had some distressing news. My grainy face was all over the Vegas TV newscasts. My young friend Ruby, whose real name, at least for now, was Misty Roses, had gone to the police with a story of her rape by an anonymous-looking man she met on the street. That much we knew.
    I said, “ Anonymous hurts.”
    Bay said that surveillance videos of me and Misty on the boulevard were the lead story on every channel. The authorities had trouble getting my name at first because I’d been fortunate enough to have paid for the pizza and room in