Robert Tanenbaum - Enemy within

"You need to talk to your doctor about that. When I spoke with him before, he suggested the full detox, four weeks."

The thought of Karp talking to some twerp shrink about her: a bolt of pain and revulsion, converted to rage. "You were talking to what's-his-face, Einstern? You told him all about how bad I am?"

"Einkorn. No, I told him I was terribly worried about you, that you'd never acted like this before, that I didn't know what the fuck to do. He offered me a Xanax and gave me a brochure about Al-Anon."

"Are you going to go?"

"No. Look, Marlene, I don't know fuck-all about alcoholism. Maybe I'm in denial, maybe I'm one of those enablers you read about. And if you want to know, Einkorn was kind of leaning me in that direction, but looking at this last twenty years we spent together, I honestly don't see that. I can't recall another time in all those years when you were falling-down drunk like you've been half a dozen times in the last month." He looked at her, but her face was closed to him. "I understand you're hurting from what happened. You've been hurting before, but you snap back; you get on with life. But not now for some reason." He tried a smile on. "Hell, Marlene, it's like Invasion of the Body Snatchers, where the Chinese guy says, 'That not my wife.'" Marlene didn't smile back. "I mean you got a problem, let's talk about it. We always talked about stuff, even when we were fighting."

"My problem is there's nothing to drink around here," said Marlene in that strange voice she was using nowadays, a flat and bored voice, not her own, something she'd heard maybe. It was eerie for him, almost flesh-crawlingly. He wanted to shake her, hit her. He'd never wanted to do that before, even back when she was committing technical felonies every other night. He suppressed the comeback line, he sensed that's what the new Marlene wanted, a little trading of one-liners, keep it light, brittle, and bitter.

Instead he said, "Speaking of the movies, you remember what the girl says to Butch Cassidy? I'll love you, I'll do anything for you, but I won't watch you die."

That got her attention. He sensed something trying to come out in her, some real thing. He ought to have been tender now, dropped his guard, opened up, broke down, but he was not good at this sort of thing, not good at dealing with the dark parts. So he said, "Whatever you want, Marlene. I'll help you any way I can. But I'm not going to just watch you kill yourself. Pull one of these again, and I'll take the kids and split, I'll walk away. That's my bottom line, just so you know."

"That sounds like an ultimatum."

"Take it however you want."

They couldn't look at each other then, both hearts breaking.

The clinic was on Fifty-third off Second. When Karp left, he walked south, just to walk. The sky was low and threatening, cold for April; the green fuzz on the trees seemed out of its time, sprayed on, not real. Karp was a good city walker; his long legs ate the blocks without feeling the pounding, his size kept lesser beings from blocking his path. He walked blindly, his mind unable to get a bite into what was happening to him. It was not real, it was like a bad made-for-TV movie. He walked for a long time.

In leaving, Karp had left a hole Marlene could not fill with the material in the brochures. Nor did Dr. Einkorn fill it with his bland line: you're sick, we can fix it for you, give us a chance, put yourself in our hands, stop denying. Marlene was surly and wished that she had hit him a couple more times. No, she decided, when he had gone, too, the poor bastard is just doing his job. I am just not the job he does. Not yet, anyway.

She got out of bed and found her clothes in a closet. The skirt and jacket and blouse she had worn to the interview of doom were unwearable, stained with vile substances, stretched and torn. It looked as if whoever had worn them had been in a fight and lost. The underwear was intact, though, one of the sets she had bought in Bloomie's that day when she had got rich and drunk, and so were the boots and the long, fleecelined leather coat. She got into the undies and boots and coat and found her cell phone in her bag. She used it to call the limo service. They knew where Kinney-Briard was.

Marlene put on her makeup, trying as she did so not to really look at her face. It was like making up someone else in high school. Dottie came in while she was doing this.

"You going somewhere?"

"Yes, I'm checking out."

"You shouldn't. You're not detoxed yet."

"I'll detox on my own."

"I doubt that, sugar, but it's your life. Try to eat something. You won't want to, but force yourself. Bananas are good. And try to dilute it a little."

"I'm not going to drink. I mean get drunk. Like I did."

"Yeah, you are," said Dottie confidently. "I been doing this awhile, and I've seen about four million runners, and every one of them thinks they're different. I should go call Doctor, but I guess you don't want to wait around for that."

"No," said Marlene as she finished her eyes. She stood erect and fluffed her hair. With the belt cinched and the coat buttoned to the collar she looked dressed. She saw Dottie in the mirror observing her.

"How do I look?" Marlene asked, only a little sarcastically. "Like a drunk on the run?"

"You got that right. If I was you, I would go on home before you start in drinking, put some clothes on you. You go into a bar that way, you liable to end up in a cheap motel with a line of guys out to the street."

"Thanks for the advice," said Marlene stiffly. She shook hands with the nurse and did not look long into her eyes, which held far too much compassion. The limo was waiting. The driver was Osman. Marlene gave him the Crosby Street address. She slumped in the corner, hiding in her beautiful coat, flinching under the waves of psychic pain that rolled up from hell into her mind. She pinched her naked thigh under the coat hard, but it did no good. How did she get here? she wondered. This is not me. I am a solid citizen. I am not a drunk. I am not a shopomaniac. I am a good mother and a good wife. Not convincing. The memories came back, in fearsome detail; she squirmed, she writhed, she cried out. Osman's dark eyes appeared in the rearview mirror.

"Madam? Is something wrong?"

"No." No, she thought, I am not, I am not going to sit in a church basement and tell my sad story to a bunch of strangers. I can control this. Her teeth hurt from the gritting she was doing. "Stop here, pull over," she ordered. The car rolled smoothly to a curb, Thirty-second and Third. She jumped out and came back with an icy bottle of Chablis. The limo was supplied with stemware, and she had a corkscrew. Just one, make it last. She did make it last, almost to her door.

"Wait," she told the driver, and entered her building. She left the wine in the car, which she thought was okay and proof that she wasn't such a lush. A lush would never leave the bottle. In the loft there were cooking smells, something frying. In the kitchen was a woman she had never seen before, a stocky Latina not much older than she. The woman stared at her, essayed a formal smile. Marlene gave it back and lurched to the bedroom. A woman I don't know is taking care of my family, she thought. The dog was waiting for her in the bedroom, on the bed, where he was forbidden to be. He jumped off with a loud thud and fawned, snuffling and drooling. A pool of saliva ten inches wide was on the center of the duvet. Everything is falling apart, she thought. She dropped her coat, yanked off her boots, and opened her wardrobe. A cascade of pricey gorgeousness fell out onto the floor, some of it still wrapped in store tissue, other items popping from shopping bags. She grabbed a pair of tan leather pants off the top of the pile and a red silk shirt from a Lauren bag and put them on. She heard the door open.