Pete Hamill - A Drinking Life

Ramona and Tim’s wife, Georgie, were at first skeptical. We addressed every argument, speaking with the authority of men who had lived in at least one foreign land. I showed Ramona travel articles from magazines, picture books from the library. I sold some more articles to magazines and built up a small bank account. Slowly it must have seemed like a great romantic adventure to the women too. By July we were ready to leave.

You’re going where? Paul Sann said, when I came to his desk to give him the news.

To Spain.

He chuckled in a sardonic way.

Vaya con Dios, pal, he said. I wish I’d done that when I was your age. I wish I’d done it last fucking month.

For me, Sann’s words were the only blessing I needed. It was settled. We were going to Spain.

The night before we left, Tim and I went to a farewell dinner with the other guys who’d made the journey with us across the river from Brooklyn: Bill Powers, Richie Kelly, Jake Conaboy. After the delicious beer-swilling years on Ninth Street, we’d gone our own ways. Billy had become an excellent photographer and layout man, Richie an illustrator and designer, while Jake returned to Brooklyn and the safety of the Transit Authority. But I wanted to believe it didn’t matter where we’d gone or where we were going; we came from a common place, had shared a glorious time, and we’d be friends for life.

The five of us took a table in the back room of a bar on the corner of Twenty-third Street and Second Avenue. Jake had been drinking before we arrived; whiskey always broke him out of his shyness, and he was hilarious and profane. We ate hamburgers and drank a lot of beer and whiskey. I talked about the glories of the Spain I’d never seen, urging the others to come and join us. I must have made it seem like another subway ride from Brooklyn. We made jokes. We talked about politics. Billy and I argued the comparative merits of Matisse and Bonnard with the passion once reserved for centerfielders. Around midnight, Jake’s chin was resting on his chest. We talked on, drinking more, laughing louder. Richie’s eyes were glassy, a thin smile on his lips. Then it was time to go. Tim called for a check. Richie stared hard at me, the smile gone, his eyes suddenly deeper under his brows.

You’re really an arrogant bastard, you know, he said.

I laughed, thinking he was joking.

I know, I know, I said. Worse than Charles de Gaulle.

Richie didn’t smile. The muscles in his jaw tensed.

Nobody wants to tell you this, he said. But it’s true. You treat the rest of us like inferiors. You think if you say it should be done, then we should do it.

You’re serious, aren’t you?

Tim said, Hey, Richie, cool it.

Yeah, Billy said. This is a good-bye dinner, not a grand jury.

Richie ignored them.

All this shit about Spain, this Hemingway crap, Richie said. You’re saying you can do things and we don’t have the balls to do them. You think you’re hot shit. You pose like a good guy but you always think of yourself first. You always did. Even back in Brooklyn.

It was as if he wanted to start a fight. But we were leaving the following day for Spain. I didn’t want to arrive in Barcelona with a split lip or a broken hand. I backed up.

Richie, I said, all I ever tried to be with you was a friend. If I got lucky, I wanted you and the others to share it.

Yeah, so you could feel like you weve better than us.

Fuck it, I said, standing up abruptly. Come on, Tim. Let’s go to Spain.

I threw some money on the table and turned for the door.

Look at the truth, Richie said. Look at the truth. .

Tim and I took a cab back to Brooklyn. We were staying at our parents’ places for this final night, because Ramona, Adriene, and Georgie had gone on ahead to Barcelona to find an apartment. Tim and I had closed our apartments, stored or sold our possessions, settled most of our accounts. All the way to Brooklyn, I was furious with Richie. Some things I had taken for granted: he was my friend, he shared the sentimental solidarity of the group, he cheered for my small successes as I would cheer for his. Tonight, he had pissed all over those assumptions. It was as if he wanted me to feel his accusations all the way to Spain. And though I was hurt and wounded, another thought slid through my mind: Maybe he was right.

There was one final wrenching scene. A few weeks before the date we chose to leave for Barcelona, I had told my brother Denis that I was moving to Europe. He was twelve, reading newspapers every day, but this news item hadn’t seemed to register. I didn’t press it. But I worried about him all the time. I had no idea how long we’d be gone. I might make a career as a writer in Europe and stay forever. I could be hack in six months. I was sure Brian and John would be all right, but Denis had a fragility that made him seem more vulnerable. I hoped the Neighborhood wouldn’t trap him.

On that last morning at 378, Denis and the other kids hung around the kitchen while I washed and ate breakfast. My father was there, dim and silent. My mother busied herself with dishes and tea. Fragments of Richie’s indictment kept drilling into me, combining with hangover to make me feel disconnected from the others. Finally, I packed my last small bag, said my good-byes, and went downstairs.

Suddenly, Denis came running after me, in tears.

Please don’t go, Pete, please don’t go, he kept saying. Please, please. .

Denis, I have to go. My wife is there. My baby. .

Please, he said, please stay.

Tim was waiting with a cab in front of Rattigan’s and came over to help me with my bags. But Denis was bawling now, holding on to my arm with both hands, saying Don’t go, Pete, don’t go, don’t go, don’t go, pleaaaase. .

Until I had to shake him off.

Send me some stories, Denis. .

And he ran off then, his face a blur of tears, swinging his hands wildly in the air. He was the last person I saw on Seventh Avenue as the cab pulled away to take us to the airport.

THUS BEGAN too many years of wandering, of arrivals and departures, sitting in airport waiting rooms, packing and unpacking books, smoking strange brands of cigarettes, speaking badly the languages of strangers, and drinking their beer and whiskey. Ramona and I exhausted the dream of Spain in six months. We lived in Dublin then, and later in Rome and San Juan and Mexico City, Laguna Beach and Washington, D.C., and saw a lot of other places in between. Each time, we made the long circle home, back to New York.

The moves had a pattern, of course. I would return to New York, settle in, start working at my trade. Then routine would assert itself. The routine of work. The routine of family. The multiple routines of the drinking life. These couldn’t be separated. If I wrote a good column for the newspaper, I’d go to a bar and celebrate; if I wrote a poor column, I would drink away my regret. Then I’d go home, another dinner missed, another chance to play with the children gone, and in the morning, hung over, thick-tongued, and thick-fingered, I’d attempt through my disgust to make amends. That was a routine too.

Self-disgust would spread its stain to everything: my work, the apartment, New York itself, until I felt I had to get out of there or die trying. Then I’d grant myself the vision of the Great Good Place. Most one the time, it was a place where I heard more vowels than consonants, with bougainvillea spilling down whitewashed walls, fountains playing in the blaze of noon. In the Great Good Place I would work like a monk on my writing. I would be a good husband and father. I would be far from the tumult of saloons, their giddy excitements and sly flatteries. Once the vision took hold, we were soon packing the books. I never did find the Great Good Place.