I Went Down (NaNoWriMo Read-Along)

25 Cal

In his anxious hurry, Cal had failed to ask Reuben for a refill of his own remedy and the green bottle stood empty on the nightstand. It was empty and clean, for he’d poured a little water into it and shaken it to dislodge any residue of the contents. The weak tincture had done something, or perhaps his own exhaustion had sent him into oblivion. Now he woke again to Minnie’s mutterings.

“Try to see things from my point of view,” she said. “I’m just supposed to sit at home and watch the babies while I wait for you?”

Cal’s damp shirt had dried on his body and he had fallen asleep with his boots on. He rolled off the bed and stood up. “I would have watched the children.”

“It’s always about what you want, and you never listen to what I want.”

“No,” Cal said. “You’re right. I wouldn’t have watched the children.”

“Well, there won’t be any babies. I’m leaving. There isn’t anything here for me. I’m going to Delta Mouth.”

Cal stripped off the filthy shirt and found a slightly cleaner one in the wardrobe. “Minnie, my darling, you’re in Delta Mouth.” He might as well send a few things out to the laundry; let there be one small portion of his life that was perfectly clean, if only for a short time.

“You can’t stop me.”

“But I did stop you,” he said to Minnie’s shade. “I stopped you leaving, and I stopped you leaving this room.” Another small relief he owed to Reuben, who’d given him a piece of chalk to mark around the doors and windows of his bedroom. It looked like the common cross-hatched pattern used against ants and cockroaches in many buildings throughout the city, but it stopped Minnie from following him in the streets as she once had. It was his own guilty conscience that kept him from crossing the threshold and never returning.

“Stop it,” Minnie said loudly. She waved her misty arms in his face. “Cal, let go! Let me go!” She screamed and stumbled backward. Cal closed his eyes and fumbled with the buttons on his shirt while her screams continued. When they finally stopped, the silence was even more horrible. He felt his way blindly to the doorway and didn’t open his eyes until he was out of the room. As he rushed down the stairs, he clung to the banister to keep from tumbling down head over heels. The way that Minnie had fallen—

He went directly to the bar and took down a glass and a bottle with shaking hands.

“Looking for a patch-pint to mend your head?”

He looked up and saw Luessa at the far end of the bar.

“It’ll take more than a pint to fix me up.”

She came over and took the bottle from him. “If you take a pint of this, you’ll end up with your head between yours knees.” She poured a single finger of amber liquor into his glass and set the bottle back on the shelf. “We need you upright to manage the club.”

Cal took a sip. The strong liquor was infused with a harsh pepper that went straight up through his sinuses and made his eyes water. He tipped the rest of the liquid into his mouth and let it send him into a coughing fit. Nothing like a lack of air to tie you directly to the here and now. Here and now, where he had other people besides Minnie to worry about. When he had recovered his breath, he wiped his streaming eyes and leaned heavily on the bar. “How’s Emiliana?”

“She went out.”

“Out?” he asked in surprise. “Where? Did she take the medicine?”

“She took it,” Luessa said. “And then her friend came to see her, the one who brought her the pomegranates.”

“Oh.” That was almost a relief, but—”Does he know?”

“That’s up to her,” Luessa turned away to straighten the shelf of liquor bottles, making sure that each label was facing outwards.

Cal lifted the glass again and found a last drop to pour onto his tongue. Even that still burned, though it wasn’t enough to make him cough again.

“Did you eat yet?”

“No.” Cal shook his head at her back.

“I’ll get you something.”

“I can—” but she was already walking away. He could get it himself. He could eat later. He could face Helen—no, he did not want to see Helen, or hear what she had to say after yesterday. He did not follow Luessa and she soon returned with a plate of bread and cheese. Hunger was the last thing he was worried about, but he took a piece of bread and managed to swallow several mouthfuls while Luessa watched him. He wasn’t the one she was really worried about, though, and when he dutifully picked up a slice of hard cheese, she wandered out of the room again.

Cal set the cheese down on the plate and was about to wander off himself when Harper poked his head in from the back. “Mister Delanton? Arland’s here. Wants you to sign, if you could.”

One of the liquor suppliers, on his regular rounds. Cal stood up and tucked his shirt into his pants, trying for a semblance of respectability, and followed Harper to the back entrance. Arland was there, with his wide truck backed up to the door. He pushed his glasses down his nose, squinted at the clipboard in his hands, then pushed the glasses back up and held the papers out to Cal.

Cal scrawled his name on the line. “I’ve completely lost track of the days, Arland. Thought you must have been by yesterday and gotten someone else to sign.”

Arland tucked the clipboard under his arm and peered at Cal in the dim light of the alley. “I have never come early, Mister Delanton, and I have never come late.”

“Of course not.” Cal turned to the truck and suppressed a burp. The pepper taste washed over his throat again. “These are all ours?”

“Six cases,” Arland said. “As I bring you each week.”

Harper picked up one of the heavy wooden crates. His biceps tightened beneath his shirt as he hefted it and walked carefully down the passageway. Cal took a second one and ignored Arland’s disapproving sniff. Together, he and Harper ferried the six cases of liquor from the truck to the cellar beneath Minnie’s. Arland took his paperwork and drove away. The liquor store was replenished, and in the evening the men of Delta Mouth would come to drink it. Jimmy Primrose was pleased with Minnie’s offerings, and the club was too far from the railroad station to have attracted Baccarat’s eye yet. Business continued as usual.