apartment that somehow feels both empty and cluttered. There’s too much space to think. There’s not enough to breathe.
Henry sits between the empty beer bottles and the half-filled box for several minutes, knee bouncing, and then surges to his feet, and goes out.
* * *
The Merchant is busy.
It always is—one of those neighborhood bars whose success owes more to its sheer proximity than to the quality of its drinks. A local institution. Most of the people who frequent the Merchant refer to it simply as “the bar.”
Henry weaves through the crowd, grabs a stool at the edge of the counter, hoping the ambient noise of the place will make him feel a little less alone.
Mark’s on shift tonight, a fifty-something with gray sideburns and a catalog smile. It normally takes a good ten minutes to flag him down, but tonight, the bartender comes straight to him, ignoring the queue. Henry orders tequila, and Mark comes back with a bottle and a pair of shots.
“On the house,” he says, pouring himself a matching glass.
Henry manages a wan smile. “Do I look that rough?”
But there’s no pity in Mark’s gaze, only a strange and subtle light.
“You look great,” he says, just like Muriel, and it’s the first time he’s said more than a single line, his answers usually limited to drink orders and nods.
Their glasses knock together, and Henry orders a second, and a third. He knows he is drinking too much too fast, piling liquor on top of the beers from home, the whisky he’d poured at work.
A girl comes up to the bar, and glances at Henry.
She looks away, and then back again, as if seeing him for the first time. And there it is again, that shine, a film of light over her eyes as she leans in, and he can’t seem to catch her name, but it doesn’t matter.
They do their best to talk over the noise, her hand resting at first on his forearm, then his shoulder, before sliding through his hair.
“Come home with me,” she says, and he’s so caught by the longing in her voice, the open want. But then her friends come along and peel her away, their own eyes shining as they say Sorry, say You’re such a good guy, say Have a great night.
Henry slides off the stool and heads for the bathroom, and this time, he can feel the ripple, the heads turning toward him.
A guy catches his arm and says something about a photography project, how he’d be a perfect fit, before sliding him his card.
Two women try to draw him into the circle of their conversation.
“I wish I had a son like you,” says one.
“Son?” says the other with a raucous laugh as he twists free, escapes down the hall and into the toilets.
Braces himself against the counter.
He has no idea what’s happening.
He thinks back to the coffee shop that morning, Vanessa’s number on the bottom of the cup. To the customers in the store, all so eager for his help. To Muriel, who told him he looked well. To the pale fog, like candle smoke, in all of their eyes.
He looks down at the watch on his wrist, glinting in the bathroom light, and for the first time, he’s certain that it’s real.
That the man in the rain was real.
The deal was real.
“Hey.”
He looks up and sees a guy, glassy eyed and smiling at Henry like they are the best of friends.
“You look like you could use a bump.”
He holds out a little glass jar, and Henry stares at the tiny column of powder inside.
He was twelve the first time he got high.
Someone handed him a joint behind the bleachers, and the smoke burned his lungs, and he almost threw up, but then everything went a little … soft. Weed made space in his skull, eased the nervous terror in his heart. But he couldn’t control the places it took his head. Valium and Xanax were better, dulling everything at once, but he’s always stayed away from the harder stuff, out of fear—not the fear that something would go wrong. Just the opposite: the fear it would feel right. The fear of the slip, the slide, of knowing he wouldn’t be strong enough to stop.
It’s never been the high he craved, anyway, not exactly.
It’s just the quiet.
That happy side effect.
He tried to be better, for Tabitha.
But Tabitha’s gone, and it doesn’t matter, anyway.
Not anymore.
Now Henry just wants to feel good.
He taps the powder onto his thumb, has no