He wasn't falling-down drunk all day long, at least not on workdays, but he did start each day with a 50/50 screwdriver. He carried a 375 of vodka to work in his messenger bag and hit it a few times during the day just to take the edge off. Serious drinking didn't happen until he got back to his apartment.
He strategically located half a dozen plastic 375ml vodka bottles around the place, refilling them as needed from a case of California's Cheapest vodka (after one drink you can't tell diluted grain alcohol from Stoli or Grey Goose). He was never more than three steps from a drink.
Weekends were different. He was hardly ever fully sober when he woke up on Saturday. After kickstarting with a couple of 50/50 screwdrivers, he'd hit a 375 whenever there was danger of sobering up. He didn't eat or sleep much on weekends, but blacked out some and fell down a lot, occasionally bruising or breaking something (wrist once, a few ribs, couple of teeth). The nearby doc-in-the-box got used to patching him up.
One Sunday night almost a year after he left Jean, as he lay on the kitchen floor trying to figure out why he had decided to sleep there, he heard the doorbell. After figuring out what the noise was, he raised his head to look at his watch and saw a smear of blood on the floor where his face had been. While he tried to figure out what that was all about, the doorbell rang again.
He finally managed to focus on his watch, and with some effort figured out it was either 9:30 or 5:45. Since it looked dark outside the kitchen window he figured it was 9:30, entirely too late for someone to be visiting. Besides, he didn't want any company anyway, so he tried to shout. "Go away!"
It sounded pretty pathetic, but apparently was loud enough because someone began pounding on the door. That was really irritating, so he tried again, and this time managed a fairly respectable shout. "Go the hell away and leave me alone!"
"Open the goddam door, Wolfe, or I'll kick the sonofabitch in!" It was a woman, and her tone of voice and choice of language indicated that she probably wasn't a social worker or Sister of Divine Mercy.
"Okay, okay, give me a minute." He knocked over two chairs and the kitchen table trying to pull himself up—he puzzled for a moment over blood and what looked like some skin on the corner of one of the chairs—but finally got to his feet by crawling over to the sink and using the countertop as a handhold. When the floor finally stopped tilting back and forth, he negotiated the daunting trek of 20 steps to the front door by breaking it down into several short legs: from the end of the kitchen counter to the recliner, to the back of the couch, along the couch, then a two-step lurch to the wall beside the door, and finally sidling along the wall to the door.
By this time his vision had cleared enough so that he could see the deadbolt knob, but it took four tries before he could muster enough manual dexterity to grasp and turn it. The doorknob only took two tries, but when he pulled the door open he had to grab the edge of the door to stay on his feet.
Sure enough, it was a woman, an angry woman holding the handle of a wheeled carry-on suitcase. It was Woodley. She looked pissed off to the extreme, but her jaw dropped when she saw his face.
"God, Wolfe, you look like shit!" She dragged her carry-on past him, then dumped the bag off to the side and half led-half carried him over to the couch. "Sit there while I get something to clean your face."
By the time she got back with a damp washcloth and hand towel he had finally thought up a really clever response: "Gee thanks, Woodley, you're looking pretty good yourself." But his timing really.
She told him to shut up and started dabbing around his right eye and cheek with the not-too-clean washcloth. "Do you ever do a laundry? No, forget that, you obviously don't. Now hold still while I try to clean this up." She dabbed harder then started rubbing, which stung like hell.
"Ouch, dammit. That hurts!"
"Shut up, you big baby, and hold still! Be grateful I couldn't find any rubbing alcohol. I really need to disinfect this. Do you have any anti-bacterial salve? What about a first aid kit?"
While he tried to figure out what anti-bacterial salve was and whether he had a first aid kit, she started asking more questions he couldn't answer. "What the hell happened to you, Wolfe? No, forget that too, you probably passed out and hit your face on something. Why are you trying to kill yourself? Isn't it time you stopped feeling sorry for yourself?"
She was getting louder and rubbing harder, which hurt even more. He blinked a few times, trying to focus on her face. It looked like she was crying, but that couldn't be right, she sounded mad, not sad. Not Woodley.
"Jesus H. Christ, Wolfe, you're acting like a little kid whose dog got run over. Why didn't you talk to somebody? Why didn't you ask for help? Oh, right, I forgot, you're a goddamn guy. So grow a fucking pair and act like one!" The longer she talked the harder she scrubbed.
He finally grabbed her wrist to stop her. "What?" It felt like she had scrubbed all the skin off that side of his face. "Oh, I guess I got most of the blood. Sorry about that." The apology didn't sound sincere, though. She stood up and tossed the towel and bloody washcloth on the coffee table.
"Think you can make it to the bathroom? You smell as bad as you look. When was your last shower? Then we've got to try to find something to put on that cut."
He started to stand up and tried to speak, forgetting how difficult it is to do both at the same time when you've been getting most of your calories from alcohol for a year or so. He collapsed back on the couch. "Shit..."
She moved in front of him and leaned over. "Hang on to my shoulders." She helped him up by leaning back and lifting him by his armpits, then tugged his left arm around her shoulders and slowly led him to the bathroom. She put down the toilet lid and sat him down.
Muttering about his odious odor, limited intelligence, and dubious parentage, she got him out of his clothes, sucking in her breath when she saw the bruises on his ribs and chest where he had fallen. She awkwardly moved him over to the tub and managed to get him over the edge so he was sitting in it. All the movement finally overwhelmed the autonomic restraints on his gastrointestinal system, whereupon his bowels released and he threw up all over himself. And the wall. And the floor. She managed to scramble out of the way, then turned the shower on, gagged, and dashed from the bathroom.
"Hey, what the hell! That's cold!" He didn't sober up, but he was damn sure a wide-awake drunk. When she got her gag reflex under control and figured the worst of it had washed down the drain, she came back in and turned the handle to hot.
"Don't worry about it, you won't shrink. Well, your willy might, but it'll grow back. I'll make sure of that, if you ever smell right again." Using the spray head, she washed down the wall, then mopped up the vomit from the floor with a bath towel. "I'm won't wash these, they're going in the dumpster. I'll buy new ones. New sheets, too."
