Sunday, 9 November 1997 – Holman’s, Portland, OR

Sunday Project

The coffee is helping with my current headache; it’s about 10:30 on Sunday morning, the second Sunday in November, and it’s been about 16 hours since I drank any caffeine, which is too long. I took a couple migraine pills before I went to bed, and I slept very well; woke up in the middle of the night, high. Very happy.

Smooth jazz, non-music. I want to play music that when you ask someone about it later, they don’t remember that any music was playing. There is an excellent bar here at Holman’s. I’m sitting at the bar. If this was a diner, it would be the counter. It’s technically a counter, but since we’re in a bar, and there is a bar behind the counter, this counter is also a bar. (Look this up in the dictionary.) Being here makes me mourn the loss of drinking liquor. I never could afford it, and still can’t, but that’s little consolation. Right now my choice would be a small glass of Maker’s Mark Whisky. I like how they call it whisky—it’s bourbon, but in their mind, bourbon is the only whisky, and it’s spelled Whisky, not whiskey. I will sit and meditate for hours, repeating the word “Whisky” over and over until I can taste the taste of bourbon, and smell the smell. The smell of the remains inside my Dad’s Beam’s Choice bottles, the fancy ones I saved.

Neat. All I need is a small glass—the only way to drink liquor is in a glass, neat. One would think that a person could drink a small glass of liquor on occasion and have only beneficial, medicinal effects. Or like dessert, on occasion. But I know it’s not true, and that’s so sad. It has nothing to do with quantity, unfortunately. There are those, perhaps, in a chaste way, who limit themselves to one glass, maybe one glass a day, or week, or whatever. This seems just as sad, in a way—enforced self-discipline, and why? It is because of fear, maybe not of one’s own alcoholism, but of what they have seen in others, in the alcoholics. They don’t believe it’s the alcohol; they believe it’s Satan; though they know, instinctively, or in their own heart, that it’s alcohol. They say it’s a tool of Satan, but I know there is no Satan, and there is only alcohol, and man. Back to the small, neat glass—I want the small, heavy shot glass. It’s all I need. I can rule the world from a small heavy shot glass, one at a time. It’s the color of the liquid in the glass, and its clarity; the glycerin climbing the sides. The smell is the most important, the most important thing of all. The sight of the glass, the color of the liquid, and the smell in the air. The complex relationship of the smell, then, mixing with taste, and then the burning sensation, especially on the tongue. It’s all down-hill from there. I can do without the rest.

“What’s the dishwasher’s name?”—from the waitress, one of many—a bad sound coming from a waitress’s mouth. I can guarantee she’s not asking him for a date. Scotch is next in line of things I miss. After bourbon. Especially Pinch, in the crazy, three-sided bottle. And then Drambuie, the king of all liqueurs. There’s gin, not my favorite, but think of the complex flavors in that Bombay Gin, and the cool persona of Tanqueray. The weird effects of ouzo, and the mythology of tequila, and whatever it is about cognac. I’ve got to get out of here—home, and read my Bible.