Coffee was his first addiction

Coffee was his first addiction

There was a lady present; he did not want to swear. He cursed himself under his breath for wanting to swear. He cursed the lady for being in his company that he could not swear. He cursed himself again, for inviting the woman along. “I think it’s time to go, dear. It’s getting late.” She moved those lips, those damn ruby things that he had to restrain himself from attempting to kiss all the time.
“It’s never too late for you.”
“It is now.”
“Why?”
He paid the tab and began walking outside. She hurried to catch up. “Why?” She was loud, and the stench of alcohol was so strong upon her that patrons glanced at her as she passed. He open the door of a cab for her, told the driver her address. Helped her down, leaned in and pecked her on the cheek.  “Why are we leaving?” He shut the door and walked away.

He walked home. Blast the damn girl, and the damn bars she liked. The damn faux-speakeasies. You could never know where the damn things were, and then once you found them, they had their little secret methods of entry. Their “vintage” liquor wasn’t even good. He would much rather drink at home. What a fucking wannabe hipster, with her hip fucking bars. A fucking Catholic, law-abiding, goody-goody hipster. How does that even fucking happen? Fuck her.

He climbed aboard, went down below, and grabbed a fifth of liqueur. Cointreau tonight. Strong, sweet, easy to drink and get drunk. He took a highball of it, the bottle, and his vaporizer on deck, and turned on the stereo. It was a waste of time to stay up like this, but he couldn’t fucking sleep anyway. At least maybe he could salvage the night with a little relaxing. Another fucking waste of his short fucking life with another damn bimbo at another shitty establishment. He couldn’t even bring himself to call it a bar. He was a snob about such things, though.

Why did he keep coming back to some girl he didn’t like just because she was pretty? A lot of men did that he supposed, but surely he was better than that. He spoke. “Christ. Jesus fucking Christ. Getting myself upset about a goddamn woman." He’d rather be angry about a bar; at least he could control that. He had always tried not to care about women; they had always seemed more trouble than his time or emotions were worth. It seemed those times were changing, though.

He woke when it was just light, a whopping 4 hours later, his head muddled, as it always seemed to be these days. He made a cup of coffee and went for a long, hard swim. It would have been easier to have just have a drink or even a spot of dope or smack, but he was still trying to convince himself he was not an alcoholic or drug addict. Damn the things he did with his head. Convincing himself he wasn’t an addict when he clearly was, that he was unsuccessful when he was a top man in his profession, he was good with women when he clearly wasn’t, that he wasn’t attractive when he surprisingly was, that he had no life and no hobbies and no friends was bored and lonely always all of it causing further reliance on the things he loved and were hurting him most, booze, weed, and coke. And her, the damn slut, but not actually a slut, just a tease, with the beautiful lips and eyes and hair and delightfully fit, tall figure.  Damn it.  Damn it all to hell.

He could be such a jolly person sometimes, lively, interesting, fun, eccentric. He could even be intense, driven, a legitimate hard-ass. But now, a fucking sad sack who put on his best face for the outside world and faked a shell of his former personality and wallowed in self-generated misery at home. He though about going to down to a club and doing something, but he didn’t feel like leaving the boat. He just stayed home and read. And drank. He was kidding himself about not drinking in the morning.

He finished the first bottle of wine at 10:20, and moved on to the stash of cold beer. By 3 he was tight, very tight, and there were two empty bottles of wine, six empty bottles of beer, and a half-empty fifth of liquor lying on the deck. The booze didn’t make him happy; it never did when he was alone and bored. It never made him happy by itself, and it never helped ease his boredom like he thought it would. He decided to up the stakes, and ground some chronic and heated up his vape. Fifteen minutes later, he was baked and he spent the rest of the afternoon spacing out. He could amuse himself with his thoughts when he was high.

He awoke, still not refreshed and still unhappy. He stumbled to the French press to make a few cups of coffee; coffee was his first addiction. He had enjoyed it for some time, and then he purchased his first coffeemaker in college, and within a month could not do without it. That had been about the same time he started drinking copiously, when he started smoking, when he had tried coke. College, supposed to be the best time of his life. It was. It was also supposed to be the time students became the people they would be for the rest of their lives. It had been. For better or for worse.  At least the coffee actually brightened his day.

He pulled on his favorite power suit, and took a moment to admire himself in the mirror. His appearance was the last vestige of his confidence. He loved leveraging his attractive appearance for power and opportunity. He dressed well, dressed to impress and did. It also helped that he was still an attractive man. He was well built; his tall and muscular frame had handled age well, and he still had his attractive, if not exotic, features. It all made him wonder why she hadn’t fallen for him yet.

Traffic was thick on the way to work, but he drove aggressively as usual, taking great pleasure in the reverberation of the engine as he floored the accelerator and sped by other drivers, and even greater pleasure in the consternation of other drivers as he aggressively moved around them. He got to work early, like every day, parked in the garage, same spot as usual, and walked to his office, for the oh so familiar view. At least he had an office; for that reason he considered himself better off than most corporate slaves, as he termed himself.

He sat and read the newspaper for a little, grabbed another cup of coffee, of much lower quality than what he had at home, as he always noted. It was time to work, so he drank a glass of whiskey, just something to help him focus. Three stressful and boring hours later, it was time for lunch. He walked to his favorite restaurant. When he was giddy and stumbling on the way back to work, he realized he had a few too many glasses of champagne, and decided to not go back to the office in the afternoon. He hadn’t taken a sick day in over six months, an impressive span for someone who woke up every day dreading the moment he walked into the workplace.

He drove for a while, not really thinking about the way home. Apparently to his mind, home was the airport. Not a bad idea to take a little vacation, he supposed. He’d spend the rest of the week on a bender someplace, be ready for some structure in his life when he got back. Sin City was nice this time of year, and he could afford it for just a week. Apparently London was also nice this year, as he found himself going through British customs after he got off the plane. He was too drunk to care at this point. He walked out of the airport with no idea where to go. He didn’t like the weather here. It was too damn overcast. Shit. He couldn’t vacation where it might rain. He wandered around the airport, wondering what to do; before he knew it he was speeding on a train under the Chunnel, through the French countryside, to the casinos of Monaco. He definitely couldn’t afford it here, but what the hell was a little money out of his savings account?

He stumbled to the train station several days later, heading back to London. He was tired, hung over, but luckily only poorer because of accommodations and travel. When he was sober, he had won big; when he was drunk or high, he had lost much. He got off the train at his destination, and looked in wonder as he saw he was in Valencia, Spain. Had he boarded the wrong train? Who the fuck cared? Did he even want to go home? Maybe. It wasn’t like he could afford to live here, especially not without returning home to sell off his possessions. He looked for the next train to London. Time to return the grind, the soul-sucking life that was the modern world for self and suffer, just like Siddhartha Gautama had said every man would. Maybe after some time away, she had realized that she really loved him.

His boss never saw him return to work. His family never saw him again; his mother was never the same after he was gone. And her? She missed him more than he would have thought. She just ended up living as she would have, though. Rumor has it that he still is in Spain. Some think he is a writer there, one of Spain’s better authors. The resemblance is hazy. Those people point to the wife of the author, who looks much like her, she with the ruby lips.  Most think he’s just homeless. A few suggest that he is making a living off older, wealthy women as a gigolo. It doesn’t matter. He doesn’t miss them, especially not her, and he doesn’t give a fuck what they think.