13. Dana Gets Drunk

By now the fire had fizzled, and Dana was swizzled.

He looked at Dana Feminita, and discovered that she was weeping. The hoops were off her barrel and she was drunk. Usually, Julian would also be three sheets to the wind, in tandem with his wife. He had discovered that writing drunk was doable, even laudable. He preferred to do it sober, but could swing both ways. There was a tipping point, after which no work got done. On the other hand, sex while drunk was flat out impossible. So much for the received wisdom. Dealing with a drunk wife while drunk was easy; dealing with a drunk wife while sober required nerves of steel. She was weeping, curled up in a ball in her chair, her laptop fallen by the wayside beside the chair. These were things that were never a good sign. His entire survival strategy during these excruciating exchanges involved mostly biting his tongue, saying next to nothing, and not allowing the game to escalate. It was diametrically opposed to his nature, and he often failed at it. Sometimes he died a horrible death. He turned his attention to rebuilding the fire. He more or less knew what he was in for. He might as well get warmed up.
“You shit,” she slurred.
He did not respond to this.
“You’re a piece of work.”
“What are you talking about, sweetie?”
“You know damn well what I’m talking about.”
“Honestly, I don’t. I was writing. We weren’t talking about anything.”
“That whore.”
“Which whore?”
“You know which one. There are others?”
Unless she was talking about that blogger, Amy Lissa, he had no idea what she was talking about. This was a second marriage for both of them. Julian had done his divorce pro se without undue enmity regarding his ex. Dana, on the other hand, had endured a humiliating divorce, preceded by serial philandering, adulteries by both parties, financial tom-foolery, and some spectacularly wicked lawyering. These topics were not that far beneath her surface. She would speak about them with venom when perfectly sober. When she was drunk, she seemed sometimes to forget which husband she was with. On the other hand, she would say things that might be applicable to Julian and their marriage, and often no matter who or what she was talking about, Julian thought that he should pay attention to the “in vino veritas” for any shred of significant veritas. In the present line of reasoning, he was tempted to offer the name of her former nemesis, but elected to keep silent.
“Shit!” She spoke a bit louder, and struck her fist on her thigh.
“You can’t get away with ignoring me. Everyone always tries that. I’m tired of just being ignored.”
“Nobody ignores you, Dana. You’re adored by all. You have a ton of friends. You have even more Facebook friends.”
“Fashe-book. Fuck Facebook.”
“Facebook is fupped duck.”
It occurred to him to wonder why he was indulging in this at all. He could flee to another room in the house. Two reasons: one, he was enjoying and tending the fire; two, he had a death wish with regard to Dana. He was very curious to know what was at the bottom of her beautiful mind. By day, she was a near saint. Here, now, on this occasion, as on a few others past and future, she was awash and her mind was ugly. He began to actually take notes on the raw. He took up his laptop. It had the effect of intensifying her rant, which he wrote down verbatim.
“She. There you go again with that netbook. I get ignored on Fashebook and I get ignored here at home. You’re an asshole, you know what? I am a shpeshel pershon, and I don’t deserve this crap. What are you doing on that thing? Talking to that little whore again?”
“Who do you keep talking about?”
“Whash her name?”
“Who’s name?”
“That goddamn blogger, you idiot!”
“Which one? I look at so many blogs…”
“Annie… Aimless Annie!”
Ah ha, thought Julian. She’s wounded by the mere image of Amy. She’s hardly read a teaspoon of the language. Also, Aimless Annie is perilously close to “Andrés Amos (Amos and Andy). Has his other cover been blown as well? He put that blog up only a few hours ago. There’s no way for her to know about that yet, unless she’s been snooping. It’s another insane coincidence. Not enough phonemes, or names, to go around. Or is it something in the water? Is he going crazy? Paranoia strikes again?
“You mean “Amy Lissa?”
“Thash the one. Amy Lissha.”
“Babe. You’re drunk.”
“So? So are you!”
“I usually am at this hour, but tonight I’m not.”
“Bullshit! Your drink is right there!”
“It’s just juice. Here sniff.”
Dana fidgeted in her chair. She got up and tried to put a log on the fire. He watched as she lunged at the woodpile and tossed a large piece of lumber into the wan fire. She grabbed for the grappler, but it fell open and hit her on the ankle. She didn’t feel a thing, but Julian looked carefully for signs of a wound. None appeared. She worked at righting the implement. She went to work at repositioning her log. She finally landed it right where she wanted it.
“Good job, Dana.”
She gave him an insincere smile. Her face was bright red even in the flickering light.
He held his breath that she might have forgotten her last topic. She hadn’t.
“I still can’t believe you dragged that nimwad into your class dishcussian. You must have it bad. Got a serious crush, Julian? Do we need to talk about this?”
“We are talking about it, but the discussion is seriously impaired, because you are seriously impaired.”
He’s done enough AA to know better than to try this, but his ability to alter his way of thinking to accommodate changing circumstances has never been a strong point.
“Because it’s going to make a mess out of your career. You’ll make me the laughingstock of the whole faculty. The students already think you’re crazy. She’s just a little eye candy that you can’t resist. All the others can see that, the faculty, the staff, the students. But you, you silly dick, can’t see it.”
He’s sitting now, typing this up, letting his fingers do the work automatically. He keeps a level gaze on her. As she finishes this last blast, he rests a hand on the couch and drums his fingers.
“Am I getting through to you?”
“Loud and clear.”
“I am very tired of being abandoned in this house.”
“I agree. We should quit drinking and put the computers away.
“We don’t have a problem with drinking.”
He drummed his fingers a bit more vigorously.
“We don’t,” she repeated. Who was she trying to convince?”
“I’m tired of not having sex.”
“I agree. We have a sex problem.”
“When was the last time we did it?”
“A month ago or so. That’s a bit better than before, when the answer was so far back I don’t remember.”
“And you are a terrible lover.”
“I am?”
“You have no idea. You are the most unromantic man I ever met.”
“I think of myself as a romantic. I think I’m a Tantric.”
“Fuck that Tantric shit.”
“Or not, as the case may be. Look, we’re either drunk or we’re busy. How do we get it on when we don’t have time for it?”
“We have to make time, dickwad. And you have to stop mooning around over whores on the internet. And you have to learn how to properly make love to a woman.”

He picks his arm up off the arm of his chair and lets it fall. It is a lame gesture of aggression.

Dana gets up to go mix up another drink. He follows her out to the kitchen after staring at the fire for a moment. In his mind, he resolves to never mention Amy again. He has already begun the process of removing his mentions of her on his blogspot blog, taking that blog down, and setting up another under a pseudonym.
In the kitchen, he pours himself a drink, finally. If you can’t beat ‘em join ‘em.

In the morning, when he scrapes himself off the floor on which he’s passed out, he approaches Dana as she’s making coffee.
“That was quite a load of shit you dropped on me last night.”
“Really? What did I say?”
“That I’m a terrible lover.”
“I don’t remember any of that.”
“In vino veritas.”
“What else did I say?”
“You said enough that I realized that certain things I say and do are very hurtful to you. Some things need to not be indulged in or pursued.”
“What things?”
“Nothing specific. Just sayin.’”
“You’re saying not much of anything.”
“You said you were tired of being ignored.”
“I said that?”
“You said Facebook was fucked up.”
“There’s your veritas.”
“You kept saying that I was an asshole, a dickwad.”
She shook her head. Sotto voce, she muttered,
“If that’s what I said last night, I really do gotta quit drinking.”