Felicia Sullivan

For the Love of the Bottle

The senseless involvement of the fish.

I do not eat fish. I simply do not. Don't even try to order it for me or I'll make a scene, pretend to wheeze, and scream with my mouth open wide in sheer terror from the violent allergic reaction. Don't try to order the mussels smothered in garlic oil and breadcrumbs. I can still smell the mussels and I'll hate you for it. To think, if you deceived me about dinner, what lengths will you go to? You will inevitably lie to your children and I will have to divorce you anyway. I cannot afford an attorney. Looking at your shirt and slack combination, I'll go out on a limb here and assume you can't either. Please don't insult my intelligence by ordering the shrimp cocktail. It is not a neutral fish. It is a fish and by nature, there is no neutrality. I will order the carpaccio instead. What, you don't like meat? You'll learn.

We are at Tutta Pasta off Bleecker. He orders the Caesar salad without anchovies. Since there is random hair associated with this fish he believes this to be meat. Perhaps a detected abnormality in the animal kingdom, he muses. Inhumanity, he suggests. Animals aren't human, I reply. He nods his head and brings his finger to his lips in mock thought. I peruse the menu and settle on the ravioli. Brilliant choice, I remark to myself. The waiter comes over, scribbles down our requests, and with shoulders slumped, skitters away. A collection of waiters and busboys form a huddle at the bar, my tape ends, I introduce a period of question, answer. He has no questions. I ask him about his family--merely to be polite. He leans back in his chair in utter terror and proclaims that intense probing into his life does not comfort him on the first date. He will however, confirm the details of his ad: yes, he is an environmental lawyer, yes he despises children, and no, he is not married. Simply put, anything else was entirely too much information to reveal about oneself. He diverts the conversation to the necessity of Court T.V. in prime time television. I pretend to listen, nodding occasionally. I am confused as to why he chose to offer nothing personal about himself.

"But you're a lawyer? You live to talk!" I wonder aloud.

"Precisely," he says. I respond to his leaning back on the chair by pushing my torso forward, my dress pressing into the marinara. I am confused, disturbed, somewhat intrigued. All of my pre-conceived notions about my date are simply wrong. No tape? No tape? I had not planned for this turn of events. So I improvise. Then stall. I had this planned. I had this date neatly compacted, like the rest. He would play his tape, words jumbled, tone soft and succinct--drowned by the echo of voices concatenating into one solid annoying conversation blurted from the other first date refugees in the first date restaurant. His napkin lay untouched, his glass of Pinot Grigio, empty. I can see his hands pressed firmly against his lap, staining his pants with olive oil. His fork is nestled comfortably in the lobster, stuck within its blaring red shell.

Intermittently, the fool tries to shake the fork from the lobster, but the lobster proves more sinister--it has claimed a victim: a faux silver fork streaked with remnants of dish detergent and creamy butter that have hardened into a cold moldy jaundiced mass. After three bottles of wine our conversation consists of forced coughing and mumbled requests for the check. I stare at his receding hairline, and his cheap navy blue suit covered in fuzz and find myself growing concerned about the levels of desperation I seem to eagerly plunge into. I trace the rim of my wine glass. Bits of cork float in the lukewarm Merlot. I yearn for candlelight. The harsh glare of the table lamp. I want a second date.

We stumble through the awkward mess mankind deems to call dessert. Another wasted waiter offers a silver tray piled high with rubberized dessert options. I have been at this restaurant twenty-five times this past month and this is far from refreshing. My date orders the pistachio ice cream--I stare in disdain. Twenty-two grams of fat and counting, I mutter, non-fat latte foam forming a non-fat moustache above my lip. I quietly belch and cover my mouth and begin to giggle. He looks up at me and frowns in disgust but says nothing. I grow ill watching bits of chocolate chip forming new teeth as he smiles at me, gums coated in neon green. I cannot possibly be this desperate. I laugh. Certainly, I am. His face falls and he glances at his watch, at the wall, at the napkin in his lap--at anything but me. We split the check and I automatically assume he is an unemployed Communist and I make my way away from him onto the street. He scurries after me and hails a cab. He attempts the first kiss debacle. I discreetly resist, feigning a foreign gum disease that plagued me from a recent dental appointment. I close my mouth and puff my cheeks and point to my face and sadly shake my head. You really don't want to go there, my eyes insist. A cab pulls to the curb and I jump in. He politely leans in through the window of the cab, his right hand holding his tie against his lint-ridden blazer, and asks me to never email him again. He leans back and throws a tape in the back seat. His tape. I gasp as the tires screech from the curb. Bastard.

Eat, woman, EAT.

After several glasses of Pinot Grigio, I wave away the bread plate and the obligatory garlic and oil accompaniment that oddly resembles castor oil with a dash of pepper. The waiter, clearly distressed, scurries away with his head bowed, as if my decision not to eat the pesto is a personal attack on the restaurant. Various lip prints on the wine glasses farthest from me are neat, a perfect curve of my lower lip etched on the glass. The ones in front of me disturb me. I crane my head, Linda Blair style, and squint towards the street desperately searching for familiar territory. Nothing. I turn back and my head begins to involuntarily bob up and down; lower lip curls to meet the indent in my chin and I cackle, the glass shattering pitch scrambling from the base of my throat accompanied by a series of randomized snorting and sharp intakes of breath. Michael, my date, whom I always believed to be secretly gay, is not pleased. I remember our first date, an off-off Broadway version of Peter Pan and Michael clapping furiously, his body arching forward in an exaggerated fashion while I sat next to him and scowled. He cuts into the veal, fingers gently massaging the flatware. I lean over and shout, "They kill babies to make that you know." Naturally, my shouting is followed with traces of Pinot Grigio still warm on my tongue. Several specks of my saliva decorate his freshly ironed oxford shirt. He pretends not to notice while frantically attempting to finish his meal. I find his uneasiness fairly comical.

"Really!" Michael squeals. He opens his mouth wide, gray morsels wet on his tongue. I almost cry "Bambi" throughout the restaurant. But instead I lean over and whisper "Close your mouth for Chrissakes, this isn't the Discovery Channel."

"I wonder how many endangered species formed what you dare to call an outfit," he scoffs.

"Whatever," I reply and wave for the waiter, who has expertly maintained a low profile in the bathroom and escaped my incessant finger-snapping.

"Perhaps you should attempt at opening the menu," he says, scowling. "This is what one does in a restaurant. You might want to make the giant leap."

"This is about the gay comment the other night at your parents, right? I'm feeling it, right here," I pound my chest, hitting myself a bit too hard. I constantly attempt to adjust to the glaring light and tap the bottle, nails scraping at the label, glue collecting under my fingertips. I am almost convinced I am narcoleptic except that my disease conveniently surfaces six glasses of wine into the date.

"I am not gay!" Michael hisses. Bits of chewed fish land on my plate. He waves his hands back and forth in the air as if protecting himself from the onslaught of bees. Then he slumps back in his chair and sighs, defeated, as if this conversation had been photocopied and handed out to every woman he has ever dated. I can barely make out what is left on his plate, only the collection of 50 glasses that surrounds it. They take up more room than the entrees. This image is perhaps a photocopy of every date I've had and I too lean in my chair, exhausted.

"At least order a salad for Chrissake," he pleads. I shake my head no. The people seated around me seemed to have formed twins. I lift the dead weight of my hand and proceed to count around the room. Michael is not impressed. His nose gently brushes against the veal; globs of Alfredo stain his tie. His one shaking hand maneuvers the rigatoni around his plate, collecting any remnants of chicken and sauce under the edge of the fork that wears the cold leftovers of some other poor date's dinner. The other hand is buried in his hair, motioning strands of curls to fall in front of his face. He starts to pull the curls over his eyes and painfully exhales.

"You're sick!"

"I am on a DIET, you could learn from a sudden aspiration towards weight loss. It might help you find that somewhat special gay male match. Could we get another bottle?" I yell to a passing waiter and spit, again, Pinot Grigio at Michael, bitter.

For the love of the bottle.

Four days, eight hours, thirty-two minutes and…ten seconds since I raised my fifth glass of Merlot to my other inebriated companions--and gulped my final drink. It was a typical Wednesday evening at El Rio Grande: we were encased in an all-glass bar, a waitress carrying frozen blue margaritas on her right arm, waving to the fraternity boys turned suits all celebrating someone's birthday with her left. Jocular pats on the back from one grey Brooks Brothers to another brought the atmosphere of pretension full circle.

Cate leaned over and warned, "Slow down Em, we have to meet Rachel and Christopher and the Yale people at Shiraz." Christopher and Rachel were the type of couple destined to be in a Honda commercial, showcasing gleaming orthodontia and expensive eyewear. I could not handle the perfect people and their perfect friends in their freshly cleaned pressed khakis and polo shirts debating politics that never would or ever will affect them. Cate cocked her head to the left as if inviting me into a private condescension session and scraped the base of her neck with her over-chewed fingernails. She did this when she was worried. I responded with ambivalence. This was how I reacted when she was worried.

Shiraz was a Soho jazz club that maintained a menu of overpriced, illegible drinks and a pitiful selection of incomprehensible hors d'oeuvres. The music was an "eclectic" take on modern jazz, the saxophone combined with an electric guitar for one song, a flute and blues harmonica medley, another. I found myself adorning rubberized ear plugs in hues of electric blue and blister red to combat the noise and was immediately complimented and labeled chic. It was a place where couples who auditioned for car commercials, preppy clothing lines, and commercial banks showcasing real estate loans gathered to muse over their imperfections. They basked in their humility. "Yes, I went to Yale, but I paid for my housing!" I could not deal with this sober.

We walked (I ambitiously attempted to walk; Cate strode confidently) into the densely packed, low-lit jazz club. As I was dragged through the club, blurs of people invaded my peripheral vision. Home-constructed fluorescent wire candleholders adorned each white-clothed table, accompanied by a single fake red rose. This was the originality of Soho. Couples leaning into one other, motioning to the bands. A woman's manicured fingers tapping her partner's lips. His long, thick fingers covered in small curly hairs clasped, enclosed, containing the fingers that grazed his lips. After my fifth trip to the bathroom in twenty minutes, my table formed a small huddle and whispered. Rachel stared at my scarlet nose in pity. She clutched onto Christopher and they mumbled softly, the blaring cacophony of the trumpet and tenor sax drowning their conversation. Their faces swirled before me and formed a collective scowl. I leaned my head to one side, facing the band and closed my eyes. I prayed when they opened, I would be home, asleep.

Several hours later--eleven bathroom trips for which I blamed various glasses of red wine and a seventy-five dollar bill later--Cate leaned over. "They're going to leave," she shouted above the band. She refused to look at me. She stared through the clear tall glass holding gin and tonic.

"Why? I thought we were having fun? We're having fun, right? This is fun, right? Why aren't you smiling? Why are you looking at me like that? Listen I didn't do ANYTHING. OKAY, it was just a little. A little. Just a little."

Hangover.

Four days, ten hours, four home-burnt chocolate chip cookies, seven glasses of water, me rising from my couch to my room, pacing, to lose time, to pass it by. Four days will turn into five. I will pace. I will turn on the television, flip through two hundred and fifty cable channels. I will pause at All in The Family, I will open the window and yell up to the college freshmen that accommodate the apartment above: "Can't you people fucking understand that Evie or whatever Archie Bunker's wife's name was died of cancer! Fucking breast cancer!" They will laugh and blast pop music. I will slam the window shut on a spider attempting to crawl into the depths of my gritty apartment.

"Think buddy, that by killing you, I saved you," I will affirm, confidently, semi-confidently, not confident. I will rise from my couch again and put the dishes away because normal people put dishes in cabinets when they are dry. I will even pull the rag draped over the refrigerator handle, the refrigerator that tilts to one side, the refrigerator that houses various condiments, stale seltzer and diet coke, and more burnt cookies, and I will furiously wipe the slightly damp dishes dry, drops of warm water will scurry from one end of the glass to the other when shaken. I will open the refrigerator and close it again. I will not eat more cookies. I will--phone rings.

"Em, you BITCH!" It's Alena. "Did you die and not invite me to the funeral?"

"No, still alive," I moan and open the refrigerator, its fluorescent lights whispering to me. I stare at the half-empty bottle of Merlot on the third shelf, label faced down, and cork plunged into the green glass neck, scrapes of cork stained with wine, and slam the door shut. The floor shakes from the slam. Three jabs of a broom handle greets me from the neurotic old couple below.

"I am totally offended but am willing to accept a book of apologies and lots of ass kissing," Alena coos into the phone.

"Yeah," I reply.

"So listen, we're going to Centro Fly tonight and I'm thinking you might have some party favors lined up for us?" I will pull the phone from my ear. I can hang up. I can claim that my phone is dying as phones that go uncharged sometimes do.

"Uh listen Alena, I'm on this new kick, no drugs, no alcohol." When, in actuality, I feel like the brown putrid mass that still collects at the end of my stairwell. My follicles start to blister, my fingers begin to strum, tap--fists begin to pound on my thighs; thighs begin to turn red. I will see blood rise to my legs. I will begin to believe that blood does indeed flow through my body--twisting over sinews, creeping into the cell wall, mingling in plasma, abruptly showering the surface of my skin. Nails, jagged, because I bite them now. Scratching my forearm, skin collecting under my nails, blood staining my skin.

"Hello? You there?" Alena yells through the receiver. "Jesus Christ Em, you are completely killing my buzz and I am in economic drinking mode." I jump up from the couch in horror as blood trickles through my shirt, my shirt torn by my own nails, my legs displaying scattered blue and green marks from my pounding. The phone is slippery in my sweaty palm.

"I have to go Alena. I have to call you back. I have to watch All in The Family--Edith has cancer."

"Edith? Cancer? What? Click. Dial Tone. Receiver is placed down. Receiver slips from the cradle.

I hear a busy signal, loud beeping. I am ambivalent. Sound, sober sleep.

Wednesday. Seven days, a week, even. Daylight does exist. I am clothed (not the dirty cotton pajamas) and sitting at a crowded outdoor table at La Giara on 34th and 3rd.

"Can I get a gin and tonic," Matt yells at the waitress, hand covering his cell phone. It is 1:02PM.

"I think we need to get a bottle? Red or white?" Lori beckons the table. The waitress stands before me in an ill-fitted black and white uniform. Her white plastic laminated nametag reads "Heidi."

"What can I get ya?" she squeaks.

"Diet Coke," I mutter. Matt covers his phone; "You are kidding me, right?" He returns to his conversation, "Andy, you gotta hear this: Em's ordering a Coke." He guffaws. His glasses slip to the base of his nose.

"Diet Coke, you asshole," I retort.

"Andy gives it a week," Matt laughs.

"Tell Andy that no one buys the sex change operation," I snap, sipping through a torn straw at my flat Classic Coke. I will make it through this lunch. I will not mass murder my friends using hardened taco salad shells and I will not bludgeon the perky Heidi with the torn pink straw.

"I know you hate being set up," Clarissa begins.

"You're right, I hate being set up," I finish.

"Well, as all of you know, I am dating Kevin and we ran into Steve, his very cute trader friend."

"I think I need a stomach pump," I moan. I gulp the last of my Coke and feverishly snap my fingers to summon Heidi for a dire refill.

"You are so dramatic!" Clarissa giggles, clasping both hands over her Dewars and Coke.

"Don't date traders," Lori interjects. Her hand not respectfully clasped over her cell phone.

"The market is completely stabilized," Clarissa replys condescendingly in the midst of after cocktail lipstick reapplication.

"I don't think I need to date right now. I'm on this self-cleansing binge and I just really want to focus on me right now."

Clarissa throws her hands up in defeat, "Okay, Okay."

I am getting ready for the date with Steve, the trader. Since everyone in New York is frightened of revealing his or her address due to premature stalking situations, first dates always meet at the bad restaurant. He picks Tutta Pasta, a dump with Ragu sauce off Bleecker. This is bleak. We greet one another awkwardly at the doorway adorned with laminated Zagat reviews streaked with marinara sauce and an overpriced menu coated with olive oil.

As we are seated, I crane my neck to scope out my exit routes. Normally, under the soothing sedation of two bottles of wine (one consumed before said date and the other, naturally, split between the two parties on said date during the course of the meal) his voice would have melted and amassed with the others a low murmur, an irritating buzz seeping and slithering within my inner ear canal. I am sober and he is uncomfortably loud and exceedingly talkative.

"They have the best steaks here! You wouldn't believe it from a pasta place." He enthusiastically pushes me into the dining area before the coat check lady can issue my ticket.

"I don't eat meat." I am searching for normal first-date questions, but cannot utter a single syllable. I sit numbly as Steve orders for me (which momentarily disgusts me but this incessant prickling pain that attacks my stomach-dull steak knives pressing into my skin.) I peruse the wine list, fingers tracing the Merlots, the Siracs, and heavy richness of the bloody French Cabernets. I pause. My oval shaped nails circling the 1989 Monte Cristo make sharp indents in the plastic. Abruptly I stop and discretely shove my hands under the table, twisting, twisting the napkin. We muddle through painfully awkward conversation until our food arrives. The waiter pauses at our table, our dishes decorating his arm. He places them before us, lowers his head and scurries away.

"You shouldn't order so much to eat, it doesn't look right." He pushes my half eaten singular shrimp to his plate, wiping the sautéed butter sauce off his perfectly shaved chin as he leans over to sample my appetizer.

"Thank you. I forgot, anorexia is the wave of the new millennium," I reply saccharine sweet. I tear a half-eaten lobster tail out of his mouth and savagely plunge it into mine. He laughs and moves his hands up and down in a "calming" motion. "Easy there killer, I was just kidding." I want the wine list. This pain, this shooting pain, will not go away. This affliction I have settles in my ear, clogs it. Wine meanders through my inner canal-shutting out the outside world.

He continues, "So you work for a design firm? Web design, right? Using computers and what not." He fumbles for words, groups of words, stutters between phrases and slang to fill the crowded cigar-stenched room with meaningless conversation. He fights so hard to assimilate as I fight so hard not to vomit.

"I know this sounds really trite, but I think I have found exactly what I want to do-I love design, it's all about being creative…" I smile, moving my food in semi-circles about my plate, creating a drawing with the mass of blood from the untouched medium steak, white from the whipped garlic mashed red potatoes and green from the string beans, crushed and smashed from the hard pressing of my fork. As Steve continues to speak, I press harder, grinding the beans into the blood and suddenly feel pity for the poor peas.

"I mean, yeah, for now," he pauses, watching me grind the peas against the steak.

"And that means?" I reply, leading.

"Well, until you get…until you get a real job. It's not like you're going to do this forever, Right?"

Silence. His eyes sift from table to table, barstool-to-barstool. He pats at his cell phone in his jacket pocket and then waves the waiter over, lightly brushes his sleeve, fingering the satin cuffs The waiter bows, chest heaving forward, shoulder blades protruding through his white cotton jacket, while Steve asks him to repeat the dessert specials, slowly, for a third time. Dessert lays untouched, coffee cold and black, ashes from countless cigarettes fill the ashtray. He has to fill the table with something -- he has to allow words to settle. "I didn't mean…to say…What I mean is, I'm happy that you're doing this, with this little company and their inconsequential projects but in all reality, how do you find it fulfilling? I mean, do you plan on living on that salary for the rest of your life? I hear you practically live in Harlem? How's that fulfilling?" He begins to sweat and I enjoy his sweat. Perhaps he sweats because he is scared to say what he has been thinking since ! his friend Kevin paid him to go on this date: Em knows, she's overheard the conversation, the terms, the offer.

"And I guess I should sell stock, or sit behind a desk. I guess that would validate me. I guess that profit sharing and matching rewards would make my life more fulfilling. Thank you, Steve," I rise. "Can you sit down? Let's just sit down," he rises. His crisp tailored shirt under his 100% virgin wool Zegna jacket clings to his after-shave soaked body. His glasses slide down to the tip of his nose and I wonder for a moment if they'll fall into my plate of blood and crushed produce. And I wonder if he would quickly snatch them up and fanatically clean the lenses, moving his fingers faster and faster, blotting them with water to make them clean and perfect again. I wonder if he thinks he can stop me from leaving, if he can make me the clean and perfect reflection of himself. I long for a glass of wine; I want the hissing and screeching of a subway entering Christopher Street station.

"Let's just talk about this," he hisses -- his hand on my shoulder, no longer polite and controlled. The waiter walks over. A smart little blonde man with a smart close shave and a smart starched uniform. "If you and your guest would like to take your drink to the bar, perhaps have a cigar," he too, struggles to save us from being seen by the myriad of tables suffocating me. "Perhaps try some port?"

"No, I think I'll be going home," I reply, struggling to push the words out. I place my hand on Steve's shoulder and sample the wool of his coat, thumb and forefinger gauging the thickness of the material. I want to cover my face with the softness of his jacket, to inhale the cologne and sweat that darkens the jacket underarms. I stand, frail, arms weak, leaning against the dirty rail of the newsstand next to Christopher Street Station. The dank debris, the heavy film of filth coats my palms, my fingers, and grains deep in my nails. The air is humid and still-a slight breeze carries the waft of rotten meat, peeled tangy tangerines; the detritus from the neighboring garbage cans. The sound of mosquitoes feverishly licks the air. I long for clear liquid, clean and pure crystal waters of vodka-my longtime love, my polite enemy.

I stumble, thirsty to Caliente Cab Company, a Mexican tourist haven. Bright lights, flickering bulbs haphazardly draped across the bottles and bottles of liquor, shouts, loud dance music and cocktail waitresses adorned in Captain Morgan shirts and pirate caps surround me. I blink in disbelief as Heidi; the waitress from La Giara greets me. "I remember you!" She coos, fake baby pink fingertips tap tapping on my shoulder; pen resting in her peroxide nest. I imagine black pigeons scraping at her skull. Their droppings-her roots. I long for my vision to blur-a cascade of lights slowly dimming.

"How about a Morgan and Coke this time?" Heidi asks and winks.

"Just water," I reply. I spit at the pigeons. I settle into yet another stool in yet another bar. I gulp the first glass famished, ravished, parched and barely wince as the plain liquid streams over my tongue, burns as it slides down my throat, charring my stomach. I wonder, is this how lobsters feel? Their blood red paper fine flesh burning, burning, burning?

*

Memory loss.

Cold coat of vomit on my arms.

The brisk drawing of the broom upon the floor scratching my ear.

Wet slap of a mop, stringy ropes in a pail of sullied, dark waters; ammonia filters into my nostrils.

I am dizzy and numb.

It is 4 A.M.

There is quiet and I.

I rise and stumble past Heidi fingering bills, licking her forefinger.

Stack, stacking of ones, tens and fives.

The clink clang of quarters rolling on the bar-a greedy hand slaps them down.

I stand outside and hail a cab and fall into the street; hands grinding into the puddle of slime and cigarette butts in the gutter.

A yellow cab swerves at my feet and a door swings open.

I steady myself with the door handle and climb in, "107 and Columbus," my words slurred and sloppy, eyes closing, sinking in the stink of my liquored flesh.