11
“Life taught me a long time ago to leave be anything that’s got more teeth than me.”
Daniel Buckman, The Names of Rivers
*
I was in Nestor’s, on my second glass of sparkling Galway water. That the day would come when an Irish person paid for water and paid dear is astonishing. Jeff said,
“You’re doing well.”
“At what?”
“You know, the drinking…the cigs…the other stuff.”
I shook my head, said,
“I’m flapping against the wind.”
He stopped polishing a glass, looked up, asked,
“What does that mean?”
“I’m biting a bullet, and I’m sick of the taste of metal in my mouth.”
He put down the glass, leaned on the counter, said,
“Very poetic if a little ominous.”
“Whoever said the clean life would help you live longer was right. They neglected to add you’d feel every boring minute.”
“I
