Off the Wagon

[hazlogs]

IC Date: 7/28/2002
Note: Occurs right after the events of the log for the same date.


	For the first time in over a year, Jack Salem was drunk.

	It was a seductively pleasant feeling, he mused, head buzzing with 
the scotch he'd imbibed less than an hour ago.  Rhiannon had dropped him 
off in front of his apartment building barely twenty minutes ago, and 
theoretically he should have simply retired for the evening.  Along with 
the four glasses of scotch, he was operating on too little sleep (four and 
a half hours, interrupted twice) and a meager dinner (about six hours ago, 
leftover Chinese).  He knew that he was impaired, though he'd insisted 
otherwise to the kinfolk, and he knew the danger.  In his present 
condition (and how the Ronin in him sneered at the stuffy humorlessness of 
this turn of phrase), he would be easier to ambush; his reactions were 
slowed and his precision of movement handicapped.  His self-control was 
impaired as well, of course, and that was a greater danger.  True, his 
temper was good at the moment, what with his mood being buoyed up by the 
scotch and a vague, undefined feeling of triumph from his talk with Smith 
(triumph over what? and how? didn't matter), but Salem knew damned well 
how unpredictable his Rage could be.  One wrong word from one wrong punk 
in just the wrong tone of voice, and the beast in him would rear up, 
screaming.  It was uncertain if, in his present state, whether he'd be 
able to deny the berserker.  It was also uncertain whether he'd even want 
to.  If the situation arose, there would likely be blood.  Blood and 
terror and torn flesh.  There would be violence and death and then (much 
later, a later that currently seemed as dim and unimportant as the turn of 
the next century) regret and consequence.

	So, it was dangerous, this post-bar stroll.  Deliciously 
dangerous, gleefully and capriciously dangerous, and just as intoxicating 
as the alcohol itself.  The apartment was cramped, hot, confining, a 
prison.  For tonight, for this hour, for this minute, for _now_, Elson 
Avenue was his and his alone, and he was going to enjoy his domain or be 
damned trying.

	Or both, the Walker acknowledged to himself, sanguine.  Or both.

	There was an all-night liquor store down the block from his 
building, its exterior girded with defaced brick and iron, its interior 
grimy under humming fluorescent lights.  He was aware of the proprietor's 
dark, nervous eyes following him as he entered, and though he didn't see 
it, Salem knew, just _knew_, that the man's hands were hidden under the 
counter, keeping close to a shotgun.  There were times when such behavior 
irritated or depressed the former Ahroun, but tonight he felt only pity 
for the poor bastard.  He conducted his business as quickly as possible, 
paying almost no attention to the label on the bottle; it was inexpensive, 
it was easily portable, and it was vodka; little else mattered.

	He'd first tasted vodka at thirteen, only a few months before his
father had finally bowed to tribal pressure and moved himself, his wife,
and his Garou son to Serbia, back to the pissant little town from which
the whole paternal line had sprung.  It'd been a miserable year and a
depressing birthday; he remembered having a vicious argument with his
father -- sixteen years later, he couldn't remember what about, exactly --
and being sent to his room, and then climbing out the window after dark
and taking off for the stables near the woods.  There, he'd come upon,
quite accidentally, a knot of cousins from his mother's side of the
family, three or four older teenagers who seemed, at the time, to be
impossibly mature.  Late high school, with one of them planning for
college in the fall.

	Salem remembered the smell of cigarette smoke and alcohol and tall
slouching figures clustered furtively together in the yellow glow from a
electric lantern.  He remembered the stink and rustle of nervous horses
and the way the other's muffled, laughing conversation abruptly halted
when he rounded the corner and found them there.  For a moment they'd just
faced each other, four against one and that one three years younger than
the youngest of them, and somehow it was _they_ who were wary and afraid.  
He remembered the glowing knot of hatred that had started to swell up in
his throat -- it'd been an all too familiar sensation that year -- and had
been on the verge of leaving when the oldest of the group, the
going-to-college-one, had suddenly gestured him forward with a grin.

	On Elson and Fifth, Salem paused to break the seal on the bottle.  
The memory had been regulated to forgotten mists for years, but tonight he 
recalled the conversation clearly.

	"Hey, Rade, c'mere.  Got a present for you."
	
	Suspicion and hope.  "A present?"

	Chuckle.  Another gesture, and then he'd noticed the Smirnoff's 
bottle in his cousin's hand.  "Yeah.  It's your birthday, isn't it?  
You're what, twelve?"

	The growth spurt had been still another year away.  "Thirteen."

	"Old enough."  Another beckoning gesture with the bottle.  
"C'mere.  Have a drink.  Hang with us."

	The offer had sounded sincere, so he'd taken the cousin up on it,
suckered in by the thought that, despite the growing Rage and the
abyss-like difference in their ages, they actually wanted his company.  
The first drink had made him cough, unsurprisingly, and had made his eyes
tear up, also unsurprisingly, and they'd laughed while Pre-College had
slapped him hard on the back.  "Like a pro," he'd said encouragingly.  
"Like a fucking pro.  Try it again.  Second's easier."

	That first drink had gone down hard.  He'd felt like his throat 
had been turned inside-out, and he hadn't been particularly eager to 
repeat the experience.  However, it was either drink or lose face, drink 
or face the humiliating fact that, thirteen or no, honest-to-god teenager 
or not, you were still a kid.

	He'd stumbled back to the house well past eleven o'clock and 
broken his leg in two places while trying to climb the tree back to his 
bedroom window.  And then, once he'd gotten back home from the hospital, 
his leg trapped in plaster and aching dully through the pain medication, 
his father had come up and backhanded him across the face.  The storm of 
Serbian invective had lasted for a good half hour.

	Happy fucking birthday.

	Elson and Third, the commercial district.  Salem passed by the
Rialto and ignored the hopeless knots of prostitutes and homeless and
disaffected youth with nothing better to do but watch for a chance at
violence.  The vodka burn down his throat was a welcome one now.  
Following the birthday fiasco, after which he'd never seen the Pre-College
cousin again, he hadn't touched anything harder than the occasional glass
of wine at dinner, not for another eight or nine years.  That had been a
special occasion, the coming-out party for the Milanov girl.  What had
been her name?  Sasa?  Sanja?  She'd been beautiful, in any case, or
beautiful enough.  Long, thick brown hair.  Played the violin.  A little
thick around the hips, but her eyes seemed to change color with her moods
and she had a wicked wit.  There'd been talk of an alliance of her family
and his, and he'd danced with her three, four times that night.  At least.

	He hadn't had to witness her death, which would have been a relief 
except that Anya had made it a point to give him every bloody, gory 
detail.  She'd torn out the girl's heart herself, Anya had informed him, 
archly, and she'd gone on to describe the way the former kinfolk had 
dragged herself, naked and mindless and howling for blood, from the Sabbat 
grave.  This before the night he'd been dragged in front of the whole Sept 
for judgment.

	Shit.

	He stopped a block before the entrance to Harbor Park, standing in
front of a one-screen movie theatre that boasted titles such as "Goldfucker"
and "Road to Perversion."  The bottle had gotten half empty, and the summer
night no longer seemed inviting or attractive; the goddess, half-glimpsed in
shadow, had stepped into the spotlight and turned into a hag.  He drank
again and stood still, his head spinning and his eyes closed, willing the
previous vision -- the city his realm, the street his kingdom -- back to
life.  More painful images kept creeping back, graspingly insistent, but he
focused on a single face, not the Milanov girl, narrower, sharper, blue eyes
squinting as she laughed, lights from Cesar's Palace glinting off the
metallic gold strands of her wig, freckles dotting a star field across her
nose.  It was a tarnished talisman at best, but it pushed away the despair,
the knot of anger tightening in his chest.  When he opened his eyes, the
world hadn't regained all of its former luster, but it was something he
could face again.

	It was time to go back.  He'd finish the rest of the bottle in 
private and listen to the compact disc that had arrived from Maine and 
think about Cesar's Palace and the Vegas strip and a marathon of Ed Wood 
movies in a hotel room with no air conditioning.  Eventually he'd lose 
consciousness.

	If he was lucky, he wouldn't dream.