It all started with a boy who Roger could have known in New York.
It started around 6pm, really, right before Roger's shift at his hole-in-the-wall bar. He was paid under the table, money that was sometimes in sequential order or some other kind of dirty that Roger readily ignored. He guessed he didn't need the job, but without Mark to pester or Collins to prank or Maureen to scowl at, he was going slowly crazy in the apartment on his own. Funny how all he'd wanted was to be alone and now that he was, he was making a responsible choice. Relatively.
That night, Roger hadn't even wanted to be at work. His knees were bone-on-bone, like he was 150 years old. He'd woken up with a headache, he'd thrown up twice in the afternoon, once nearly in his sleep: a side-effect of his medication. When he didn't eat, it tore at his stomach lining. When he did eat, it made quick work of emptying Roger's stomach so that wasn't the case. It had been a thing for so long that Roger wasn't often hungry. Today, he was. So that meant he was dizzy and vaguely sick.
So, he'd done what Mark would have done for him: found some weed. Anyone who thought weed was a relapse probably also thought alcohol was, and that meant their uninformed opinion officially didn't matter. When they were puking up blood every couple of weeks, they could cast all the fuckin' stones they wanted. If weed got him to eat, if it kept him from seeking stronger things, he'd smoke all he fuckin wanted.
His boss hadn't cared that he came in blazed as hell, reeking of pot. He also didn't care when a regular customer told Roger he looked like shit and bought him a shot. Actually, he'd taken one with them.
Then, the questions came. Roger, why are you so thin? What happens when that pager goes off and you disappear? Why were you late to work again? Who is going to clean this floor up?
Not Roger. If he bent over to clean up some cockbag's mess, he was afraid he wouldn't be able to get back up. So he refused. Rudy didn't like that. He wasn't going to clean it himself. As a matter of fact, Roger could do it or he was fired. Roger laughed. His friend bought him another shot. And another. The mess sat there, Roger straddling it like it was his and he was too proud to wash it away.
Eight shots and a few punches later, Roger was 86ed. This could have been any other night in New York, could have been any one of the bars he'd worked at that tossed him out. All Roger had wanted was to get drunk enough that he didn't care about his fucking knees. Instead, his boss called him a faggot and Roger punched him in the face. He'd gotten punched. He'd promised Rudy that if he wanted Roger's blood, he could have it, and that it would stick the fuck with him. It would change his fucking life. It would end it. No one knew what he meant, but they were scared. Stunned. No one stopped him when he took a bottle of whiskey with the spout still on it.
Six blocks down -- nowhere in particular -- Roger decided the dim light of another bar was calling to him. His bottle of whiskey was empty. He tried to shake some liquor into his face, but either he was too drunk to find the coordination or the bottle was empty. He tossed it onto the ground and let the shatter give him chills. It was nice to have control where he could. If he tossed a glass, it would break. If he broke his boss' fucking nose, he could leave. These were the only things in life that were simple, where logic came with any kind of comfort.
Roger tripped on his way in, licking at the corner of his mouth to make sure there was no blood to be seen, to be transmitted onto the glass. He swiped at it with the back of his hand just in case. It came up clean. Roger tapped chipped nails onto the counter, deposited his last $20 and murmured, "gimme all'a whatever this'll get me." He rubbed at his eyes and waited. One was faintly puffy and he didn't remember any punch landing there. He also didn't remember leaving his ex-boss bloody and half-conscious. Glassjawed motherfucker.
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