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crash. Then, I’m swept by silence. Once again yellow globs rush me, turning black.
    ***
    When I met Lydia she used to drink a pint of Gilbey’s gin at ten-thirty every night. She and Sam would sit through the sports and weather—Lydia didn’t give a hoot about news in those days—then Sam would fetch her bottle and a two-ounce shot glass with an etching of the Lincoln Memorial on the side. Lydia filled and threw down eight shots—bang, bang—one right after another before bed.
    She never offered me any gin, so I can’t claim she led me astray, although whenever us kids got way-rowdy or wound up she’d give us each a yellow Valium. I kind of liked those. They made everything fuzzy as the line between me and the rest of the world became less distinct.
    When Shannon was teething Lydia showed us how to dip the pacifier in whiskey and honey. Shannon will probably grow up with the idea that pain is relieved by alcohol and sugar. It’s not.
    My own mom lives in a drugstore wonderland now, but as a kid the only thing I saw her drink was eggnog on Christmas Eve. The woman had a remarkably low tolerance—one cup and she’s giggling like a ten-year-old and dancing the rumba to “Jingle Bell Rock.”
    Every year she and Petey would sing “We three kings of Orient are, smoking on a rubber cigar, we got loaded, it exploded—BOOM.”
    Dad drank beer at rodeos and football games. Since he died, I’ve been told in his younger days he could hook back the bourbon, but I never saw it.
    The thing is, alcohol had become a factor in my behavior. It snuck up on me. I loved Yukon Jack in a way I wouldn’t care to love a man, but I hadn’t planned on needing him. I didn’t ask for marriage.
    ***
    The weekend passed in two slots—bad dreams and awake. Awake was a bad dream come true, so I preferred the other kind. Twice a day Lydia and Hank helped me into the bathroom, where I sat amid threats of another catheter if I didn’t go.
    “You’ve peed on your last sheet,” Lydia said. “I’m tired of wiping up your social blunders.”
    Hank nodded in solemn agreement.
    Social blunder is a term Lydia uses a lot. She’ll be at someone’s house and burn a hole in the rug with her cigarette or break an antique doodad, and she’ll put one hand over her mouth and say, “Oh, my, I’ve committed a social blunder.”
    Hostesses doubt her sincerity, but I think she is sincere, she just can’t deal with honest embarrassment. “Social blunder” is better than what she used to say, which was “Fuck me silly.”
    During one of the awake periods Lydia asked me if I’d meant to harm myself or if the rooftop episode had simply shoved me off the deep end, alcohol-wise.
    “Didn’t you read the note?”
    “We thought of that and looked, but the only paper Hank found was a speeding ticket on the seat that Auburn’d colored on. Anything you wrote must have blown away.”
    ***
    I awoke soaked in sweat after a nasty dream, in which a bald eagle swooped down to pluck Auburn off a picnic blanket, and found Lydia smoking in her usual chair at the end of the bed, glaring at the TV. She must have sat there most of the week.
    She said, “Dirty Dick Nixon is a boil on the butt of a sumo wrestler.”
    “Why watch if it upsets you?” I asked.
    “Because if I relax for a moment, America will flush her freedom down the toilet. You’ve got mail.”
    Lydia flicked her cigarette at her jeans’ leg and rubbed the ashes into the denim. She didn’t believe in ashtrays. When she was done she’d balance the butt on its end so every table in the house was covered by little filter columns. Once a week or so Hank went around scooping the mess into a paper bag.
    One letter was from Sam in North Carolina and one from Dothan across town. My name on Dothan’s envelope was typed, evidently by his secretary Lurlene, since Dothan can’t type, which I took as a bad sign.
    Sam’s letter was written in red ink.
    Hey Maurey,
    Alicia has a problem with foreplay. I