Blue Collar Royalty Apr. 2015 | Page 33

  “No.”       “Well,  why  didn’t  you  say  so,  brother?”  He  laughed.       I  had  hoped  he  would  tell  me  to  piss  off.  Normally,  I  couldn’t  give  one  metric   shit  about  a  guy  like  him,  but  I  was  in  the  AA  program,  and  my  asshole  sponsor  had   said  to  find  drunks  and  try  to  sober  them  up.  He  had  said  my  choices,  if  I  “truly  had  a   problem  with  booze,”  were  to  help  drunks  sober  up—or  drink.  No  “ifs,”  “ands,”  or   “buts.”  I  really  didn’t  want  to  drink.  And  Norman  was  a  certainly  drunk,  so  I  figured   what  the  hell.         “O.K.,”  I  said,  “How  about  the  food-­‐carts?”       “Whatever,”  Norman  said,  his  legs  knocking  together  as  he  pulled  himself  up   from  the  sidewalk.     His  breath  hit  me.  It  smelled  like  week-­‐old  newspaper  peeled  from  the   bottom  of  a  hamster  cage.  I  tried  not  to  gag  as  I  led  Norman  to  my  Cadillac.  I  thought   about  the  twenty  dollars  I  had  paid  a  man  the  day  before  to  give  her  a  full  interior   detail.  I  gritted  my  teeth,  spying  the  mud  and  shit  and  God-­‐knows-­‐what  on  the   bottom  of  Norman’s  tattered  boots.       I  unlocked  the  passenger  door  and  swung  its  weight  out,  barely  missing   Norman,  who  had  lost  his  balance  as  he  approached  the  car.  He  fell  into  the   passenger  seat,  his  exposed  back  squealing  against  the  leather  seat.       “Watch  the  rug,  would  ya?”  I  said.       “Watch  it  do  what?”       I  mumbled  something  and  swung  the  steel  door  closed.       33