He remembered how she'd been when he first picked her up on the sidewalk, stumbling, stinking-breathed, scarcely able to talk or listen, and for a moment he still wanted to go because if he drank with her he wouldn't care that she didn't care, but then the thought of it began to make him so tired and he said: How about if I buy you breakfast tomorrow and then we walk?
She said: OK. I come tomorrow morning. I promise. I'll stand outside. I'll wait eight-o'-clock, nine-o'-clock, ten-o'-clock, eleven-o'-clock. I promise.
You don't want to come up?
No.
OK. I'll come look for you at nine.
She kissed him once more on the mouth, holding him so tight. Then he unlocked the door.
How's your leg? he said.
Better, she said. Better from all the exercise.
And she smiled.
She kissed his face one more time. Then she limped down the stairs.
At nine-o'-clock the next morning she wasn't there, and at ten-o'-clock she wasn't there. At eleven-o'-clock he had to go. He thought: What does that say about her promises, and especially what does that say about the promise she made when she spread her legs without a rubber and I said: Do you have AIDS? and she shook her head very quickly without saying anything (she had my face mashed desperately against her neck) and I said: Do you promise? and she nodded. .?
He was looking for the key to the toilet down the hall when an Indian knocked on his door for rolling papers. The Indian said: What do you think of this hotel?
Not much, he said.
Everybody wants a decent washroom, a kitchen. ., the Indian said. I guess I'm here to punish myself. See, I'm from Alberta. I moved here to be with my wife. She was the most beautiful lady I've ever known. A fullblood, aye? Said she loved me. Then she left me, moved back to the reserve.
I'm sorry to hear that, he replied. Somebody left me, too. Said she was coming back and she didn't.
You got papers or not? said the Indian.
Nope.
Fuck it. Let's have a quick one downstairs.
I need to catch a train out of this town.
Fuck your train, the Indian said. There'll be another train tomorrow. Get a round with me, aye?
Wide Indian girls were playing pool downstairs, some well, some poorly, some completely drunkenly, and the cue ball glistened like the whites of their eyes. — Fuck your train! his companion kept muttering with a scornful smile. They drank together steadily. His companion's cheeks glowed red like molten copper. Slowly his lips began to slide and melt and slobber into a smile. — Fuck my wife, he said happily. If you want you can fuck my wife.
That bitterish liquid, the color of stale pond water, connected him to the Indian girls sitting in a dim nook by a pillar on that drizzly Saturday afternoon. A smiling Indian man with long braids approached the bar and someone said: C'mere, my friend, and led him out. Another Indian came in, with his head lowered, and the security man with his shaggy shoulder-length hair who paced with his hands clasped behind his back immediately went to him also and said: This way. — The Indian dropped his head still further. Then he went out the way he had come.
His companion was drunk now. It surely wouldn't be long before the bartender or the security man got him.
I'm Scottish, his companion said. Well, a little bit Scottish. Mainly I'm Ojibway. There's a lot of us Ojibways in Winnipeg. That's us, and I don't give a fuck about the others. Those Cree. If they call me brother I'll drink their bottle if they're payin'. I don't give a fuck about them. See that cocksucker over there? He's Cree. He went after my wife once, so that's how he got that scar. See that cunt over there? That's his wife. I fucked her. She's Cree. She's just a slut.
Indian girls with mountainous shoulders, a tiny firefly of cigarette in each immense round face, kept drinking beers, the greenish bottles flashing like jewels against their blue-black bangs. A fat woman was snoring in the corner like a gray jay hiding under the snow, her head curled down on her back. The security man lifted her under the armpits and dragged her slowly, determinedly, out into the rain.
His companion drank another beer and burped and laughed and said: I'm fifty-seven years old, so I outlived my mother's age. I drink a twelve-pack a day, so if I make it past sixty it'll be a miracle, aye? So
