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dressed in clean clothes. The water had been hot to the point of inflicting damage. I’d scrubbed at my hands, arms, and chest until the skin was raw but even now I could still feel the old man’s blood on me. My flesh was raw and pink and still held a sheen from the water. I’d never looked as clean, but the blood was still there, somewhere under the skin, becoming a part of me, linking me to his image, the absurdity of his last moments, and now his corpse which lay in some cold basement draining out into the corner holes of a silver table.
    I pulled the folding step-stool out from the pantry and set it firmly in place, then climbed up and opened one of the highest cabinet doors, fishing around toward the back until I found the old and (for many years now) unused bottle of Johnny Walker Black. This was a masochistic little ritual I performed on those rare occasions when my nerves got the better of me despite my insisting otherwise: take out the temptation and stare it in the face and see if you’re still made of something. I am not one who believes that the best way to overcome temptation is to expunge its source from your universe. No, to me, temptation can only be overcome when it becomes boring, trivial, commonplace, and the best way to make it mundane is to always have it near and remind yourself that it’s near. Makes it easier to hold it in your grip and not caress it as you would the hand of a lover, take a good look at it and give it a good look at you, then smile to yourself because you’ve won and cache it away again until the next time your nerves don’t get the better of you.
    Don’t let anyone tell you that recovering alcoholics live well and happily never wanting a taste again; you never don’t want a drink, and eventually that becomes easier to deal with—it’s when you begin to think that the drink wants you that it’s time to dust off that sponsor’s number and put your pride in check.
    I looked at Johnny W., he looked at me, and pretty soon (despite the old man’s blood soaking deeper into my core) we decided we’d had enough of each other’s delightful company. He went his way, I went mine, and the folding step stool slipped back into its place wondering why in the hell I’d bothered it in the first place.
    I opted for a cup of hot chocolate. Powdered instant. Domestically, I have grown slightly complacent in my middle age. And why not? We’re born into a nearly-ruined world, so the best we can do is make ourselves as comfortable as possible whenever we have the chance; the easier it is to do so, the better. Sometimes. Not always. Just sometimes. Let my epitaph read: Here Lies Gil Stewart ; Don’t Look At Me — It Was Already Broke When I Got Here .
    I wandered into the living room, sipping happily away at my yummy Swiss Miss, and began to sit on the sofa when a pair of bright headlight beams drifted across my window, followed by an even brighter and more intensely-focused light. I pulled back the curtain to see a large grey vehicle shaped like an old bread-delivery truck crawl past my house, its driver sweeping the street with a hand-held searchlight. The truck stopped and the driver killed all lights. It took my vision a moment to adjust afterward—the light had shone directly in my face at one point—and by the time I could focus clearly the driver was out of the truck and looking in my yard. It was already dark so I wondered how he could see. Assuming it was Animal Control (who’d finally found someone to come over this way), I put down my mug and grabbed a coat from the hall tree so I could go out and talk to him. I was just releasing the deadbolt on the front door when I took another glance outside.
    He adjusted a strap on something he’d put on his face, reached up, and hit a switch between his eyes. It wasn’t actually between his eyes, of course, but that’s how it looked. I caught a flash of a small green light glowing where the bridge of his nose should be and realized