Chapter One, Part One of Novel

1

It all happened after i'd gotten out (more importantly over) a
rotten relationship with a woman who may haunt my past. We had been shacked up together and she wanted it three to maybe five times a day. I kept up with the drink to keep up with her libido, and I suppose I just couldn't keep up (it up). She started fucking around town and eventually left. But the trusty bottle had stayed. And I think I got a sandwich or two out of it all...
I'd woken up in a drunken hangover haze from the night before, only to let out a fine groan laying on my back on the floor of a friends place who was kind enough for letting me stay there for the time being. I groaned again and there is a pain on the left, and right side below and beneath my ribcage. I stretch out and finally open my eyes and knock over a can of beer I must have opened right before I passed out the night prior.  I catch it before it's contents have completely spilled on the floor and drink the rest off. I finally sit up and the world spins (as it does), I stand, walk to the typer (a gift), and see what I had gotten done for the next whatever. A 'not bad' comes to mind and I mumble to myself 'not to many typos either.' I put my hands above my head, stretching out a may coming hangover, scratch my belly, sit down at the typer, and click-clack-clock a way with a force I don't understand (a timid force really) and the phone rings. I answer.
"Harold?"
"Yeh?"
"Wanna catch a drink with me at RG's?"
I take a look at the clock and it is after two, so I say sure. I run my hand through my hair, put on my cap, my shirt, grab another beer and walk out the door. And it is BRIGHT. I've lost my sunglasses recently, getting out of a some broads car at 4:00 A.M. a few mornings back, with two hands down my pants and I have been damning it all since. I unlock the door to the Buick, sit on in, put the keys in the ignition and give it a twist. The old beauty starts right up and I crack open my beer in celebration. I put her into drive and take a left on Columbus. Fiddling with the radio dials, I begin to give a maniacal laugh, turn the radio back off, and take five gulps from the beer. The stomach takes it in strides and I take three more. A right turn on Demones, I finish off the beer, and coast through a yellow light, realizing the pains in my sides have subsided. While going over the bridge, I began writing another poem in my head that I know i'll never write and just plain out forget, and wish I'd brought two cans of beer with me instead of one. I shake it off and take a right on third. I find a spot, park, turn the Buick off, walk through an alley way and walk into RG's. Looking around I realize Anna is probably on the second floor, so I mope up the stairs and walk the fleet of stairs up.
Now Anna is one of those ever disintegrating long time friends that i've been losing since I was born. We met at a young age. Kept in touch enough. And started to part ways on silent terms of our own. She was one of those kinds that could take both sides of a situation and seem neutral. I like to think I taught her that ability.
I catch her at the bar drinking a Vodka-Cran. I pull up a stool,
order a whiskey water, and she says,
"Gee, starting strong aren't yah?"
I wave her off, the bartender puts down my drink, I clasp my hand around the glass, take a sip, and reply,
"Every Morn."
She gives out a loud filled laugh and asks,
"So what's been going on? Haven't heard from you in a bit!"
"Oh. Nothing, just needed a pick-me-up."
She paused with a sense of reluctance. I knew the question. For she had been a friend of my last shackjob. But I got the sense she had known my virility in it all. But then again....that ability....
"How was seeing Rose?"
Rose was her name. She was going on some sort of self imposed 'Rolling Stone' journey that probably wont last three or so months with her new man. Apparently I was supposed to bid a farewell. Hell, it might have been the adult thing to do. Oh well.
"Huh?"
"Didn't you go see her before you left?"
"Was I supposed to?"
"Well....I suppose not....I just heard..."
"It seems you heard wrong." I waved the bartender over,
"Can I get a beer? Tall?"
The bartender nodded as my stomach curled. I saw some couple in the corner, two hands holding, their other two underneath the table. And as I see that, I slam down the whiskey and shake off the memories of a horrible past I some how lived and survived through