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A
s it turned out I was more than half wrong about Portia. That Friday afternoon a full staff meeting was called at Dav-Ko. The guys began showing up in their blue suits, white shirts, and Greek seaman’s caps, ready for action. David wanted his drivers to meet their new night dispatcher, and as they filed passed the office on their way to the chauffeur’s room, I watched Ms. Darforth-Keats checking out the talent.

We had a four-car job scheduled for six o’clock: A world premiere movie in Westwood.

As the meeting began Koffman and Portia positioned themselves in the front of the room, him wearing his best Tom Wolfe milkman getup, nervous about making a good impression that night with our newest account, the Beverly Hills GMA Agency. Koffman felt it necessary to reemphasize the fine points of opening and closing the rear door of a limo and greeting our clients and other stuff that they knew already, and there was Portia smiling, chomping her nicotine gum, eager to be every chauffeur’s best pal. Watching her ex
pression as the guys asked questions I quickly deduced that puking three times a day was most likely her second priority. Her lifelong best friends may have been gay, but she clearly had an affinity for California boys, as did her boss.

But Portia could be charming too. When David explained how he wanted the guys to each report in on the hour via cell phone she made a joke in her best snooty London accent about being there to serve their every need,
rain or shine.
“Think of me as your
’umble
servant,” she crooned. The boys ate the shit up.

I felt better. She’d somehow left her arrogance at the door.

That night, clicking on my computer to write my page for the day, my mind gave me a reprieve, another needed perspective. Screw it, I thought. I’ll make it work. In truth, on balance, Portia or no Portia, everything was going okay for me. I had a good job with paid medical insurance for the first time in years, a big upstairs bedroom with a newly swish-decorated john. I had a writing desk for my laptop and enough after-hours time to work on my new book of stories. For once I didn’t have to worry about scuffling around for enough money to pay the rent. All I had to do was to show up and control my mind and my tongue. I even promised myself to cut back on the booze and try a few more AA meetings.

But it happened anyway. I woke up in bed from a blackout, still drunk, in a pool of blood with my neck slashed.

Koffman and Francisco were out for the night at the ballet and Portia was downstairs chomping on nicotine gum, man
ning the phones for her third full shift. I’d penciled in all the morning pickups for the drivers and set up the work schedule for the next day on the computer before going up to my room to work on my writing.

Ten minutes into it there was a sudden Hollywood power failure. My screen went blank. A minute or so later when the electricity was restored, I restarted the machine but everything was gone, all my writing, months of work.

I started the machine again. Nothing. I tried everything I knew. Anything I knew. But no luck. Sixty pages of work, all of it—my entire Word file—lost—down the shitter. No desktop, either. Complete death. I’d never had trouble with the goddamn laptop before so, out of laziness, I’d never bothered to backup my writing files. There I sat. SOL.

In my closet were two unopened fifths of Ten High. I turned off my computer then cracked the seal on one, pouring myself four fingers of dark blended whiskey. Fuck it. Fuck sobriety. Fuck the job. Fuck the writing. Fuck trying. Fuck breathing. Fuck it all.

By nine-thirty that night, driving my Pontiac with the bottle between my legs, I’d finished the jug and unsuccessfully negotiated for a blowjob from a Santa Monica Boulevard hooker. After that I stopped at a Latino bar on Western Avenue and ordered a double from a bartender whose only language was Spanish. But the weird omen was back. The guy sitting next to me turned out to be a dead ringer for my brother Rick who now had a house in Roseville up by Sacramento.

That was the last thing I remember.

It was Portia who found me. Koffman and Francisco were still out on the town making their usual stops at the gay bars on Santa Monica Boulevard. In my blackout I’d returned home and run my cutting knife across the base of my neck.

“Get the hell away from me!”

“You’re bleeding. Oh my God!”

“I said get away—I mean it.”

“There’s blood all over your sheets—all over the bed.”

“Who’s that? What do you want?”

“It’s Portia from downstairs.”

“Who? Portia. Go away! Let me alone.”

“I heard a crash. You must’ve knocked over your table lamp.”

Something was in my eyes. Whatever it was prevented me from opening them. “What’s wrong?” I yelled. “I can’t see.”

“It’s the blood. Lie still. You have blood in your eyes and in your hair.”

“Forget it. Just leave me alone. Get away.”

Again the snooty British accent. “I’ll be back in a jiff. Just stay calm.”

The sounds of someone in the crapper opening, then rifling, then slamming my medicine cabinet shut. Then Portia’s voice again: “I’ll be right back. There’s a first aid kit in the chauffeur’s room downstairs—I’ll go and get it. How did this happen?”

Struggling to get to my feet. “I have no idea. An accident maybe—bad luck maybe.”

“Just please stay still. Stay where you are. Don’t get up.”

A minute or so later the voice was back. “Mission accomplished. I’ve got the first aid kit. Situation in hand.”

“How bad is it?” I asked. “What the hell did I do?”

“You’re drunk, aren’t you?”

“Not drunk enough.”

“Lie back. Please. Try to be still.”

Running water in the bathroom sink then a warm wash cloth against my eyes and face then down across my belly.

“Can you see now?”

“Yeah, I can see.”

“Excellent. Better already.”

“Better? So why am I scared shitless?”

“Can you stand? Let’s try to get you to the loo so I can wash you properly. I had some EMT training in New York. I know what I’m doing.”

“Apparently my ass is in your hands.”

On my feet shuffling toward the john I look down to discover that I am naked. For some unknown reason my cock is hard.

I looked at Portia then back down at my cock. “Sorry,” I say.

Her face was stone. “Never mind. It happens.”

I sit on the crapper while the pretty face further cleans the cut on my neck and washes my arms and begins cleaning the blood out of my hair.

“Help me up. I want to look in the mirror.”

“Not yet. Remain quite still. Please.”

“Then just tell me—how bad is it?”

“Apparently it’s not fatal,” the accent hisses, glancing back down at my cock. The damn thing is still thick and throbbing.

“Help me get up,” I demand.

In the mirror I see it. The cut—the gash—is about four inches long, sloping down the side of my neck. The bleeding is slowed. “That doesn’t look so bad,” I say.

“You soaked your pillow and the sheets.”

“Well, shit happens, right?”

“You’re still drunk. No doubt it’ll hurt tomorrow.”

“I don’t care.”

“You missed the artery but you’ll need immediate medical attention. A doctor. I’ll telephone David on his mobile then transfer the phones to the answering service. I’ll drive you to the hospital myself.”

“No! No fucking way. You fix it. You just said you had training.”

“That wound will require stitches. You’re going to need a proper hospital.”

“No hospitals. No goddamn doctors.”

“That’s absurd. Don’t be a fool. Without treatment that cut could easily become infected.”

“If Koffman finds out I’ll lose my job. We had a deal. A no-more-drinking-or-you’re-out-on-your-ass deal.”

“There’s nothing else I can do.”

“The bleeding’s almost stopped. Just help me back to bed.”

“No it hasn’t. Don’t be an ass.”

“Promise me—you won’t tell Koffman. Promise me, god-damnit.”

“I won’t tell anyone. Why would I?”

“Okay, I’ll go tomorrow. I’ll do it on my lunch break. But don’t tell David, okay?”

“Just tell me what happened?”

“I was drunk. I was in a bar. Then I came back here. I don’t know. I guess I cut myself.”

“Splendid.”

“I said I can’t remember.”

“You drink too much, Bruno.”

“Have I stopped bleeding?”

“No. Not yet.”

Portia finished cleaning my cut. She put bacterial ointment on it, then a bandage and some tape to hold the gauze in place.

Standing up again I faced the mirror to examine her work. The bandage was right at my collar line. She’d done a good job. If I wore my shirts buttoned up, no one would be able to see what I’d done.

“You must promise you’ll go to the doctor tomorrow? First thing.”

“You have my one hundred percent guarantee. My personal commitment as a gentleman.”

“Don’t mock me. I’m deathly serious.”

“So am I. No shit.”

“Very well. Then I’ll go back downstairs to my desk. You’ll be okay for the time being.”

“Wait,” I said.

“Why? What’s wrong?”

“Don’t leave. I need you to help me back to bed.”

“Certainly. Are you dizzy?”

“Yeah. I’m dizzy.”

My arm around Portia’s shoulder as we shuffle across the floor toward my bed.

When we reach my rack Portia throws a towel down over the bloodstains. She helps me sit, then lifts my legs up on to the mattress.

I glance down at my cock—amazingly the thing is still half hard. The skinny woman with the Madonna hair is standing above me, looking down. “I don’t want to be alone,” I say.

“Not to worry. I’ll be right downstairs.”

“Then—how about a nightcap before you go?”

“That’s preposterous.”

Nodding down at my cock. “What about…that? You could be a big help…with that.”

“You’re an evil pig.”

“I’m attracted to you. Sexually. I love your tits.”

“That’s absurd. Tell the truth. You have an erection and I happen to be in the room.”

“C’mon, Portia? One drink.”

“Absolutely no. Good night.”

“Okay, good night…Hey, what about this: You stand there and watch and I’ll do the rest.”

“Fuck off!”

I couldn’t sleep. Two hours later, after the bleeding had finally stopped and I’d had a couple more drinks, and I was sure she’d fallen asleep, I went downstairs, tiptoed toward her snoring body, found her purse, then reached in and stole her supply of nicotine gum.

B
efore dawn the next morning came the onset of the black dog. Madness. Shame.
Jimmy
screaming in my head. My eyes were not yet open but behind them the Voice was supplying my brain with poison.
Nice, asshole. Now you’ve done it. You’re stuck with her. She’s got a ream of shit on you now. What happens when she pisses you off and you try to bump her? What then? Smooth, jerkoff. Well done.

I felt like puking while at the same time my body screamed its demand for a drink.

Ten minutes later, after half a bottle of Pepto, I was able to hold down two vikes and two fingers of whiskey. I could stand up.

The unshaven madman’s face in the bathroom mirror told me everything I need to know: terror and humiliation.

Then the flash of truth that all of it, my months of work, all my short stories, were gone. Lost. As dead as my dead com
puter. Then, over and over, the crazy rerun of the incident with Portia and the knowledge that there was a good chance I had permanently damaged myself with Dav-Ko. If the skinny English girl decided to, if she saw fit to spill her guts to Koffman, I’d be jobless and homeless too. The damage would be complete.

When I peeled the tape and gauze away from my cut I discovered a quarter-inch-wide scab forming down the side of my neck. There was no bleeding, so no medical attention would be necessary. The hell with doctors.

After a shower I was able to hold down another half a glass of whiskey. I could breathe again. The shakes were nearly under control.

Pulling the sheets off the bed I discovered that a wide blood stain had leaked through on to the new mattress.

Like a fumbling burglar covering his crime, I flipped the mattress to the clean side then picked up the lamp and broken glass, stuffing the pieces and all the bloody bedding into three plastic supermarket bags I’d saved for trash. There were a couple of bloody handprints on the wall above where I slept that wouldn’t come off. I scrubbed them as best as I could then covered the stains with a throw pillow.

After dressing myself and putting on a new white limo-driver shirt and tie for the day I discovered the only good news in the last twenty-four hours; my collar actually did cover the neck wound.

Downstairs in the kitchen it was almost six o’clock. Koffman and Francisco were not yet awake so I made a pot of strong coffee.

Back in my room, sitting at the beast’s blank screen, I tried again in vain to recover my work. Nothing. Zip.

I phoned my biker pal Eddy Dorobek, the guy who’d sold me his five-year-old laptop for a hundred bucks. Eddy was a
house painter. He was always up early slapping color on the walls of his upscale West Side customers’ homes. He confirmed my computer’s death then made a last-ditch recommendation: that I call the technical support 800 number at Microsoft.

After punching my way through their phone tree and ten minutes on hold, and another three fingers of whiskey, I got plugged in to Ramesh, a “second-tier specialist.” “No problem, sir,” Ramesh reassured me in his Hindyass-half-English accent: “Our rate is $3.95 per minute for service. How would you prefer to pay for this assistance: debit card or credit card?”

That afternoon the kindness of David Koffman prevailed. After I explained the loss of my work and my computer’s death, he gave me a seven-hundred-dollar cash advance from the inch-thick bills on his money clip. An hour later I had a new PC.

The rage of losing my sixty pages of work, then being subjected to Microsoft’s absurd “customer support” at the hands of Ramesh, twelve thousand miles away, had made me insane. I decided to put my PC to work. My first order of business was a letter to an asshole named Bill Gates.