ONE
Mario could not remember the last time he had had so much to drink; perhaps it was at his wedding. He also could not remember what, exactly, he had been drinking, but it certainly had been copious. He could not focus on the business associates with whom he had been drinking and suspected they had much more than Mario, but where were they now?
He was not sure where he was, although it felt like he was in a hotel room. He was not sure what time it was, although it felt like something well past noon. He did know for an absolute certainty that he had to find a toilet within a few seconds to expel the evil he had swallowed last night. He ran to the ensuite and succeeded in hurling all but his intestines.
Sweating, shaking, and dizzy, he stumbled back to the bed. Staring at the ceiling: no, not really, his eyes firmly shut, he was merely facing the ceiling, slowly breathing, trying to stave off another wave of nausea. Grasping both sides of the bed, he waited out the dizziness before attempting another bipedal excursion.
Reaching the door, stepping into the hall, he had to turn back to see if there was a number on the room; he was not even sure what floor he was on, and did not know where to turn to try to find an exit. Eventually achieving the main lobby, he headed directly into the bar and very quietly and politely asked for a Bloody Mary, thinking that would be a partial solution to his horrible state.
With the buzzing and swirling inside his brain slowing, he managed to pull a deep draught from the Bloody Mary and began glancing around the hotel bar. He was in a hotel, that became obvious; he still had no idea what the name of the hotel might be, nor was he sure what city he was in. It was clear from the conversations around him in the bar, he was probably in a Latin American city. Listening as closely as his throbbing head would allow, he gradually recognized the accents were Castilian, not South American.
Was he possibly in Madrid?
The bartender gave him a sympathetic smile and switched out his half-empty glass with a fresh Bloody Mary. "Are you OK?" he asked, pulling out a small bottle of pills; he shook out a couple and tossed them to Mario.
"Where am I?" Mario whispered.
The bartender laughed openly; "Majorca, Señor."
"Majorca?" Mario felt even more confused; he slowly recalled a jet landing somewhere, and then catapulting along rough stone streets in loud traffic and meeting up with business acquaintances for dinner and drinks, but nothing more.
"Are you an American?" asked the bartender.
"Yes; no. Yes, I mean yes, I guess I am; Hell, what day is this? What time is it?" Mario's head was still throbbing, but the knife-edge of the headache gripping him was very slowly abating.
"I don't understand" the bartender threw a sidelong glance at the hung-over Mario.
"I was born in Argentina but now I am an American citizen and live in California" Mario was able to stutter out without much pain.
Then it came back to him: the long, dark nights alone in Malibu, the weekends accompanied only by a six-pack or a bottle of vodka, the dozens of professional conferences in nameless cities with forgotten agendas. Since Mason's death, Mario had merely stumbled from one breath to the next, usually without any stated purpose other than to stay alive. Seven years.
And now here he was at yet another professional venue-he could not remember the name of the conference or its purpose or why he was there- half-way around the globe from the beautiful house he had shared with his husband, the man whose ashes were now scattered along the Pacific shore at the foot of the dunes where Mario frequently meditated.
He had been lying to himself; there was no meditation involved, at least not in any lofty spiritual sense, but rather the simple temporary silencing of the demons who wanted to keep him trapped in his self-made prison. The horrifying reality, he suddenly realized over his second Bloody Mary, was that the demons were winning.