Sure enough, we find Brew being beaten up by Muy Estobal. (Why Muy? “Muy” means “very”. But “very Estobal?” “Very Steven?” Wait a minute...) Anyway:
You know how it can be in a crisis, when all your senses cut out but one? SRD captures that perfectly.I suppose I should’ve made some effort to defend myself. I wasn’t all that drunk. But everything had fallen apart on me. It was all hopeless, and I couldn’t think of a good reason to exert myself. So I didn’t.
This time Teresa is Brew’s savior. But as soon as she has released him from Muy Estobal, she administers the final blow to Brew’s hopes. She tells him Captain Cason got her fired, to force her not to press charges against the man who tried to rape her. She won’t be able to get work again unless she gives in to Cason.I really didn’t feel his fists much. Half the time I couldn’t even see him.
Nevertheless I could hear him fine. He panted like a locomotive, working himself up into a terrible lather. Every time he swung, he grunted like a small explosion, a lesser bomb. After each blow came a penetrating thud, muffled and profound.
Then I heard something else. A voice – a woman’s voice. It sounded dimly familiar.
Teresa and her relatives get Brew to her house for treatment of his wounds, but the only thing that brings Brew out of his mental collapse is the bottle of booze in old Manolo’s pocket. He gulps it down, finally drunk enough to face calamity.That was the last straw. It was all too much for me – nothing mattered any more. I let myself fall back against the cement and closed my eyes.
Manolo apologizes for advising Brew to go to el Señor, then advises Brew to go to Ginny.
Drunk, Brew sneaks into the hospital past visiting hours to see Ginny. He expects humiliation, but not to have Ginny tear his head off. She snarls at him, she orders him out, she calls him Mick! Nobody calls him Mick, especially Ginny!That was it, of course. Things weren’t bad enough yet. They wouldn’t be bad enough until I went and told Ginny that I’d screwed everything up. Then I’d be free to drink as much as I wanted. It wouldn’t be my problem any more.
Everything has to be paid for. Even freedom. Humiliation is the price you pay for alcohol, one way or another.
Then intuition pounds its way into Brew’s head. Brew struggles out of his fog, realizes who is hiding behind Ginny’s curtain, and hurls a chair at him, so the bullet goes harmlessly elsewhere.It would’ve been better if she’d shot me. No simple little hunk of lead would hurt like this.
Spoiler
Julian Kirke
“Oh, God, Brew,” she breathed, “I thought he was going to kill you.”
