Wood Paneled Walls
He rushed into the hotel room and slammed the door behind him, keycard falling to the floor, fumbling to loosen his tie. It was his lucky tie, had been, now he’d have to burn the fucking thing. After today he’d have to burn a lot of things.
It was an old San Francisco hotel, wood paneling in the lobby, in the hallways, in the room. He felt a comradery with this sort of hotel. He felt the power in all the secrets it had housed. He could smell the booze and the women that had been snuck in and out, the mountains of expensive cigarettes that had been smoked back when you were still treated like a man in public establishments. Back before the fucking internet, before everything was everywhere, and everyone knew.
He felt sure he had been made for the era this place had been built in, but he could still keep some secrets secret. He could still stay ahead of them. Of course it depended on a few others to keep their shit together too, and these lousy morons that surrounded him were flimsy. How could they let her into the event? How could her of all fucking people just walk in and sit down right in front of him, 20 feet from his goddamned wife?
He finally threw off the tie and loosened his collar, but still felt like he was suffocating. He pulled off his shoes and checked his watch. Five minutes until he had to go back downstairs. The thought made his chest tight. Thank God there were still hotels in the world with the goddamned fucking decency to stock the mini fridge. He dropped to his knees in front of the bar and stared desperately at the selection of mid-shelf bottles stacked in together. His vision going wobbly along the edges.
He gulped down a couple of bourbons as fast as he could open them, and fought back the rising bile in his throat. The sting of the alcohol brought his senses back though, and he now his shame crept up.
“Jesus,” he muttered staring at the small empty bottles.
He detested alcoholics. Weak fucking junkies nursing right out of the bottle. He went back into the fridge for two more mini-bottles and grabbed a glass from the counter top. There was no ice, so he upturned the bourbon into the cup and added a splash of bottled water.
“There, a proper fucking drink,” he said to himself, voice still unsteady in the quiet room.
He sat down on the corner of the bed and took a sip, holding it on his tongue, trying to taste it.
He hadn’t seen her in nearly a year, he thought it was behind him, just a small indiscretion, a moment of weakness that he let last too long. He liked her though, he may have even entertained leaving his wife for her if there wasn’t so much at stake, but it is just not done in politics. Seeing her at the event (some bullshit to “help the kids” or the “environment”, they’re all the same fucking thing) had sent a spear of panic all the way through him. Longing and fear and embarrassment all hurtling through his guts in the middle of a goddamned speech.
Watching her press her way over to his wife after the speech while he sat there on the stage watching it happen. In slow motion, completely removed and unable to do a thing. Thank fucking god the pieces of shit he has on staff to keep a situation like this ever happening finally reacted and cut her off before she got to his wife, but still, there was that look. Did she know something? How could she? It was probably written all over his stupid fucking face, he was probably red and sweating. He was probably the poster child for a guilty cheating politician.
He was starting to sweat again now. He couldn’t keep his thoughts from any of it. A rapid succession of memories flooded him; the first night he met her at donor event, how embarrassingly hard he pursued her the second his wife had left the room. How she flirted back and the rush it gave him. The nights in hotels like this one, the cigarettes and cocaine and expensive champagne. All campaign funded and lawyer approved (Jesus, what if one of them talked?). The last night he saw her, how much he hated to tell her it was over, how mean he had been to strengthen his own resolve. How spitefully she looked back at him.
He was spiraling now. He drained the glass and slid off the bed toward the mini-fridge again. Crawling over to open it. The bourbon was gone, he grabbed for the gin. He knocked over several bottles, his nerves failing. He laid down, right on the floor, breathing hard in short gasps, vision swimming. Now he could only see his wife’s face, that questioning look, always judgement behind her eyes. She never trusted him, not from the very beginning, how could he win against that? Why was she always like that with him? She gave so much favor to perfect strangers, smiling and asking them how they were, like she really meant it. Why did she never give that to him? Always suspicion, always.
What if she knows? What if she knew all along and is just waiting for the right time to tell his aunt? Waiting until it would embarrass him the most, until it would be devastating to him, to his prospects. They had both said they would forgive him the first time, but his aunt had been crystal clear when she told him if it happened again, he was over. His career, his access, the money, everything. How could he let it happen again? Why was he such a fuck up? Why was he like this?
It’s the booze, it’s the booze and the drugs. It isn’t who he really is, it’s how he is when he’s fucked up, that’s all. He’s got it all inside him, he just needs to keep the path clear. That’s what he’d have to do, clear the path. Quit everything, immediately, quit fucking everything, go clean, get it together.
His breathing steadied, he knew he was right, he was a fucking alcoholic and a coke head, and he was destroying everything he had worked so hard for. He just had to clear the path, get this shit out of the way. He could climb to the fucking top if he could just clear the path. It would be awkward to own a winery sober, but wine wasn’t his problem, it was the heaps of bourbon and cocaine. He could still drink the wine, that wasn’t the issue.
The cool air falling out of the mini-fridge was helping to calm him. He sat up and took a few deep breaths. He still wanted to cry, but he wasn’t going to. He opened a bottle of gin and drank it down, then another.
“No,” he said suddenly, realizing what he was doing. “No, you can’t, you’re a fucking loser, and you’ll drag them all down with you. You’re the fucking worst.”
He wasn’t sure he meant it until he heard himself say it out loud. “Fucking loser.” It was true. The only thing he was good at was giving speeches and smiling big, and talking people out of their money. He didn’t write the speeches, he didn’t have the first idea how to implement the ideas in them, the money never went there anyway. He could had reached as high as he would ever get, it was all embarrassed destruction and misery from here on out. He could see it, he’d end up dead, wreaking of cheap booze in some shitty motel. His wife would never let him be happy, his aunt would never take her talons out of his side.
He knew what to do, he’d blow his fucking brains out. He’d end it all, so they were left holding the bag. Harpies, they could have it. They could have the ashes of his self-destruction.
He got to his knees and crawled over to the suitcase by the window. He reached into the bottom and pulled out a snub-nosed .38 revolver and sat for a quiet moment realizing this was the only clear path forward. There were too many people who knew too many things, it would all come out eventually and he didn’t want to be around for it. He stood up on shaky legs and thought about his brains sprayed all over the wood paneling, that made him smile. But first another drink, a proper drink. He leaned over the mini-fridge again and pulled out two bottles of vodka, pouring them into a clean glass.
He turned to the mirror to cheers his reflection. Goddamn, he was a mess, completely unrespectable. He couldn’t go out of the world like this. He wiped his face, then pulled a comb out of his back pocket and smoothed his hair back. Imagine living so long in the public eye looking so clean, never a hair out of place, then dying in a total mess. He laughed to himself. Then he thought of his hair with a hole blown out the side of his head. It made him shudder. To go out like that… What the fuck was he thinking? He laughed again, harder.
He locked eyes with his reflection and clinked his glass to the mirror. Leaned his head back and drained the vodka in one pull.
“Get it together. They don’t know. They never fucking will. They will never catch up. Handle the slut, put your wife back in her place, ride this fucking rocket ship all the way up.”
“Never let them win, you fucking win, they get to come along for the ride if they mind themselves.”
He fixed an unseen hair out of place, and smiled his biggest smile, teeth sharp as daggers. The smile that made people huddle around him, so that he wouldn’t eat their children.
He quietly placed the revolver back in his suitcase, stepped back into his gleaming black leather shoes, and headed for the door.
“Ah, shit, almost forgot my lucky tie,” he said to the room, to the wood paneling, to the decades of untold secrets. He slung it around his collar and he swept out into the hall.
