MORT RETURNS FROM PORTUGAL

I've been drinking. I like to drink. Mort Heinman, after months in Portugal, has returned to take care of child support bills. We finish two bottles of wine.

"When can we expect the next book?" asks Mort, Brownsville's only uncircumcised Jew who is leaving for Lisbon in two weeks before spending the winter in Paris.

"Fuck you, asshole! I can't write anymore. I'm taking downers. I never realized there was such bliss with a bad memory."

I open another bottle. We're sitting in my backyard. I don't give a shit. I'm not driving. Mort doesn't give a shit. He isn't driving. If worse comes to worse, he can call a taxi. He has inherited sufficient money so he can live the rest of his life as a nomad in as many places that catch his fancy.

"How's Portugal?"

"You don't want to know. It has exceeded my expectations. It is as close to paradise that we will know on earth."

I throw my glass to the ground.

"Don't fuck with me! You're bullshitting?"

"You're a sorry fuck," chortles Mort. "Life's too short to condemn yourself to such misery."

"But I'm a pathetic fuck. I could be in the most beautiful place in the world and it would be the ugliest experience of my existence."

Mort closes his eyes and takes a deep breath.

"You would forget all this bullshit," he says. "You would be traveling, eating well, drinking better wines, playing tennis and screwing a variety of chicks. You would quickly relegate Brownsville to a distant memory."

I nod.

"So there's hope. I haven't surrendered. I can still find a short-lived salvation in a cold beer and a hamburger."

It isn't the anecdote we expected, but it is the anecdote I wrote. The good thing about drinking early is that you go to bed early. You hit the sack knowing that you won't call in sick the next day.

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