Speaking in Tongues

When Collier was arguing the case they went to jail and stayed there.”
    Matthews held up the beer. “To your theory of tires.”
    The detective hesitated then they tapped glasses. Matthews drank half the beer, exhaled with satisfaction and set it down. “Hot for April, don’t you think?”
    “Is,” the detective grunted.
    Matthews asked, “You on duty now?”
    “Naw, I been off for three hours.”
    “Then hell, chug down that milk and let me buy you a real drink.” He tapped the beer.
    “No thanks.”
    “Come on, nothing like a nice beer on a hot day.”
    “Fact is, I gave up drinking a few years back.”
    Matthews looked mortified. “Oh, I’m sorry.”
    “Not at all.”
    “I wasn’t thinking. A man drinking milk. Shouldn’t have ordered this. I am sorry.”
    The cop held up a calm hand. “ ’S no problem at all. I don’t hold with making other folk change their way of life ’cause of me.”
    Matthews lifted the glass of beer. “You want me to get rid of it or anything?”
    As the cop glanced at the beer his eyes flashed—the same as they had when he’d walked through the bar, looking longingly at the row of bottles lined up like prostitutes on a street corner.
    “Nope,” the detective said. “You can’t go hiding from it.” He ate some more mashed potatoes then said, “Where you find most of the runaways go?”
    Matthews enjoyed each small sip of the beer. The detective eyed him every third or fourth. The aroma from the liquid he’d spilled—on purpose—filled the booth with a sour malty scent. “Always the big city. What a lure New York is. They think about getting jobs, becoming Madonna or whoever the girls want to become nowadays. The boys think they’ll get laid every night.” Matthews sipped the beer again and looked outside. “Damn hot. Imagine that battle.”
    “Bull Run?”
    “Yep, well, I call it first Manassas but that’s because I’m from Pennsylvania.” Matthews enjoyed another sip. “You married?”
    Or did the wife leave the drunk?
    “Was. Divorced now.”
    “Kids?”
    Or did they cut Daddy off cold when they got tired of him passing out during Jeopardy! on weeknights and puking to die every Sunday morning?
    “Two. Wife’s got ’em. See ’em some holidays.”
    Matthews poured down another mouthful. “Must be tough.”
    “Can be.” The fat cop took refuge in his potatoes.
    After a minute Matthews asked, “So, you a graduate?”
    “How’s that?”
    “Twelve steps.”
    “AA? Sure.” The cop glanced down at his beefy hands. “Been four years, four months.”
    “Eight years for me.”
    Another flicker in the eyes. The cop glanced at the beer.
    Matthews laughed. “You’re where you are, Konnie. And I’m where I am. I was drinking a fifth of fucking bad whiskey every day. Hell, at least that. Sometimes I’d crack the revenue of a second bottle just after dinner.” Konnie didn’t notice how FBI-speak had turned into buddy talk, with syntax and vocabulary very similar to his.
    “ ‘Crack the revenue.’ ” Konnie laughed. “My daddy used to say that.”
    So had some of Matthews’s patients.
    “Bottle and a half? That’s a hell of a lot of drinking.”
    “Oh, yes, it was. Yes sir. Knew I was going to die. So I gave it up. How bad was it for you?”
    The cop shrugged and shoveled peas and potatoes into his mouth.
    “Hurt my marriage bad,” he offered. Reluctantly the cop added, “I guess it killed my marriage.”
    “Sorry to hear that,” Matthews said, thrilling at the sorrow in the man’s eyes.
    “And it was probably gonna kill me someday.”
    “What was your drink?” Matthews asked.
    “Scotch and beer.”
    “Ha! Mine too. Dewar’s and Bud.”
    Konnie’s eyes grew troubled. “So you . . . what?” The cop nodded at the tall-neck bottle. “What happened? You fell off, huh?”
    Matthews’s face turned reverential. “I’ll tell you the God’s truth, Konnie.” He took a delicious sip of beer. “I believe in meeting your weaknesses head-on. I won’t run from them.”
    The cop grunted affirmatively.
    “See, it seemed too easy to give up drinking completely. You understand me?”
    “Not exactly.”
    “It was the coward’s way. A lot of people just stop drinking altogether. But that’s as much a failure to me . . . sorry, don’t take this personal.”
    “Not at all, keep going. I’m interested.”
    “That’s as much a failure to me as somebody who drinks all the time.”
    “Guess that makes some