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doesn’t care that he is an alcoholic.
Let go and fuck God.
A common mantra in AA is "Let go and Let God"
It’s time to cut your hair, get a job, and just give up.
He misses walking,
He used to walk fast, faster than anyone else,
the infinitesimal must be, by definition, as infinite as the infinite.
Weaving is for amateur drunks,
He finds this latter possibility, murder, intolerable, so he tries not to think about it.
This plus the narration of his work habits, his payment of bills on time, etc. add up to tell us that Ben is a good guy - he is just fully in the grip of alcoholism and can't break free and has thus given up trying - that is if he ever did try. Perhaps he just got worse and worse and went very slowly from functioning to non-functioning alcholic.
“Where’s home?” asked the cop. “Venice,” said Ben.
He needs to use his plastic whenever possible now and save his cash for the days ahead.
People drinking at six a.m. are people drinking all the time.
No matter how much he bathes or gargles or perfumes, he still smells like booze.
It’s his little defense mechanism that kicks in and trashes his credibility whenever someone is threatening to show an interest in him.
sadness so intense that it goes beyond what her face has made you believe she could feel.
Note how the POV has switched effortlessly from Ben to Teri and then it will go back. This is here to show us that Ben COULD still be very desireable to a woman but has so destroyed himself with alcohol he no longer is, and that makes her sad. Again, he is a nice guy with a lot going for him except that he is completely at the mercy of his alcoholism.
The always depressing experience of leaving a bar creates a sense of loss in him
Las Vegas looms in the back of his head. Free from closing hours, lots of liquor always everywhere,
All he has to do is remember not to gamble drunk, which means not to gamble at all, and he can make his money last long enough to comfortably wrap things up and have fun doing
This is the first mention of what his plan actually is - go to LV because he can drink there 24x7 and no one will notice or care, and "comfortably wrap things up" meaning die.
Why fuck up at this late date? Purity of execution will only add to the artistic aspects of the whole wretched mess.
Another foreshadowing of his settled plan. Not sure why generic vodka over polish vodka will fuck it up. I would guess this is because Polish vodka, made from grain, is so much better than generic potato vodka. The idea that he executes his plan to drink himself to death perfectly adds in his mind to its artistry. Perhaps he is an artist? A writer? This may be the only clue to that assumption the movie made - this and he lives in Venice.
he did not intend to close the account—he
Another nod to his plan. By keeping the account open it calls less attention to his plan of drinking himself to death and using his credit to help in that.
4.6K, his life expectancy—but
The bank once and for all, last and forever, is about to be revisited.
He has never walked on a tab and this is standard operating procedure for him.
he knows that he will have to blow at least some of it, despite his painful awareness of how crucial it is to his future that he be sensible and save it for drinking.
the closest you’ll ever get to being worth anything is to clean me up.
potables
A "safe to drink" (potable) alcoholic beverage. I guess this contrasts with those not safe to drink that were created during prohibition.
eighty-six
So this is American English slang for getting rid of something by burying it, ejecting someone, or refusing service. In this case it would be to be ejected from the bar. There is no sure origin, only possibilities if you look on wikipedia.
This is his way of asserting himself at a strip club.
At the most he’ll drop eighty or ninety bucks, small price to pay for a room full of two-minute girlfriends.
he falls, for a drunken moment, truly in love with them.
As attractive as he must be to women, drunken and slurring and slobbering all over them, they just don’t seem interested in him.
Pinching pennies and prostitutes—frugal fucking in LA.
Ben’s dream: prisoner of a liquor store.
heroines of subsistence in service of whoremaster heroin,
is wrapped a gold wedding band.
having finally convinced a girl that still wanted to believe in him that he was indeed of no value to anyone, least of all to her, and certainly not to himself.
as the full horror of his situation and found intentions began to fascinate him,
Full horror and found intentions - meaning the horror that he will drink himself to death in just a few months and he has discovered that indeed this is his goal.
where John Steinbeck once drank, or so Ben has read.
So Ben used to read at least. And he likely read literary fiction to know who John Steinbeck is.
not because she wouldn’t, but because she thinks that he will.
A single and rapid change of POV that the author does so well.
he suddenly feels that a surrender here will fit nicely into the big picture.
So what does this mean - "fit nicely into the big picture"? Does it mean that Ben is fated to die in LV drinking himself to death, and being taken advantage of, or not, by the hooker goes along nicely with that giving into whatever fate holds as nothing really matters anymore?
he thinks only of Las Vegas and how it is clearly time to go there.
he already knows what he will do with his stuff;
phonation.
Not one to let things spoil—other
Having deduced the inevitability of the trip he sees no reason to delay
Having at this point realized 2 things although been thinking about it for some time. 1 - he is becomming unable to keep track of time well enough to ensure he is stocked with booze. No need to do that in Vegas. 2 - related to 1, which is the fact vegas is 24x7 and he can always get booze when he needs it. Another reason of course is his money must last him until his death, and it won't in LA.
Ben’s Personal Theater of Tragedy.
The scene saddens Ben, as does any encounter with hurt persons, life’s victims.
his disposal kit
who has always enjoyed Fuk-en-her.,
Very interesting - noting faulkner which again implies Ben is literary, but messed up to be fucking her as Ben is unable to control his addicitions.
he cannot bear to see waste, much less generate
a grim thrill in this crystallization of intent.
