When the Sacred Ginmill Closes (Matthew Scudder, #6)

by Lawrence Block

want to marry it, I want to have babies with it. Jesus.”

I picked up my glass. Then I remembered he had bought the drink, and I started to put it down. I decided that was ridiculous. Just as money knows no owner, whiskey never remembers who paid for it. I took a drink.

I don’t drink anymore, one day at a time, and thus have no business in ginmills, be they sacred or profane. I spend less of my time lighting candles and more in church basements, drinking my coffee without bourbon, and out of Styrofoam cups.

I don’t regret a single one of the drinks I took, and I hope to God I never take another. Because that, you see, is the less-traveled road on which I find myself these days, and it has made all the difference. Oh, yes. All the difference.