He’d fought the nausea and endured the chills and sweats that had come and gone. Fucking alcoholic, he scolded himself. How had it come to this? All those years promising himself he would never become his father, and here he was. Maybe not as far gone, but still, enough of an alcoholic that his body had decided to torture him until he gave it what it craved. The need had come on in fits and starts. He had been able to push it aside while dealing with the fear and fury of being imprisoned in his own cellar, and the impossible riddle of seeing this man who wore his face again and again. Now, though, the thirst had its hooks in him deep. He sat slumped against the metal post, unable to sleep or even to pass out from exhaustion. His stomach knotted up with pain and his entire body ached. He would have screamed if he had any hope that someone besides his double might hear him. His mother always said that men were babies when they were sick and even her drunken asshole husband had never argued the point.
