The bartender recognized him immediately and dropped his bar rag. He formed his hands into a letter “T”. “Hey, it’s Time-Out Jack, everybody. Come on in, buddy. Are we having the usual?” “You got it, Lenny. ‘Time-out’ beer for ‘Time-Out’ Jack,” Jack said, sliding onto a corner stool at the bar. Jack was making no excuses to anyone. This was the fifth weekend in a row that he had driven up to this little remote village in New Hampshire. He booked two nights at a variety of different bed-and-breakfasts; some of these were the same places he had first visited with Helen a lot of years ago. But his needs were completely different now. He didn’t try to reason with himself during the process, because he knew good and well that what he was doing was wrong. But that didn’t really matter and he didn’t really care. He would either get through this or he wouldn’t; simple enough. I can either turn off the drinking or it gets the best of me, he thought.
