So his life is punctuated by legislative break points and red flags of custom. At six a.m. the hardcore bars open and the stores can sell, though they sometimes choose to withhold, imposing their morality on some poor, sweating, shaking mess looking for his fix. Nine a.m. is considered a safe opening time for the bars that don’t like to admit that people drink that early but can’t let the business slip completely away; bartenders in these places tend to pause disapprovingly for an imperceptible moment before handing over a drink. The next milestone is eleven-thirty. At eleven-thirty everyone is willing to admit that the drinking day has begun and they proudly open their doors and pour their drinks. It’s smooth sailing until midnight, when, if they haven’t already, the more reputable bars bail out. Any place that stays open passed midnight is probably good until two— actually one-forty-five— the most important time of all. Never let two o’clock happen unless there is more liquor in the house than you could possibly drink in four hours— no small quantity. It takes about five hours to drive from Los Angeles to Nevada, land of anytime alcohol, and there are no commercial flights at that hour. Teasing, gnawing, when you’re out of liquor at two-thirty in the morning it looms, conceptually bad, in the back of your head. Ben has often thought it through, but it’s just not a solution; by the time he would get there the bars would be open in LA. It’s ten-thirty-one. Ben drains his (Abramson, Metalsky, and Alloy 1989, 359) glass and stands up. He mutters, “thank you,” and turns toward the door without waiting for an acknowledgement. Outside it’s still overcast— spring in Los Angeles. He walks straight and sure to his car. He feels okay, swinging up. On his way home, having stopped off at a liquor store for a can of beer to drive by, Ben feels elated. His day is in gear and he has everything to look forward to; he has a plan. Things will tick along fine now. He turns up the radio and thinks about what album to listen to while he gets dressed. Checking his pocket, though he already knows its contents, he confirms that he’ll need to stop at the automated teller machine. (P. 65 – 66)
O'Brien, John. 1995. Leaving Las Vegas. 1st Grove Press pbk. ed. New York: Grove Pres