The detox center was at the intersection of 13th and Island, right next to the trolley tracks. This was a seedy part of San Diego, but I was a seedy individual. Sam, a short, powerfully built man, about 60 years old, signed the necessary admission forms.

“Okay, do you go by Robert, Bob, or what?” 

“Rob,” I said. 

“OK, Rob. This place is pretty unique. Some people come here voluntarily for a three-day detox. Like you. If you’re lucky, you get one of the rooms. Each has four beds, but there are only six rooms. If all the beds are full, you grab a mat, spray it down with Lysol, and find a place to sleep on your left side of this long red line. That line of red tape is all that separates you from the majority of our ‘guests.’ Ya see, this place also serves as a four-hour drunk tank for those blockheads the cops think aren’t dangerous enough to lock up. If they get too rowdy, we call the cops, and they go to jail. So, for the most part, they’re pretty obnoxious and rude, but only a handful a night actually wind up in a cell.”

Only a handful. I shuddered. 

“Ya know, this being Memorial Day Weekend and all, it’s gonna be pretty crazy here. The good news is that we have a room with an empty bed. It’s yours for three nights. The noise from the trolley can be pretty annoying, but being in a room beats the hell out of sleeping in the common area. Believe me. You’re gonna be comin’ down pretty hard. Aren’t ya? You ever get the D.T.’s, seizures?”

“Both, mostly DTs.”

“Rob, I wish we could give you something, but this goddamned place is strictly non-medical. We can’t even give you Benadryl to help you sleep. Just try to stay calm and steer clear of the troublemakers. We’ll get you through this in one piece, trust me.”

“Thanks, Sam. I really appreciate it,” I said. 

* * *

It was about noon. I’d made it through this drunk tank/detox Sunday and Monday night, and Tuesday morning. I was still shaking like a motherfucker. A grubby-looking guy, about 50, sporting a week’s worth of stubble and dirty gray hair asked me if I wanted to play spades.

“Sure,” I said. “But I’m pretty rusty. And shaky. I’m coming down pretty hard.”

“Booze?” he asked, somewhat sympathetically. I nodded.

“Well, don’t worry about it. We’re all a bunch of hardcore drunks. My name’s Ted. We’re playing over at that table.”

He motioned to a row of long, beat-up, dark brown Formica lunch tables, each of which seated about eight. The chairs were standard-issue, beige steel card-table variety. There were two pretty crusty looking guys already seated at the table. They both needed a bath.

Ted and I sat on opposite sides of the table.

“Okay, me and uhh . . .

“Rob,” I said.

“Yeah, me and Rob will play you two guys. I forgot your names.”

“Michael,” said one.

“Bill,” said the other. It was hard to believe, but he was shaking worse than I was.

Ted said, “Okay, we’ll play to 500. I got the pencil and paper, so I’ll keep score.”

We were fine with that. He was the only one whose hands were steady enough to write anyway. We were one sorry foursome.

Ted shuffled and slid the deck for Bill to cut. Ted restacked it and dealt each of us thirteen cards; we weren’t using jokers. 

As we gathered our cards, Bill’s eyes rolled backward. All you could see were the whites. He made a kind of gurgling sound, which was barely audible among all the hubbub going on at the detox center. He fell straight back in his chair and smashed his head on the filthy Linoleum-covered floor. He was bleeding pretty good from the back of his head.

“He’s having a seizure,” I said. “We gotta get him an ambulance.”

Two staff members noticed the commotion and hustled to where Bill lay on the floor. Al, the fat one, asked what had happened.

“I’m pretty sure he’s having a seizure,” I said. I was in a near panic.

“Yeah, must have had a pretty bad hand,” Ted said. No one laughed.

Within minutes, the fire department paramedics arrived, and after taking his vitals, they put him on a stretcher and left for the hospital. These same paramedics would be called back within an hour when a feeble old bum had what must have been a heart attack in the men’s shower. He was dead when they wheeled him out.