It was one of those nights for Anthony Carter, forty-two, two years unemployed, two years separated from his wife and stepdaughter, six months into cocaine sobriety and recently moved into his late parents' apartment on Frederick Douglass Boulevard, when to be alone with his thoughts, alone with his losses, was not survivable, so he did what he always did—hit the streets, meaning hit the bars on Lenox, one after the other, finding this one too ghetto, that one to Scandanavian-tourist, this one too loud, that one too quiet, on and on, taking a few sips of his drink in each one, dropping dollars and heading out for the next establishment like an 80-proof Goldilocks, thinking maybe this next place, this next conversation would be the trigger for some kind of epiphany that would show him a new way to be, but it was all part of a routine that never let him anywhere but back to the apartment, this he knew, this he had learned over and over, but maybe-this time is a drug, you-never-know is a drug, so out the door he went.
-Richard Price, Lazarus Man
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