“Are you English?” Avery took a drink and passed the bottle.
“Who would want to be English when they can belong to the American middle class?”
“You sound English.”
“Went to school in England. Drank my way through four years of Tulane, then tried graduate work at Cambridge and was sent down. Acquired nothing but a taste for Scotch and a bad accent. Now make my home in the Quarter writing.”
“Pass the bottle,” Avery said.
“What do you do?”
“Pipeline.”
“I say, we’re emptying the bottle rather fast.”
“Have to buy more.”
“I’m stony broke. Hate to use your money like this.”
Avery took a long drink.
“Mind if I have a bit?” Wally said.
Avery gave him the bottle. He leaned against the side of a building and drank.
“I think I’m tight,” he said.
“Where is the party?”
“Royal Street.”
“We’re going the wrong way,” Avery said.
They turned the corner towards Royal. The half pint was almost finished.
“You have the last drink,” Wally said.
“Go ahead.”
“Your bottle.”
Avery drank it off and dropped the bottle in an alley.
“Puts us in an embarrassing way. Can’t go to party without liquor,” Wally said.
“Dago red.”
“Never drink it.”
“It’s cheap.”
“Unconventional to go to party with dago red,” Wally said.
“There’s an Italian place with good wine.”
“A little restaurant off Bourbon?”
“Yes.”