Men I've dated, part n in a series

"I'm on a first-name basis," he said, "with vodka."

On a recent cross-country flight I was reading a paperback collection of short stories that I'd put away, half-read, some years ago. Stuck to the inside back cover was a Post-It note with a name, a phone number, and an Art Museum area address on it.

"Vodka, she speaks to me, and I speak to her. We get along well, except when we don't."

"When is that?" I asked.

"When I don't respect her," he said, and he refilled my glass.

When we met, he was updating one of those beat-the-test books for getting into professional school. He was facing a deadline for shipping his portion of the work on a new edition to his co-authors and editor. Although he worked at home in his apartment, the place was clean, if a little cluttered, in the way you'd expect an author's pad to be cluttered. I remember hardwood floors; an open-tiered desk with papers and books surrounding a Mac, which had been left on; table lamps that were placed so well in the rooms that the layout seemed scientific; and the square, black, reflective shapes of a few uncovered windows along one wall. There was a wooden mission-style bed with a rumpled plaid-patterned comforter. We spent most of my visit on the bed, just talking and drinking.

He was from Buffalo, where the lake moderates the summers but smothers the city in snow every winter. His family had been in Buffalo for a few generations. He said he wasn't the only alcoholic in the family, and not the first, either. He'd lost an uncle to vodka, an uneven sidewalk, and a snowbank a couple of decades ago.

"That's very Russian," I said.

"My uncle didn't respect vodka the way I've learned to respect her."

(Does the Art Museum area select for alcoholics? My friend from Buffalo lived literally one block away from the alcoholic pathological liar I had a later, three-year relationship with. They lived on opposite sides of the 33 bus.)

"Dozens of people freeze to death," I continued. "They pass out drunk on the streets of Moscow and never wake up, every winter, dozens of them." I moved a little further under the comforter. I get cold easily, and the apartment was one of several drafty flats in an old subdivided townhouse. An unintentional yet successful come-on: he put out his cigarette and we started necking.

We would have accomplished more, but as I say he was an alcoholic. I went home a little frustrated, and then disappointed that we didn't get together another time to try again.

Nowadays he's in New York City, and he's still co-authoring the same beat-the-test book. He's gotten married, which is great. I found a few photos of him online, looking older than it seems to me he should be looking. Or maybe he was already over 40 when I met him.