Drinking Problem -- The Book : Drinking Problem by Brett Matthew West |
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Warning: The author has noted that this contains the highest level of language. Yes. I will admit. I have a drinking problem. And, maybe I spend too much time in the Blue Moon Bar. But, I can handle my whiskey. I have been guzzling it all my life and I am not deceased yet. So, don't come around here handing me none of your social welfare commentary about the pitfalls of alcohol. It is my life. I will do with it whatever I damn well want to. Just be of good cheer. Crank the jams way up high, and let's down another round, or three. The only love I will ever have comes in a quart-sized glass bottle. With the infamous black label on it. If I get feeling real good, it is more likely than not, to go sailing clear across the room at some L-O-S-E-R's head. That has happened many times before. And, why might the empty bottle go flying, you may wonder? Just to start a ruckus. Every bar needs a real good, knock down-drag out fight, now and then that tears the joint up. Doesn't even matter if somebody gets hurt. As long as it isn't me. I have never been injured in a bar tussle. I pack a .45, and a switchblade knife, to make sure it remains that way. Now. Like I said. Pull up a chair and cool your jets. The night's still young, and there's plenty of time to chill...and drink. Might as well get totally crap-faced drunk! You got something better to do, Amigo? Somehow, I seriously doubt you do. No. I do not want to talk. There ain't nothing to say. Words only cause pain way down deep inside, and conjure up memories better forgotten. Take it from someone who knows. Booze doesn't do that to you. It mascarades everything else. I have been in the sauce for better than three years running now. I still function every day. Still work. Pay all my bills. Live my life. My little friend, JD, only soothes my troubles. Most of the time I drink him right out of whatever container he comes in. You know what I am talking about. Any blind mouse can see right through the truth. What is the matter? I invited you to join me at my table, in my home away from home, for a very particular reason. You can not make old friends. I am right here in front of you. The least you can do is look at me. And, I do not mean a passing glance. Don't be rude. It doesn't become you. I am not saying we have to be all buddy-buddy. But, common courtesy claims you owe me that much. "Oh, yes. He'll definitely have another drink," I tell the pretty, petit, brunette barmaid passing by my table, "and, make it a double. His tab tonight is on me. All of it." She starts to leave, and I chime in with, "Be a sweet little chickadee and I may even give you a tip." She shoots me a look of annoyance as she continues on her way to the bar to fetch our refills. "And, it may be more than don't bet on the races," I call after her, then cut my eyes back on he who sits at my table with me. He glances at me like my antics are way out of line. "What?" I demand of him, "You aren't going any place. Especially, no time soon. So, loosen up and get real comfortable. You're going to be here a while." "And, what if I leave right now?" he defiantly asks me. Without missing a beat, I unequivocally promise him, "I will plug a bullet right smack dab in the middle of your worthless butt!" Then, I say, "I may do that long before I'm done with you tonight, anyway." Unquestionably, he knows I am a man of my word, and will do precisely what I state I would. "John, I just got out of prison. I did three years. What more do you want from me?" he nervously questions my intentions. "Three years! For what you did?" I scoff, then vehemently repeat myself, "Three lousy years? Is that all the time my son's life was worth?" "That was a tragic accident," he curtly tells me, commenting, "things happen". I glare at him with loathsome disdain. I want to smack him off the chair he's sitting on. But, I refrain. I will have my pleasures later. Much to his dismay. For now, I avoid the physicality of what is to come. I take another long swig from the bottle I hold in my hand. Coldheartedly, I spit it all out in the middle of his unshaved face. Then snidely say, "An accident! Like Hell it was! Just like that was an accident. And, by the way. That is a calling card from my five year old!" I place both hands solidly on the edge of the table. I position them so I can rapidly push off in a hurry, if need be. I am ready to throw down. Soon. Very soon. Or, immediately, if he prefers his ass whipping to come that way! Obviously, I have my ultimate plans for him. None he is going to enjoy in the least, littlest, bit. No how. No way. The three years he spent in lock up will seem like paradise to him long before he survives the Hell I have in mind for him. If he does. You do not murder a five-year-old and walk away. At least, not my five-year-old! There had been a time, this soon to be extinct jailbird, and I were close friends. We even fought side by side in Desert Storm, and we came home together. All that was gone now. When we arrived back to Seattle, after our little excursion in Iraq, we did everything as one. Just like we had done for fifteen years before that "small vacation" came along. Ever since we were six or seven years old we were inseparable companions. But, there was no blood between us. Not until three fateful years ago. And, it no longer mattered that he had been the duly appointed Godfather of my son. Nor did the fact he was the first one I turned to in the hospital room the day my dearly beloved wife, who I considered the most beautiful woman in the history of the world, and who meant so much more to me than life itself, died birthing my only offspring. He was in another bar that dreadful day. I was out of town on business. As I recall, rain was pouring down in pelting sheets. I had trusted him to take care of my little boy, Tyler, while I was away. He had done so on many occasions before. The Little Lambs Preschool wasn't that far from where he decided to stop off, at 2 o'clock in the afternoon, for a cold one. The rest of this is so hard for me to tell. Since it occurred, I relive this horrible nightmare every time I try to sleep. I see the whole thing repeatedly play out in slow motion. But there is no rest. I hear Tyler's crying voice constantly calling out to me, "Daddy!...Daddy!...Daddy!" The pain never goes away. It never relinquishes. Not even with all the drinking I have done since the unfolding of these events. And the cause of all my anguish sits across the table from me, deepening my resentment. Snookered, this worthless scumbag, who I once considered to be my twin brother...of a different mother, climbs behind the wheel of his pickup truck. And, barrels through the parking lot of my son's preschool. The official police report says he was fifty in a posted ten mile an hour speed zone. Five times the legal limit. Five unfathomable times! What the Hell could he possibly have been thinking? A small group of youngsters were milling around outside, after the rain subsided. Doing what children do. Playing on playground equipment. Without a care in the world. What imbecilic moron speeds through a preschool parking lot like that? I know one. At the moment I was hurting my eyeballs just having to stare at him. He takes a corner much too sharply. Jumps the curb. Leaves the pavement. Heads straight towards that group of children. Tyler was playing among them. Standing, facing his friends on the swings. An innocent child. Doing absolutely nothing wrong. A boy being a boy. The other children see the vehicle bearing down on them. They manage to escape harm's way. My son does not see it coming. He's run over. The impact crushes him. He dies alone. With me in Chicago. Just now thinking about what he sufferes curdles my blood...again! The barmaid returns to my table. The previously ordered drink in her hand. Unceremoniously, she sits it down in front of my tablemate. He reaches for the glass. I blast him. At point blank range. As the bullet from my .45 hits him squarely between the eyes, I simply say, "You pathetic son-of-a-bitch!" He slumps. Dead as a doornail. To the floor. The terrified barmaid lets out a scream that curls your hair. The other patrons continue minding their own affairs. A gunshot in a dive like this is no big deal. Me? I punch a number into the keypad on my cellphone. I down the untouched double shot of Jack Daniels finest in one swallow. And, wait. Oh, yes. I will admit. I have a drinking problem. @October 2015 by Brett Matthew West All Rights Reserved No portion of this story, including its storyline, may be reproduced without the written approval of the copyright holder
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