alcohol

friday firesmith – drowning

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I haven’t seen my friend Tracy in over a decade, but I know he’s still alive out there, somewhere. Or maybe he isn’t. It’s hard to know, really.

The first time I knew his drinking problem had gotten to the point it was going to be a real problem was the time we went out to eat Mexican and he passed out in the bathroom with a cigarette in his hand, his pants down around his knees, and the door locked.

The manager asked me if my friend had heart problems, and we finally pounded on the door hard enough to wake him up.

I paid our tab, slipped waitstaff a twenty, and we got the hell out of there.
College educated and good with people, he invariably ruined each and every friendship by borrowing something and destroying it, losing a job due to not showing up, or by showing up, or even stealing money to buy booze. He drank a marriage to death.

He came over a long time ago, we drank for a while, I quit drinking so much, and he passed out on the porch. I left him there. The next day I had to go to work and I think he got his feelings hurt because I wouldn’t let him hang out at my house while I was gone to work.

Recently, a friend of mine in Florida I haven’t heard from in a while called me and wanted to know if I had seen Tracy. I hadn’t, and this guy, Bart, was livid. I saw it coming before he told me. Bart and his wife were friends with Tracy from way back, and they were trying to talk him into getting help. They let him have the spare bedroom, but they weren’t giving him any money or alcohol. What could go wrong?

Tracy rummaged around their house while they went out, and found a can with change in it on the dryer, and a couple of bucks here and there in the house. He took Tracy’s truck, went to the liquor store, and bought a pint but also stuck another in his boot. The clerk saw him so Tracy bolted without paying for the bootleg pint, so to speak.

So Tracy leaves and starts drinking from one of the pints. Tracy has nearly made it back but he sees a cop car do a U turn and does something bizarre. He stops the truck, parks it, and then walks off into somebody’s yard and keeps walking.

After that, no one knows what happened.

The cops got the truck, called Bart, showed up at his house, and Tracy was nowhere to be found. It cost Bart five hundred to get the truck back. An empty pint was on the floorboard. Bart called me and I assumed sooner or later Tracy would appear but he didn’t.

No one has seen him since.

Or at least no one has called me. I don’t think he will now. Not because I’ve stopped drinking but because I think those of us who knew Tracy, and really cared, are exhausted. We’re tapped out. And we’ve all tried.

Eventually, if you were once a party animal, you drift away from drinking, or you sink deeper into it. Or maybe not. I can’t speak for anyone else.

Take Care,

Mike

Friday Firesmith – Dry

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Stephen King says he doesn’t remember writing “Cujo.” It’s a forgettable tale, with the antagonist being a Saint Bernard dog who is bitten by a bat that has rabies. Animals with rabies aren’t usually active enough to trap people in cars and that sort of thing, and the movie was worse than the book.

King freely admits he was drunk most of the time he wrote “Cujo.”

Writers and alcohol. I swear.

Once upon a time, I had enough alcohol in my system to be legally dead. But the Army bred substance abuse and sometimes I wonder if it was intentional.

I was down to a six pack a week, but I was drinking 9.5% IPAs. And I would drink the six pack all in one day, usually in a few hours. The next day I would check social media and my phone to make certain I didn’t day or write anything that would piss anyone off. I never did, of course, but the thing that bothered me is I did write things I didn’t remember sometimes.

None of this had anything to do with a rabid Saint Bernard.

The day after my birthday, I took an empty six pack to the trash can, tossed it in, and stopped drinking. That was the 10th of November. The 10th of December made an entire month.

I started drinking at age 13. By high school I had a serious problem. I would pass out in class or out in the grassy area where we ate lunch, or in my car. The 1970s were a time where hard drinking was a rite of passage, and even though many teachers thought my liquid state was a terrible thing, no one said anything to me about it. Ever.

Part of the reason was they were afraid to fail me out of a grade in school because that meant I would return the next year. I think their plan was to just get me to graduation, and then I would no longer be their problem. The Army put up with drinking by sending soldiers to AA. AA kicked me out because I steadfastly refused to admit I had a problem.

I evolved from drinking every day to drinking only once a week, over the course of the years. But I was still getting so hammered I couldn’t write and sometimes forgot what I had done the night before.

I’ve flirted with this for a while. There isn’t a real reason to drink except I always have, and for most of my life, hard drinking was a sign of manhood and strength.

The younger crowd has it right again. Those people born after Y2K do not feel compelled to pick up a self-destructive habit.

And it’s time for me to step away from a habit that has never really proved anything to anyone, except I am a product of my culture. I’ve never felt like I was that kind of person. Now, finally, maybe, I am not.

Take Care,

Mike