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Short stories are the hardest form of writing. Leave something out and they're pointless. Tell too much and they're ugly. I call my collection
Scars & Nonsense.
Sharing Words
(or My Shitty Short Story)
by Todd Jackson
I’m alone. Otis is behind a tree over there, puking. He’s not drunk. He’s just making room for more. It happens with beer. He’s put away about half a case. We had some blackberry schnapps, too, to kick off our first-ever outdoor meeting. Zack went to his car. I won’t mention what kind of cigarette he’s getting -- it’s illegal. We’re over an hour in; I’m surprised it took him so long. He brought another chapter of his next book, and it’s flawless. I swear he pulls that shit right out of the movies, but he swears back, and says it’s a creative summary of his life. I know his friends and they say his stories are embellished, but pretty fuckin’ accurate. His friends swear, too. Otis read an amazing poem, from memory, just before he left for the tree. I’m always amazed when he examines himself so thoroughly in such simple words. Me, well, I’m a little buzzed, but mostly I’m pissed because the short story I’m about to share with these guys (my writing group!) sucks. And no matter how much I compress it, the damn thing keeps getting worse.
Otis returns from the tree. Zack offers him the joint and he takes a hit to be polite, but his focus is on me. I fetch him a beer from the cooler, then close the lid, sit on it, and give him some shit.
“What I don’t get, Otis, what I don’t understand, is why, with us, people you know really fucking well and should be very comfortable with --” I gesture to the three of us with my hands. Shadows form in the trees overhead.
“Yeah?” He slurs.
... I lost my train of thought, distracted by the shadows, but Zack picks up where I left off.
“Why do you drink so much?”
“You guys don’t get it. When you see me, when I’m drunk--” He does the quote thing with his fingers, loses his balance, regains it and pours half the can in his mouth to prove he’s fine. “Ahh. That’s when I’m happiest. I’m filled with joy.”
Zack interrupts, “You’re not filled with anything. You just wretched your joy on the bushes over there. We heard it splatter.”
“That? That’s drunk puking. It’s all liquid. It’s like taking a piss. It doesn’t hurt, or anything. I’m just making room.”
“Dumbass!”
Ha, now Zack’s gonna go off on him.
“It’s not whether it’s painful, or not. Or whether it’s proper social etiquette. Some of that liquid is your stomach lining. I just think you need to re-evaluate your happiest, you know, figure out what that means. Half the time when you get drunk you sit around and whine and cry about some bullshit.” He takes a giant rip off the fatty pinched between his fingers, and finishes his thought holding his breath. “... fuckin’ pussy.”
“He’s right, Otis. It's obnoxious. And we always know when your emotional drunks are coming. You start slamming and want everyone to do shots with you, like you’re fuckin’ eighteen again.”
Zack interrupts. “And you’re so fucking whiny. It’s like a cheese grater on my gawd-damned spine.”
Otis is looking at his feet. “Come on, how often does that happen?”
Zack almost leaps out of his black canvas camp seat. “Dude! What the fuck are you talking about? Maybe a thousand times. Think about when The Bitch dumped you.”
“Oh ... yeah, I forgot about then. Other than that, do you seriously think I have a drinking problem?”
It’s my turn to badger him. After all, I did bring it up.
“Yes.” He stares at his can, looking for a reflection. “Yes, you do. We both think you do. How many times have I told you? The thing that amazes me is you didn’t even notice when everyone else started drinking less. Dude, Sky quit entirely. I can’t even remember the last time I got drunk two nights in a row, and you’re still drinking five, six nights a week. Sure, Zack’s a fucking stoner, but ...”
“Zack?” Otis finally raises his head. “Leave Zack out of this. He could be a functioning heroin addict, none of the shit alters him.”
“That’s not true.” Zack laughs. “Diarrhea makes me grumpy. Anything that gives me diarrhea is a bad buzz. Or hemmorhoids, they su-”
“Jesus, Zack, shut up for a second.”
I’m always amazed when Zack listens to me, but Otis jumps into the silence I’ve created.
“And besides!” He yells, in his high-pitched, out-of-character, drunken voice. “The people at the bars are still the same. They’re like a family. The alcoholic family I was supposed to belong to. Vic is still there. And John, and Tina.”
“Idiot. You just named a bar owner that bartends, a career drunk who claims to be president of the FAA [functioning alcoholics of america], and a waitress. Would you like to list off a few more people who profit from your drinking? How ‘bout the lawyer you’re going to need when you eventually get caught.”
“Now you’re talking out your ass, bud. I’m the greatest drunk driver that ever lived. Don’t you think I’d have been pulled over by now? The pigs never even see me. I’ve logged thousands of miles. I’m just another car, except better. I understand the flow of traffic, hell, when I’m not drunk I can control it.”
Zack turns to me, eyebrow raised. “It is nice to have him around.”
He’s right. Otis is the most reliable sober cab I’ve ever had or heard of. He drives almost exactly the same way whether drunk or sober, seems to see everything, and he’s courteous, too. Still, I’m not letting him off so easily.
“It doesn’t matter. When you finally get pulled over, for something simple, you know, like not coming to a full stop at a sign or some stupid rule the cop makes up because you’re driving late at night and he wants to check you out, you’re going to get busted.”
I know. Too many of my friends have been nailed with expensive tickets – and of course there is the whole endangering lives thing, namely mine since I do occasionally drive around at bar close. He hates to talk about this shit, but ... fuck, I don’t drink and drive anymore, so I can be as righteous as I want.
“Look. I need to drive. I have to maintain my schedule.”
“Oh, Christ!” Zack slaps his forehead. “Here he goes with the fucking schedule.”
Like any gifted alcoholic, Otis is all about rituals. His drinks have routines, and times of day, and days of the week. I could tell you all about it, but Sunday is the stupidest. Sunday is recovery day, except for: anything that can be mixed with Absolute, which he consumes until The Simpsons end, and the weekend is officially over
Zack raises an eyebrow. It’s one of his signature moves. “Should I mention Sunday, Mr. Recovery?”
Even Otis admits his recovery day is retarded. No one has to tell him it’s about masking the effects of the weekend, not recovering from them.
“Hey, I always quit after The Simpsons.”
“This is true. But when do you start?”
“Fine. That’s me. I don’t disagree with you. I’m a drunk. But the beauty of it is: That’s me. I am that person you described and I’m sitting right here and we’ll have this discussion again and it won’t matter then either, because that’s me. I drink. Sure, people change, and maybe some day I’ll be a fucking crackhead or I’ll carry around my twelve-step book. And when the day comes that I have to go back and apologize to all the people I’ve hurt because of my drinking, whatever step that is, when that day comes -- and won’t you have a hard-on then? -- when that day comes, though I imagine we’ll still be in touch, I’ll make sure to find you. Since, near as I can tell, you’re the only one I’ve hurt through my sinful ways. I’ve still got my job, my car, my house and all kinds of interesting hobbies.”
“How do all those things relate to quality of life?” Zack exhales a giant blue cloud of smoke with the question and tries to pass to me.
“Dude, are you ever going to stop trying to get me to smoke again?”
“Oh, sorry.” He pulls it back and takes another drag before turning to Otis with a deep look. “Are you happy, O? Truly happy? You wouldn’t change anything?”
Otis doesn’t say a fucking thing, and I sense Zack has more to say.
“Ah, it doesn’t matter. You bastards have gotten all philosophical. Stuff that shit up your ass. Yes, Otis, you are you, and you should be left alone to drink yourself into a miserable old age, having your organs cleaned and switched constantly until you die, the pitiful drunk fuck that you are. And Todd, you’re just being a dick, aren’t you? You didn’t give a shit right from the beginning. I could tell. You’d be out there getting hammered with him --”
“More often.” Otis adds. “It’s not like he doesn’t still go out.”
“Right. But you’ve got potential pussy every night at home. The home you’ve stocked with all kinds of booze, might I add?”
“Ah, screw you both.” I look around for my smokes. “And you, Zack. You’ve screwed up a marriage. You know it’s more than that. Besides, you fucking addicts shouldn’t--”
A stick snaps behind me. I glance over my shoulder, wide-eyed. There’s a man with a flashlight by the road. He nods his head at me.
“Hey there, fella. You doin’ all right?”
I kick over half a dozen beer cans putting the joint out in the sand, light a cigarette, and turn ... about as casual as a train wreck.
“Just fine, sir, thank you for asking.”
“You out here alone tonight?”
“Yeah.”
“Did you hear some kids come through here?”
“No. But I’ll keep an eye out.”
“I thought I heard some.”
“It might’ve been me. Sometimes I talk to myself.”
“Uhh. Yeah.”
The guy obviously doesn’t know what to do. I’m sitting in a circle of beer cans, and a haze of blue smoke, admitting he just heard me talking to myself.
“Well. You have a nice night.”
I go back to the writer’s group in my head for just a moment. My story is short:
I don’t know why I’m sitting here talking to myself on a half-empty cooler, two-thousand miles from home, wet and stoned, with my business cards individually burned in a heap of dying charcoal brickettes, but, hell, at least I’m the narrator. Those other guys are just characters I used to be. Sadly, I don’t have an ending. I should probably crawl into the tent and call it a night. I have another chapter to finish tomorrow.