10-17-2021, 08:19 PM
Day 4305.
Eleven years, three months sober, I enter a liquor store
to buy a pack of chewing gum for a friend
and find myself surrounded by bottles filled with liquid
that can kill me, like inside each one there's a switch
that could unfreeze the drunkard within. The drunkard is on ice.
To him it's still December 6th, 1993.
We've just stumbled out of the Fox and Hounds Bar in Dupont
Circle, a half-dozen thimbles of whisky rattling
in our guts. We're jabbing the key into the car, igniting
the engine. The cops have not swooped in
and yanked us out yet. The drunkard in me kicks my ribs.
He can smell the Old Grand Dad on the shelf.
He wants to slug eggshells of bourbon till our nerve endings
are as dull as the butter knives in a psych ward.
He remembers scurrying through the brain's elaborate hallways,
holding a fire extinguisher filled with Jim Beam
and squelching all the thoughts smoldering inside.
The drunkard laughs at the list of places we've passed
out:
the East Village stairwell, the Philadelphia train yard,
behind the wheel of a one-eyed Pinto, in the arms
of Lila Shepherd, in the legs of Melissa Browne. The drunkard laughs
about snorting four grams of coke on an empty stomach
and puking so hard I ripped out the lining of my throat
like the silk inside a tuxedo sleeve. The drunkard
could care less that we were an unemployed loser, that our penis
had shriveled into a limp parachute chord, something
we tugged each night, when the drugs wore off,
and we plummeted back to earth, hoping
to ease the crash. I was in San Diego a few years back: nine a.m.,
a hot Saturday morning, jogging this palm-tree path,
parallel to the Pacific, water shimmering, when I noticed
this old bum in an overcoat conked out
on a patch of grass, the bottle in its brown paper nightgown
balanced in his palm, all these chipper, go-getter
Yuppies putzing past him in their day-glo running gear.
And it hit me--the old bum with his crowbar of a smile:
that's the oblivion I was seeking, to be so supremely blotto
I could pass out on a sunny morning, my whole body
splayed like a fuck you to their way of life. A guy
enters the store, grabs Grandpa by the throat.
If I live this life 100 more times, 98 times I die drunk. I enter
the windshield and don't come out, heroin's cherubs
seal their chubby palms over my lips. The street dealer
in North Philly with the switchblade slices my face
open like a papaya. Last week they found Hilary balled-up
in a bathroom. Before that it was Raymond in the desert,
a telescope jabbed into his forearm and a tube looping
from his exhaust pipe to his lips. On every leaf
of every branch of my family tree, I see this illness, this hunger
that multiplies when you feed it, this octopus
expanding in the belly. I haven't used in eleven years, and
still
it runs through me. I fall asleep, he's running laps
around
my pelvis. I wake, and he's churning up my calves, already
broken a sweat. How do you beat an opponent
that trains more than you do, that has no weakness?
Sam said there'd be moments like this,
when the only thing between me and a drink was a god
I'm not sure I believe in. I grab the pack
of gum, go to the counter. Anything else?
The guy asks.
A swimming pool overflowing with vodka? Crack
rocks the size of softballs? A sand box filled with crystal
meth? I am the miracle. I am the hand reaching
out of the wreck. I don't care if it's true. It's what
I need
to tell myself to make it out the door alive.
By Jeffrey McDaniel
Eleven years, three months sober, I enter a liquor store
to buy a pack of chewing gum for a friend
and find myself surrounded by bottles filled with liquid
that can kill me, like inside each one there's a switch
that could unfreeze the drunkard within. The drunkard is on ice.
To him it's still December 6th, 1993.
We've just stumbled out of the Fox and Hounds Bar in Dupont
Circle, a half-dozen thimbles of whisky rattling
in our guts. We're jabbing the key into the car, igniting
the engine. The cops have not swooped in
and yanked us out yet. The drunkard in me kicks my ribs.
He can smell the Old Grand Dad on the shelf.
He wants to slug eggshells of bourbon till our nerve endings
are as dull as the butter knives in a psych ward.
He remembers scurrying through the brain's elaborate hallways,
holding a fire extinguisher filled with Jim Beam
and squelching all the thoughts smoldering inside.
The drunkard laughs at the list of places we've passed
out:
the East Village stairwell, the Philadelphia train yard,
behind the wheel of a one-eyed Pinto, in the arms
of Lila Shepherd, in the legs of Melissa Browne. The drunkard laughs
about snorting four grams of coke on an empty stomach
and puking so hard I ripped out the lining of my throat
like the silk inside a tuxedo sleeve. The drunkard
could care less that we were an unemployed loser, that our penis
had shriveled into a limp parachute chord, something
we tugged each night, when the drugs wore off,
and we plummeted back to earth, hoping
to ease the crash. I was in San Diego a few years back: nine a.m.,
a hot Saturday morning, jogging this palm-tree path,
parallel to the Pacific, water shimmering, when I noticed
this old bum in an overcoat conked out
on a patch of grass, the bottle in its brown paper nightgown
balanced in his palm, all these chipper, go-getter
Yuppies putzing past him in their day-glo running gear.
And it hit me--the old bum with his crowbar of a smile:
that's the oblivion I was seeking, to be so supremely blotto
I could pass out on a sunny morning, my whole body
splayed like a fuck you to their way of life. A guy
enters the store, grabs Grandpa by the throat.
If I live this life 100 more times, 98 times I die drunk. I enter
the windshield and don't come out, heroin's cherubs
seal their chubby palms over my lips. The street dealer
in North Philly with the switchblade slices my face
open like a papaya. Last week they found Hilary balled-up
in a bathroom. Before that it was Raymond in the desert,
a telescope jabbed into his forearm and a tube looping
from his exhaust pipe to his lips. On every leaf
of every branch of my family tree, I see this illness, this hunger
that multiplies when you feed it, this octopus
expanding in the belly. I haven't used in eleven years, and
still
it runs through me. I fall asleep, he's running laps
around
my pelvis. I wake, and he's churning up my calves, already
broken a sweat. How do you beat an opponent
that trains more than you do, that has no weakness?
Sam said there'd be moments like this,
when the only thing between me and a drink was a god
I'm not sure I believe in. I grab the pack
of gum, go to the counter. Anything else?
The guy asks.
A swimming pool overflowing with vodka? Crack
rocks the size of softballs? A sand box filled with crystal
meth? I am the miracle. I am the hand reaching
out of the wreck. I don't care if it's true. It's what
I need
to tell myself to make it out the door alive.
By Jeffrey McDaniel
The secret of poetry is cruelty.--Jon Anderson