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Desert Chapter One
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I started this a while ago, just a few sentences, last night I was riffling through my story fragments looking for something to build on, hit upon it and it worked. I think I can go somewhere with this.
Chapter One
Abundance
Late afternoon, and the sun is angling in to where I sit in my chair. My throne, a rickety wicker piece. Next to me rests a five gallon paint bucket, water, ice, full and empty beers inside. The empties rest there because I'm too lazy to throw them in the trash can five feet away.
That is a blatant lie, shown by the three bottles lying around the can. The truth is I am long past the point of being able to aim.
Four o'clock on a Tuesday and I am drunk, the vicious, hot sweaty sort of drunk that only happens here in the desert. Heat reflects from the near molten street in front of me, the illusion of water in a land with none.
I hate the summer time here, daylight is a curse, only scorpions and cactus belong in this blast furnace. Sleeping is the only way to survive, and the only way to sleep is in drunken stupor. I heave myself to my feet, swaying, sweat dripping off my nose and stumble into the house. I collapse on the couch and close my eyes. Darkness and vertigo swirl up around my brain.
A few hours later the sun has set and I have risen. Sitting in the shower, water drizzling from the under-pressured pipes onto my head. Unexplained tears leak from the corners of my eyes.
Out of the shower I scrub myself with a threadbare towel and tug a pair of jeans over my still damp legs.
In the mirror my face is ragged looking, three days growth of beard, dark circles and the ever growing network of creases. Broken blood vessels add extra prominence to an already pronounced nose. I smile.
The street still radiates enough heat that my left shoulder is warmer so I cross the street every block to keep things even. I walk fast, or so people tell me, I simply walk and others are left behind. It's a handy thing and the half mile to the bar goes quickly.
As I reach for the door I notice that my hands are trembling, anticipation, lack of proper food, delirium tremens, it doesn't really matter.
The bar is mostly quiet, a Tuesday isn't the night for nine to fivers, and aside from the half dozen kids in the corner, they are drunks, disciples of the bottle, like and unlike myself.
"Chuck, you look like shit." The bartender sets a glass of pale watery beer in front of me.
"Chuck, chuck, banana nana fo FUCK! and that is why I hate that name."
"Ornery tonight Chuck? A buck and a quarter."
I dig into my pocket and extract a couple crumpled bills, fumbling with them to straighten them out and read the denominations. I lay a five on the bar. A sip of the beer and I spin slowly on my stool, surveying the room.
"Slim pickings tonight, the college kids don't have enough money and the rest of them are wise to you." Ham, the bartender is referring to what I call 'The Talent,' but most folks call 'scamming free drinks'.
"No need tonight my friend," and I smile again, "Here, let me know when this runs out." I've unfolded another of the bills, this time a hundred.
"You roll an old lady Chuck?"
"Three of them in fact. Get a round of shots for the house."
"You could drink for a week on that round."
"It's like a bank my friend. I take money out when I need it and put it back in when I have it. Pour the round."
Ham shrugged and shuffled off to pour.
"Don't forget the kids in the corner, they are the future, the ones that will save us all!" I called across the bar. Giggling into my beer I realized that my nap hadn't sobered me as much as I had thought.
When the shots were delivered to the crowd of young faces in the corner and Ham explained where they had come from their heads swiveled in unison to stare at me. A third time I smiled and even gave them a little two finger wave. A practiced move, calculated to be cool, reserved, the action of man of the world, full of confidence. Internally I chuckled to myself. These kids might not have money for drinks but tonight I did and there were other forms of coin for the talent.
It only took one more round before I had the whole group clustered around me, a royal bastard surrounded by his sycophants. Where the free drinks flow, so does friendship, or a fair facsimile thereof, if only for an evening.
A couple hours of traded stories of debauchery, the common coin in cheap bars and I took all six of them back to my place. We stopped at the corner store for a couple cases, cheap cigars and a bottle of some overly sweetened crap popular with the nubile ladies. I had my eye on one particular blonde, tall, a bit haughty and obviously the alpha female. I wanted to break her, but her ego presented a challenge, hence the hooch. On the other hand, there was the chubby girl. An obvious hanger-on, probably someone's roommate, tolerated out of necessity. She desperately tried to join in, her interruptions brash and often greeted with blank stares and silence. She was easy pickings but I worried what she might be carrying. Anyone with that 'once kicked and coming back for more' puppy dog look had been used and many times.
With one case beer gone, drunk, spilled, sprayed about the room, it was obvious to me that the alpha girl was more intent upon insinuating herself between an obviously established couple for whatever Machiavellian reasons. I felt a bit sorry for the girl being culled, a plain jane sort but with an honest gaze and a pleasant smile. I wondered how she had earned the displeasure of the reigning queen as I caught her eye. I winked and nodded at her but she only turned away, gulping hurriedly from her beer, eyes bright with unshed tears. She knew well what was happening and that she'd already lost the battle. Sympathetic feelings rose inside me but I shook my head and brushed them aside, involving myself in the woes of others was no place to go, experience spoke that and loudly.
Morning and the attendant trauma of being alive and hung over came with the suddenness of the flash floods in the surrounding desert. My stomach roiled and my head spun in different directions. I groaned and slid from the bed to the floor, resting on my knees for a moment before crawling to the bathroom. There i was confronted with a scene of devastation, cans scattered about, vomit streaking the seat and sides of the toilet. I grasped the edge of the sink and hauled myself to my feet. A wave of dizziness swept me and I clutched blindly for the towel bar. Using a toe to lift the befouled toilet seat I kept my eyes open only long enough to insure aim and guided the stream of piss by sound after that. The sink and walls provided support as I stumbled back to the door. There I leaned on the jamb and stared down at the still sleeping form of plain jane, and I couldn't even remember her name.
-m
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