by Forish, E.
Ray continues to pursue the dream for fifteen years before I enter McNeill’s on this particular evening, and over that course of time, the microbrewery invents thirty-five original recipes of unfiltered beer, pumping out thousands of gallons of ales and lagers within the course of a single month. Some of those gallons are poured into 22-ounce bottles and distributed to restaurants and liquor stores across New England, but most sit in giant kegs on location, waiting to achieve their destiny as the preferred mind- and mood-altering substance of the average American, and surely the time to attain my own destiny has surfaced.
I walk through the doorway and scan the room for a recognizable face amongst the rustic interior, but at first glance I notice no one, for none of them encompass the entity of my desire. McNeill’s seems surprisingly desolate tonight, woven wicker seats remaining empty around the long, communal tables that dominate the furnishings. The giant thrown carved from dark lumber, the most unique and, therefore, most sought-after fixture, also lacks occupancy, but perhaps I have arrived too early or too late, maybe even at the entirely wrong destination, to partake in a rowdy evening of typical drunken debauchery with the usual suspects.
I redirect my vision to the wooden floorboards in order to avoid eye contact and its subsequent confrontations with the general public, for I cannot be bothered with mindless tripe tonight. I intend to indulge in all liquids necessary to achieve the desired result of complete and absolute inebriation, but first I must consult the list of nightly selections.
My stare travels from the floor upward to the timber paneling that gives way to the common plaster of white walls. A mixture of framed artwork and awards decorate their surfaces, but I ignore the detail of the images and instead concentrate on the lonely bottles of alcohol that rest on a wooden shelf just above the bar. I leave them untouched and, leaning my elbows on the bar counter; focus instead on my choice of beers for the evening.
A blackboard displays the twelve brews available on tap, written in cursive curly-cues with multi-colored chalk. After careful consideration, I make my selection, and Kim, the bartender, reaches for a pint-sized glass and fills it with Slop Bucket Brown. She pours the amber liquid from one of the three spouts attached to the decorative leopard’s head positioned in the middle of the counter. She hands me the glass in exchange for a crumpled five dollar bill. I leave the two dollars change behind for her to stuff inside the tip jar and make my way to a seat at one of the communal tables.
I survey the people around the barroom with more acute discretion in order to fully familiarize myself with the surroundings and perhaps even ease my nerves of the insecurities that lie within the flicker of the judgmental stares of complete strangers. A group of college kids shoot darts in the back corner. I happen to recognize one as a former classmate. In the past we never willingly socialized together but often feigned niceties when forced to interact amongst mutual friends. We accidentally lock eyes, but I turn my head sharply in the opposite direction before he can motion me over to partake in polite banter. I cannot fake a friendly façade this evening; I cannot surrender to ill memories like hostages of the past, for if I keep such moments prisoner for much longer, then the whole future will be punished in the psychological penitentiary of mistaken moments, an entire lifetime marked by the mental shackles of failure and regret.
I then turn my gaze and study the only other people present: two blue-collar workers seated at the bar. Dirt-stained, callused hands complement torn jeans speckled with mud. Bodies ache from years of manual labor. Beers obliterate weary thoughts. They discuss the economy without tones of endearment. I empathize telepathically before I turn my attention to the giant clock on the wall opposite of the bar. Its hands point to XI and XII: eleven o’clock. I grow impatient, and my glass is empty.
As I approach the bartender for a refill, the cool night air pushes a figure through the doorway. He resembles a junky whose body has withered from years of chemical abuse. We make eye contact, and I instantly become trapped in the hypnotic depth of his crystal blue eyes.
A sleek glaze coats his eyes, giving the impression that the mind behind them is completely hollow. The vacant gaze masks his intelligence by creating the illusion of emptiness, yet in reality a world of knowledge, both political and poetic, hides behind their glassy surfaces. Pupils the size of pennies pierce the center of his irises, appearing more vibrant in contrast to the pure white that surrounds them. Searching for the inner truths and secrets hidden in the eyes of others, the intensity of his stare makes people feel transparent, as if he does not see what’s right in front of him, but he sees it all, even the details invisible to others.
He walks towards me, and I shudder as we meet like two dejected conspirators. He gives me a kiss on the cheek and turns to the bartender. “I’ll have whatever she’s havin’.”
We situate the status of our beers and then retreat to the communal table.
I look down at my glass, already half empty, and release a long sigh. “So, Blake, you made it. I feel special,” I say with more than a hint of sarcasm.
“Of course I made it. You owe me a night of drinking, remember?” he says, referencing a comment made at a party from last week.
“Actually, if I remember correctly, our verbal agreement was that I owe you one drink.” Our agreement means nothing; I’ll be paying his tab all night.
A moment of hushed tension passes between us. “And how was your day?” I question. I couldn’t care less about his answer, but the alcohol causes him to look worthy of my lust, so I simulate minor interest.
“Awesome, did a liquor run earlier and made bank. You know that kid, Jim? Man, he’s more ignorant than most freshmen.”
“Yeah? How’d you make out?”
“My own bottle of Jack plus seventeen bucks.” Blake gulps down half of his beer and examines the psychedelic mess seated adjacent to him with a clinical gaze. My eyes always bleed the truth of my mental state, and he knows more than alcohol circulates throughout my central nervous system. He ignores the instinct to ask if I’m alright, for he anticipates the negativity of my answer. He prefers ignorance in instances where he may have to assume responsibility for another’s actions. “Gotta love New Hampshire
[xix] ,” he comments.
“And the naiveté of underage drinkers,” I add, holding up my glass of beer in a mock toast. “Nice heist and I take a gulp. The alcohol finally impacts the handful of K-pins I swallowed two hours earlier, and my nerves explode before abruptly recoiling into relaxation. My skin feels thin and transparent, fragile heart exposed to anyone who dares to capture it, and I wonder if my soul will slip away from the body in this state.
“Not a heist,” Blake says insistently. “It’s not even stealing. It’s more like a donation. Maybe even a tip for my services. A business arrangement of sorts.”
Uncertain if I can stand, I can still fake a smile as my mind decelerates into a haze of mental madness. “A business arrangement where you deceive your business partner?” I question.
“That’s how the world works,” he replies. “Like everything, thievery is nothing more than the art of deception.”
My mind reels with abstract thought, contemplating how we as a species negate freedom by denying the truth of ourselves, separating the individual into fragments of the whole, divisions of “good” and “evil.” Such distinctions that fracture the self-cause the evasion of one’s responsibility to awareness, focusing on expectations of artificial desires instead of the certainties of genuine essence. To accept ourselves without aggrandizement is the foundation of freedom and authenticity, yet we sit here and betray our faith by living in the restraints of another’s expectations, by submitting to the general consensus of “how the world works.”
“I thought it wasn’t stealing,” I finally remark.
“It’s not,” Blake says quickly. “Besides, people think that I’m too good of person to ever do such a thing.”
His words sound slightly distorted, as if spoken underwater. My conce
ntration slips away as I obsess over the need to consume, but I nod vaguely to acknowledge his voice, and although I pretend to identify with his words, the movement of his lips possesses no consequence. “Yeah, well, people know me better than that,” I mumble.
“Then empathize. Someone got their wallet stolen? Shit, same thing happened to you last week. Sucks, doesn’t it?” Blake takes a few sips of his beer. “If it happened to you, too, then you can’t be the one doin’ it, right?”
I meditate on the foam that coats my empty glass and consider the validity of his logic. Although born as innocents, over time we degenerate into fraudulent beings, choking on our lies as we breed them like a pandemic. Our intelligence provides us with the advantage to avoid serious privation, but our inclination to swindle those around us chases away our ability to maintain healthy relationships, for people are simply means to obtain the objects of our desires.
Blake continues, “And if a false sense of human decency doesn’t work, then move on to Plan B.”
“What’s Plan B?” I ask, more interested in refilling my drink than hearing the answer.
“Do something so outrageous that it overshadows the fact that you’re robbin’ ‘em blind. It’s the dazzle technique — make ‘em perceive you’re doing something you’re not to conceal whatever the hell you’re actually doin’.”
In the past, such false pretenses, motivated by desire, usually set the precedent for guilt, but now I realize the hidden beauty of amorality. I no longer nourish my emotional demons with the false concept of guilt, for mere human perception determines such labels, and all perception is relative.
“Like having a panic attack in the middle of Price Chopper?” I suggest.
“Better. Hypoglycemic shock. If they’re too concerned about whether or not you’re gonna die in their store, the management’ll never even notice the merchandise bulking up your figure. They’ll probably even give you a candy bar on the house.”
And within the relativity of my universe, good and evil exist on the same continuum, for I ignore the application of ethics, refusing to recognize the greatest common denominator in the equation of collective happiness but always prove theorems that guarantee the perseverance of my own contentment or, at the very least, survival.
“What if they wanna call an ambulance?” I ask.
“They won’t once you pull a bottle of prescription pills out of your purse and down a couple.”
And, for me, survival really depends on nothing more than the next chemical to consume, and contentment often depends on that same factor with the added variables of quantity and quality.
“You’re assuming that I carry around prescription pills at all times.”
“That’s not an assumption. That’s common knowledge.”
And tonight the variables yield a high concentration for contentment.
“Yeah, whatever,” I respond flatly. A moment of silence hangs in the air like dead weight. “And what if I get caught?”
“Just lie,” Blake says. “Lying’s easy. All you gotta go is believe the lie. If you just pretend like it’s true, people will see right through it. But if you live your life as though it were true, as if those lies actually took place and affected you and impacted others, then nobody will have any reason to doubt you.”
The events of the past several months bomb my mind like silent scenes set to sonic symphonies. “You’re right. That is easy,” I respond after reaching a minor epiphany, the realization that the line between lies and reality blurs so intensely that the genuine essence of my existence evades even my own perception. “I do that all the time.” I pause in a second of calm contemplation. “But I’d prefer not to call them lies. I’m a writer. Let’s just call it ‘storytelling.’”
CHAPTER III: CRIMINAL LOVE
“A pill to make you numb; a pill to make you dumb; a pill to make you anybody else, but all the drugs in this world won’t save her from herself
[xx] .”
JANUARY 3, 2006. IT’S MONDAY NIGHT, and Blake and I drive to the only place open in Brattleboro when the bars close at 2:00 a.m. — the 24-hour Price Chopper. We stumble down the aisles, holding each other’s hands for balance more than for a human connection.
We stop in Aisle 9, and Blake suddenly grabs my waist, pulls my body towards his, and then shoves his tongue deep inside of my mouth. Workers stocking the shelves stop to watch but quickly turn away, embarrassed by our unabashed display of public affection.
He runs his hand across my ass but not as a sexual gesture, for in the same fluid motion Blake smoothly slides a package of Lipton PastaSides into the back pocket of my jeans. The make-out session hides his actions; my winter jacket hides the bulge of stolen goods.
I have already participated in procuring stolen goods once today:
It was at the apartment of Bailey Haden
[xxi] and her fiancé Jay Fires
[xxii] . Bailey sleeps into the late morning, bundled up in the blankets of her bed as I scheme and fiend on the broken futon in the living room. I make the deliberate decision to allow Bailey to remain asleep, while in the meanwhile I take certain actions to ensure my own altered state of consciousness.
I creep into her bedroom in slow motion, fully aware of even the slightest sound that my body or the floorboards create. Bailey’s body does not flinch as I approach her bureau, on top of which rests several bottles of prescription pills. I gently remove the bottle containing 30 mg. capsules of Adderal XR and exit the room without her knowledge of my presence.
I retreat to the den and initiate the process of twisting open each capsule and dumping a few milligrams of its contents into an empty film canister. I neatly reassemble each pill before putting it aside on the end table. After I pour out a small amount of the chemical from every capsule in the entire prescription, I return the tampered pills to their bottle and advance to the task of a rolling a joint for the road. In mid-process, I decide that I’m going to need more Adderal.
I pause to revisit the bottle of pills, and as I begin to repeat the process, a figure appears in the doorway.
“What are you doing?”
As I jerk my head upward, I lose focus of the task at hand and scatter the remainder of the pill’s contents across the carpet.
“Oh, I was just gonna leave this —” I hold the massive joint in the air as if it were a monument, “— in place of a pill or two, but now that you’re awake, we should just smoke it instead.” I try to gauge Bailey’s reaction to this obvious lie and conclude that she does not consider marijuana to be a suitable equivalent for speed.
“Usually leaving drugs in place of other drugs is okay,” Bailey says, “but next time you should just ask.”
But if I ask, I think, you have the opportunity to say no, for I know that Bailey’s appetite for speed often affects her generosity.
“Oh, yeah. No problem,” I say quickly and pass the joint towards her. “You should do the honors,” and the moment fades away…
Blake stops kissing me and reaches for my hand to lead me casually down the next few aisles. We feign interest in taco fixings, but after a moment or two I place the salsa back on the shelf, and we move on to the frozen food section.
We stagger throughout the store hand-in-hand, and I giggle to myself as Blake pulls me towards him and begins to kiss me again. I shiver slightly in his arms as the frozen peas shoot a chill through my body. He slips a few more packages of food into my pockets, and then we suddenly part lips as he flashes me a knowing look. After quickly turning away, he heads towards the front of the store, and I trail slightly behind, caught in a cycle of rapid thoughts.
I realize that my major conflict has always been internal, a psychological tumor hidden deep beneath reptilian skin, but if another dared to look into my deep brown eyes and listened, he would taste cold, metallic blood; and smell the fear and shame of obsession; and feel the oscillation from insanity to reality; and understand that I create purpose out of nothing.
And when my sanity final
ly snaps, I know that Blake still won’t understand the erratic behaviors caused by the imbalanced chemistry of my brain. He’ll think that these actions manifest the genuine essence of my being, the person that no one ever perceives until they get too close, and by the time he grasps this realization, it will be too late, for I will have already sucked him into my disillusioned reality, requiring him to then attempt a desperate escape by darting into the forever night and deserting me in a desolate world of lost reality.
My cynical thoughts slip away as we peruse the magazine racks that line the checkouts and then walk out the sliding glass doors with a confident air of nonchalance. My mood returns to its lively drunken state now that we succeeded in our mission, and I burst into laughter as our footsteps hit the pavement of the parking lot, now thinly coated with a blanket of freshly fallen snow.
“Pure genius,” I announce as I unlock the driver’s side door and begin to climb inside, hoping that my defroster will decide to work this time.
“Nah, lemme drive,” Blake says, ignoring my comment as he holds out his hand expectantly for the keys.
“But you’ve had more to drink than me.”
“Barely,” he counters.
“Barely’s enough.”
“C’mon. I gotta higher tolerance than you.”
“That’s only ‘cause you got three years on me.”
“Gimme the keys,” he insists.
I sigh and hand them over despite my better judgment. Moon lights melancholy little luminosities across his face, and they offer hope in such enigmatic moments of mistaken decisions, but I cannot justify any criticisms towards his actions. In the company of criminals, no action is just, but all motives are excused, and tonight my hidden motives seem rational. I want nothing more than to indulge in pleasures of the physical senses, to satisfy the instinctive urge to consume the chemicals that conquer the psychosomatic quandaries of restless delirium.