“Lets get busy!” He said out loud to himself as he popped the cap of his favorite, Tanqueray gin. He took a swig right out of the bottle to take away the anxiety and the anticipation. Took a good swig and swallowed hard feeling the burn and tasting the bitterness of the alcohol. He felt better now, relaxed. He took the Martini and Rossi sweet vermouth out of the sack that was bagged separately at the liquor store located not two blocks away. He poured a generous amount of the gin in a glass that he eyed about half way up the eight ounce glass. Then he eyeballed the vermouth that would continue to three-quarters up the glass, which would make the perfect martini. Shaken, stirred, to hell with all of that he just used his index finger swirled the mixture lightly and, boom, look who stepped into the room! He smiled at the glass. It was the only joy he got out of life anymore. He could have gotten some cheaper gin but he remembered his uncle telling him, “If you’re going to drink young blood, damnit, drink the best.” His uncle was right about the drinking. He had found out over the many times he had indulged in libation throughout his life that if he purchased some of the more inferior liquors that were out there, his high was always compromised. And don’t even mention the next morning. My God, he thought to himself. The hangovers that came the next morning from the cheap stuff. So if he could not buy the best, he would suffer. Shaking like it was cold even though it would be eighty or so degrees outside; or sweating though the temperature was way below freezing. The things a vice does to the human body. But he didn’t care. It was his panacea.
He went to the window and perched himself into his favorite seat. Situated a little from the window so no one who might look up could see him peering out. Oh, he wasn’t the nosy type, he just loved to see life passing by or seeing life instead of watching television or looking at his four walls. He was a young man considering. Now forty-two but still looked as though he could pass easily for thirty. He had seen various people who he knew had indulged in alcohol as much as he that was the same age as he but looked ten to twenty years older. Alcohol had yet to catch up to him like that. Maybe that was another advantage of buying and drinking the best. Now he didn’t get ignorant with that philosophy. He had his limits as far as how much he would spend on everything including alcohol. Alcohol to him was like his medicine he prescribed to himself daily when he had enough money and would discontinue use if there were other pressing things he had to purchase or bill he had to pay. He often wondered if so called middle America would call someone like him an alcoholic? Oh sure, he would drink as long as he could afford it but could just as easily pass the liquor store up if his money was funny. Sure he would have some withdrawals but they would only last for a little over forty-eight hours and after that he was fine. Until he would start up again. Then the cycle would begin.
He watched and sipped as life was happening outside his window. Cars passing here and there. People going in and out of the businesses across the street, people going to work...He watched all of this as he let the liquor do its job, putting him in a tolerable state. That’s what he liked more than anything about the self prescribed medication, he could tolerate everything that had been and maybe still was troubling him. He understood how the Native Americans gave away this and that for the rum that they had traded for land that had become very lucrative. He had often wished he could have had a drink with his Father. To sit and drink and talk about life or anything else. He had found how interesting and intriguing conversation was when he was drinking. The things he would remember and the thoughts he had about subjects he had no real comment about until he got his drink on. Got a little hazy. Drinking he realized was like anything else, if you manage it right you could sustain a certain level of existence. And it was way cheaper than paying a therapist and maybe subsequent medication, Xanax; Prozac, Zoloft...Plus he could purchase it over the counter. He held up the glass as far as a cheers to the voice of reason in his mind. And ended the cheers with the traditional sip but he took a full mouthful, let it linger in his mouth, letting his tastes buds enjoy all of the familiar clean, alcohol, refreshing remnants of solids that had been turned into liquid Valium. But legal. Finally he swallowed and slightly distorted his face from the overwhelming reaction the various composition of the gin and vermouth had on the whole drinking and ingesting process. He thought now he should have purchased some olives. They would have been well received at this point of the first drink. All that salty, sourness from the olives and sweetness, dryness and bitterness from the liquor would have tasted good. Pouring some of the olive juice brine, making the drink hella dirty. Damn, that sure sounded good to him, but fuck it! Drinking it clean was quite copacetic. He would damn sure get the olives the next time though. That was for damn sure, some big fat meaty Queen Anne kind, shit, breakfast in a glass! Oh, he so enjoyed it so. Oh, yes he did! No breakfast and being only 10am, olives were sounding damn good.
When he had the money to buy liquor he rarely ate anything. Having liquid meals all day long. At forty-two he was still physically fit. Getting down on his apartment floor anytime he felt like it and doing sets of pushups and crunches until his abdominal area and arms cried out in pain. Once he was medicated he would do some in about, oh, another glass and a half. Making his body anesthetized to the pain so he could push it a little farther than when he was without the alcohol in his system.
A roller blader came flying down on the street, looking like he didn’t have a care in the world, no shirt on, tattered khaki shorts, long curls flying back with the wind. He knew the mah fuckah couldn’t be going to work, not looking like that, maybe he was just out enjoying himself but it was a hell of a time, still with a little leftover rush hour traffic from this morning flying passed the blader. But the blader was oblivious, caught up in his own world. He smiled at that. “Keep on Truckin young blood. Keep on truckin,” he said softly to himself, took another sip, reached into his left pant pocket and retrieved the fresh pack of Marlboro Menthol Milds he had just purchased. He put his drink on the window sill, made sure it was secure and wouldn’t fall off. Opened the pack. Reached into his right pant pocket and got out his zippo, the lighter making the metallic sound as he opened it, struck it, the lighter instantly fired up, he lit his cigarette, flipped the lighter closed, put it on the windowsill while he inhaled hard, picked up his drink. Exhaled, smiled and took another long pull of the martini and slowly melted into his seat, getting even more comfortable. Watching...thinking.
He sipped on the drink and kept looking out his window or windows. He had floor to ceiling windows. He, getting lucky before the boom came and rich mothah fuckahs coming to buy up condos in the warehouses downtown they were transforming, he had been in his apartment which they now called condominiums for seven years. Well, he guessed he shouldn’t see it as an apartment now, it was his home. The whole half of the fourth floor, 2500 square feet. The owner, a Vietnam Veteran, had approached him, just under a eight years ago, and told him he would give him a steal and let him have, what the Vet called now, a Condo, for 125,000 dollars. For some reason he did it. Plopped down and drained his whole savings, only having 10,000 left, after it was all said and done, in his bank account. He had to do it that way, the Vet had told him he needed the capital to fix up the floors below him, he having the pick of the litter, the top floor with the view of downtown Indianapolis and having the nicety of being the only other tenant besides the one who moved across the hall to have access to the roof. That was the proposal, he giving the Vet cash on the barrel so the Vet could make money off of his investment, which the Vet stated, “I wouldn’t hose another Brother. You know that. In six months, your condo will be worth four to five times what you are paying me for it. Believe me.” And the mothah fuckah was a man of his word, estimated value of his spacious yet very sparsely decorated condo the last time he checked, a cool half a mill.
He had been in the Army and had played the role after the Gulf War of having mental illness, Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome. Well, he guessed he wasn’t playing a role, the shit was alive and well and living in his mind. Oh, he had seen some shit as a sergeant over there. Shit that only the military knew about and the public was oblivious to, and it would probably stay that way forever if not a very long time. Civilians thinking war was about killing the enemy, another service member fighting for their perspective country. Civilians had not a clue of the plethora of atrocities, innocent children, women and men that were killed with the bombs and so-called friendly fire coming from the rifles and other artillery he had carried along with his other brothers in arms to free those same dead bodies lying like rag dolls on the ground, or blown to bits, chunks and chunks of human flesh lying here and there, sometimes everywhere he and his platoon would take a step, they would be stepping on an ear or a minute part of a finger... This was one of the many reasons he drank when he did, to take away the dreaming factor, having dreamless and fitful sleep. And when he did dream, nightmares weren’t even close to what he had. Horrible human atrocities he had witnessed. Gratefully waking up in a sheen of sweat, heart pounding hard, breathing labored horribly.
He shook his head and a tear started running down his right cheek, he wiped it away instantly and took a long pull off the martini, draining the glass, wincing from the overpowering taste, traveling down his throat. He pulled another cigarette out and fired it up with the same Zippo, placing the empty glass finally next to his chair on the floor. Inhaled deeply on the smoke and let the exhaled smoke slowly leave his mouth and nose. He would get up soon to make another, but for now he wanted the liquor to do its work so he would not get into that thinking mode, musing about what he had envisioned and he so wished he never had. He remembered his Father’s saying which was something he had heard time and time again throughout his life from various other people, but his Father meant it in a whole another meaning, a knowledge of something he never conveyed to him, “Ignorance is bliss. Boy, stay blissful if you can.” He knew what his Father had been trying to make him understand, “Life has some things for your ass, you wished you would have never experienced or had knowledge of.” He couldn’t get rid of the visions that popped into his mind at anytime which would make him immobile, panic stricken. He remembered his time at Navistar, on the line and a vision would pass in his mind for no reason whatsoever, and he would be the soul problem of why the line came to a standstill. Supervisors replacing him and he wondering what the fuck? Shaking and shit. Bad times. Very bad times. He took another long pull off the smoke and extinguished the remnants. Got up and went to his kitchen to make himself another stiff one. It was time for his next dose of medication, his sedative.
He walked over the open floor. He had to admit he loved the, well, okay, condo. He had to get used to that word, but somehow it was strange still to him because that’s the way he saw the space, after six years seeing it as an apartment, but a big fuckin apartment. He remembered meeting the Vietnam Vet at the Veterans hospital on one of his monthly psyche appointments back then. Now he only had to go and get evaluated yearly, and collect his monthly allotment, or crazy check which totaled 3900 and some change. The Vet having issues too, he had learned while talking to him, the Vietnam Vet being a regional manager now with one of the top insurance companies in the US. But unlike him, the Vet had his shit together.
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