Good Old Drunk

...don't know when it began and all over again. Perhaps it was those nights that the world flew and away to this state. What was left had plodded on, amid the spinning, and the only way there would be stillness was with Bobby on one hand and Nicky on the other. Steady, steadily tipsy, steadily drunk, steady now.

...coming home to a sleeping house, corners rattling with absences, the good old drunk stumbles through washing dishes, straightening the cluttered rooms, to the end of each night--- on the floor, asleep. The floor eases the distance between.

...like this hiatus of a married couple. Perhaps it was that rush towards a wedding that should not have been. Two brains wanting the heart in bodies---- romanticized philosophies. Now gone, now none, now what. She stays away, even from friends. Like all the wounded on the floor.

...this boy, at 27, who kept on falling for this older woman, single mother. Silly, stupid, and sillier, he says of himself. Yet he keeps on coming back to her, like all the other addicts. Love drives suicide. The good old drunk kisses his head, "Baby boy...Poor baby boy..."

...Batch! Batch! Batch shows up after years to play sticks, balls, and holes. One of those with vampire blood, skin unchanged by years except the paunch of good old drunks. Batch says, "Do you want to play or do we drink?" Batch used to drink and play until he's vomiting only to drink and play again. This stroke on the table is his doing. I am not getting you drunk, he says as he fills the glass for the good old drunk, I am taking care of you.

...The good old drunk wakes up a zombie. It is good: does not feel anything except this unholy hangover.

...That's what Bobby Honor says. By jilting the good old drunk. Oh Saint Michael Light save the good old drunk from more Dutch Balls. The good old drunk says, "Dude,all I wanted to say is: I'm sorry your father died. And I'm sorry that you love me more than you should. That is not my fault." The good old drunk has just broken up with two decades of friendship and hiccups.

...Through an anxiety attack abated by rum and barley, wanting to scream, "You are deaf!" The drilling rock and a cat said, "Relax...Hush...Relax..." to which the good old drunk wanted to say, "Oh fuck off."

...That is what the silence and terseness means. Because...Because...The good old drunk grits out, "I felt as if I got fucked by that douchebag, too." None of your business, in the end. This business of overlapping circles, musical chairs of the sexes, the horns in the loins.

...Love, it is later called. It's called fun in between and later on "falling". And after? It is called a heartbreak, felt by the liver, aching in ghostly appendages. Unnecessary shit. Tough. This is tough love. Now...Now...

...Here comes a cusp of change: it brings letters from far away. The distance between strangers being electronically bridged with words, a gesture of time. The good old drunk says, "Shit, this is change." Then laughs.

...The good old drunk is waiting for a letter from the airport, learning to write letters finally. And finally, a letter is sent.