As I watched Waldo receding in my rear window I tried to cough out the taste from yesterday's late afternoon disaster. That last whiskey and soda was forced down as I tried to use Jack Daniels to wash away the memory of that debacle in Tuscaloosa as the late evening hours turned into early morning. I had to force my cigarette stained hands to turn the wheel toward home for 16th Ave. N. in Hogtown but they were fighting me. I instinctively wanted to turn around and go back the other way but the cobwebs forming in my head warned me otherwise. I knew what I would find ahead. I struggled with my concentration as I held the car steady through Fairbanks, a sleepy little waterhole with a cluster homes glued to a highway long past its due date as a major thoroughfare for commercial traffic. I realized that Jack Daniels wasn't the answer because it was a Tennessee blend, which still had a Kiffin aftertaste. The answer was Jim Beam, a Kentucky blend I thought. THAT should wash away the memory. As I turned off Waldo Rd. onto University Ave. I could see the undulating red glow in the sky, like the great Aurora in Alaska, in the direction of BHG Stadium. I knew what it was and my stomach began to turn. It didn't matter. Suddenly I found what I was looking for. I pulled into the parking lot and staggered inside. The sleepy eyed clerk winced as I grunted out "Jim Beam?" His boney finger pointed in the direction of some aisle that looked like it hadn't been swept or moped since the Spurrier era. The clerk hadn't even scooped up my crumpled and whiskey stained money from the counter before I was in the car clutching onto my brown bag filled with mental whiteout. The red glow in the sky above the stadium, as I got closer, seemed to take on the life of some glowing, pulsating bile of dissent. I knew it was possible that this day would come again. But not so quickly. I pulled into my driveway and stumbled from my car. Before the car door even slammed I had the label broken and the cap off my companion for night. I could see the reflection of my five o'clock shadow in the car window before I took my first shot straight from the bottle. I turned and headed for the door. I finally realized that the glow from that raging dumpster fire will burn for months now. As I fumbled for my keys I knew I had better get a case of Jim Beam tomorrow. More mental whiteout was going to be essential for me to survive the next few months with that glow hanging over Hogtown and the smell permeating the neighborhoods around it. The sting of the bourbon was like a slap from the last woman whose sensibilities I had upset. It's going to be a long season I thought before I blacked out.....
Nicely done! This could be on the back cover a of a book. But what kind of genre? Hope and redemption? Sorrow? Horror?
CaseyGatorOx’s Favorite Poster
oxrageousIt's Good to be King