Rock Bottom (drunk driving america)

Rock Bottom

I was alone in my room with nothing to do. I could hear people giggling in the halls, precursors to casual fornication. Rock bottom is a term thrown about by alcoholics. It’s a ridiculous antiquated sailing term. I was living on top of a mountain, bar tending at an outlandishly overpriced resort, considering if I had hit rock bottom. I had survived a suicide attempt, a drunk driving accident and Philadelphia, yet it seemed to be getting worse the more consecutive days I had spent sober. The things one does alone when sober, as far as I could see, were masturbate and weep. I had done both those already and beside, drinks are served in ‘rocks glasses,’ and no one sails anymore.
So I left my room. Fornicators were lounging about the floors of the dorm provided by the corporation. They al thought I was aloof because I was hiding. I could smell liquor seeping out their pores and it kind of turned me on.
There was another person there, a short blond woman who seemed insanely intent of advancement in the company. She was smoking and kicking dirty snow outside the dormitory. I knew she had a big red truck and I mustered what few ounces of will I had left and asked her if she’d like to drive into the town and go to Wal-Mart. I was suspicious when she didn’t regard me with any suspicion, and we set out.
It was a drosey ride down the mountain. I’m sure we spoke in-depth of things, but I don’t remember. In fact I doubt any of my memories from this time are even nearly correct, such was the daze I was in. I do remember standing i n the atrium of Wal-Mart after some time, seeing the short blond lady looking somewhat in distress.
“I need a fucking Cigarette.”
I nodded, then looked over to the register behind which Wal-Mart kept their cigarettes. She took looked intently at it, not blinking.
“I don’t have any fucking money.”
I nodded and looked at my feet. I had money, but there was the awful burden of transferring it to her without encountering any social stress. I produced a Wal-Mart gift card I had gotten for Christmas. I believe it had seven dollar left of the original twenty five.
“Thanks. I really need a fucking cigarette,” she said and charged over to the cigarette line, packed full of people waiting for their fucking cigarettes.
She returned with a pack of cigarettes. I think she paused before charging outside to smoke her fucking cigarette in gratitude of my having bought her fucking cigarettes. “Thanks. I really need a fucking cigarette,” she said, shuffling her feet. I could smell her sweat. i motion first towards the outside where indigenous Medfordites were smoking their fucking cigarettes.
As she smoked her fucking cigarette, she spoke, “Fuck, fuck fuck. I am somehow ridiculously overdrawn on my bank account. Fuck.” I should say now, for some reason part of me became aware I would marry this woman smoking her fucking cigarette. It was probably one of the wiser parts of me, like my pancreas, who knows, but it was somehow apparent to me.
We got back in her big red truck and got gas on my dime. She seemed vaguely like she were about to explode.
“Fuck it,” I said, overwhelmed by the stress of being sober and dealing with the awkwardness of her indigence. “Lets get drunk.” She turned wildly towards me, squinted, and agreed.
We drove to Ashland, a nearby faggoty town, it’s avenues lined with shawl wearing baby boomers with disgusted expressions begging one to murder them. I knew where the liquor store was as I had stopped there before a few times on my way North or South in years passed.
“I like Evan William's,” she said. There was a barrier between her and the bottle. that barrier was my money. I picked up the bottle. I’ve been told alcoholics register a physical response to alcohol before they drink. I hadn’t had a drink in a record breaking eight days, I hadn’t had any opiate since I too had run out of money after totaling a car three weeks earlier. I was in a fog of reason until I lifted that bottle and handed it to that beautiful young woman, wearing summer clothes on a beautiful, running from financial demons I didn’t yet understand. Women are beautiful, understanding your fellow man is beautiful, and that first drink is amazing. When all these sensations collide, it is literally better than any drug cocktail I have ever experimented with.
In Ashland there is a serpentine wooded park where the homeless smoke and the shawl wearing baby boomers cough and fan their faces dramatically. We went there and drank our bottle in record time.
We sat on a park bench and stared at a stream. We discovered we had a mutual friend, my best friend, in fact. We had lived our lives in a strange parallel. As she became intoxicated, she became more blunt and vulgar. The whiskey awoke a bright eyed part of me and I became more effusive. We wandered upstream for a while until we came to a pond besides an residential road.
“I fucking came out here to be by the water,” she said and striped to her underwear and strode into the water. I pretended to not look at her soft white skin, her pink nipples and tiny belly. It was more fun to pretend to not stare as I stared anyway.
She returned to the shore and put her clothes back on. I felt the desire to move. As we walked back into town, I told a story of an ex-girlfriend of mine to assure her I wasn’t gay. She became aware she had just bathed nude on a well traveled road with an almost perfect stranger and was a little ashamed with herself. This quickly melted when we came across a fully catered wedding. She stopped me and tried to compel me to raid the party for alcohol. I looked over at the ceremony which seemed to just be beginning, then considered our own casual attire and decided against it. Me moved on, her somewhat disappointed.
We made it back to her big red truck in the parking lot of the park. She assessed herself too drunk to drive and handed me the keys with a squint. I managed to kill the motor four times while trying to back out of the spot. We poured the last of the bottle into an aluminum coffee cup and drove on.
This was the first time I had driven since my accident and I was surprised how natural if felt to be drunk and rolling down the main street of a small town. She put in a Beastie Boys album and turned it up.
A ridiculous coincidence had us stop at the very Wendies she would propose to me at some eight months later. We bought happy meals and continued our journey back up the mountain.
We took a back road, windey and dusty. The sun baked the brush and weeds. She sang loudly with the words and damn it, I found the will to live again.
We ran out of gas and had to charge it to her over drawn bank account, causing other massive overdraft charges. We bought more liqueur and said fuck it.
I didn't sleep with Lauren that night. I took it a little slower.
Some night later, swaying in the hallway of the dorm Lauren cornered me and was telling me something irrelevant. Mid sentence I gave her a Hollywood kiss and we went back to my room. I have been living, shaking, detoxing and drinking with her ever since.