The Brandywine Prophet

8.2 The Rise of a Listening God

April

Will didn’t buy the drink, he stumbled on it. He was in the kitchen scavenging the pantry for breakfast or lunch (what time was it?) when he discovered the bottle of Kahlúa behind two bags of flour and a swarm of fruit-flies.

Janie’s won’t be home from school until three. He pinched the shot-glass before him and rolled the base around the brown linoleum of the kitchen counter. If it wasn’t for Janie, there would be no debate.

A shot of coffee liqueur would have been a joke thirty years ago. But it wasn’t the name or proof that mattered today; it was the intent. The shot-glass could’ve held champagne, hard lemonade... even mouthwash. It didn’t matter because at this moment in Will’s life, alcohol of any strength was the equivalent of every substance he ever abused. The drink was a symbol; like an AA token but a hundred times more potent. This silly shot of tepid syrup was worth thirty years of his life.

Three months since his wife’s departure and Will spent it lost in the same sweaty sheets. Did he want a drink then? Of course he did. Did he dream about a rail of dust or a drag from a cigarette? Absolutely. Did he break his sobriety? No. But like depressives and suicide, he resisted only because he was too despondent to give a shit. Now, since he was finally alert enough to shower and watch movies, swallowing a shot of Kahlúa didn’t seem so hard.

But the glass was still full. His thirty-year streak was still unbroken!

...but Sarah was gone. And his life’s greatest endeavor--which began as a hackneyed catchphrase--ended as a punchline to a shitty joke. If there was ever a time to resurrect old habits, it was now.

As he lifted and dropped the glass to his lips, Will pictured those old cartoons with the angel and demon on the hero’s shoulders. Ha! How simplistic! How grand life would be if the forces of addiction were so evenly matched! But cartoon spiritual warfare was bullshit. Will’s angel, for example, was a ninety-year-old stoner chick with severe focus issues. As Will faced his biggest addiction-related crisis in thirty years, the old hag shuffled around his shoulder, smoked a bowl, coughed, and--just as she leaned into his ear to whisper her divine insight--farted and forgot what to say.

The demon, on the other hand, was popping speed and ecstasy and rattling off the million ways that alcohol could solve his problems and the billion ways that Will loathed his life. He was a cynical bugger with the ability to transform painful memories into hateful memories that could drag Will to a place where “one drink” was an acceptable option. The demon was so proficient at his job that he merely needed to suggest reasons for depression and Will’s misanthropic brain would handle the rest.

Sarah was with her sister Alli and brother-in-law Rick. Alli and Rick had three boys, Rain, Harrison, and something that starts with a “J.” Will didn’t remember their ages, but their family Christmas photo (received via snail-mail the day before Sarah departed) indicated they were well into their awkward years. Slick-Rick liked getting rich quick and Will wished the man had greasy hair so he would perfectly fit the stereotype. With his arm around Will’s shoulder and “Can I get you a drink? I have an opportunity to blah blah blah,” the man’s bark was as bad as his sales record. Back when Will did his best to respect his brother-in-law and his business decision to drag Alli and the boys to an alpaca farm in Virginia, he at least pretended to listen to the spiels. But after a particularly offensive pitch in which Slick-Rick asked for a small investment (with big payoff!), Will finally told the douche that he had more respect for hookers than salesmen (”at least hookers blow you before they screw you”) and asked Sarah to never visit Alli again. It was a joke, of course, but the sisters proceeded to drift apart, partly because of the move to the Virginia farm, partly because they had little in common.