At the Bottom of a Bottle

A Short Story

The following is a story I wrote last winter. It came to me in a rush, the scene smashing into my head like a railroad car. I put it down as I saw it in between frying onions in a hot pan.

Addiction comes up a lot in my writing, probably because I was raised by and around alcoholics. Until my early twenties, I didn’t know there were people who drank one glass of wine with dinner. I remember seeing a friend’s parent, someone I respected, crack open a beer on the couch. My stomach knotted.

The people in my household who drank did not do it casually. They drank heavily. Fought. Cried. Kept kids up late. Played music too loudly. Got arrested sometimes.

They might be charming in the early evening for the first few beers. Maybe even the first six. But at some point in the night, the devil always came.

---

I told the guy at the Blue Lady what I know to be the truth. What they peddle about addiction is bullshit. Everyone’s happy for you if you stop smoking or put down your bottle, and why? Because they’re miserable shits. Miserable shits with desk jobs and TV jobs and book deals. They want you to be a miserable shit too. That’s why. Or they found a way to make money off your insecurity. But do you know why you’re insecure?

“Why,” he says.

 “Because you believe the bullshit,” I say.

He thinks about that and takes a swig of his beer. He’s a skinny guy, lanky like a crackhead, eyes yellow and bulging. He keeps looking at the server when she passes. 

“Look at me when I’m talking to you,” I say.

He swings his swivel head back toward me but his eyes bounce around my face. He can’t focus them. 

“Now, like I was saying, addicts don’t need to be fixed. They get it man. They’re geniuses.”

“How do you mean,” he says, but it comes out, “Haw dj’ya mean?”

I laugh. 

“Think of the greats my man! Think about ‘em!”

His eyes drip closed, and I think he’s really getting it until he falls off the bar stool. He lays there sleeping, the rest of his beer pooling around his head like a halo and I laugh again. 

“Another round for this one folks!”

The men at the bar turn on tall stools and laugh and clink my glass when I pass them to go watch the guys play pool. It’s always the same guys. They like to hear me talk truth about things.

“Hey!” I yell. The room is dark with wood paneled walls and four pool tables. At the far right corner is Jerry and Clinger. At the next one over is Sal and Winnie. She’s the only guy who plays regular who ain’t a guy.

“Hey!” they yell back to me. Two more glass clinks.

“What are you pirates drinking? You old souls, you gypsies, you artists of the night!”

They laugh and line up their shots one at a time, eyes level with the green felt spotlighted in the yellow lamp light. 

Jerry says, “I’ve got my Jack and Coke.”

“The usual, the usual for this beautiful mind! And you Sal! What about you?” I say.

“Just vodka on the rocks. It’s been a rough one.”

“Ah! Nothing like a straight up to cure all the week’s ills. Wife troubles?” I say.

“No. Money.”

I yell to the bartender to serve ol’ Sal up another drink, only this one’s on me, and he does. Sal drinks to my name, and I get a third glass clink. 

Then the bartender asks me if I would like another bottle, and I tell him he has a good eye, because you never want to get down to the bottom of a bottle. Winnie looks at me, and I realize she’s looking pretty good tonight. She’s got on a white tank and gold dangling earrings, spheres within spheres that glimmer off the light when she takes her turn at the table. Her jeans are just right and I see she’s got a tan, and while I’m thinking that, she looks at me and asks why.

“I never told you?”

She shakes her head. 

“You never want to get to the bottom of a bottle my friends. You don’t want to see what’s there. You heard of rock bottom?”

Two nods. One yes.

“Well, how do you think you get there?”

Nothing.

So I say, “It’s not like the bullshit they tell you in AA. No, nothing like that my friends. The bottom is when you finish off that last swig, that little inch of foam. When you do that, and you’ve got nothing else in the house and the stores are all closed, and you can’t drive to the bar without getting another DUI, that’s rock bottom.”

A snicker from the bar. They’re listening now too, and I like that, so I keep talking.

“As long as there’s liquid in the glass, there’s cheer and merriment and good company!”

“Hear, hear!” someone yells. 

I lift my bottle, and say, “Send another, bartender!” 

When he brings it to me, he says someone paid for it. I ask who, and he says that guy at the end of the bar. I look and ask, “That goat looking fella over there?” He nods and gives me a wink and heads back to serve his patrons.

I make my way to some regulars and some newcomers and some old friends that night. I tell them the truth, and I watch that goat looking guy from the corner of my eye. I watch to see if he has hooves instead of shoes, but he never gets up, and I never see. At two in the morning, I finally pay my tab and leave two quarters on the bar. The goat looking guy is gone.

“This one’s for you Mike,” I say.

He looks at it and tells me to have a good night. 

I walk out with one bottle in my hand and one in my pocket. I’ve got a nice sway and the air feels good and I’m wearing my favorite leather jacket. Sometimes I skip the cracks and sometimes I step right on them. I laugh, because my mother’s already dead.

I whistle and I sing choruses, and I’m taking sips of my bottle until there’s just a smidge left. I set it on the sidewalk and keep walking. I take the next bottle from my pocket and I drink until I’m standing at the door to my apartment. 

The keys are hard to get in. The knob keeps moving and doubling in front of me. I like when things look like that. A different perspective. 

“Maybe I’ll paint it! Do you hear me Van Gogh?” I yell to the closed doors, imagine the sleeping people behind them. I laugh and turn the key. The door opens and I head in. The light’s on and my old cat comes up and purrs against my legs. I pour a little beer into her food, and she laps it up gratefully. 

“Nature knows!” I yell, and she looks at me, curious.

I sit on my old blue recliner, and pop it back to enjoy my drink. I tip the bottle up, then up a little more. It’s too far, and the liquid runs hot down the back of my throat. I know I’m in trouble when I get to the suds.

I sit up and look into the bottle and see that it’s empty. The dark brown glass makes it hard, but I can see it. At the bottom is one eye. A web of broken capillaries splaying out into the light blue orb of the iris. The orb that is the world that I see through. I move my head back, afraid, lining my sight like I’m looking through a rifle scope.  At the bottom of the bottle, wavering in the dim light, I see my own face.

A knock pulls my eyes to the door.

“Who’s there!”

The cat is staring too. Her tail swishes into a hook.

I set the empty bottle down. Side step to the door, easy on the wood to not make a sound. The peep hole offers a fish eye view. I can’t see anyone. But I know he’s there. I unlock the worn brass, slide the bolt and let the chain bang against the door.

When I open it, my head turned down, I see he’s wearing shoes.

“Can’t fit hooves into those,” I laugh, relieved, then meet his eyes with my own blue ones.

“What’s that?”

I stagger back. His pupils are slitted, long rectangles in yolk yellow. He moves toward me. His smile an open cut.