“What’ll it be?” Jerry asked.
I stared at the wall of liquor bottles, scanning their labels for something I’d seen in the movies. “A shot of Jack Daniels, thanks.”
“Adda boy, Brucey! Let’s hit the hard stuff. Two shots of Jack, thanks love.”
The tent-enclosed woman behind the bar smiled politely and spent the next 15 minutes attempting to prepare our drinks. I was mortified at the spectacle, whereas Jerry was laughing like a pre-recorded sitcom audience.
“How can they make these people dress like that?” I mumbled.
“Ha! Just be thankful it ain’t us. There are worse jobs out there than ours, Brucey.”
When our drinks were finally placed before us, the poor bargirl looked dead inside. Her head popped awkwardly through a hole cut in the tent apex. “Thanks,” I said with genuine warmth, trying to inject some compassion into her day.
She smiled, took a few steps back, looked around and approached me again. “Hey, buddy, could you do me a favour and scratch my nose? It’s been driving me crazy and I can’t reach.”
I obliged, scraping my fingernail over the bridge of her nose, feeling good about myself for the first time that day. Knowing my fingernail was collecting her dead skin struck me as intimate.
“Thanks so much! I’ll hook you up with a free round of shots. Make sure you remind me.”
I wasn’t going to remind her. It wasn’t my style. I picked up the shot glass and knocked it back. The bourbon slithered down my throat like a fire snake. I scrunched up my face involuntarily before coughing blood all over myself. Jerry burst into laughter, clearly and thankfully not seeing the blood.
“I’m more of a shandy man,” I joked through sputters.
“Hey, whatever gets you fucked up, my man!”
Three equally painful shots later and I could feel my brain changing. I was gently rocking back and forth on my stool and slurring my words — words which were flowing a lot more freely now.
“Tell me, Jerry, how the fuck do you manage to be the person you are?”
“Huh?”
“I mean, let’s face it, you just do whatever the fuck you want.”
“That’s the way it oughta be, Brucey. Let me be frank…”
“But you’re Jerry,” I poorly joked.
“Nah, seriously, man… you gotta stop thinking shit through so much. I see your face around the office. You always look so fucking tense, like the world’s out to get you.”
“The world already got me, Jerry,” I burped.
“That’s bullshit,” he replied, handing me another shot which I instantly threw back. “You’re carrying on like a victim. The world don’t owe you shit, Brucey. At the same time, the world ain’t taking anything from you.”
I lifted my leg and farted in response, feeling my pants get wet. “Think I got blood in my knickers,” I laughed.
“You alright, man?” Jerry asked seriously.
“Just hunky fucking dory.”
“Be honest… why were you puking this morning. I like you, and that sorta shit melvins my buzz.”
“Dunno! Guess it was the cancer or something.”
He fell silent and, even in my increasingly inebriated state, I could sense the discomfort I’d caused. Neither of us knew what to say. I think Jerry was trying to ascertain the validity of my claim by throwing back a couple more shots in quick succession. He glanced back at my wobbling body, paying close attention to my shirt. “Shit, is that blood on your shirt?”
I nodded playfully while trying to guide another shot toward my gaping maw. Most of it trickled down my chin but I swallowed enough to feel the increasingly comfortable burn.
“You’re not fucking with me, are you?”
I shook my head from side to side, sensing jowls I hadn’t previously been aware of. “I think my face is getting fat,” I said with a pout.
Jerry ignored my observation and pressed ahead with the questions. “When did you find this out, man?”
“Wouldn’t you know it — it was just this afternoon. Got a text from the good ol’ doc. Says I’m fucked or something.” I waved my phone about as evidence, lost my grip and felt it collide with my penis. “Owww!”
“What are you going to do?”
“I’m thinking of taking up smoking again. Seems like the right time.”
Unsure what else to say, Jerry handed me another shot, which in a display of poor coordination, I splashed over my forehead. It stung my eyes and I laughed without reason.
“Screw this!” Jerry yelled, rising quickly from the barstool. “We gotta get you laid, Brucey.”
My upper body flopped forward like an abandoned marionette. The laughter continued, heaving my shoulders and stealing my breath. I scrambled to my feet and began climbing the stool. I stood atop, swaying dangerously, sensing eyes upon me and bathing in the attention.
“Whadaya say, ladies,” I yelled with drunken strings of drool swinging from my lower lip. “Who wants to donate their cunt to me for a little while? I promise, promise, promise that you’ll get it back. You probably won’t even know I was there.”
Jerry was suppressing laughter and tugging on my shirt, trying to get me down. I batted his hand away, determined to continue down my oratory path.
“Before you disregard my request, I feel it’s important to inform you that I have cancer. I’M A DYING MAN!” I screamed. “Who among you would deny a dying man a simple fuck?”
Having become impatient with my semi-balance, gravity grabbed my hair and pulled me down. My legs swept up, knocking over glasses on their journey. I landed hard on my back, taking a few onlookers with me and spraying a thick fountain of vomit upon impact. The last thing I remember was the itchy-nosed tent girl coming to my aid — or at least trying to. There was a brief flash of me in a bathroom, tent girl wiping down my face. Then another flash of me helping her escape the tent. My last memory was of my mouth clamped around one of tent girl’s nipples and suckling like a piglet. At least I think it was tent girl’s nipples…
I woke up naked and shivering in a bathtub full of freezing cola. It was my bathtub. I was home and I had no idea how I got there. I knew I’d overdone it. This was part of the reason I didn’t drink much. Whenever I let inebriation take hold, I always woke up in a bath full of something one shouldn’t bathe in. Last time it was pen ink. To this day I still wondered how long I must have spent draining ballpoints to fill the bath.
My body had almost seized and it was a painful struggle to move enough to extract myself from the cola. I shuffled toward the shower, craving warmth. The cola had discoloured my skin tobacco-spit brown. I looked like the tip of a smoker’s fingers and smelled chemically sweet. I fondled with the shower door and realised that I’d fondled incorrectly when the whole thing tore off. I let the shower door fall and shatter around me, stepped over the squares of glass and cranked the hot water tap. Eventually the warmth hit, stinging my freezing body in a glorious way.
With the chill leeching from my body, I began to concentrate on my drunken night. There was tent girl. There was the nipple — it had to be hers. Did she have sex with me? I focused all my attention on remembering. I couldn’t recall past the nipple sucking. I inspected my genitals for the telltale signs of intercourse. What were the telltale signs of intercourse? My dick still looked the same as the water cascaded over it.
I remembered my stool-top cancer speech and I felt anvils of shame flatten me. I remembered tent girl coming to my aide and wiping the puke from my face. That means… if she did have sex with me, it was out of sympathy. This possibility sat very poorly, and I began instinctively scrubbing at my body with a cracked bar of soap. It wasn’t right. I’d used my cancer like a divorced man uses his children to attract women. I’d become somewhat desirable by virtue of my impending demise. I wanted to throw up again but my stomach was too empty to wretch up anything other than foam. I needed to lie down. I needed to go to sleep and bypass waking up. All of a sudden, my death couldn’t come too soon.