Drunk in a Barrel

Chapter 1

It was 12am on a Tuesday, I had just ran out of whiskey at the house, all I had left were three 16oz beers, it was not enough for me to get a buzz. So I made my way to the closest bar on foot before 2am, I took a Twain book and wanted to just read, smoke some cigarettes, and catch that good o’l sweet buzz I was sweating for. It was only maybe a mile away that I had to walk and on the way there I sipped on one of the beers I had, to I got there.

Once I got to the bar, I finished the beer, threw it into the ditch close by, hid the bag of the last two beers and went inside. I ordered two beers and a double whiskey dry, went outside and found a cozy spot in the back where I could be alone and just read. I lit a cigarette, sipped on the whiskey, popped open the beer and cracked the book open to where I left off, The Mysterious Stranger by Mark Twain. I was near finished with the story, so far it was amazing and I was on edge waiting for the end to see how it all played out, it made me interested in the Devil. As I sat reading, minding my own, one of the barflies from the bar came outside, it was John. John was a really smart guy, I met him more than a couple times there at the bar when I’d go last minute to get my fix on alcohol. Sometimes when the bar would close, him and couple of other people who hung out at the bar regularly, would drink out in the back of the bar drinking the rest of our beers, thats how I first meet him and had a intelligent conversation with him. He sat on the table next to me.

“Whats up, Charley? What you reading there?”

“The Mysterious Stranger by Twain, read it before?”, I asked.

“Yeah, thats the one about the Devil, right?”

“yeah, its so good, man, I’m almost done with it”

“its pretty good, read it back in high school”.

John pulled out a huge ledger book, you can see all these names and numbers. I said nothing and continued puffing on my cigarette and reading. Another guy came outside, went by the name of Big D, I knew him too, he sold coke and weed, always had different women with him when I’d see him there at the bar. He approached John and gave him some money. I didn’t want to eavesdrop but they were sitting so close to me, they were betting on the Super Bowl, DT gave John a large amount of cash and John put it in his suitcase he carried with him. D took off and John stayed there writing something down in his ledger.

I got on my phone and messaged my friend, Sara who lived closed by to come have a drink with me, she messaged back and she was on her way there to meet me. Once she got there, she met me outside where I was siting and sat across with me.

“Hey! Sara! You made it, let me get you a drink!”

“hey! Ill just get a whiskey coke, please”

I went inside and ordered the drink and came back outside, she was sitting in the same spot looking at my book.

“here you go, so whats new Sara?” I placed the glass in front of her and sat down.

“same o’l same o’l, just work work, what you reading there?”

“its Mark twain, its about the devil and some children who get influenced by him and how he changes their perspective on life and human nature”.

We talked a bit about one of my trips out in the country to John got up and approached us.

“Hey, Charles, I’m gonna have a after party at my house after the bar closes, I’m moving so I’m going to have some people from the bar over and some other friends. You should come, brother”

“Sure, I have some beer for myself and some weed for some joints to pass, this is my friend Sara by the way, Sara this is John”

They shook hands and made their introductions. I don’t think she could tell but me being a man, John had that look in his eyes like he was attracted to her. I did not mind but the last thing I want is for her to get freaked out by people who knew me.

“Ya’ll can both come, your’er both invited, message me and I’ll send you my address, Charles”

“sounds good, John, thanks”

“I live down the street, its not far”

“See you until then”

John went back inside the bar and I continued talking to Sara while sipping on the beers to I got another round. I bought three beers and it was already going to be 2am, I stuffed the beers into my pockets and walked out the back of the bar with her. We stood out in the back talking to another guy from the bar I knew came, Randy.

“Hey! Charles! Where were you at? I didn’t see you inside the bar?

“I was outside talking to my friend here, Sara this is Randy, Randy this is Sara”, She shook hands with Randy, another barfly I knew. We stood out in the back of the bar talking for a bit to about 2:30am, all three of us.

“I’m going to head out now guys, I got work tomorrow”, Sara said.

I walked her to her car and asked one last time if she wanted to go to Johns but she was tired so I let her go.

I walked back to Randy and told him I would be back. I made my way to the ditch where I hid the other two beers in the bag, now I had five beers. I did not want to drink any of the beer at Johns house, something about drinking someone else’s alcohol made me feel bad. I don’t mind people drinking mine but just asking or just taking someone else’s beer really got to me. It made me feel like a leech, sucking what is not yours. I got back to Randy and he was there still.

“You going to Johns?” I asked

“yeah, are you?”

“if your’er going then ill go too so I wont be alone”

“Follow me, I know how to get there”.

Chapter 2

Randy lead the way to Johns house while we sipped on the beers, I had bought from the bar. It was only four blocks away to we finally got there. The whole street in front of Johns house was covered with cars, we came up to the door and knocked, John answered.

“Hey, you guys made it” John greeted us

He opened the door and let us in, inside the house were about fifteen people sitting on a table and on the couch, the house was cluttered with boxes and containers. He did say he was moving I thought. I greeted everyone with a wave at the table and just said my name out loud to over lap the loud music and as I stared at everyone waving I saw them passing a mirror around, on that mirror laid a large stack of white powdered lines. In the center of the table was a huge mini mountain of white powder, they were doing coke I thought to myself. I sat down next this this beautiful Mexican woman with jean shorts and a tank top, trying to show as much skin as she could, it was a hot night but not that hot for a skinny woman herself of that weight.

“Hey, I’m Monica…”

“My name is Charles, nice to meet you, want a beer?”

“No thanks I’m good”

I pulled out another beer and began to drink it, the mirror was half way around the table and I can see Monica’s eye fixated on it like a falcon ready to attack it like prey, she was high on whatever she was on. I saw down just listening to everyone and asked John if it was okay to smoke because he was smoking hand rolled cigarettes and there were two ashtrays on each side of the table. He was okay with it, so I smoked and watched everyone snort that baby powder into their nose with a half cut straw. It came to the time when the guy next to me handed me the mirror next.

“I’m good, just drinking and smoking tonight, I got work early” I passed it over to Monica. She snorted two lines and passed it over. I began rolling a joint on the table with papers, perfectly packing it and making a filter out of paper from the rolling paper box. I asked John if it was okay if I smoked and again he was fine with it, I lit it up. I took three good hits and passed it to Monica but she denied it, I stood up and asked if anyone wanted to hit it but all fifteen people in the whole door denied it, thats when I noticed that no-one of them were even drinking beer or liquor. Everyone was just snorting gasoline, chemicals, trash, shit, blood, dirt, junk instead into their brains.

“So you don’t like ice?’ Monica asked.

“is that was that it? No wonder it looked like crystal rainbows were beaming off it”, I said.

“its really good shit, we’ve been here for two days just crashing here and getting high, John said if we help him pack, we can get high as much as we want off his stash.”

“how many of ya’ll have been here packing?”

“well theres me, Ashley, Rico, Julia, Yvonne, Tony, and Henry. “We’ve been here getting fucked up and packing.”

“wow, y’all did an amazing job”, I said.

I was pretty freaked out at this point, what I thought was a normal party house, was now a crack house and John was paying these people in ice, to pack everything up for him while he went about his day. I continued drinking, I had just gotten there and did not want to leave right away, I could feel the whiskey and beer finally creeping on me as I grew tired and my head became fuzzy. I stayed talking to Monica and drinking my beer, smoking my cigarettes to she came up to my ear and told me.

“You want to go to the back and fuck? You're really cute”

“I got a girlfriend, I’m sorry.” I lied.

As the time went on, I woke up. I was on the chair sitting down with my neck hanging and I had pissed all over myself. I got up and everyone was asleep on the floor, the couch, the bed and in the kitchen the two girls, including Monica were in the kitchen passed out. The floor below me laid a large puddle of my beer piss. I got up, took one of johns shirts from the box and placed it on the piss and left it there, I opened the front door, locked the door knob from the inside and closed it, it locked. I walked home and got ready for work.

Chapter 3

I worked for the past five days and kept thinking if John found the large puddle piss where I sat. I kept looking at my phone waiting for a message with some cruse words for me but nothing ever came. I hadn’t been to the bar either since then because I got off around 2am so I had to buy beer in advance because the store stopped selling at 12am. I didn’t want to go the bar either way because I feared of seeing John there and I hated confrontations but on Monday I had ran out of beer and I needed my fix like always, I needed that buzz so I said, fuck it.

I walked to the bar Monday night around 1am and when I got there, outside stood one of the barflies that was always there everyday, his name was Abraham but everyone called him Ab. He called me one when I was going inside.

“Hey! Charley!”

“What's up Ab?”

“I’m glad to see your’er alive dummy, I haven’t seen you since you went to Johns that night and left the bar.”

“I worked this whole week and weekend”, I said.

“I thought you were in that barrel, knowing you and the way you drink to you black out. You were gone the whole week so I thought you were a goner”

“What barrel? What are you talking about Ab?”

“you didn’t hear?”

“hear what?”

“John came out in the news, he paid some crackheads in crack to dump a barrel in his truck at a river, the dummies kicked it off and a body popped out, they called the cops and they picked John up for murder”

I stood in shock and began looking up his name and there it was, he killed a man and had some crack heads dump it at an abandon river, the body fell out, they freaked out and called the cops and he was in county prison to his hearing.

“You’er lucky you’er alive, you drink like a dummy and no-one seen you since his party and we hadn’t seen you here like we always do so we all thought it was you.”

I went inside, got the usual, came back outside and thought about the whole thing. It would of really sucked to be killed that way, i’d rather be remembered as the killer than the victim. People always remember the killer better by name, height, weight, hair color, and killing technique than they remember the victims or victim. I wondered if he found that puddle of piss in the living room and the piss I left in the restroom. I wondered what happened when I blacked out. I finished my drinks, went home and wrote about it.