Drained

 

The mildew crawled up the shower wall like a dead tree. To Billy Swann, it looked like Munchie was sitting against the tree, naked, in a park surrounded by dirty white tile.

Billy had five weeks sober, some of the best and worst days of his thirty-eight years. But he wasn’t leaving the life without Munchie.

“Know what’s sad?” Munchie asked, Billy knowing he didn’t have to speak or react because Munchie would certainly tell him, in two seconds or four minutes.

“Somewhere,” Munchie continued after a pause to take a deep drag off a wet, unlit, poorly hand-rolled cigarette, “someone’s got the world record for most times puking blood, and he’ll never get recognized for it.”

“People do stuff all the time they don’t get any reward for, Munch. The world is just like that. It ain’t a vending machine where you put money in and a spiral thing revolves you a candy bar.”

“Puking blood a lot is a commitment.”

Billy nodded. His oldest friend wasn’t wrong.

“It feels pretty good to be sober, Munch. I’m tellin’ ya. I…I didn’t believe it either, man, but ya gotta try it. It’s time.”

Munch tried to stand up. Billy saw a little ripple of kinetic energy in his friend like Munch wasn’t just trying to stand up, like he wanted to spring out of the shower and tackle Billy just for saying “sober”. But he couldn’t.

“She took my fucking…”

Munch wadded the wet cigarette in one hand and was silent for a solid minute.

Billy was thinking of inspirational things to say when the naked man sitting in the shower finished the thought.

“My kid.”

“I know, Munch. I know.”

“You dunknow, you ain’t gotta kid. Brutal bitch. Fuck her. Where’s the whiskey?”

“It’s on the way, Munch,” Billy lied, a dumb lie because he was the only person in charge of getting the whiskey he had no intention of getting.

“Bitch took my kid. I need whiskey.”

Billy purposely leaned his back into a knob on one of the bathroom drawers, until it hurt. It was a little defense mechanism he developed as a kid when he had to say something his dad wasn’t gonna like; Bite his lip, pinch his finger, lean against a jagged part of a chain-link fence. Cause his own discomfort before someone like his dad reacted to what he said and started doling out pain.

“You don’t need whiskey because she took your kid, Munch. It’s a chicken and egg thing you’re telling yourself. She took your kid because you’re a drunk. You drank whiskey every day for what? Seven, eight years before Candace walked into Riley’s? And the whole seven years you were married. And at Conner’s 5th birthday party.”

“Where’s the whiskey?” Munch asked again, trying to hold a tough edge in his drunken voice.

“No whiskey Munch. No more. I made it through rehab. You’ll make it through rehab. You’re smarter than me and tougher than me.”

“She took my motherfucking kid, William!”

Carl Edward “Munchie” Mazewski really wanted those words to sound tough, to make a point. They sounded to Billy Swann’s sober ears like “I want my lollipop.”

Billy stepped into the shower stall and yanked his withered friend up first by the armpit and then, as Munchie’s frame rose, by the balls.

“We’re gonna put some clothes on you, and we’re gonna get you to detox at St. Margaret’s.”

“I don’t need that. I need my kid. I’m only drunk because she took my son.”

Billy put one quick clutch on his best friend’s testicles and pressed his forehead against Munchie’s until the back of Munchie’s head hit the mildew tree on the wall of the shower.

“In thirty days Munch, thirty days, I’ll be standing outside St. Margaret’s with a stack of scratch-off tickets, and your son.”