(Chapter story, ‘The Drinking Room’)

Jerry fills the glass by holding it, talks, remembers, dreams, thinks, wishes, looks, walks around the table, ends up looking at his glass again, inside his glass, the foam inside the glass, opens his mouth without knowing it, the bubbles and foam are disappearing, he sees them dissolve, as if it were magic. It’s a mustard seed yellow liquid, cold beer, the same color as his urine, he thinks. He raises the glass to his lips, opens his mouth, throat, eyes wide, and pours it out.

Now he picks up a cigarette from an ashtray he’d put down a while ago, a Camel’s, no filter, he lights it again, pulls hard so the cigarette heats up like a gun, it’s red hot at the tip, he’s leaning in now. pick up a card from the stacked deck, in the middle of the table, a cat, yellow as beer, runs past, it belongs to the house, it was a stray cat once-it was I say: it was… it was…, now the children adopted him.

“Mr… m… s…!” says Jerry, “what kind of cards are these?” he asks he pushes his eyebrows up with some hidden muscles that seem to come out of his eyelids; his nostrils, nostrils suck in air like he’s been running, he’s a hundred pounds overweight, well, almost a hundred pounds, give or take twenty, looks like he’s drowning.

With nostalgia and annoyance, you turn your head from right to left, a fly is circling around your head, you can hear its buzzing, it wants to land on your ear, and it wants to land on your nose, eyelashes, or forehead, your forearms will work fine. also, he shakes his left elbow, smiles at the others, takes a sip from his glass of beer, you can hear the suction, Jim is having a coughing fit,

“Put on a sweater,” he says, “Betty, go see if you can ticket him one.”

“It’s nothing,” says Jim, “just the damn wet weather, I’ll get over it, I always do, don’t bother Betty.”

“Damn wet weather,” Ace’s voice stutters, repeating Jim’s statement as consolation: his voice always defeated.

Jim looks at Ace, his armpits stink, the music on the radio fades and then comes back to life, everyone’s jaws drop, Bobby Vee’s hit ‘Take Good Care of my Baby’ comes on and everyone hums along, a 1961 hit; then comes one that Evens likes: ‘More Than I Can Say,’ and for all to hear, “Shoo…” tells everyone (perhaps Vee’s most celebrated international song at the time).

“I’ve got some good worms to catch,” Jim says, like he has nothing to say.

“I can’t believe it,” Jerry comments, looking at his cards.

The table is now littered with bottles.

A heavy smell of tobacco, beer, human skin and underarm odors circulates around the kitchen table, mixed with chili smells whose tributaries of odors lead out of the kitchen, circulating warmly throughout the kitchen, dining room, and towards the living room and dining rooms. The less noticeable stench being the lower order of odors, the more drunk they all get.

There’s a few laughs, drunken roars, and darkening eyes. They talk, they shut up, they empty out, they fill up, sometimes they all speak at the same time and no one is heard.

Bill has a little headache, ‘I should go home’, he thinks. Then he thinks, ‘I’m being ridiculous.’

Ace with his long legs stands up, wobbles, wants to stretch them, Evens grabs him, grabs him, holds him until he regains his balance. He walks around the table, step by step, looks out the window, gets some fresh air, his brain clearing.

Jerry, now take a cigarette from an ashtray that I had left, a while ago, a Camel’s…

Ace straightens up, pulls out a tissue, blows his nose, wipes his forehead with the other side; for a few seconds he has forgotten that he left his dentures at home, his gums are red, he is back and ready to select a new card, he continues playing ‘Hearts’.

The cat is licking Ace’s shoes, kicks him, the cat whimpers, while Ace grabs his beer bottle by the neck like it’s the annoying cat, or a giraffe, and in two gulps he drinks three-quarters of the bottle of beer. beer. bottom.

A dung heap of cigarette butts is in the ashtray, the ashtray is really just a simple bowl of soup, with low sides.

Betty notices a bulge in Ace’s shirt pocket as she pulled out his handkerchief, subconsciously figuring it was a hidden pack of cigarettes, because she’s been begging everyone else for cigarettes all afternoon, instead of having to roll them, but they’re not. cigarettes.

From the looks of it, you’d think everyone there was an alcoholic; on the other hand, those who are not mine will very possibly become one in the near future, to include Betty.

Betty leans back against the side window behind Jerry. She puts her hands on Jerry’s shoulder, caresses his cold neck, a coldness she sees coming from under the windowsill. She closes her eyes as if to take advantage of a moment of idleness and refresh her energy.

On Jackson Street, from north to south, you can hear motors, whistles from the nearby steel company, tires on the wet road, car horns, it’s a noisy street this day. You can hear fleeting voices as people walk on the sidewalk.

Jerry looks out the window over Bill’s shoulder, at the cemetery across the street, there’s a gray beginning to envelop him.

Betty moves into the living room and kisses Jerry’s neck before moving on. The cat has urinated on one of the rugs; you can hear Betty scolding her. Jerry finishes his glass of beer, pours the contents of the bottle, what’s left of it, into the glass, the foam is off, but it fills the glass halfway.

Jerry refills his glass with a bottle of beer holding it, talks, remembers, dreams, thinks, wishes, looks, walks around the table…

Evens had fallen asleep; it was as if he was listening to the drizzle. The door closes: it’s an interior door with a screen, it’s next door, Jim’s house, he and his wife Bubbles live with Jim’s mother. Jerry raised his head, “It’s mine,” he says. His heavy hands fall back to the table.

Jim gets up to use the phone in the other room, “Mom, tell Bubbles I’ll be with you shortly, I’m playing cards at Jerry’s.”

“Yeah, I can see your back,” she says.

“Let’s not waste time,” says Jim, “let’s play for money?”

No one answers it’s like it’s a statement, not a question.

Ms. Hino wears a long, blue tunic-like blouse in a sheath that hides her body shape, from shoulders to ankles, and high-top rubber boots, which cover her feet and ankles, a scarf folded twice around her neck; her hands at her sides, her head lowered from hers, fumbling with her keys, barely revealing a movement of her shoulders. A slight grimace, the nose a little dilated from the cold. The leafless tree next to her has tentacular branches and very tall spikes. She is sneezing… about to open the inner front door of the house…

Evens, has fallen asleep, a fine fluff covers his reality, and is divided between the table and the room of his small apartment: Sandy wears a tattered iliac blouse, attached to the breasts, tied at the waist, and the knees exposed , cheekbones are rosy, a tattoo on his thigh, a full expression somehow peaceful, yellow eyes like cats, lions, restless vibes, his head is shaved, he feels strange, because noticing that he looks real, but he is the pilot here, some type of pilot, if someone could explain to him, if he could understand (he could only hear a few words watching, a grunt and waving the arms of those around him)…

Jerry fills the glass by holding it, talks, remembers, dreams, thinks, wishes, looks, looks around the table in circles…

“Come on Evens, let’s play,” Ace says, looking at him.

“Again, say it again,” said Bill, and fell asleep.

At that, Evens woke up.

“Did it look like you were rolling with Sandy or was it the Shadow?” Jerry asks Evens, licking his lips, everyone cracking up.

“They always like to be begged for, right?” Evens says.

The phone rings and Nancy answers, it’s for her.

“Who was that?” Betty asked.

“Just a friend,” Nancy says. And before Betty could say another word, Jerry speaks, as if he knows there might be a tug-of-war: “She’s at a silly age, you have to know how to let her go, unless you want to fight her, she’ll become even more foolish.” stubborn”.

In that, she lets it be.

Jim drinks the last of his yellow liquid into his glass, looks at Jerry, sees some gray hair, fills everyone’s glasses with a bottle of fresh, cold beer, including his own, tops it off with mustard seed yellow, giving it new head and life, Ace drinks, closing his eyes, everyone is taking long gulps of beer, wiping the sweat with their hands, the kitchen is hot, he tells Ace to go buy more beer, two more boxes, no, he changes his mind thinking that he might not come back, says Bill. Jerry is getting a little drunk; he looks at Jim like Jim’s ears are getting misshapen, big ears like Dumbo’s: “It’s funny what alcohol does to yaw,” he says.

“Ace,” says Jerry, “you look like you’ve got craters on your nose,” they all laugh.

“Things happen,” Ace says, taking it seriously, a bit confused, then laughs with everyone.

Jerry lifts the glass to his lips, opens his mouth, throat, eyes wide, and pours it out, beer and foam and near a fly, hears it buzzing, coughs up the beer, the fly was on the edge of the glass, “Damn,” he yells. Now cautiously imploring Betty to get a flyswatter and finish off that creature before she has a heart attack; then came Gene Pitney’s ‘Mecca’ and then ‘Twenty four Hours from Tulsa’, songs that everyone started humming or tapping their feet, and Evens did both.

Smells of feet, socks, and armpits: swirling sweat odors and chili odors biting into everyone’s nostrils, everyone calling everyone friend this and friend that, an internal whirlwind of buddy chatter. Loud music now; It must be Bobby Vee day and Gene Pitney day, the song: “Rubber Ball” is playing on the radio now, his number one hit.

‘My brother likes Jack Scott,’ Evens says: more of a statement than a question, no one paying attention to his comment, as they pick up cards from the center of the table, looking at their hands.

#910 (Glass of Beer) 5-22-2012