The Tale of a Drunken Writer

A knock sounded on my apartment door. I jumped and spilled my glass of wine all over the keyboard. “Damn.” I flipped the keyboard upside-down, shook it around a bit, and checked my watch. It was only four-thirty.

I hid the empty wine bottle under my desk, tossed a piece of minty gum into my mouth, and promptly choked on it. I hacked with enthusiasm until I coughed the minty white square out of my lungs and into my mouth. I chewed frantically. The knocking resumed, with gusto.

“Hold on, hol’your horsies.” I trotted around the couch and tripped over a foot. It was mine, but it came out of nowhere. I fell into the door and my head whacked the wood. “Ouch. Who’s is it?” My mouth didn’t seem to be working very well. I spit out the gum.

“It’s Rusty.”

“Rusty who?” I sing-songed.

“Your boyfriend. Open the damn door!”

I wasn’t about to argue with my boyfriend’s mad voice. I yanked on the handle—hard. I forgot to turn it and almost dislocated my shoulder. “Ouch.” I tried again, turning and yanking. That didn’t work either. I mulled over the enigma of the unopening door, until I had a eureka moment. I disengaged the lock and said, “Tada!”

Rusty shoved the door inward. It slammed to a dead stop when it reached the end of the short security chain. I had forgotten about that, too. Rusty swore. It didn’t sound like he was in a very good mood.

“Hang on to your tighty-whities.” I leaned against the door and fought with the chain until it popped free.

Rusty shoved the door opened again. I was in the way. It knocked me over backwards, or I fell all by myself. I didn’t feel a thing when I landed, even though it sounded like something broke under my butt. Rusty extended a hand and pulled me up.

“What are you doing here?” I asked, contorting, trying to see if maybe my butt was the thing that had broken. It looked okay, except for the piece of gum stuck to it. I pulled the gum off and tossed it back in my mouth. I didn’t know where else to put it.

“You were supposed to meet me at the restaurant for dinner,” Rusty said, all righteous indignation.

I pondered that with a furrowed brow. His words did pluck at some hazy memory strings. “Dinner? Are you sure that was tonight?” I annunciated with care. My tongue felt kind of like a worm in a puddle, all swelled up and limp. I stuck my tongue out as far as I could, and strained my eyeballs to look down. I could see the pink tip and wiggled it. It didn’t look like a drowned worm. It looked lively!

“Diane, focus. Yes, tonight. You were supposed to meet me an hour ago. Where the hell have you been?” Rusty glared at me and still managed to look like a kicked puppy.

“S’only four … four … something-ish.” I squinted at my watch again. “Thirtyish. Four-thirtyish. I’m not late. I’m early.” I beamed happily.

“It’s six-thirty, Diane. Six-thirty. Six-thirty. Six-thirty.” Rusty kept repeating the number as if it was the universal answer to all the unsolved mysteries of the galaxy.

“S’not,” I said.

“What?”

“S’not six-thirty.” I tried to tap my watch, missed and poked my arm. “See, s’only four-thirtyish.”

“That’s a freckle, Diane. And it’s six-thirty. I should know ‘cause I’ve been sitting in that overpriced restaurant watching the minutes tick away. Why didn’t you show? What have you been doing?” he asked, his eyes narrowing with suspicion.

“I wasn’t doing anything bad.” I tried to glance nonchalantly over my shoulder, to see if the evidence of my misdeed was visible.

I guess I wasn’t nonchalant enough. Rusty followed my gaze. He ducked around me and marched over to my desk. His toe must have kicked the empty wine bottle. It clinked and rolled around on the floor.

“Spin the bottle!” I launched myself into his arms. My sloppy kiss didn’t distract him at all. And somehow my gum ended up stuck on his nose.

He pulled the gum off, dropped it in the garbage can, and righted the keyboard. A puddle of red lay beneath it, as if it had been stabbed to death, or possibly shot. “Ah-ha!” Rusty said.

“Ah-ha-ha-ha-hah what?” I jabbed the air with my finger to make some sort of point.

“You’re writing again. No wonder you’ve been drinking.”

“I have to drink when I write. Drinking makes me write good!” The room was starting to spin. I think it was an earthquake. I had to sit down fast. Luckily, my desk chair caught me.

“Aren’t you still going to your meetings?” Rusty tried to meet my eyes.

I was having none of that. “I don’t need any meetings. I can quit all by myself, if I have a problem, but I don’t have a problem.” I crossed my arms and tilted my nose in the air. My lips were numb so I stretched them downward, to make sure I was pouting.

While I was pouting, I darted a glance at my laptop, hoping the screen had gone to sleep all by itself. It hadn’t. Words filled the screen. Beautiful, poetic, profound prose. They reminded me that nobody wanted to publish my stories, and that there was no point in living.

I sniffed and tears spilled out. My face crumpled up like a used Kleenex. Writers need to have skin as thick as a rhino to protect against all the painful rejections. I just didn’t have that kind of skin. Mine was as thin as a nonagenarian’s. A paper cut could kill me.    

Rusty sighed and rolled my office chair, and me, over to the couch. He tipped me onto the softer surface and dropped down beside me. I was still leaking and he took my hands in his. “Sweetie, we both know writing isn’t good for you. It makes you depressed, and it makes you drink too much. You need to keep going to your WA meetings.”

I leaned against him. He smelled great for our date. I inhaled deeply. “I don’t need Writers’ Anonymous. I can quit writing anytime I want, if I want to quit, but I don’t want to. I was jus’ writing such a good story, about chickens, and eggs. I know chickens are hard to understand, especially when eggs are involved, but it’s a really good story. Maybe the best story I’ve ever written. I could work on it now if my keyboard wasn’t dead, and if I wasn’t out of wine.”

I’m sure I heard his eyes roll heavenward. Rusty slumped into the couch, shoulders at half-mast. He turned on the TV. “Want some pizza?” he asked.

I nodded. “And we could have sex.” That always made both of us feel better.

“Sure.” Rusty pulled out his cell phone and ordered a deluxe pizza. I fell asleep, dreaming about pecking chickens and cracked eggs. And a rooster named Rusty.