The False Truth of His Kind

SENSITIVE CONTENT WARNING: Mental health, alcohol use, and explicit language.

He stumbled about, as was his way, as was the way of all his kind. Not drunks, no, no, he didn’t mean drunks. Sure, drunks were a kind of their own, and maybe he was drunk enough of the time to be counted among their teeming, swaying, puking ranks. He was something else, though, and being drunk was—

He stopped for a moment, shakily grabbing hold of a streetlamp and taking a shuddering breath to suppress the urge to hurl cheap wings onto the pavement.

Ok… he was definitely a drunk.

One could be many things, however, and he wasn’t just a drunk. He was smart enough to know that much, even in his inebriated state. But then, what was he? He had been places, done things, hadn’t he? He had even done good things, by the measure of most. Those people— those “most” — thought of him as a good and honorable man.

Were they wrong?

Even if only due to his oft-drunkenness, some would decry him as a wretch. On this at least he could rebuke them, as he had a sharp wit and knew how to twist his tongue as some back-alley stabber might twist a knife. To be drunk alone was not wretched or wrong, even if one drank every day and could scarcely stand, this alone was not wretched.

Others might call him out for what he was doing right now, stumbling about, liquor sloshing in his gut, looking a fool as he made his unsteady journey to…somewhere.

What an idiot! They’d think or whisper to a friend or companion, Stumbling around like that, causing a scene!

Others still—those more sympathetic to his kind— would see him as a piteous figure, a lost soul on a lonely road. If only he’d been raised correctly! They might say, shaking their heads—or maybe, Aww, look at that poor man!

Others still would hardly take note of him at all; perhaps they were ignorant, or maybe selfish, or maybe they just… well… that couldn’t be it.

Regarding the two more judgmental categories of these three groups, he felt that neither could be refuted quite so easily as those on their foolish and soberly high-horse, those who felt the simple act of being drunk was immoral. It was a real possibility that his stumbling act could be truly disturbing to some, but he could easily decree them oversensitive little things that couldn’t so much as handle a drunk bumbling about.

But could he?

What if they had experienced something terrible involving drunks? What if his stumbling set alarms rattling in another’s head? Well, in that case he could still— No… No… NO. Not right now, save it for later.

His stomach lurched, and through some miracle of the Trashed Gods he managed to negotiate his passage into an alleyway before ridding himself of the sorry remains of buffalo wings. He heaved a few more times before sagging against the side of an unknown building and sliding to the ground. He found himself wracked with uncontrollable sobbing, but did not shed a single tear. He couldn’t do this— go over it all now—maybe he was just a pitiful, washed-up sob. Maybe he’d always been washed up, and now would soon be washed away.

He sat there, crumpled against that wall, and awaited tears, but none ever came.

Hardest of all to counter was the notion that being of his kind tarnished much more important and permanent parts of his life. If he inflicted any form of damage upon some traumatized passerby, it would likely leave something akin to a minor bruise, or maybe elicit the ache of a stitched wound. It was different if he was the one doing the scarring.

But he had never scarred anybody, had he? No, he was thinking too much, the only real scars he had ever left were on his own psyche. A good and honorable man, some might note, and once he may have agreed. But there was no honor in being a sodden fool. Or…

“Nooo.” He groaned softly, “N-nnnot r’now…”

It was all too much, he just wanted to lie there in his drunken state and pray that perhaps it would all be sorted out. But those sorts of prayers might not be answered, he needed to stop this now. He couldn’t remain of this kind forever; he had to fight it, cast it out, kill it where it stood!

That never worked, though, did it? Not exactly, anyway. There was some merit to it, but more often than not it felt like facing a dragon with a toothpick. There was no way out. Hide and he would be eaten, fight, and he would be eaten. He still had things he wanted to do, people that were important to him, a life that could be worth living. But what could he do but crumple with the dragon looming overhead, that force that could make even the simplest tasks seem Herculean feats.

The notion crushed his spirit, and there he remained in that alleyway, clothes tinged with dirt, vomit, and alcohol, until he finally fell asleep.

…

HOOONNK.

He jolted awake and immediately groaned; his head was killing him, his sinuses were full, and his mouth was bone dry. Where was he? He looked around blearily, and wiped the crust from his eyes. An alley? Outside of his alley, morning traffic was already underway, and he heard yet another HOONKK from the road.

He remembered the previous night, well, some of it.

He remembered drinking and stumbling out of the bar like a fool, before that point he recalled nothing. He remembered the fear and whirlwind of thoughts that had—coupled with the alcohol— eventually landed him here in this alley.

I’m terrible, I could have done anything, what if someone was hurt or I did something stupid— It crept forth again, falling over him like a cold sheet. He remembered similar thoughts the night before, how the people around him may have felt, how he tried to reason with the fact that he was no longer a good and honorable man who was worth something. Shame and dread pinned him to where he sat.

But then he remembered something else. Something from before he went to that bar, he had spoken to someone, one of his friends? He didn’t remember what was said, but the memory left him with… something, something different from what his kind experienced every day—though it was there too. It was not a bad feeling, in fact, it was quite a nice one. He remembered other things too, good things… almost definitively good, and times where he had tried to be good and failed, but at least he had tried.

He usually tried, almost always he tried.

Then he remembered the bad. How bad had those things really been, though?

Bad. He thought, but something in his heart made him reconsider. Stupid things? Maybe. Mistakes? Definitely. Regrets? Certainly. But rarely were his actions actually wrong. He never tried to hurt anyone in any way. Never. He was usually kind to those around him, and when he wasn’t he had always made up for it, or at the very least tried. Wasn’t that good and honorable?

Then it hit him, and he laughed. Actually laughed! As the cold sheet warmed just a bit, he realized the truth, which of course he knew well. A rather simple truth, really.

He was not a drunk. Sure, he had drunk more than was perhaps proper this week, and had gotten himself trashed enough that he had passed out overnight in an alley, which was not great. That had been quite stupid. But he was a notorious lightweight, and the week had been inordinately difficult, so much so that he had gone drinking alone. Why had he not called his friends, made it a fun Friday instead of whatever this was? He knew why, and it was a shallow reason. He wished he had called them, after all.

He was not a drunk, in fact, he seldom drank at all. This was one week out of one thousand, but he hadn’t tried to hurt anybody or do anything bad. He had never been drunk at work, and at home he had never exceeded being slightly buzzed. He had not even drunk an improper amount, save for today. He had drunk a total of three times this week— this was number three.

He laughed again! He still felt the dragon, the phantom that hovered around his kind, but it had retreated somewhat. He fished in his pocket, found that he still had his cell phone, and called his friend.

“Yo?” His friend answered.

“Hey, I did something really stupid, like, fucking ridiculous, can I get a ride?” He asked.

“Uhhh, yeah man, no problem, but it’s 8 in the morning, what the hell happened?

He told him the gist, how he had gone to the bar alone and ended up in an alley. He almost started telling his friend about what had led him to that point… almost. Within ten minutes, a car pulled over by his little alleyway, and with a little effort he was able to stand up and get to the car.

When he closed the door his friend grinned devilishly, “You look awful! Must have been one hell of a night. You have any fun?”

He looked at his friend, but he couldn’t managed to say anything. Something in his mind, which seemed to act like a dam, cracked.

His friend’s grin faded, replaced with a look of fear and concern. Their hand was on the gear shift, foot on the brake. They returned the car to park.

“What’s going on? Really?”

The dam exploded, and he pressed his head against the dashboard as he began to cry.

It felt amazing.

Once he finally settled down, he told his friend everything. He dropped the pretenses and in that single conversation laid bare what his kind had to endure. He figured his friend had known to some extent, all of his friends probably had an inkling that something was always hovering over his shoulder. However, none of them had ever seen what happened on his worst days, when he did foolish things that could get him hurt. He had hidden most all of it, and now it poured from him.

This friend at least now knew. And, to his surprise, his friend did not seem to mind hearing it, did not seem to judge him for blubbering and whining in his car.

And just for a while, the dragon retreated, and he felt the full warmth of the sun again. He knew it would not last forever, but that was ok.