Message in a Bottle Bank

Message In A Bottle Bank

The trouble with being a piss-artist on a mission to save the world is the bleedin empties.

The council gives us these awful recycling bags to put out on bin day. I mean these things are seriously bloody dreadful. Firstly they are made of what must be a single atom layer of plastic so thin it’s barely there at all; they can just about take a small empty can of soup. Stuff ‘em full of a week’s worth of wine bottles and the bastards are all over the street before you can say ‘alcohol problem’. More worrying is that the things are completely transparent. This means that even if I triple bag my weekly bottle collection and somehow manage to get the clinking, git of a thing out to the front of my house, it has to stay there all day until the bin men arrive to cart the complaining, treasonous, whistle-blowing receptacle away at five o’clock. This gives my evangelical ultra-conservative neighbour, Mr Mansel, plenty of time to check out my out of control habit and judge me on it when I get back at 6:30pm. I swear to god he waits by his gate for me to get home from work. Has he got nothing better to do? The man is always outside in that immaculate garden. I don't blame his wife for leaving him like that. I was actually surprised he told me at all. I wasn't here then but the story is, they hated each other. He usually plays it close to his chest, my nosey neighbour.

“Nineteen today, Pat?” Yes - the bastard actually counts them. “I thought you’d gone off the Shiraz?” he adds, smiling with yellow teeth and the sincerity of a politician.

“Special deal at the corner shop John.”

“…I see.” Yes you do see, don’t you, you miserable, nosy old git.

“Ever tried to cut down, Pat?”

(ever thought of not judging me every single week?)

“It’s mostly the moggy, John. I weened her off the ‘nip and now she’s getting into the wine. Still, that’s politics innit?” John is very fond of telling anyone who will listen about his days as a local councillor (Conservative obviously).

“Pat. About your lawn it’s a disgrace to the entire stre-“

Door slam! Boring conversation anyway.

Which is why I’ve taken to using the bottle bank at the supermarket. A bit bloody stupid I know but then so is getting shamed every week by that judgement old tory. Of course this means leaving the house at night every Wednesday. Late at night when the street is quiet and snooping-neighbour free. This, however, presents several problems. 

Have you ever tried to wrestle two full recycling bags full of empty corner shop piss wine bottles into a small, clapped out and creaking wreck of a car in the middle of the night without making a noise? Bloody impossible. Being an eco-warrior, the wreck is an electric so at least that’s quiet. Obviously this process would be a lot easier if I weren’t as pissed as a fart. I suppose I could do it when I’m sober but then if I were sober at this time of night I wouldn’t have this particular problem.

Yes. I know this is wrong.

Luckily the roads are empty at 1am and the supermarket is only a mile away. I manage to swerve my way there most weeks, only occasionally taking the odd wing mirror off a parked car.

The bottle bank is at the back of the supermarket at the edge of the usual vast expanse of car-park.

Of course getting my wages of sin to the bottle bank are not the end of my problems. It seems I am not the first shit-faced sad act to think of this. Invariably the bottle bank is full to brimming and usually has it’s own collection of satellite recycling bags orbiting it in mute defence of all the functional alcoholics trying to do the right thing. I used to just add my bags of guilt to the ring structure and weave my way home at 10mph. If I’m lucky enough to get home in one piece, there is one final piece of mischief an evil bastard like me can get up to. Very quietly, trying not to snigger too much, I remove the bag I picked up from the bottle bank, from the back my car. This one, containing empty vodka bottles gets deposited outside Mr Mansel’s door. Well, the old git has it coming.

A year ago, all that changed.

This was back in that long hot summer, when we were all locked up inside hiding from the bloody virus. I guess the pubs being closed had lead to an increase in people drinking at home. Either way the satellite ring system around the bottle bank had turned into a full on attack on the thing. The piles of recycled bottles were so high, the bottle bank was barely visible at all. In my somewhat inebriate state it didn’t occur to me to just leave my empties and get home. I decided that what I really needed to do was lob the bastard up onto the very summit of the enormous Temple of Alcohol. With an immense heave, my empties (triple bagged, luckily) sailed up into the night and crash-landed somewhere above the tree-line. I decided to call it quits.

I had just turned my back when the avalanche started. Like Spielberg pulling focus, I could see in my minds eye the vast wave of empties heading for me. Staggering forward I thought to outrun the monster, but I was already knee deep in stale beer and wine bottles. The sound was like all hell breaking loose. Like a pissed up 9/11 landing on me. St Dylan, the patron Saint of Drunks was looking out for me though and the high tide mark never reached beyond my waist. I was eventually able to wade back to the car.

A stray, bottle had rolled further than the ten thousand others and fetched up under a front wheel. Reaching down I grasped the ominously slimy bottle and examined it with a wine addict’s critical eye prior to lobbing it back at the slowly spreading ocean of glass. A very nice Argentinian Malbec. Somebody had taste.

Something rattled against the inside of the bottle, immediately causing me to scream like the big girl’s blouse that I am and drop the bottle. But this was no well-oiled rodent spoiling for a fight. In amongst the broken green glass lay a wine stained piece of paper. 

Inside the car under the yellow dying battery light I held the rancid thing up. A note. A message. An actual message in a bottle.

“Dear Finder,

I shall no doubt be dead by the time you read this. I know that’s a cliche but I assure you, it’s the truth.

What an absurd statement, you may be thinking. What an absurd thing to do at all. Well, Dear Finder, allow my to explain.

My wife left me two years ago to the day. I can’t in all honesty blame her. I have been a terrible husband to her and imagine the agony of life with me ultimately proved too much to bear. To clarify, she didn’t leave me per se. In fact I gain some small comfort from the fact that she has been residing in a small pot on the mantle for the past two years, discreet witness to my pain. I really don’t know why I did it, suffice it to say that loath her as I did, as I do, and though I couldn’t bear for her to leave me, in the end she had to go. Murder seemed to make sense at the time but I have come to suspect that this was a mistake. In truth, despite her be-jarred proximity, I miss her more with every passing moment. Certainly more than I can live with. Fine wine and the pills from my doctor help to numb some of the pain but the returns diminish as my agony builds and I am forced to admit that there is not enough claret under heaven to ease this pain. My only comfort in this is that I might feel some small portion, a grain of sand, to the ocean of torture she went through before I agreed, finally to help her overdose.

Dear Finder (if indeed this is ever found). You will find my body at 57 Mount Pleasant Street, in my favourite armchair with my wife’s ashes. Please feed that oaf of a cat if he has returned from his midnight wanderings.

Counsellor (retired) John Mansel, MBE.”   

Holy Shit!

There was a date. Today. A time (who puts a time on a suicide note?), about two hours ago.

I took more than a few wing mirrors off on my race home, before finally hitting a skip. Down but not out I limped the rest of the way home on foot.

The ambulance crew where loading John into the van when I arrived and didn't explain that I was the caller.

The short version is that John; that poor, lonely, tormented old bastard didn’t make it. He was as thorough with his death as he was with his manicured lawn.

The funeral was, I hear, a quiet affair with no family and just a few old guard from the conservative club. I didn’t go.

Sitting out in my garden on this spring evening I find that I actually miss the old codger. And not just because he mysteriously left me a cellar full of the most exquisite wine and an over fed cat. I never realised his pain. The agony of outliving his wife like that. The bottled up guilt with helping her end her life against all the teachings of his religion. I actually miss him judging me, even as I miss-judged him.

I have decided to be less of an asshole from now on.

Most nights when it’s warm enough I sit out here (John would have appreciated the effort I’ve made with the garden), and the cats and I raise a glass of wine to the old boy.

I usually have to help the cats drink their wine. 

SPL 15th August 2020 (about tea-time)