The Golden Goose

The cold, damp wind blew through the black down jacket as he walked along King Street, past grey stone buildings and red brick storefronts covered by black iron gates. The fog fell heavy across the sky like a wool blanket draped over a couch-fort in the living room. The blanket cast gloomy shadows over the street and it looked as if the wet snow that was beginning to precipitate was being dumped from buckets atop the buildings. He shivered and pulled the collar tighter around his neck as he continued on past beggars and vagrants sticking out empty Tim Hortons cups, mumbling some semblance of “change” or “help”. The air was heavy as the city bus passed him, leaving a flume of exhaust fumes in its wake. He passed a young woman, shivering in a thin white coat, but continued to look straight ahead and did not dare make eye contact. He felt sick to his stomach as he carried on – the angry ghosts inside of him were screaming and he couldn’t ignore them much longer. As he approached the red building on his right, the steel mailboxes with the numbers 2, 4 and 6 became clear and then the blue door came into sight. Just beyond it lie the steel door which blended in to the grey brick building. The blue and red neon sign flashed at him, reminding him that they were open; calling him to come in for just one drink. He had promised Christina that he would be home on time tonight, and had been able to leave work a few minutes early to ensure that he kept that promise, something he wasn’t very well practiced at. He looked at the steel door with the dark black glass inserts, and saw the reflection of a man who looked as hopeless as the few he had passed. He looked back at the blue door as he rolled his cold metal keys between his numb fingers and mulled the decision over.

“It’s just one drink,” he mumbled as he opened the steel door and pulled it toward him. He was enveloped by a burst of warm, welcoming air. It was quickly succeeded by the sound of music and a mixed jumble of voices all screaming over top of one another. The laughter was raucous and infectious to the point that it made a grim Daniel smile. He waved at the bartender who already had a tall chilled mug tilted under the green and silver tap while it filled with the golden liquid that haunted Daniel’s dreams. He took a seat at the far end of the bar as the bartender, clad in a black t-shirt with some band’s name that Daniel didn’t recognize, walked toward him and placed the tall glass atop a green coaster.

“Evening Daniel. Where’s the wife tonight?” he asked with a smile, leaning forward so that he could hear the response. “Still upstairs. Just stopped in for a quick beer before going home.”

“I thought you were back on the wagon?” the man asked, sympathetically. Daniel smiled at the thought of a bartender who cared about his patrons drinking problems, seeing his sole purpose was to serve them their poison. This was all that most of them had left; and for the lucky ones who hadn’t fucked it all up yet, it offered fair warning of what would come if they didn’t clean themselves up.

“I was,” Daniel replied, “but I can’t stand the shakes in the morning and by the time I get home I need something to level out.” The bartender nodded, patted him on the shoulder and said something about it being nice to see him before he turned to tend to the rest of the drunken misfits in The Golden Goose. Daniel picked up his phone, and the screen illuminated his face. He began to type a message to Christina. Before he finished the message, he placed the glass to his lips and felt the cold liquid coat his mouth before he swallowed it down. He took another gulp, followed by another, and another. By the time he finished the beer, he still hadn’t sent the text he had started just a few short minutes ago. The bartender turned toward him, saw the glass was empty and shook his head with a devious grin. Daniel pointed at the glass and gave him the thumbs up, to which the bartender responded by filling another pint and placing it in front of him while whisking the other glass away. Daniel finished that glass as quickly as he did the first. Still, no message was sent. He pointed to his glass as the bartender made eye contact and was rewarded with another.

The man beside him, Harv, was another regular and had spent a drunken evening or two with Daniel sucking back beers and trading slurred stories about nothing until they stumbled out the door and watched the neon sign go black.

“Hey,” the man said, slurring as he turned toward him with wandering, bloodshot eyes, “I thought you had gone clean?” Daniel nodded, sucking back the beer without an ounce of hesitation, his throat pushing the liquid into his stomach as quickly as he could. “I did,” Daniel said, as he wiped the foam from his upper lip, “and sobriety fucking sucks,” he finished before letting out a loud belch. The taste of beer was better going down, he thought. Harv smiled, “Let’s do a shot then, celebrate your return to the Goose.” Daniel smiled and nodded, “Why not?”

One hour had now passed and when he tried to stand up, Daniel quickly realized he was hammered. He was slurring his words, and realized he still hadn’t text Christina to let her know he was going to be late. He picked up his phone, and much to his surprise, he was struggling to see the screen clearly. He looked in front of him at the row of empty shot glasses and tried to count them, but gave up after 6. He started typing, without realizing he hadn’t finished the last message, and pressed send. His phone buzzed almost immediately, and he laughed as he read Christina’s angry reply. He typed a reply without double checking it, pressed send, and went back to the story he was telling Harv. As he looked at him, he had forgotten what he had been talking about. His phone continued to buzz beside him but he ignored it and slipped it into his jacket pocket. Harv laughed and tried to prompt him, but quickly realized he did not have the slightest clue what Daniel was talking about either.

The bartender brought them two more shots of Crown Royal and they clanked glasses, yelled “Na Zdorovie!” then threw them back without the slightest bit of hesitation. Beer was his crutch, but Crown was his kryptonite and he had longed for this taste since he had quit three short weeks ago. Christina had said this was his last try, and if he fell off the wagon, he would be riding the wagon by himself. He sat, quietly thinking, while studying the rest of the patrons in the bar.

In the corner sat a group of four men, probably in their early-mid 20’s, chanting “Four more shots!” This sound gave much pleasure to the bartender, as he hadn’t stopped bringing them drinks since they sat down. There was an older couple sitting at a high-top table in the middle of the bar, eyes affixed to the hockey game that was playing on the two televisions behind the bar. Daniel couldn’t see the screen from the angle he was on nor could he make out the letters across the bottom. He thought about going to ask them who was winning, but quickly changed his mind when he realized that standing may not be in his best interest right now. So, like all good alcoholics do, he ordered another shot to wash down his beer.

There was a couple sitting at another of the high-top tables. The woman, who looked a bit too classy for the establishment, was sipping a glass of white wine while the well-dressed man sipped a brown liquid accompanied by only ice in the glass. “Smug bastards,” he mumbled as he felt his phone vibrate against the chair. He ignored it and kept scanning the room. A younger fair-haired man he didn’t recognize sat in the corner of the bar. He looked nervous, almost like he was waiting for someone but wasn’t sure who. The man met Daniel’s eyes and he looked away quickly before taking another sip of his beer.

Dale, an old alcoholic with thick white hair and a large grey and yellow beard, was sitting at the end of the bar opposite Daniel. He had the same look of loss and sorrow on his face that many old alcoholics had. It was obvious to all of those around him; the weathered, unshaven face and the bloodshot eyes said more than the slurred words and stench of alcohol on his breath ever could. More than that, it was the look of nothing that sat in those eyes – the emptiness that gripped him and would not let him go, even for a moment. The look of longing that only came when a glass full of beer was placed in front of him, or a spirit touched the tip of his tongue and caressed his thoughts, telling him everything would be okay. The emptiness that Daniel knew he would soon feel if he continued down this path. He sighed, motioned for another drink and took out his phone. There were 3 missed calls and multiple text messages that he didn’t have the energy to read. He put the phone back down beside him and signalled for another drink, and the bartender obliged. “If you didn’t live so damn close Danny boy, I might be worried about you getting home on a night like tonight,” he said as he placed the glass in front of him. Daniel smiled, nodded, and began to empty the glass of beer. He continued to scan the room and near the door noticed a face that resembled that of Christina, but his vision was blurry so he ignored the seeming coincidence and looked back down at his drink. He felt a kick in his left shin as he glanced over at Harv who had a look of grave concern in his hollow, empty eyes. When Daniel was able to focus, he noticed that the door was closing and the face he had seen was gone.

“That was the misses, wasn’t it?” Harv asked. Daniel looked at him quizzically, before stammering out a few words that did not form a coherent sentence. His phone vibrated again and he tried to focus on the screen. He gave the phone to Harv who took out his reading glasses, pulled them down the bridge of his nose and moved the phone away from his face.

“Fuck you Daniel. I am done. Have fun being a drunk. You are an asshole,” Harv said in a deep and dry voice that was made for radio.

Harv didn’t show any emotion, instead, he handed the phone back to Daniel and ordered them two more shots of Crown. “Let’s drown those sorrows, young man,” Harv said as he patted him on the shoulder. Daniel felt odd – the words didn’t register so he kept drinking and put the phone in his pocket. He would call her in the morning, he thought. They had been through this before. The brown liquid swished around his mouth before he swallowed it and smiled.

“Last call Danny,” the bartender said. Daniel lifted his head from the bar and stared at him with a bewildered look. Daniel tried to speak but his mouth was too dry. He had been sleeping, face down on the bar, for at least the last 40 minutes. He reached for the glasses but they were empty. The bartender, who had been cleaning a glass, began to fill it with cold water from the tap in front of Daniel. He put the glass on the bar, slid it toward him and continued cleaning.

By the time Daniel stood up, he realized he had pissed himself and his legs were sticky from the dried urine. He waved at the bartender, who shook his head, and watched Daniel stumble toward the steel door. When he emerged onto the street, his lungs stung as he inhaled the cold damp air. The wet snow had been falling on and off and the black asphalt road was covered in a slick layer of precipitation that shimmered under the lights of passing cars. There were no buses on the street, so it had to be after 2 am. Daniel stood still, stumbling side to side before bracing himself against the wall. He turned right, and searched for the blue door but didn’t find it. He continued to scan the grey brick wall before he slumped to the ground. He could smell urine as cars continued to pass him late into the night. He watched the wet snow fall in a blurry haze in front of him as he slowly let his heavy eyelids close.

“Wake up Danny boy,” the bartender said as he kicked Daniel’s leg. Daniel jolted awake and looked up at the bartender with a hapless, empty expression. “Fuck,” Daniel muttered in a gruff voice, “what time is it?” The bartender smiled. “Time to go home pal,” he said as he helped Daniel to his feet. He walked him toward the blue door just a short 2 metres away while Daniel fumbled for his keys. He dropped them three times before finally inserting them into the lock and opening the door. “Good night Danny boy!” the bartender said cheerily before he turned and began to walk the other way. Daniel looked up the stairs ahead of him - they looked like they climbed the height of the building and ascended into the sky, though there were only about 25 steps that he had to conquer. He muttered something inexplicable and began to walk up the stairs, one step at a time. He slipped on the third step, so he slowed down to what could only be described as a snail’s pace, leaving behind a wet trail on the concrete steps just like a snail would; except this trail was marked with piss and wet snow. Daniel kept climbing, each step more difficult than the last. He stopped halfway up to catch his breath and re-balance himself, and wondered aloud if Christina would be home. After a few minutes, he began to walk again, soldiering on in his attempt to conquer the mountainous stairs ahead of him. He felt like that guy in the movie where he climbed up the mountain without a rope. “What was that called again?” he said to himself as his voice echoed in the narrow stairway.

After another 10 minutes, he had finally reached the top of the stairs. His door was the first on the left, unit 4, and he stopped to flip through his keys before approaching the door. He took one step forward, and fell sideways before stabilizing himself by leaning against the wall. “Fucking hell,” the drunk man muttered before he attempted to step forward again. This time, he took a step forward and ended up taking another step to his right. When he reached for the wall, he realized that he wouldn’t make it all the way there as his depth perception was significantly impaired. He struggled to maintain his balance as he looked down the perilous steps behind him and as he turned to reach for the wall on his left, he began to fall. His knees hit the second step from the top before his shoulder crashed against the wall, followed by his head. The back of his head ricocheted against the concrete with a loud thud, and he was in a free-falling descent by the time he passed the fifth step. His head bounced off several more stairs and his neck craned as it bent under the pressure of his large, lumbering body slamming against the cold concrete floor.

Christina listened to the sounds of birds chirping as her boots clicked on the cold, wet pavement. Her nostrils stung as the cold air entered her nose and she exhaled into the scarf tied tightly around her neck and face. She knew that Daniel would either be at work or laid up in bed recovering from his night out, so this was a good time to go and get some of her belongings. She decided that she would take a few items with her, and then come back for the rest once she knew he was gone. As she approached the building on King Street, she saw that there was an ambulance and two police cars parked outside of their building. This was not an unusual scene for this part of town, but the feeling in her gut told her that this was different. As she approached, the yellow police tape in front of the door confirmed her suspicions. She heard the paramedic speaking to the police officer in a friendly tone, “When we found him, his neck looked like it was extended and it was craned on a 90-degree angle” the paramedic said, shaking his head, “It was clearly broken during the fall, man. He looked like a dead goose.” The paramedic hopped in to the back of the ambulance and slammed the door behind him while giving a parting nod.

She stared at them in disbelief and felt a mixed feeling of rage and grief building inside of her. She looked to her left and saw the sunglass-clad golden goose staring back at her. She smiled and began to laugh. Then, Christina began to cry.