Drunken Love by Que Son (to read list TXT) 📖

that this parting was forever because he had no hope of ever seeing her and the homeland again, because the regime would never allow people like him to return. He told her to find a husband and settle down and forget about him. He believed in what he wrote, he thought he could never go home again, and therefore could never see her again.

 

He continued the wild life. Then his brother got into a fight and seriously wounded a guy and they had to run for fear of the police and of revenge. Adam went to Georgia and his brother went to Kansas where they knew people from the days they were in Hong Kong. Adam felt guilty for the separation because his brother was only seventeen at the time. But he knew his brother could take care of himself, and he had proved that while in Hong Kong. And for Adam, life was the same everywhere: work and get high.

 

One day a friend back in Philadelphia called and told Adam that there was a letter from Eve. He asked the friend to open the letter and read it to him. Eve again talked about how much she missed him and wanted to be with him, and asked him to send her a picture of his so she could see how he looked after the two years they separated. She wrote that if Adam had the means, he should help her escape by sending her money for the trip; if he did not, then waited for her because she would find her own way. She said that her father daily scolded and even beat her because she refused to get married. She only wanted to be his wife, she wrote. Adam again wrote back and told her to forget about him. He still loved her, could never forget her, his first love, still thought about her almost everyday. But he was also convinced that that was it, he could never go home again, and Eve was now a hopeless affair, despite what she said.

 

Shakespeare wakes up from his late day dream. Late because it is now dark, and looking around he sees the shop almost deserted. How long has he been dreaming the story? He does not know for sure but it must have been a while, two hours perhaps. The tea is cold. He feels reality is not very real anymore and there seems to be a thin and transparent wall that separates him and the things around him. He knows he is intoxicated--and he has almost half a bottle left. He also knows that before the night is over, the bottle will be finished and the story he has been struggling with will be formed completely in his mind, whatever state his mind is in then, most likely very wet with booze, if not blacked out.

 

The shopkeeper announces it is time to close. Shakespeare gets up and walks out, a little unsteady. Outside, he looks up and finds snow flakes falling. Suddenly he remembers that it is the last day of the year, and that means he does not have to go to work in the morning, and that also means he can stay up late tonight. He walks, taking little sips from the bottle, and has no fear of the cops now: the booze has worked its trick, it gives him overblown confidence. He walks in the direction where the taverns are and suddenly feels very hungry. The snow is coming down harder now, and there is already a thin layer of the white stuff on the ground. It is perhaps nine o'clock. There is no one in the streets. Once in a while a car zooms by but the noise is swallowed up quickly in the thick silence. People are inside, preparing to welcome the new year. A lot of alcohol will be flowing tonight. And there will be violence. Some will get hurt. People will use the occasion to get drunk and rowdy and into troubles. But that is not the case with Shakespeare, because he is a loner. He lives alone, eats alone, and drinks alone. And once in a while he gets horny, then he will either jerk off or if he has some money he will patronizes the neighborhood whorehouse where he will chicken-fuck a whore just for the sake of having skin-to-skin contact with another human which he finds comforting and reassuring. Except for the people at work whom he has no social life with, he knows no one in the city. Even when he drinks too much and blacks out, he does not get into trouble because there is no one around to get into trouble with. In a city of millions, he feels as if he was living in a desert, and he knows there are a lot of people like him in the city, people who cannot and will not form relationship with another human for reasons unknown to them, or they just don't feel the need to. That is why for Shakespeare the world of literature is so valuable because in that world he creates characters and has intimate contacts with them; and for him, that world is perhaps more real than the physical world that he wakes up to every morning because that world makes him happy. Even the people he brushes shoulders with in the subway everyday don’t seem concrete to him, they look like phantoms or illusions, images projected on a screen, utterly unrelated to him. Even when he steps on someone‘s foot and says I am sorry he does not feel sorry at all because what is there to feel sorry for? He only steps on a thing that is not there. This feeling is confirmed by the attitude of the person for whom the sorry is intended: he will just look at the sorrier with a blank look as if he sees and hears nothing. Shakespeare does not exist for him, and vice versa. Shakespeare sometimes feels that he is living in a phantom universe. And he himself is a ghost. So there is no serious conflict, people can go on living without acknowledging the existence of each other. And for Shakespeare, that is ok.

 

Taverns are places lonely people come in to nurture their loneliness on nights like this: a cold new years' eve. Nine pm. Even the shops are closed early. Shakespeare is hungry and wants some food. The snow is now coming down heavy and steady and the wind is picking up. A winter storm is raging. The liquor is keeping Shakespeare warm and as he struggles against the wind, he continues to drink from the bottle. He walks into the first bar he saw, called "Empty Pockets," a place where one night not so long ago he was stripped bare by two pickpockets who pretended to be buddy-buddy with him then took advantage of his drunkenness and cleaned him out of his money. That night Shakespeare lost not only his money but also all his ID's and it took him a lot of trouble to replace them. Since then, whenever he goes into a bar, he would just sit and drink and mind his own business and watch himself and not get into conversation with anyone, and if he was talked to, he would give brief answers then look away, showing no interests in continuing the conversation.

 

Inside the bar, Shakespeare sees two people at the counter and one at the tables along the wall. The light is low and the juke box is playing Sade's “Smooth Operator.” He approaches the counter and says to the bartender, a white hair middle-aged woman, that he wants a pitcher of Bud. He pays her then walks to one of the table and sits down. It is warm in here, he says to himself. Then he remembers he is hungry. He returns to the counter and asks the woman if she has anything to eat and she says only peanuts and he says no hot food and she says no and he says ok and the woman gives him a packet and he says he wants more and she gives him two more and he says how much and she says it is free and he says thanks and comes back to the table. He pours the beer into a tall glass and drinks it all down. Then he eats the peanuts. Shakespeare knows the danger of mixing beer and liquor: he would get very drunk and even have a blackout. But he says to himself, no matter, I am gonna get very drunk tonight, I am on a roll and I cannot stop now because I am at the point of no return, the spirit has gone to my head and I am now under the total influence of the god of drinks and I don't mind. And if blackout happens so be it and I will deal with the aftermath tomorrow when I wake up.

 

Shakespeare knows he cannot drink his own liquor in the bar because the bartender will have a problem with that because after all, the place sells liquor. So, he decides to settle the matter. He goes into the bathroom, locks the door, and pours whatever is left in the bottle down his throat then throws it into the trash can. Because he drinks in a hurry and the fiery liquid goes down fast, he immediately feels an intense burning sensation in the throat and in the stomach. The transparent wall between him and his surroundings becomes thicker. The walls begin to dance and lines that separate objects become blurred. Shakespeare staggers out of the bathroom and back to the table and stuffs more peanuts into his mouth.

 

The bar is now silent, the juke box has stopped playing, no one is talking and all he hears is the howling of the wind outside. The bartender puts her chin in her hands and stares at the flying snow that is smashing against the window. No one in the bar is sitting with anyone. Lonely people. Shakespeare pours another glass of beer. Then he walks to the jukebox, inserts a bill and plays Elvis's "Don’t be cruel." He likes old rock-and-roll the way a person loves antique. In fact, although he is not too old--he is 45--Shakespeare has a soul as ancient as the earth. He is attracted to things rustic, mossy, and rusty. He likes to look at old brick walls, walls that are beaten by the weather and ravaged by time. He also likes to study the timeline on old people's faces and he likes to read fairy tales. He likes to follow old trails that lead to the primeval forests and he imagines a times before languages: How do people think without words? Do they think visually? He feels moved when he listens to "Don't Be Cruel," the booze has put him in a properly loose mood. "Don't be cruel to the heart that's true," Elvis wails and hits Shakespeare directly in the heart: he can relate the song's lyrics with the story of Adam and Eve. Elvis's voice breaks down the transparent wall between him and things and rudely hurts his heart. Shakespeare thinks a true heart deserves to be treated with care, to be handled with great care, a true heart is a fragile heart that is easily hurt, a rare and precious thing. For example, the young and innocent hearts of Romeo and Juliet. The lovers were naïve and stupid and were badly hurt by the love they had for each other--and the circumstances around them. They killed themselves because they thought only in death could they be left in peace to love one another. At this thought, Shakespeare feels so angry at himself that he brings his fist down on the table--then he realizes what he has just done. The other patrons steal glances at him. I have done a disservice to these