The "Devil's Drink" Part Two

Amid the squalid filth of his apartment, a man sits. His trembling body is wracked with sobs as the man immerses himself in his comforter … and tormentor. His hand trembling, the weeping man slowly reaches for what drove him to such depths of despair and loneliness. Anything to numb the pain. Anything at all. Grasping the half-filled bottle of beer, he lifts it to his face. His red-rimmed eyes focus on it intently, despising the bottle, despising the contents of it, despising his own cursed weakness. The bottle was downed in one massive gulp.

It was not his first, or second, or third, or fourth. Strewn around the apartment were empty bottles, at least twenty. His life had followed the same pattern for the past week. He would cry, drink and vomit until he slept, and then repeat when he woke. His life had no meaning, his life had no purpose. In his eyes, there was no reason to live.

He cried from his very soul. He keened not for what he had become; he keened for what he had lost. A framed picture in the corner, of happier times. Him, his wife Andrea, and two kids, a boy and a girl. The boy was Sammy. He loved that kid, spending all the time he could teaching him sports. The seven year old boy idolised him. That was, until, he picked up the drink. The ‘Devil Drink.’ When he first heard his wife call it that, he thought it was a little over dramatic. Looking at his life now, he was inclined to agree.

With a hoarse yell, he threw the empty bottle at the picture. Both objects shattered. The picture of his family’s grinning faces tormented him. He thought back to an earlier time, a happier time, when he first met his future wife.

“It was one of the more unconventional places to meet your love, a bus stop. I was waiting for the 7:19, which would get me home after a long day’s work. The bus pulled up, and was completely packed except for one seat; god she looked beautiful that day. Wearing that blue top and looking all cute and happy. She invited me over to sit, and I stumbled towards her, as if I was being invited to talk to a goddess. Andrea smiled that beautiful smile, and I stood there looking like a goofball, moving to sit-“

End flashback. He looked around at his fetid hellhole before another memory came unbidden.

“Aw, look at my soon-to-be wife walking down the aisle. She smiles nervously as her father has his arm linked with hers, looking the happiest he had ever been. But I had eyes only for her. We stood together as the priest took his own sweet time before finally got to those heavenly words. ‘You may now kiss the bride. I lifted up Andrea’s veil and-“

Back to real-life. His mind went on to the honeymoon, the birth of their kids. But then the memories grew darker.

“I don’t know what I was doing. I stand, above my crying beloved who is huddled in the corner. The whiskey bottle is in my hand, and I’m just so angry. Andrea was sobbing ‘please, stop’ but I’m just so angry. I slapped her, hard. At that moment Sammy comes running in the room and I shook him off. He flew into a wall and ran out. At that moment my world spun, and suddenly I wasn’t angry. I was crying, and just thinking ‘what have I done?’”

He spun deeper into the self-destructive spiral, his hands clamped over his face as he freefalls into new levels of depression.

“Andrea and Jill waited by the front door for Sammy to return. It had been a week now of this painful limbo, this mix between them shooting me fearful glances and just waiting by the door. Waiting and praying for Sammy to return. As much as I begged, the divorce papers were commissioned, signed, submitted and had been made official. Andrea was no longer my bride. There we sat, waiting. My eyes strayed to the bruise on my wif- my ex-wife’s face, and my whole body cried with regret.”

Suddenly he grew calm. He knew what he was going to do. Grabbing a thick strand of rope, he stood a chair and hung it from the ceiling. As he ties together a snug noose, a final flashback comes to mind.

“It had been three weeks. No sign of Sammy. I was inside the house being treated like a leper. It had been agreed that I was to move out the moment Sammy was found. I had given Andrea more than half of the money, I had given her the house, the car, and the business … I had even begged on my knees for another chance. Her hand subconsciously strayed to her disfiguring shiner before replying firmly to the negative. The phone rang, it was the police. They wanted us to identify a body of a young boy who fit Sammy’s description. It was a positive identification”

He stands on the chair, noose tight, ready to end his life surrounded by the drink of the devil. Fastening the noose around his neck, he prayed a quick prayer for a good life for his ex-wife and daughter before kicking away the chair. His neck broke instantly, his lifeless body dangling from the rafters.

In the graveyard there are now two graves side by side. To the left, Sammy LeHuer 2000-2007. “Loving son taken from us too soon.” To the right, Timothy LeHuer, 1967-2007. “Devoted father, caring husband.”

Alas for the effects of the Devils Drink.