Tuesday, March 11, 2008

The story of a drunk told through a couple of songs 3

(Babylon…Don Mclean version)

(The banjo starts to play in his head, the song is Babylon the Don Mclean version off the American Pie album.)

Aramis stood there in his drunken haze. The night was not helping his mood. He took out his Zippo and as he swayed in his drunken state he lit his cigarette. He put away the Zippo into his shirt pocket. He let out a big sigh which could not be distinguished between being drunk or a memory that haunted him, giving him no rest. He bent down and picked up the bottle of bourbon that he had picked out only an hour ago. He stood there in the dark and he looked down towards the grave marker. On the marker the name of his older brother the memory that never lets him get on with his life. The eternal sorrow, the everlasting reason to cry. He swigged back a drink of the bourbon. His face fixed on the stone with the expression of ‘what are we going to do now?’
-Why do we always come here? Do you know this person or what? The shadow behind Aramis asked and lit a cigarette. His voice was frustrated. It was obviously not his idea of a night out and having a few drinks. Who does that at a graveyard?
-You wanted to drink didn’t you? Well here have a drink and shut the fuck up. He passed his bottle to the figure behind him. We come here cause I’m fucking tired of them trendy New York wannabe bars. I’m tired of all them ass holes that go there. You know me I can’t stand fucking yuppies. The figure has taken a swig and passes back the bottle. Aramis takes the bottle and swigs it. He takes a long drag of his smoke. All of them fuckers going to the fucking bar to talk up their lives to bimbos. All of them wearing the same fucking Texas A and M cap. I’m tired of that shit. He pauses. Yeah, I know this person. He points at the marker and takes another swig.


-What this fucker doesn’t know is that this is where my brother is buried. I’m really not liking the current bar scene. The girls are good to look at and maybe take back to the apartment but its hell talking to those no brain bitches. I hate this place as well. I don’t know why I come here. I just end up here. I’m always called back here by something. I just can’t seem to forget that whole ordeal. I was young. I miss him terribly. I miss my mom as well but I can’t go to her in this state. Just like him before he ended up here. None of this was suppose to happen, but it did, and I can’t find the way out.

Life was a tedious torture for Aramis. When your fourteen you’re not wanting to go to church and be under the watch of your mother, no matter how nice of a lady she is. That’s what makes things harder, and you think your mom is nice to you so you will feel like a total ass when you do some bad shit. It’s all part of her plan to fill you with remorse for the evil stuff you do.
His brother was another story. He was 21 and he knew it. Aramis wanted desperately to live that life. Girls, nightlife, a few drinks all that stuff. Jr. High was another pain in the ass. Everyone telling you what you can’t do. Aramis really was getting scared that life was going to turn out to be a bunch of rules of things you couldn’t do.
It was one night that Aramis got to go out with one of his friends when it all went to hell. Being fourteen was hell, but it was about to get worse. When he got home he got into the shower. When he came out his mother and his then step father where putting on their shirts and making their way out the door. The words were:
-Your brother has been hurt in an accident take care of your sister.
He didn’t think much of this. A broken leg maybe. Within the next 24 hours he found himself looking at his mother in front of his brother’s casket with her face in her hands. It hurt him to see his mother like that. It hurt and scared him to look at his dead brother in the casket. He slowly began to break within. Everything that meant being fourteen didn’t matter now. This was going to be for the rest of his life and he knew that.
The older brother had been drinking for two days straight. He had made his way to his aunt’s house to where he had a key. Aramis mother would get angry when her older son would come home drunk. Her sister Oti had given Aramis’ older brother a key to the house. The house was alone when he arrived that afternoon. They say that he was way over the legal drunk limit. He placed a neatly written letter on the kitchen table and sat down on the couch which was near the stereo. He put on his favorite songs. He drank his last drinks. Some hours later he stood in the middle of the room and blew his brains out. It was almost 3 hours later when Oti came home and heard from outside the sounds of her nephew’s music. A smile came to her face that was quickly erased.
She came to the front door and saw the blood seeping out from the bottom. The bags she had in her hands fell to the ground. She opened the door and screamed when she saw her nephew on the floor with blood pouring out of his mouth. He looked as if he had tried to look for a comfortable position to sleep but didn’t quite find it. The CDs on the floor covered in blood. The booze on the coffee table neatly capped off. The gun just out of his reach on the floor also drenched in blood, his shirt covered as well.
Oti fell to the floor and stared ghastly at the scene. She crawled towards him to see if he was still with life. As soon as she touched him she saw he was cold. She picked up his head and more blood spurted out. The screams finally got the attention of the neighbors. Then the sirens came. When the paramedics pulled her away from her nephew which she loved like her own son, Aramis’ mother was on her way. Oti was drenched in blood and in shock.

-My mom had left the Catholic Church when she left the old country. She became a southern protestant Christian. I remember when they brought that box into the church that my brother had never set foot in when he was alive. All I could remember was the song that they sang. “By the waters of Babylon we lay down and wept for the, Zion.” I don’t know if they meant Zion as a land, a nation, an ideal, or what.
For me the waters have become tears mixed with booze. Tears of me, mom, Oti, my brother. All that blood and there was no life. All that and there was no answer to why he did it. There were blames between my uncles. They all blamed my mom. I didn’t. I blamed myself. I was caught up in my shitty little world, only thinking of myself and not thinking of anything else. I was complaining over bullshit, my hair, my social life, not having the clothes that I wanted. I don’t know what his problem was, but it must have been bad. Zion, or what I wept for was the idea of my older brother and having a family.
This is where I come to lay down and weep for my Zion. I have my booze, and here I weep when no one can see me. At this grave at night I weep for my Zion.

Aramis looks out towards the night and darkness, nothing there, nothing in him but a lot of booze, a void inside a void. The song ends and he throws the cigarette and makes his way towards his car. The friend in the shadows follows puffing on his smoke. Time to erase this; for the millionth time.

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