Eli's Last Drink

A tale of the Rough South and a chapter from CROSSING THATCHER'S CREEK, 3200 words

"Whiskey," said Eli Green as he settled onto a stool at the bar.

The bartender, a stout man in his thirties with a round face and thinning brown hair, nodded and stepped over to the bottles lining the shelf behind the bar. He upended a bottle to dispense a jolt of brown liquor into a glass.

Eli wiped his lips as he anticipated the arrival of his drink. After punching out at the end of his shift, he stopped at the State ABC Store and bought a half pint of Old Granddad for old times sake. It had been a good six months since he had last taken a drink of anything stronger than black coffee. He was feeling good, so why not celebrate a half year of sobriety with a little bit of Kentucky's finest?

The buzz that came from the half pint felt good, too good to let it fade, so Eli walked past the Wal-Mart down Highway 460 to this bar, one that he might have visited two or more years ago, Todd's Tavern. It was hard to remember. He had dropped the empty half pint bottle in the drainage ditch as he waited for a break in traffic to cross the four lane highway.

The bartender set the glass on a napkin in front of Eli. "Two dollars."

Eli reached in his pocket for the roll of banknotes he had paper clipped together when he cashed his paycheck and peeled off a five dollar bill. He handed it to the bartender and smiled as he reached for the glass.

By the time the bartender returned with his change, Eli pushed the empty glass back. "I'll have another."

The bartender nodded silently, took two dollars from Eli's change, and walked to the bottles on the shelf behind the bar.

Eli looked at his empty glass. The bartender had not yet taken it away. A small dark spot showed in its bottom where the remaining traces of whiskey had accumulated. He reached for it and brought the glass to his mouth. His tongue reached out and swabbed the bottom to scavenge the last vestiges of the liquor.

By the time he had set the glass down, the bartender had returned with the bottle to pour him another.

Eli forced himself to wait until the bartender had finished pouring and turned his back before he reached for the glass. This time he sipped the whiskey, savoring its burn as it slid down his throat to land warm and smoldering in his belly.

The buzz he got from the half pint felt too good to lose. Eli wanted it to last. He wanted the night to last forever. The whiskey took the harsh edges off of his world to replace them with a soft, warm glow. He felt at peace with the world, no pain, no complaints.

Eli stayed put on his barstool and ordered a third whiskey. He peeled another five dollar bill from the small roll on his pocket and gave it to the bartender. He had singles, but it felt wrong to pay exact change.

A waitress stepped out of the kitchen with a platter of food. The smell of something hot and fried made Eli's mouth water and distracted him from the whiskey. He turned his head to see what she had carried out, looking over his right shoulder, then his left.

Eli flagged down the bartender. "Can I get a hamburger and some onion rings?"

The bartender smiled. "Sure." He looked up and waved the waitress over. "This man's hungry," he said to her.

"What'll be be, sugar?" The waitress stood two inches taller than Eli, perched on his barstool. She pulled a pad from the pocket of her apron and plucked a pen from behind her ear.

"A hamburger with onion rings." Eli propped his hands on his knees.

"You don't want no fries?" She glanced at Eli as she jotted.

Eli shook his head. "I prefer onion rings, spicy if you got 'em."

"We might could do that." She clicked the ballpoint pen and hefted her tray to disappear into the kitchen.

Eli looked around the inside of the bar. This place was darker than Bubba's, his old favorite. Bubba's had a football theme and three TVs tuned in to sports channels. When football season was over, they'd have NASCAR races and monster truck programs playing. He couldn't go back to Bubba's, not for a long time at least, because he and Gil had gotten into a fight there.

That night had started off happy enough. Eli and five other loom operators had dropped in right after the shift ended Friday evening. Eli was the oldest in the bunch, but they let him hang around because he could hold his liquor better than any of them. Eli had once told them that it was years of practice and experience that gave him the talent. They thought it was funny, although Eli hadn't intended to make a joke. After a couple of decades of steady drinking, he felt as if his body had developed an immunity to liquor. What used to make him stagger in his youth barely triggered a hefty buzz these days.

About two hours in, Gil showed up with two buddies, auto mechanics form the Wal-Mart garage, still in their blue work uniforms, and took an adjacent table.

Suzy leaned toward Eli. "Gil found him some friends just as fat as he is." She snickered into her margarita glass. "Think they're as slow as him?"

Eli drained his longneck beer and set it down next to the other empties at the table. He gazed at Gil and the other two men as if gathering his thoughts. Two hours of steady drinking had relaxed him and inspired him to say things better left unvoiced, something that had happened before on many occasions. "Hey, Gil."

The tech turned his head toward Eli and the two mechanics looked up from the laminated menu.

"We got a bet over here." He nodded at his companions. "Are your pudgy friends just as slow as you are?"

Gil's eyes widened, then narrowed to a squint. "What are you talking about?"

"I'm talking about taking half an hour to do a ten-minute changeover. I'm talking about Lonnie riding my ass over not making quota, because you can't change over a goddamned loom."

"The hell you say," Gil replied.

"I do say." Eli gripped the edge of the table. "I'm pulling spools of yarn as fast as I can, while you got moss growing on your north side."

One of the auto mechanics chuckled.

Gil turned his head to glare at him, then turned to face Eli.

"I guess they seen it, too." Eli nodded at the mechanics. "You so slow, you'd be going backwards." He raised a finger. "What I want to know is if your pudgy buddies are as slow as you." He tipped his finger down at Gil.

The tech's face reddened. "That's enough, old man."

The two mechanics leaned forward in their seats, elbows propped on the table as they eyed Eli, not happy.

"Are you?" Eli looked at the mechanics. "I figure Wal-Mart has less patience than Old Dominion Mills when it comes to lazy fuckers. I reckon you might be a little slow, but Gil here is the champion at making a pissant lil' fix last all day." Eli had been drinking beer, and while the buzz was slower to come, it lasted longer, and right now it still held its strength.

The younger looking of the two mechanics stood up. "That's enough of your bullshit, old man."

Eli nodded. "Sit down, son. I ain't got a problem with you, but we all got a problem with Gil. He's a lazy, no-count loafer --"

The heel of Gil's hand connected with Eli's face. The impact whipped Eli's head to the right and tipped him out of his chair.

Like a tumbler in gymnastics class, Eli rolled once on the floor and rose to his feet. His right hand reached back to snatch up an empty beer bottle. In a single motion he flicked his wrist to break off the bottom against the edge of the table. Brown shards of broken glass tinkled on the linoleum floor.

In his teenage years, Eli had learned the finer points of knife fighting. This wasn't the first time he used a broken bottle as a weapon.

Eli swung the broken bottle at Gil.

The tech shrank back. "Jesus!" he shouted, then scrambled to get away from Eli. He grabbed a chair and pointed its feet at Eli much the way of a lion tamer at the circus.

The two mechanics slid out of the booth to put more distance between them and Eli.

"Put down that chair and fight like a man." Eli stood crouched, feet shoulder width apart, the neck of the broken beer bottle clenched in his right fist.

"Eli, what are you doing?" Wally rose to his feet behind Eli.

"I got a bone to pick with this man." Eli swung the bottle at Gil and shredded the fabric under the bottom of the chair. Shards of black muslin fell to the floor. He stepped to the side, ready to flank Gil, and the tech threw the chair at him.

Eli deflected the chair with his left hand, as if swatting a fly. He lunged at Gil, right elbow bent and ready the thrust jagged edges of the broken bottle into the tech's body.

Gil backed up until his shoulders met the plate glass window. He looked left and right for a weapon or an escape as Eli advanced on him with the broken bottle.

"Eli, cool it," Wally shouted.

Gil reached out with his left hand to grasp a small table for two and flip it into Eli's path.

"Break it up, you two." The tavern's manager shouldered his way to this corner of Bubba's. A big-shouldered, teenaged busboy with acne and scars on his nose followed close.

Eli put a hand on the upended table to vault it and get at Gil.

The manager reached out a hand to grab Eli's left shoulder and Eli whirled around, slicing the air with the broken bottle. He also sliced the cloth of the manager's shirt.

The busboy must have been a football player at Chesterton High, and he dove at Eli's legs to pull them out from under his body. Eli toppled to the floor.

The manager had placed a foot on Eli's right wrist and took the broken bottle away. The busboy's grip on Eli's legs had tightened, and he had used his weight to keep the loom operator pinned to the floor.

That had been Eli's last visit to Bubba's. The manager had been too angry at the time to call the police and simply told Eli and Gil to get the hell out and never set foot in the place again. This was over a year go, and Eli felt surprised that so much time had passed already. Maybe they would let him back in. Bubba’s was the favorite watering hole for loom operators and Eli liked how well lit it was. The whiskey was very good here at Todd’s Tavern, but he didn't like how dark they kept it inside.

The waitress emerged from the kitchen with a tray on her shoulder. She stopped at Eli and set it down. The fresh-fried aromas of ground beef and batter fried onion rings rose in a succulent cloud. "Here you go." She placed the hamburger and a bottle of ketchup in front of Eli. "You want any mustard?"

"Thank you, no." Eli reached for the ketchup. "This is plenty."

She slid the check under the edge of the plate. "Eat up and enjoy." She hefted the tray back onto her shoulder and headed out to a table.

Eli squirted a tablespoon of ketchup on the hamburger. It smelled as good or better than the food at Bubba's. They specialized in chicken wings, not burgers, and Eli preferred beef over chicken any day. He bit into the hamburger. The meat felt hot and juicy, not quite cooked all the way through. Having lost his molars years ago, Eli found this was easier eating. He could gum the sandwich easier. The onion rings steamed hot and crispy on his plate. He used his front teeth to nibble at one and gnaw off small pieces that he could gum into smaller fragments before swallowing. The waitress was right. The batter was plenty spicy, and he sipped whiskey to rinse it away.

After another hour of sipping whiskey, Eli slid to the floor and headed for the men's restroom. The whiskey here had to be very good, better than the watered-down shit Bubba's offered. The floor seemed to move under his feet as Eli picked his way to the restroom. The walk felt a lot like going down the aisle of a moving Greyhound bus as it negotiated a series of potholes, except the bar had fewer handholds. Eli followed the wall, one hand on the paneling to keep his balance.

After he had pissed, Eli made his way past the bar and walked toward the front door. He wanted to visit Bubba's and see if they had let bygones be bygones. The whiskey had him good and pumped, and he wanted to drink beer for a while. He'd always drank beer at Bubba's, because they had plenty, and it was cheap.

The bartender looked up as he heard the door open. "Hey. You got to pay for that burger."

Eli waved a hand in dismissal. He had more important things to do, like drink beer at Bubba's. It was another quarter mile down Highway 460, and he'd be there in no time.

Two patrons rose from a table, a redheaded man his thirties and a crewcut man going gray around the back of his neck. Both had thick arms from long-haul truck driving. "You want us to get him, Todd?" the redhead asked the bartender.

"Just get me the six dollars he owes for the burger, Chet. I don't need his sorry ass back in here."

The redhead smiled at the bartender. He and his friend nodded at each other and stepped outside.

Eli had staggered his way most of the way across the parking lot by the time the two men stepped outside.

The orange floodlights in the parking lot made Chet's face match the color of his hair. "Hey, you," he shouted at Eli. "You got to pay for that burger."

Eli continued walking. "Fuck off. I'm going to get me a beer."

"You do that," Chet replied. "After you pay for the burger." He nudged his friend. "Could be a hard case, Bill."

Bill smiled. "Too scrawny and too drunk to be much trouble." He stepped out across the parking lot to catch up with Eli, Chet at his side.

Eli turned toward the trash dumpster, as if evading the other two men, who were walking twice as fast and four times as steady on their feet.

"Come on, now," Chet said. "You just settle your bill here and be on your way." He reached out a hand to touch Eli's shoulder.

Eli whirled around and took a stagger step to keep from falling. His hand lashed out at Chet. "Fuck off. I'm going to get a beer."

"Whoa." Bill brought his hands and arms up. "Mean drunk."

"Just our luck, ain't it?" Chet smiled.

"You got six dollars?" Bill asked Eli.

"Shore." Eli pulled his cash out of his pocket. "Plenty for beer."

Chet slowly extended his hand. "You owe six dollars for that hamburger."

Eli squinted at him. "Fuck off." He shuffled closer to the dumpster.

Chet kept his hand out as he followed Eli. "You just can't eat a burger and not pay for it."

Bill circled behind Chet to move between Eli and the dumpster while the old man's attention was fixed on the redhead.

"Fuck off." Eli squinted at Chet, closing one eye, because he saw two redheaded men.

Bill lunged to snatch the banknotes from Eli's hand and hold them up.

Eli pivoted on his foot to land a punch in Bill's stomach. Caught unaware, he bent down. Eli's other fist hooked to connect with his cheek. The sound of the impact rang across the parking lot as a loud slap.

Chet stepped forward to put a right hook across Eli's jaw. The old man fell straight down like a length of dropped chain.

Bill shook his head like a dog coming in from the rain. "Should have seen that coming."

Chet looked down at Eli. The old man was moving his arms and legs as if to gather himself. "That sumbitch is one mean drunk." He shifted his gaze to Bill's face. "Looks like he bruised you."

Bill ran his fingers across his cheekbone, where Eli's punch had landed. "I've had worse." He glanced at Eli. "Didn't think he was that strong." He examined the roll of banknotes he had plucked from Eli's hand, peeled off a five and a single. "He had enough to pay his tab." Bill stooped to poke the rest of the money into Eli's pocket.

"Think he's passed out." Chet looked at Eli, whose movements had slowed.

"Looks it." Bill nodded. "Let's get him out of the way before somebody drives over him."

Bill and Chet stooped to take Eli by the arms and drag him to the dumpster. They propped him in a sitting position against the rusted green steel box. "Let him sleep it off here," Chet said.

As they entered the bar, Bill held up the five and the single, then handed them to the bartender.

"Thanks." He slid two opened longneck Budweisers toward Chet and Bill. "Something for your troubles." He paused to examine Bill's face. "Shit. Did he punch you?"

Bill tipped the beer to his lips. "He was one mean drunk, but it's nothing I can't get over."

"Where is he?" The bartender looked at Bill, then Chet.

"Passed out by the dumpster." Chet hooked a finger over his shoulder and lifted his beer. "He'll sleep it off."

Back at the dumpster, Eli's stomach rumbled protest against too much whiskey in too little time and not enough food. Muscles tensed and clenched in reaction to the imbalance, and he vomited.

Most of what came up from his stomach ran back down his windpipe, burning its way into his lungs. The sudden pain woke Eli from his drunken stupor, and he coughed, spewing a mixture of onion rings, chewed hamburger, and whiskey onto the cracked blacktop. The first cough wasn't enough to eject it all, and he tried to draw a breath, pulling more vomit into his lungs.

His stomach clenched again, pushing its contents up and filling his throat. More ran into his chest, and Eli tipped to the side, falling to the pavement. His hand clawed at pieces of loose gravel and rusty bottle caps, trying to find purchase on something. His chest heaved once more, then it stopped.