Satan VII: Right After Six

 “You take it on the run baby, if that’s the way you want it baby, then I don’t want you around…” —REO Speedwagon

I didnt know why this guy was buying me beer, but I wasn’t about to question it. To me, it was a gift from the gods, even though I was never properly grateful.

Much later on John revealed to me that I did something really cute that just tickled him to the bone, but he wouldn’t tell me what it was for a while. Finally he admitted, “when I got you a case of beer, you asked me innocently ‘is that for me?’ and when I said of course you said ‘thank you so much!’ and gave me a hug.” Silly. I barely remember that scene (all it takes is a hug? (Although I do remember walking out the door with that whole case in my arms and enjoying the beer at Ross’, and carrying it with me through the night)).

I was giving lots of people hugs at that time, my pathetic way of trying to ingratiate myself with them (and I’m really not a hug person). I did a lot of weird shit, which wasn’t funny-party-drunk stuff; it was gross and humiliating. I won’t describe it, but I will say one time I puked in the street and then tried to wash my legs off in the dirty river in the dark. I barely ate and I stopped getting my menstrual cycle (I think my uterus was wasted). I had no ass. There wasn’t much attractive about me, which is maybe why guys left me alone (a blesssing in disguise).

One time at The Boat Bar I was talking to these two guys and they decided we should do some bar hopping together. It was the Fourth of July. One of them looked like a cowboy, and the other one was I swear the twin brother of a dude that lived in my park (no really, that guy did have a twin).We went to one of the bars down the street (Winners or the Last Resort (the one Eileen Wuornos famously frequented)) and I got a draft. I was reaching my limit and starting to nod off, which scared the dude that was driving. He drove me back to The Boat, talking to me the whole time to make sure I didn’t fall asleep. He told the bartender to get me a water, but I demanded a beer. I walked back to Ross camper and passed out in his bed, and actually slept for four hours, the most I can recall sleeping. I ruined those guys’ night; they thought they found a party girl to have fun with (more like a party pooper (maybe they wanted a threesome, idk)), but they should have judged me by the big and silly loose dress I was wearing; I looked like a Mennonite (on Rumspringa). 

The other recurring thing that was happening: my ex was taking me in and trying to clean me up and feed me. This happened several times, but after my bath and meal (he even brushed my hair for me) I would run away in search of alcohol, or abscond with his (the last thing I took was a bottle of red wine). He caught me on camera stealing a pack of his cigarettes off his boat (those fucking lights again (this park has a lot of cameras I found out)), and he approached me on his golf cart and yelled “you’re going to jail, you fucking theif!” That scared me so bad I peed myself. Since he demanded to be paid for the smokes, I had to give him my debit card cause I had no cash, which really screwed me (I usually paid my tab at the boat with my card). He gave it back to me eventually, after he made me buy him a case of Busch and more lights. 

He took me to the beach and I floated in the waves in that dirty dress. Said he cut his foot on the oyster beds in the river and now it was infected. I said I felt bad, and he said “you don’t give a shit about me.” I only cared about who was helping me drink. He let me consume (even giving me shots of LTD) cause he didn’t know what else to do. He didn’t know how to help me but he tried. One morning he called my mother and told her “ I got your daughter over here and she’s drunk as a skunk, with one eye open, and I want to take her to the hospital but I know she’ll hate me for it.” I refused. He told me he loved me so much he thought about marrying me (that’s what they all say). He said if I got off the booze he would do it with me, together. I barely believed that.

I was torn between being with him out of guilt and going to John’s, who didn’t harass me about my intake (and oddly didn’t drink at all). John started buying different snacks to encourage me to eat. He stocked his fridge with all the beer he would never touch (he used a can to cook bratwurst one time). My head nor my heart knew the right answer, but my alcoholic demon would ironically push me in the right direction, the choice that would eventually save my life.

I started frequenting John’s a lot more, almost living there. He encouraged me to stay off the streets at night because “something bad could happen.” It wasn’t safe, the drunk meandering, but I had been doing it for a solid two months (I met another fisherman in the wee hours of the morning who told me I had a “bedroom name” (?) Weird. Sometimes I gave people my real name and sometimes I didn’t, going by “Carrie” or “Chelsea”). John was a night owl, and one night he told me there was soap and a towel and a toothbrush in the bathroom, and would i just consider taking a shower and brushing my teeth? (I told him I walked in the rain a lot, to which he said “anyways, whatever” (his signature remark)). He never forced me to do anything (but he was unknowingly leading the horse to water). 

By August my roommate told me I couldn’t live with him anymore (I was never there anyway) and I had by the end of the month to get out. I told John this. “What am I gonna do?” He said “I don’t know.” My mom paid a month of rent for me, but that wasn’t the problem; it was my “drama” (and I had got my roommate drinking whiskey again (the more the merrier, right?)). My ex, who was popular in the park, was pissed at me and John and everybody (he told my dad I was “living with the devil”), including my roommate, the alcoholic I was supposed to live with, who he assumed supported my drinking, even though he even asked me “when are you gonna fly straight?” He said he considered quitting too, as he ended up in the hospital a lot to detox. 

Being technically “evicted” wasn’t enough to wake me up. In an alcoholic’s mind, the worse things get is more reason to imbibe.

John never said no I couldn’t move in, but he never said yes either. I just kind of hung around.

“Who bought you all the alcohol?”

“He did.”

“Who helped you get sober?”

“He did.”

**now I’m positive this will be on the internet forever, but you know where you saw it first if you ever read the book, if you’re not sick of this story already.