Nearly a year ago, in July of 2021 I was drinking and frustrated and broke after blowing a few hundred dollars at the slot machines. Rather than going home, I went to sit at the bar and blow my last few dollars on a couple of beers. At this point I was already stealing money from my mother and yet in complete denial about my gambling compulsion. This was as close as I would come to realising how far gone I was until I hit rock bottom and began my road to recovery. As the piece goes on, my increasing inebriation becomes more and more apparent. I remember this night but looking back at what I wrote, the level of honesty I could muster at the time is a little shocking.
I don’t want to be sitting here but I had to do it. I’m typing this at the bar in the local casino, having wasted $300 and drinking away my problems. Well, drinking so that they feel a little less painful for a while. I used to drink like I was trying to punish myself but now I drink to just survive the day. I don’t drink a lot by most people’s standards. I’m only working on my third beer in four hours but I’m out of practice, so this small amount is enough to get the creative juices flowing, I hope.
There is so little of it left in me. I used to write for fun, sober. The idea of writing without a beer in my hand is now completely alien to me. As is writing in private, now needing some sort of hustle and bustle around me to get the job done. I think about the great writers of the world sitting in their quiet cabins and producing true pieces of art. I am not like them at all, where sombre sobriety leaves me alone and overwhelmed with my thoughts and emotions.
I long for the days from my past, where life was so much easier. When I could ignore my problems, go to work, get a buzz afterwards then go home to pass out for the night. Now I have to face them and it is not going well. My mental problems overwhelm me on a daily basis and I can no longer get through the day without an anxiety attack. It’s extremely difficult just to get out of the house and participate in society without a drink in my hand. Years ago, on my days off, I used to hang out at a local Starbucks and the sound of my computer keyboard could be heard through the coffee shop. Today, it’s the sound of drunk people and slot machines which drown out the sound of my fingers upon the keys. My creativity, as lacklustre as it has become, is only part of a cacophony of lost hope and money changing hands, from the poor to the wealthy.
Now I ramble on my computer, without a belief that anyone will ever want to read this. Beside me sits an older man banging on the bar to get some service. Obviously a regular, he now does what I used to do each day, the after work drinks are his reward for a day of labour. The bar is filling up now that happy hour has hit (this was a lie and I don’t know why I wrote it. The casino has no happy hour) and I’m seriously regretting sitting here rather than finding myself a quiet corner in which I could write. The old man has his drinks, not settling for only a beer but adding a shot of whiskey as well, but his drumming on the bar has increased in its percussiveness as he pretends to be the drummer in the band whose music is competing with the ringing of slot machines around me.
I am the odd man out here. Each of these men come in often based on their camaraderie. Many people would accuse me of wanting to be a part of this friendliness because I sat at the bar but the truth is far from that. It is simply a matter of comfort for me to plop my ass upon a stool and take a seat at the bar. This is where I have sat for years, the bartender always being the person I could relate to after eight hours of serving customers at my own job. Well, this is where I did sit for years but it still feels far more comfortable than sitting at a table in the corner, no matter just how desperately I want to be left alone. At least, so far, they have taken the hint to leave me alone. My laptop open and an earpiece slapped on the side of my head have kept their inquisitiveness at bay but I don't expect it to last forever. Sooner or later, one of them will accuse me of working when I shouldn’t be or they will simply ask me what it is that I’m doing. My solace is a short lived one as their increasing inebriation will eventually break open their box of questions and someone will disturb me. At least for the time being, their attention is more focused on the legs of the waitresses walking past us than on me, which is fine.
Perhaps it is the beer I am imbibing but those legs are beginning to attract my attention as well.
The drumming from the end of the bar wouldn’t be bothering me so much if it were in time with the music but it is way off. It reminds me of an ex-friend of mine who once said that he hated when people would harmonise with whatever music was playing because, to him, you could sing any notes and they would work. Years of choir and music composition back in the day taught me about harmony and creativity and the friend was talking out of his ass but he was too ignorant to know it. That’s how the guy at the end of the bar reminds me of that friend from so many years ago. He is so ignorant of music that he thinks his drumming is somehow in time. It is becoming distracting as he becomes more forceful and is becoming like a jackhammer in my mind.
I hate that this is the place I am comfortable. Unlike these men, I have no woman to go home to after their drinks. I have only my ailing mother and her sore ankles which I will once again be rubbing down with ointment later tonight. I used to sit in this place to forget that I had no one. Now it is only a reminder.
The other men at the bar have begun to sing along with the music. I have bad drumming at one side of me and off tune singing at the other. Soon I will be forced to put away this computer and resort to gambling again to occupy my mind. I can only ignore this for so long.
The bartender is trying to prepare for the evening shift, stocking the bar and filling the ice wells, which is far more interesting than the conversations which have broken out on either side of me. Their blandness is at least cancelling themselves out.
Eight hours to the east, my girlfriend has picked up her cell phone and has decided that midnight is the best time to tell me about her day. Now I have an actual excuse to put away my computer and focus on something important, far more important than I.
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