By Donald Ryan
Pop had already turned to drink long before that one mayor bought the place from the bank. Momma didn’t like it, though she never outright said anything; she also didn’t blame him. The spirits kept his spirit. But that didn’t mean we sons would spend all night at the bar with him. I tried a time or two, each time clear that needed to be Pop’s time. The box store where he managed to scrape up thirty hours a week or so both drained him and gave him no outlet for his wealth of how-to know-how. Pop knew before the second paycheck which aisle every screw, pipe, bit, and hinge was on. Aisles were all anyone ever asked about.
But it was never like Pop lived at the bar. When there was a full bottle and sitting weather, he’d make a night of sitting in the white, plastic porch chair, out there no different than the lightning bugs and cicadas. And once his belly got as warm as the night, he’d start talking about Momma’s inklings, then drift into things my older brothers probably already knew and some things I’m sure they never would. One thing, though, Pop never talked of getting out. So much of what was built up crumbled on his watch, albeit no fault of his own. Like most folk around town, he could blame Uncle Sam, could blame the economy. Still, Pop could only blame himself.
You see, when you and your brothers were just kids, he’d say, I knew nothing more than wanting to build a path of better things than the one I ended up on. And now, here we are in yet another cycle of June bugs, anything with potential worth showing already buried within no sight at all.
He’d catch the nip’s dribble on the back of his hand.
Then he’d say to it, I got to be at work early.
This had less to do with the shift starting around a late-for-him 10 or 11 and more to mean he was done with the subject, that or any. He wouldn’t let the bottle take advantage of him opening up. He was the store, and the store was closed. There was nothing that could come about to change the done that was done.
One night, out alone on the porch, my attention was split between watching heat lightning coil around bruised clouds and a paperback novel mostly spent bookmarked around my finger when headlights cut up the drive belonging to a gray truck that wasn’t Pop’s. The passenger door opened and after a brief pause for concern, knew from the backlit silhouette it was Pop’s graceful stagger traipsing up the beams.
I stood with the intention to help him up the stairs but did not move. Did not want to overstep the pride of the old man. The truck didn’t back out the drive until Pop was up and on the porch.
That was Elliot, Pop offered, looking towards the front door. Don’t know his last name. Mc-something or O-something. Don’t matter. Nice enough fellow. Pop waited a beat, allowing the unnecessary justification to settle into the point. My truck’s still up at Tally’s, he said. You mind in the morning?
Shouldn’t be a problem, I said as if there was a schedule to clear.
That’d be appreciated. Gives me a spell to rest my aches.
Pop chose to rest them out on the porch when what his aches most needed was bed. If he woke Momma she’d make it the night’s mission to plan a hell of a worse morning. Tufts of laughter came from something only Pop knew to find funny. Made the drunk, old man seem buoyant, almost innocent. Sure enough, he’d feel the load come morning. So right then, we didn’t need Momma spoiling his fun.
I snuck in to get Pop a glass of water. Wasn’t sneaking really, just felt like it. If I’d gone in before Pop’s return I would’ve walked on in with no thought other than guiding the screen door to the frame. But although stone-cold sober, the intoxication of the moment dropped me off to late nights with a curfew. Of myself being carried home too late. Of the nights met with Pop and Momma waiting up in the living room, frustration in one chair, disappointment in the other. Of nights thinking I was scot-free only to get a scolding before a breakfast I couldn’t stomach. Then came these last few years. Since graduating there hadn’t been nearly such strict impositions. I was left to set my own limits which, admittedly, were still sometimes met with tacit frustrations and disappointments. Now slinking sober in the shadows, my heart raced in silent excitement louder than the precision tap of closing the cabinet door.
The screen, however, nothing could stop that late-night squeal no matter how softly guided. It’d always been loudest at this hour.
I set a glass of water on the table next to Pop.
What am I supposed to do with this fish piss? he said. Go get the getting.
The screen door was sure to wake Momma.
When I came back out, I’d gotten the wrong get. Pop proceeded to half-describe a location hidden in plain sight I’d never seen. A secret now I was privy to, although I can only assume one of my brothers had surely stumbled upon this cubby in the roll-down desk where Pop used to balance the store’s books. The flask, right where half-described, hidden by a small door. But then again, one never knew with Pop. Might be the only one privy. Our folks were tolerant of a lot of mischief, had to be with three boys as we always heard, but the roll-down desk was an absolute. Even with expressed permission, it still felt unforgivable. As I reached, the old mischief swelled again, a rush far exceeding merely getting a glass of water. If Momma had heard any of this back and forth, she never showed from her bedroom.
The flask I handed to Pop had a tree chiseled into it, guessing an oak, crude and beautiful, dead center, umbrellaing towards the edge of a circle. Fine find, said Pop. He unscrewed and flicked the lid on its hinge. He sniffed the loot inside. This was your Pap’s flask, said Pop, and before Pap, I don’t know; probably used to pay off some man’s debt. And next, it’s probably only right it gets handed down to Ricky, him being the oldest and in line to inherit shit but this old man’s debts. But this, he tapped his finger on the branches, ain’t nothing but a pretty, worn-out piece of tin. In its time, held mostly swill. But what’s in here now, it for sure ain’t swill.
Pop swigged then clicked his teeth. He stared down at his thumb’s graze across the engraving. Yup, he said. Then he put his attention into the darkness just off the porch and slumped the flask towards me. This is the last batch of Will Hopkins, he said. You know who I mean?
I said, Maybe if I saw him.
Pop let out a har, single and hearty, from the gut. Ain’t no seeing of ol’ Hops nowadays if he stays where he should in the dirt they put him in. He used to come in town to the store. Probably saw him back when, just never knew it. He’d loiter around like the rest of them, the difference being he’d make a few regular purchases. For his ‘renovations.’ The boys would fire back, ‘What you renovating, Hops?’ and he’d smooth as butter on the wet days and fluster over on the dry say his kitchen or his bathroom, anything with pipes, either way not a dollop of sarcasm as if everyone in town ain’t already know about his ‘renovations.’ Although, he was real particular with who he showed. I’d seen it a time or two. So it was never no bother when he didn’t pay cash-in-hand upfront. I’d full well turn around and return a bit of that cash back to his hand, no how. All was well. All was just as well.
I put my nose to the lip and breathed in like a sommelier. Out of curiosity, not knowing what I was doing. Or maybe to catch a glimpse of what I had myself in for. There was something sweet in the kerosene. A rush to the forefront. Sasha. And damn it all, when I’d not thought that name in months. The spice, not hot like pepper but sweet like ginger. Sweet like vanilla. The only girl I could say with any confidence I ever loved. The way she broke my heart, probably the last. To think I’d finally got away. Then there it was, memory’s inescapable grand return. There was that hand lotion she’d lather on after she was done washing the brushes in the garage full of paintings I wasn’t allowed to see until she told me they were done, which wasn’t very often. Saw maybe two paintings over that last summer. Saw that one with the owl. It’ll always be my favorite painting, even if I’m the only person ever to see it.
Don’t be shy, now. It’ll bite, sure, Pop said, but it’ll bite sweet.
I took one to the head.
And it did kick.
And sure enough, a sweetness did sneak in.
Ol’ Hops boasted running it through magnolias. The flowers? Wood? Never knew. He took that one with him, God help him. All I know is that’s what he called this batch. Magnolia. ‘Holds on for no one,’ he’d say. Pop laughed at this.
I smiled, not yet grasping what was funny. Truly smiled at the sound of Pop’s laughter.
I shot back another, a bit more, a bit braver. Let the bite take hold. And Pop laughed again, letting the sweetness mingle without another word into the warm night-song of cicadas and lightning.
Donald Ryan is the author of Don Bronco’s (Working Title) Shell from Malarkey Books. Other works have appeared in Bullshit Lit, Reckon Review, The Daily Drunk, The Lumiere Review, Autofocus’s How to Write a Novel anthology, and elsewhere. Donald Ryan solely exists online dot com and at dryanswords.