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Champale for Two

Bill Tope

    Diana was a little strung out. My friend had just resurfaced from the midnight shift at a data processing company in South St. Louis, where she input data from the paperwork generated by electric bills from a large regional power company. She was constantly trying to recruit me for a similar job. And while her job at the time paid several times as much money than what I earned as a cook in a small restaurant, the mental strain was not worth it, I thought.
    Part of the problem, as we both saw it, was that by working midnights she was basically cut off from the local social scene. Which entailed, fundamentally, hanging out evenings in any—or all—of several dive bars throughout the college town in which we lived. So, in order to accomodate Diana’s thirst for socializing, I would visit her apartment on Saturday mornings, the end of her work week, at which time she would be unwinding from another hard night’s work. My errand of mercy called for the infusion of two principal therapeutic medicaments: pot and alcohol.
    The pot was no problem—it was everywhere—and at a very user-friendly price of ten dollars a lid. A good grade of Mexican, it offered a high return of buzz for the buck. The alcohol took a bit more thought, however. The first Saturday I showed up at Diana’s, I brought with me a fifth of Drambuie, thinking to go the classy route. Diana wouldn’t hear of it, however; she preferred a favorite from her days as a wayward teenager: Champale, Extra Dry. One day she went a little crazy and popped for Champale Pink, but cooler heads later prevailed.
    The first time she broke out a six pack of this concoction I sat and blinked at it. Do you really drink this stuff? I inquired dubiously, scratching the foil label with my thumb. Of course, she assured me. Drink up! and with that she twisted off the cap and took a great swig. I checked my watch: 8 a.m. I shrugged, took a taste.
    It’s not bad, I thought—goes good with the oatmeal I’d had for breakfast just before coming over. I looked up at Diana and she was twisting the cap off her second bottle.
    This is not real champagne, Diana revealed, holding up her bottle by way of display. It’s actually a malt liquor fermented with yeasts used in the creation of wines. That, she explained, was what accounted for the “sophisticated” bouquet and taste. And I had wondered how one might account for that.
    Diana was now tearing into her third Champale. Have you had anything to eat? I asked her. No, she replied. By not eating, she could get a quicker and cheaper buzz, she explained. As she drained her third bottle, she told me she was glad I had come over this morning. I smiled, took another wretched sip of my Extra Dry Champale. Last time, she said, she had had our mutual friend and my roommate, Tom, over to mark the end of the work week. Tom, she said—a notorious dipsomaniac, by the way—had drunk nine bottles of Champale, leaving Diana with just three, effectively insuring her sobriety and thus ruining her day. You want to watch Tom when he gets loaded, I warned her unnecessarily. On their first date, over a year ago, the evening had been cut short when Tom roughed up another of our roommates over a dispute regarding ownership of a carton of orange juice. Tom had poured the juice over the other fellow’s head, slammed him into a wall and smashed him with the leg he had torn off a table. Diana ended up climbing out a window and fleeing for safety. She frowned, remembering all too well.
    I finished my bottle of Champale and burped. Here, take another, she said, handing me a second bottle. You gotta catch up with me, she insisted. I reckoned that was a hill I’d never climb; at the pace Diana was setting, she’d break Tom’s nine bottle record with room to spare. I took a sip, then let my eyes wander the room; something was not quite right. What’s that sheet of cloth hanging on the wall about, I asked. Fabric art? She blushed furiously, shook her head no, then stood up and walked to the wall in question. Extracting the tacks holding the fabric in place, she revealed a huge hole in the wall behind her bed; you could see the studs inside the drywall. I stared, not knowing what to say.
    Glen—her boyfriend—she told me, had gotten “a little amorous.” He was a weightlifter, she said, and didn’t know his own strength. I opened my mouth to speak, but when nothing came out, I closed it again. I looked up at Diana and she was still blushing, breathing quite rapidly now. Diana seemed a little antsy, so I thought I should probably take my leave; besides, I couldn’t face drinking more Champale. Diana walked me to the door and we said our goodbyes. What are your plans for the rest of the day? I asked her. Pulling a reefer from between her lips, she smiled, said she thought she might give Glen a ring. Then she winked and closed the door. So I walked off, leaving Diana to unwind in her own fashion.

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