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Driving While Intoxicated

Nathan Graham

“Last call, bitches!”
The bellowed words sliced through the thick barroom smoke
Like a bayonet through a grimy Confederate soldier.
Last call? How? It’s still early. Really? Last call?
There were several dozen folks remaining at the close,
Carousing about the place in varying stages of impairment,
As the music shut down and the lights were turned up bright.

I hastily swallowed the remnants of two gin and tonics –
Mine and Evelyn’s from the stool next to me,
Who had gone off to the restroom and never returned –
And wiped my brow while saying a little prayer
To the God of something or another.

I slid clumsily off my stool onto wobbly, uncooperative legs
And plodded unsteadily through the room filled with faces –
Manic, twisted, contrarious, dripping, sticky, lost faces...
Faces swirling with regret and conceit in wavy lilac and mauve streaks,
Faces that made it clear they didn’t give a damn about me.
I made it to – and then through – the heavy wooden front door
Into a misty night which instantly grabbed me by MY face
With encouraging fingers signaling devotion and goodwill.

My car was easy to find – it was parked next to a hydrant –
But finding the right key among a chain of thirty was not easy at all.
In time I persevered, conquering the keychain with grit and grace,
And the key seemed to know precisely which cherry to pop,
As if through divine intervention by a God of something or another.
My car knew the way home, which was a very good thing,
While my bobbing head and fluttering eyelids composed a lullaby,
A soporific lullaby suitable for a sated, sleepy juicehead.

As if by sorcery, a pile of tacos found its way to my passenger seat;
It was concerning but it was also an answer to a prayer,
For nothing is more suited for a belly full of gin than a pile of tacos.
I stuffed tacos as the dark roadway charged into my face like a game;
I blinked and saw a hoary man toting golf clubs on his back,
Striding confidently ten feet off the ground...taking steps on the air.
I blinked again and an elderly woman sat perched in front of my shield
With trembling hands clasped around a steaming cup of black coffee,
Mouthing words of warning at me as I stormed through the night.

Overpasses were stacked high like building blocks,
And stop lights competed for my attention using tricks of the trade.
I spotted Pollux in the eastern sky, a friend I’d known since childhood,
And followed it with the intention of locating suitable options;
Pollux, however, failed me behind a collage of disrespectful clouds,
Roaring and clawing with a frightfully dreadful silence
And leaving me abandoned to confront a cold glare of indifference.
Desperate, I attempted to recite Nixon’s “Checkers” speech aloud,
But managed only a wordless gurgle and a lazy flow of syrupy urine,
Which dribbled insistently into my plainly receptive drawers.

I lowered the window for a biting blast of outside air,
Banking on an instant rejigging into a wholly sober demeanor,
But found myself dwelling, instead, on a baby genius from Cyprus,
Wondering how a baby genius passes the time each day,
Pondering the fate of a baby genius surrounded by imbeciles.

The trip came to an end – as trips invariably do –
And I collapsed onto my lawn, face down in moist grass and puke,
Contemplating my daring drive through the heart of humanity,
And understanding completely that I was only alive due to the grace
Of a God of something or another.

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