Short Fiction

Beer Run

I hop on my bike and run into the back of a parked van about thirty meters from the bar. Don’t know how long I lay there, maybe twenty minutes or, two hours. The front wheel is out of true but not done. In the morning I can fix it. There is no blood but a heavy-head feeling.

Deciding that walking will get me home safer is out of the question. Jumped on the bike again and this time concentrated like when your scraping the bottom of the big mayonnaise jar with a butter knife tip. Speeding up on the corners as usual and keeping a good cadence gets me home after fifteen minutes, or thirty -I can’t remember really.

Inside, the dog is pissed. She hasn’t had any attention since I went on the beer run at about nine. Now it’s three thirty and she needs attention. My knuckles are raw from the fall, or maybe it was from something else. She starts to bark and I am not having it.

We go outside –no leash it’s late. She moves from bush to light post to hydrant and settles on the hydrant and relieves herself. Finally she starts to wag her tail again. My head is heavy still and I need to sleep. But dogs have their way with men and we continue walking until she is satisfied, now she is ready to listen again and love again and be less demanding.

Bed feels good after a hot shower. Before going into the bathroom I swallow some ibuprofen then pound two glasses of tap water. Tomorrow I’ll wake up around seven or eight, take a beer shit, pound a couple more glasses of water and go back to bed. Then around eleven I’ll roll out of bed with heavy head again. After a shower and clean black t-shirt and the usual jeans with right leg rolled up two times to keep the grease off, I’ll ride down to Jack’s Burger and get a greasy combo meal to settle the stomach. Best hangover procedure ever, works every time.

Next morning Less calls.

“What the fuck happened to you last night?
“I dunno”
“Where did you go, we were supposed to meet up at the Steel Bridge and go for a mystery ride, we thought you got yerself arrested.”
“What made ya think that?”
“Well first off you grabbed a pool stick and threatened to fight anyone in the bar”

A pause… “nope wasn’t me or I’d remember.”

He started again.

“Then you threw your beer on Molly while she was pouring us all a last round for the night. You thought it was funny.”

“Uh huh”

“You stupid fucker. You don’t remember anything do you?”

“And then what happened?”

“Well Molly told you to get the fuck out of the bar and not come back 'till you were dead. You punched the bar top with a twenty gripped, dropped the money on the bar and walked out. We thought you were gone to cool off and that we’d see you on the bridge.”

“Oh well. I had to go home and let the dog out before she stopped loving me.”

“So what are you doing now?”

“Truing my front wheel and having a beer out in the front yard with the dog. Why you wanna go for a ride later.”

“Yeah sure I’ll be over in a bit. What happened to your wheel?”

“I dunno”