My Last Halloween

My urine looks like root beer. That’s a good bad sign, I think. It ain’t from eating rhubarb. My doctor once told me, “Your organs are not happy...” and I rushed straight home and put away a quart of whiskey. I already have hepatitis. The whites of my eyes are yellow. I was putting a brave strain on my liver and kidneys and (probably) pancreas. My pee was now brown. The end was near, thank Manson. I’m feeding the champion within with beer and bourbon. My abdomen is swollen. My face is decorated with ruptured blood vessels, little Braille scabs that describe my disordered life. I look like a Wolverton cartoon.

    I don’t sit at my kitchen table anymore. Sitting there makes me feel like a sack of puppies about to be drowned. I don’t need that. I patiently await my hemorrhage on the loveseat. The cushions are pocked with little burn holes. I can’t afford to smoke anymore. Cigarettes have become too expensive.  Lung cancer was taking too long anyway. I used to cough like a helicopter. There was this girl named Colleen. An anorexic albino, she looked like a vaporous, woeful ghost. Pale and spooky and willowy. We only had sex once. She said intercourse with me was like fucking a fishing rod.

     I used to know a coke-dealer named Ivan, a big Russian with a mustache and a laugh like galloping horses. I once bought a gram from him and gave him too much money. Those were the days. Ivan noticed the error and gave me the extra twenty back. He said, “Honesty is the best policy,” in his deep dark forest of an accent. I thanked him and returned home to find that the coke had been cut to within an inch of its life. Colleen laughed about it for hours. That was the start of her nervous breakdown.

     I haven’t had company since Colleen left. They were all her friends. I didn’t like any of them but at least they drank. We used to stand around the kitchen table, filling our livers. I felt a reluctant kinship. I felt like a character in the AA book. One night three people had to race to the bathroom to puke. We were drinking bubblegum vodka. The smell got to be obnoxious.

    Why are all these sour memories crowding in on me? I pour another shot of bourbon. I don’t know why I don’t just drink straight from the bottle, hobo style. Etiquette? I’m only an obscene animal with a thirst like a plummet. I urge my liver to fail. The next time I piss I want it to be inkjet black. I want to drown in my own blood like Kerouac and W.C. Fields.

     They’re dead and much happier than I am.