48 Beers II
The Post-pulse age old question- how many drinks does it take to get a transgenic drunk is open to speculation.
Drunk enough to what? To forget his own designation? About two bottles of whisky and a tequila slammer.
To forget orders? Three bottles of scotch and a beer chaser.
Then there's forgetting your first love.
After Rachel died I spent a lot of time researching that one. Bar after bar, night after night. I finally hit on the solution at 3am in some bar in San Francisco.
It takes two double shots of scotch, one bottle of Jack and 48 beers.
Classic combination.
Of course most barkeeps will stop serving you after the twenty-sixth beer.
Some stop after the Jack.
But find a disreputable bar that cares more for cash than clientele and hand him a wad of green and he'll keep sliding them over, no matter what angle you end up at.
Of course once they find out you're a transgenic- the price of beer goes up and so do the breakages.
Which is why I'm constantly on the trawl for a new place to research my latest addition- how many drinks does it take to get a transgenic drunk enough to forget that the one woman that you love more than life itself is so unhappy that you can taste it, so in pain that you bleed and so alone that you can feel it…and there's nothing you can do about it?
Yeah. I'm in love with Max.
It came as a shock to me too.
One minute she's bruising my arm and calling me a screw up and the next, I can't live without her.
I always knew that love sucks.
Hell, she knew that, told me so herself. But this is beyond that.
My first love died in a car bomb that I planted myself and yet still somehow this is worse than that.
How? Well at least Rachel is now at peace but Max- Max is still suffering.
I saw her face the first day that Logan handed her the cure. One third relief, one third dread and one third- resignation.
She was already trapped and she knew it. My heart broke for her then and it breaks just that little bit more every time I see her with her smile that doesn't quite reach her eyes and the blank look on her face.
No one believes that smile, even though she thinks that she has them all fooled. O.C, Joshua and even Sketchy can see right through it. But she won't turn around and fight it, fight like we know she can and we don't know what to do and how to help her.
She won't fight because… hell I don't know. Why does she stay with him, I know she doesn't love him. Is it obligation, duty, is he blackmailing her with something?
Why does she put up with his lectures…sorry…loving correction and his blatant condescension of her transgenic side?
Why the hell does she stay?!
Oops another glass broken and the barkeep comes along and gently shoos me out of the door.
So I leave this place and try to look for another dump with lower morals; somewhere that won't glare if you get glass on the floor or blood on the bar.
You know I am a genetically enhanced killing machine, I could kill Logan Cale twenty three ways just using his glasses- another fourteen if I leave the screws in, and I would, joyfully and with a smile that would make my happy-go-lucky sociopathic murdering brother jealous- if it didn't mean that Max would never speak to me again.
But I figure it would be worth it if it meant that she was free and could someday smile again and mean it.
Dammit- I promised not to think about her tonight...or any night. But around my thirtieth beer she always comes to the mind that she is never far from anyway.
Once the haze begins to drift she returns in full force.
Her living her normal life, trying to be happy with the love her life, who she no longer loves, as he constantly taps away on his keyboard on his one man mission to save a world that will never accept us.
Never accept her like we can, like I do.
But I can't let her know that she is the one I live for, the reason I stay and the reason that I took the ridiculous job of governor of Terminal Ratheap.
She'd just push me away- so used to being the only one she can rely on, so used to me being her smart Alec, screw up sidekick that she could never see me as anything else.
But I will not waver. I'll be here for her silently bringing her to life with my taunts and getting her back whether she knows, or cares, I'm there or not.
I'll be here as long as she needs me and I'll love her as long as I live. I'll wait until she sees me- really sees me.
But until then I'll find another dirt bar…like this one, full of bikers and prostitutes, the down and out and desolate where I fit in, count the seconds until I can see Max again and I can research my addition to that question.
How many drinks does it take to get a transgenic drunk enough to forget that the one woman that he loves more than life itself is so unhappy that he can taste it, so in pain that he bleeds and so alone that he can feel it…and there's nothing he can do about it?
How many?
I'll let you know.
The End.