Author's Note: Every time I go through this, I add changes and changes and more changes. So I'm just going to stop all of that and let you read it as it is. Enjoy it by your own free will.
Thank you for reading!
I don't remember much, but I do recall stumbling out of the bar, loaded up on fresh shots while searching for my balance, the same way I left the apartment which belonged to my now ex-girlfriend.
Yep. Leave it to me to flee the scene, crashing out of the door in a fight with someone who doesn't want to put up with my shit. Leave it to me not to give a damn.
"Fuck you too, ya'old piece o' shit!" my words mashed together as I showed the bar's manager two middle fingers poking out of my sleeves as I walked backward, swaying in places where I was not tripping over my own feet.
He followed each of my steps to the curb, making sure that I wasn't returning after insulting several of his regular customers about their cheap taste in liquor, and even cheaper taste in fashion. Perhaps I should not have snapped at them to begin with, but they were idiots to think I couldn't hear their ongoing conversation. I heard everything, from the part where they questioned my gender, to the bit that set me off. The bit where they brought my parents into the mix.
"Don't you ever come back to my bar!" he roared, attempting – and of course failing – to instill fear in me. "We have no room for scum like you."
"Scum like me, ne?" I laughed, flipping my hood up over my head while making a mocking face, "Maybe you should tell your customers to spend less time downing their shitty beer, and teach'em not to judge a book by its cover."
"Tch," he scowled, adding more wrinkles to an ugly face, "Look at you. I'd say there's not much left of you that hasn't been picked apart already."
"What could you possibly know about me?" I spat, looking for a fight at this point.
My world wobbled as my eyes attempted to bore into his.
He looked me over once before coming to a conclusion. "You're a lowlife alcoholic. Pathetic and weak."
No matter how hard that hit me, I wasn't going to let it settle in the way he wanted it to.
I laughed, rolling my eyes a little. "You dunno shit!" I turned to totter away, only stopping when a brand new thought entered my deluded mind. "By the way, next time you wanna talk about someone's mother, remember the pig that fucked yours and impregnated her with you."
Pride for my most current accomplishment (yes, a petty insult of all things) was short-lived as a large fist came hurtling toward my face and connected with my jaw. Knowing I probably deserved the blow did nothing to lessen the pain… because it wasn't over yet. And I knew I deserved the forceful kick to my abdomen which followed the minute I staggered back and clashed to the damp pavement in an unceremonious heap.
I was wasted; numb in the face and the heart. Unfortunately, my disorientation was not as strong as I had assumed it to be, and the hits sobered me up much more than I wanted to allow.
He was kicking my ass, but all I could think about was a fresh bottle of vodka running down my throat and the warm, wonderful burn it came with.
When the beating finally came to an end, I curled into myself, watching him stomp off of the scene and back into his cheap hole in the wall. Sparing a moment, I attempted to put the breath back into my winded lungs while simultaneously using a striped sleeve to wipe away the blood that dribbled down my chin.
I was a bleeding drunk with nowhere to go, no cell phone to call for help, and no friends to call even if I did have a phone. Hell, even the few clients I had wanted nothing to do with me.
For the first time since I began dating Namie, I was alone in the world, believing that things couldn't get any worse. But I learned quickly that when you believe things will never be as bad as they are at one moment, it is a nonexistent God's way of metaphorically fucking you in the ass.
Mind focused on finding a bottle or bar elsewhere, I pulled myself up on two wobbly legs, and went in search of a convenience store.
A long time ago, quality meant something to me. Quality, higher prices or not, was worth what I paid for because I knew that I could never be let down. It had been about the taste; feeling good off of a concoction that my tongue could appreciate. But that was only at first.
That's when the problem that I would never confess to having escalated into something far less controlled. As time moved forward, I no longer desired to satisfy my palette with intriguing flavors. I only wanted their aftereffects.
One drink became three. Three became seven. Seven became twelve. Soon, I was losing track of myself in the worst instance possible. And for what? What was it that I loved so much about intoxication that I was willing to destroy myself to obtain it?
Before too long, I had reached the point where I never felt quite right without it. My new sense of normality required a strong buzz at the very least. When I was not in possession of it, it was all I could think about. And when I had it, I never wanted to run out, or let it go.
I stopped caring about what people thought of me, allowing them to watch me sway out of a bar on numb legs. In my mind, it was people who did this to me. It was people, never able to accept that maybe, just maybe, I had something to offer the world… if only they would just open their eyes and see that there was something great within me.
I murdered that greatness; yet they were to blame.
I would never accept responsibility. I would never come clean and confess my sins.
Finding a cheap hotel at the west gate of Ikebukuro – with no memory of how I got that far from Shinjuku – I checked in, scoffing at the receptionist who dared to give me a disgusted onceover with her round eyes. I plucked the key out of her fingers without thanks, quickly making my way toward the elevator.
As I waited, hypnotized by the glowing digital numbers counting down each floor… twelve… eleven… ten… so on and so forth, I caught more whispers from behind my back.
"It's inappropriate," an older woman prattled on. "That young man! What a delinquent!"
"This is a respectable place," a man equal to her age agreed as they ranted at the woman who checked me in.
"I'm sorry," she apologized, "It is not within my right to turn a customer away from our services."
"He's so intoxicated he probably wouldn't remember the rejection to begin with!" the man argued, "And look at him! Dressed like that!"
"I am uncomfortable staying in a building with a person like that roaming the halls!"
"Roaming?" I muttered under my breath. "This isn't even a two star hotel!"
I turned to steal a look at them just as the elevator dinged, and the doors slid open. Americans? Maybe Canadians. I giggled, not surprised to find that it was tourists complaining, and happily caught their stunned and appalled eyes with my own. When the doors slid closed, taking me to the fifth floor, I fell on my ass in a fit of laughter, entertained if only for my lacking sobriety.
Once within the confines of my room, I hit the minibar without hesitation; forgetting the day in its entirety as soon as the rum burned its way down my throat.
In those moments, I was convinced I could go on forever; that no matter how much I drank, and drank, and fucking drank, I was unstoppable. My body wanted to be fed this poison. It asked for it, and it was grateful each and every time I accepted those wishes.
My body was what mattered. And the useless opinion of those surrounding me meant nothing.
Tattered clothes, blood staining my chin, bruises beneath dirty flesh. None of it meant a thing, not even when I couldn't take another drop.
Forcing it down anyway, I accepted my mistake, using what little strength I had left to pull the trashcan over to the bedside and empty my stomach into with graceless aim just minutes before passing out.