He looked nervous, rolling his thoughts around his head like a pair of marbles on the tile. Josie looked at him with a look of concern written plainly across her face. “Where are you going?”
“To the racetrack”. James bowed his head to the ground.
Glaring, she stalked up to him, paused, then slapped him across the face. “You’ve already maxed out the credit cards for the month! Are you crazy?”
He shuffled closer towards the door, muttering. He slid his wallet into his back pocket without Josie noticing.
Her barrage of words continued. “We can barely pay the rent, pay for food and I barely sleep because I worry so much. You are an absolute fool. You drink and gamble all my money, just because you can. Filthy pig of a man.”
Looking at her, James saw the deep bluey black bags under her eyes. Glancing at the photo on the wall behind her, he saw this beautiful woman. Happy, healthy, full of life. And how only two years had drastically changed her. Juxtaposed with the two Josie’s, James slumped.
He had this look on his face. It wasn’t a scowl, or a grimace. Nor a look of joy. His face contorted into what could only be described as a dogs breakfast. He stammered, as he struggled to get the words out.
“I’m so sorry. Its all I know. I, I try to stop, but I can’t help it. It just happens.”
“Train wreck of a man. Actually, I don’t even know if you have the intelligence of a six year old. Disgusting.”
Josie walked off. You could almost see her body shake in laughter at the absurdity of this mans condition.
Sliding against the wall, James brought his knees up to his chest, curling into an upright fetal position. Tears poured down his face as his arm snaked around, looking for his only friend.
Alcohol.
The only thing that was ever there for James. Sliding his legs out, his free arm slapped the floor, as his head flicked backwards, slamming against the wall. He could feel the egg on his head begin to swell, and it seemed to have its own pulse.
Taking a gulp from the whiskey bottle, his eyes watered. No matter how many times he drank whiskey on a daily basis, the strength of it made his throat burn and his eyes water.
He couldn’t remember the last time he was sober. It would have to be a few years at least. There was always a bottle of something nearby… Whisky, tequila, beer, cheap wine. He guzzled at the bottle. Pulling it from his mouth, it sloshed from the top of the whiskey bottle, splattering as the liquid hit the ground.
His eyebrows furrowed into one as he realised he had wasted the liquor. In the process of removing the bottle from his inebriated mouth, he had managed to drool some down the front of his body. “Josie…. Joss, Josie, I loooove you”.
His words dribbled from his mouth with the remainders of the whiskey. Speech slurred, and the room beginning to spin, James became frantic. His movements were slow and uncoordinated, but his brain ran at a frantic pace.
“Josieee. Jose. Take me. Take me back. I, I love you…” The words slowly stumbled from his mouth. “I neeeed you.”
Josie had learnt to put up with his constant drunkness. Truth be told, she often wished that she had kicked him out years ago, severed contact, but she couldn’t bring herself to actually do it. She’d often threatened to boot him out.
“I’m sick of you moping around, drinking your life away! You drink like there is no tomorrow, I haven’t seen you sober in ages. If you aren’t completely hungover, you are blind drunk, completely smashed and off your face. You don’t do a bloody thing around the house, you sit there and drink from dawn until you pass out. I’ve done so much to help you, and in thanks you vomit in my house, and leave it to me to clean up. You gamble or drink any money that I leave lying around, and I’ve got barely enough to pay the rent and food. Not that you eat, you just have a liquid diet. I’m so sick of it, you need to leave. Pathetic, disgusting mess of a man.”
After these arguments, Josie would often go and mope herself. Mainly about how much he had changed her life, in good and bad ways. The positive was that she still had a job. She was a strong, independent, career woman. Negative was that he was a leech, using her for her money.
They hadn’t spoken for years when he had shown up on her doorstep. After a rather large and explosive family argument he had stormed off as a young eighteen year old, and noone heard from him for about eight years. He was invincible, the world was his oyster.
Joining the armed forces suited him to a tee. He became one of the best black hawk helicopter pilots, skilled at night drops and warfare. He had seen a lot during his time with the air force, horrible atrocities. He’d been promoted several times, was rising quickly through the ranks.
On tour in Iraq was the straw that broke him. Shattered him. It was the first mistake he’d made in his career in the air force.
James had maneuvered the helicopter into position. On the 9th of September, 2008, at 11.17pm, he had dropped a small army hit team into the mountain ranges so they could do a recon mission on a nearby terrorist camp.
He had scouted out the drop zone on a previous mission. Blinded by the dark, his gut feeling told him something was horribly wrong. Seconds too late, he called off the mission, aborted. His gut feelings had never been wrong in his life.
And it wasn’t wrong. The first few men had already begun the drop, he couldn’t pull out now. The second the men hit the ground, a land mine exploded beneath their feet, instantly killing them, and those still dropping down on the rope. Rocked by the blast, the helicopter shook as he pulled out. He should have realised earlier that a perfectly flat drop zone was a trap. Something that close to the training camp was too good to be true.
He had never lost a man before. And in one catastrophic incident he had lost six. All because he hadn’t voiced his opinion to abort. He took the losses hard. Turning to drinking while he was still on active duty.
Honorably discharged from the air force due to his years of outstanding service, he had returned home. Suffering from post traumatic stress disorder, any loud or sudden noises made him jumpy, and defensive. His escape his alcohol and gambling.
The alcohol had a numbing effect on his senses. So James chose to stay constantly drunk, it was easier on him. No number of rehabilitation programs or interventions had stopped him, each time he was deemed to have been rehabilitated he fell into the habit of drinking to numb the pain.
No matter what Josie had done, hiding money, contacting local liquor stores to ensure they didn’t sell to him, and confiscating any liquor around the house, tipping it out, he found ways around it.
And gambling. He couldn’t help it. In his inebriated state, he would go and spend hours at the pokies. Alcohol reduced his mind to that of a three year old, he was fascinated by the flashing colours and sounds of the machines. Any money he found lying around was immediately pocketed so he could go and play.
Josie had put up with this for years. She loved her brother, helped him to try to overcome his issues. And sometimes it would work, for a month or two, and then he would disintegrate into his old ways. It was a vicious cycle of rehab programs, getting better then having a loud noise or night mare shock his PTSD into restarting his alcohol dependence.
When his head was clear, not clouded by alcohol, he was one of the sharpest tools in the shed. He could do almost anything that he put his mind to. He was the ideal candidate for employers, keen to learn and dedicated. The only black cloud hanging over his head was the PTSD and alcohol dependence. Noone wanted a messy, sulking drunk working amongst them.
James’s head flicked forward onto his chest. His hand released the bottle he was holding, shattering it as it slammed against the flooring. The smell of alcohol was even stronger now, penetrating from all angles. His body heaved as the first round of vomiting hit. Managing to spin around and stand, he used his arms to prop himself against the world as his legs shook.
He had long lost track of time, but had managed to go through a rather impressive amount of alcohol. Empty bottles were scattered around him. He normally got drunk, but not this drunk, just enough to take the edge of. This time he had gone on a binge.
He knew, in the back of his mind, it was him who had aged Josie quickly, putting her under constant stress. She had tried her best, done everything she possibly could to help. But he was the roadblock in his own recovery. He hadn’t had an interest of recovering.
As the third round of vomiting racks his body, there is nothing left but bile. It burns his throat in the same way that the whiskey and vodka had burnt going down. He was a complete mess. Covered in vomit, and shivering in the hallway. And his mind was completely obliterated, numbed by the constant supply of alcohol. It was a wonder that his liver hadn’t failed yet.
Dragging his sorry self down the hall to the shower, he caught a look of himself in the mirror. Once a bright blue eyed, clean shaven young man who had short black hair and his life ahead of him, he now had long scraggly hair, and hadn’t shaved in weeks. He was once the fittest man in his unit, now he doubted if he could run more than 200 metres.
After an initial rinse in the shower, he began lopping at his hair with scissors. Getting it back to a shorter length, he used his electric razor to shave the rest down to a neat crew cut. Removing the beard that had been growing wildly out of control for months, he looked younger.
His next mission began. To get his fitness back, to kick his alcohol abuse habit and remove his gambling problem. It was the first time he himself had felt inspired. Finding where he had stashed his alcohol from Josie so he could drink while she wasn’t around, he poured it down the sink. Collected the empty bottles. Began cleaning up the vomit.
When Josie returned home, she nearly passed out in shock of the man she saw standing before her. The change had begun. And her house was clean, and smelt somewhat fresh, not like regurgitated alcohol.
“What happened here?” Josie’s face looked shocked.
“Little bit of inspiration goes a long way.” The cheeky grin he had as a boy had returned, but with it a look of sadness and regret showed through his eyes. “And I had a phone call earlier. Mum called, looking for you. But we talked for the first time in years. And she told me things that you had said to her. What I had done to your life.”
A look passes over Josie’s face like a shadow. Then the tears begin to pour down her face like Niagara Falls. James hadn’t shown that he cared or was affectionate in years. He wrapped her in his arms, protecting her from all the she pain felt. He found himself crying, tears falling from his face down her back.