The Evils of Drink
Featuring excerpts and poems about drunkenness from Andrew Brown, Terri Steel, and Rick Rohdenburg.
TRANSCRIPT
Last week, we celebrated the ratification of the first ten amendments to the US Constitution. The Eighteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was largely the work of one woman. Carrie Nation was born November 25, 1846. She was also known as Hatchet Granny because she’d go into bars and saloons and smash them up with her hatchet. Her keeping the evils of alcohol in the public eye finally led to the 18th Amendment, ratified in 1919, that banned the manufacture, sale, and transportation of alcohol, and established the period of Prohibition.
To commemorate Carrie Nation’s birthday, some pieces about drinking too much.
First, an excerpt from Andrew Brown’s story “Celebration at the Silver Dollar,”
“You feeling sorry for yourself?” The man with the silver ponytail looked up at the waitress as she came out of the shadows into the light and reached for his empty bottle.
“I never feel sorry for myself,” he said.
“Don’t lie,” she said. “You want another of the same?”
“Only if it’s your policy to water the dogs.”
“No money?”
“Not enough to waste on a drunk.”
“Stay drunk and you stay out of trouble.” She took the empty shot glass and walked away, leaving him with his half-filled glass of Coors.
He was looking at his glass. I could almost imagine his thoughts. Was the glass half full or half empty? He took a drink. The waitress, Betty Joe, came back from the bar with a fresh beer and a shot, and set them on the table.
An excerpt from “Celebration at the Silver Dollar” by Andrew Brown from his book The Chugalug King & Other Stories.
Rick Rohdenburg said, “This is only one of many pieces I have written about my relationship with my father over the years. The fact that he has been dead for 20 years hardly matters. Some things, I think, are destined to go unresolved.” Here’s Rick’s poem “After the Flood.”
There came a great flood.
You rose in the dark to drink from it.
Jo’s Tap Room, six a.m. Back again for lunch. And back after work.
You drank a river. You drank the sea
and all the bright things in it. You staggered home.
Mother curled up in bed: mice in the walls, mice in her shoes.
No heat. You puking outside,
a thousand years ago.
Now I see you in the leafless woods.
I see you in the stony fields.
I see you in the dry creek bed.
I do not forgive, but oh, to forget, to forget.
Offer me mercy. Offer me grace. Offer what you have,
from wherever you have come.
My hands, I confess, are empty. I have only the wind
to offer in return.
“After the Flood,” Rick Rohdenburg from Passager’s 2024 Poetry Contest Issue.
And from Passager Issue 74, the Trauma Issue, these excerpts from Terri Steel’s memoir “We Can All Get a Little Crazy.”
…Mom complained Dad had two distinct personalities. She often referred to him as Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. I never knew which one to pray for because I would get the two mixed up and didn’t want to call forth the wrong one. I did know that the nice version of my father would tuck me in late at night and remind me that I was his favorite when he kissed me on my head. He smelled of Old Spice cologne and alcohol and his voice was sweet and soft…
Still, I knew better than to fall under his spell when he was drinking too much. My father could fool most into believing he was harmless with his twinkly blue eyes and bright smile and then turn on them a second later. And now, here I was paying the price for not being careful enough.
…Dad was drinking when I heard his dark memory about his own father. “My mother told me not to go downstairs, but I was curious and peeked around the basement door to see my father holding our day-old pups under water, killing them one by one.” Dad’s voice quivered. “I can still see that big hand gripping those poor little pups ‘round their heads. They fought hard too. I saw their bodies wiggling like mad.” Dad’s eyes grew misty. “Get out of here, boy! I heard him yell, but I stood there and watched ‘till the end. Hell, we were so poor, I guess he thought there was no other way. They sure the hell couldn’t take care of them.”
…I didn’t have the heart to tell Dad that he’d treated me and Steven like those pups. Instead, I put an arm around my father, comforting myself and him…
Excerpts from Terri Steel’s memoir “We Can All Get a Little Crazy.”
By the way, the 18th Amendment was repealed in 1933 by the 21st which gave the power to regulate alcohol back to the states.
To buy Andrew Brown’s book The Chugalug King & Other Stories, to subscribe to, donate to, or learn more about Passager and its commitment to older writers, visit passagerbooks.com.
Passager is currently offering a holiday sale! Use code “HOLIDAY30” at checkout for 30% off your order.
For Christine, Rosanne, Mary, Asher, and the rest of the Passager staff, I’m Jon Shorr.
Due to the limitations of online publishing, poems may not appear in their original formatting.
