Oh Captain my Captain & Rum and Coke

Gettin Weird Chapter 2.

Wally’s been here for about half an hour. I don’t tell him about the letter. I don’t know how to talk about it. Hell, I don’t know how to think or feel about it, so why wreck our party?

Wally gets semi-slightly-drunk real fast and starts slurring his ‘S’ words.

“Dish ish sho fun!”

“Shut-up Wal, you sound like a cartoon of a drunk guy.”

Wally laughs, “I am a cartoon of a drunk guy!”

I take a sip of my Bacardi and real Coca-Cola. My speech never gets affected by alcohol, I’m lucky that way—nobody can ever tell when I’ve been drinking, including my own Mom.

Did you know that in the old days, the real old days like a hundred years ago, Coca-Cola had cocaine in it? It’s true—that’s where the ‘Coca’ part of the name comes from. Now were those the days or what? Imagine a totally legal beverage that could compete with booze for a consumer’s recreational weirdness dollars. Imagine, drinking a few beers and getting a nice buzz going, and then pounding down a 12-oz. bottle of cocaine-juice. Shi . . . oops . . . I’m trying to not swear so much, I mean Sheesh. 

I hear the front door to my house open then close.

Wally hears it too. He looks nervous, “Ish that yer mother?”

“No, she’s at work; it’s my crap-for-brains . . .”

Before I can finish my sentence my younger brother Joey, without knocking, opens my bedroom door and stares in.

“You mind Joey?” But even as I look at him, my eyes flash to the middle drawer of my desk, and I think about Dad’s unopened letter. How am I going to tell Joey about it?

Ignoring me, Joey says, “Hey Wally, how’s it going?”

Wally knows his incapacity for speaking while drinking, so he smiles and nods and mutters, “Hey.”

Joey looks back at me, “You’re drinking huh?”

I almost answer, ‘What was your first clue?’ I mean, I’ve got a glass in my hand? There’s a half-gallon of Bacardi sitting right next to me on my desk. I ignore his question and wait for what I know is coming next.

Joey doesn’t disappoint. “Didn’t you learn anything at Bay Camp?”

Bay Camp is the State Juvenile Detention Facility (kids’ prison) that Joey and I got sent to after we tried to rob a coffee shop last year. Joey is talking about the class we had to sit through every Thursday Morning at 8 a.m. Drug and Alcohol Awareness.

Joey forges on, “You know you’re never going to amount to anything if you drink that stuff?”

“Geez Joey, I didn’t know you cared.”

“I don’t care.” Joey snaps, like he’s mad. Maybe he’s a little embarrassed about being so honest because I notice that he blushes.

There’s an uncomfortable silence.

Wally breaks it, “Sho were you at bashketball practish?”

Joey doesn’t notice Wally’s slur. Joey doesn’t notice anything that doesn’t have to do with him, but he answers Wally’s question, “Yeah, as team captain I can’t ever miss.”

I say, “Of course you can’t, Oh Captain my Captain…”

Joey gives me a scowl, “Mom will be home in a little while, you better hide that alcohol.”

I can’t help but smile. I say “Thanks, bro.” He’s my little brother and even with all his control-freak crap, you gotta love him. I stare at Joey, flash back to Dad’s letter, buried in my middle drawer. I avoid even looking that direction, as though if I do look, somehow Joey will know about it all. Crazy huh? But now my brain starts to spin faster: Why didn’t Dad send a letter to both Joey and me? Why not to Mom? Why’d he write at all?

“Cool” Joey says, interrupting my racing thoughts, “I got some homework to do, see you guys later.”

Wally says, “S’he you.”

I say, “Adios.”

Joey closes my bedroom door behind him.

Wally looks at me, “Your brothersh a good kid!”

“Oh yeah,” I answer, thinking of another of my favorite thesaurus words, “If you extrapolate his present course, he’ll be a saint in no time.”

Wally looks at me funny, “Extrapolate?” he asks, without the trace of a shlur . . .

 “Yeah, extrapolate,” I explain, “predict the future based on previous patterns.”

Wally mumbles “Whatever.”

I laugh again, and hold up the bottle of rum, “You want some more?”

Wally says, “Sure.”

I think of a few words and silently say them to my deadbeat Dad and his dip-stuff letter; ‘you made us wait five years to know that you were even still alive … Now you can wait sucka’.’ But the truth is that my hands are shaking again, just like when I very first took the letter from the mailbox and realized it was from Dad. And there’s a lump in my throat that has nothing to do with ice cubes or rum and coke.