Thou Drinking Fool…

George was in rare form today. It seems he is catching up on the time he missed drinking while in jail. Carolyn just absolutely hates George and thinks he is a bad influence upon me. As if I am some malleable soul and mind to be meddled with. I worry far more about George’s mother than he during these little spats of nonconformity. She is getting old and can’t keep up with George and his drinking habits. Her senior years should be filled with less strife; certainly not those of an alcoholic, overacting grown son.

“My car won’t crank,” George told me on the phone.

“Good,” I said. “You probably don’t need to be driving anyway.”

“Can you at least come over and take a look at it?” George pleaded.

I realized that fixing George’s car was akin to putting a loaded gun into the hand of a suicidal man. I went anyway. I don’t mean to brag, but I have a knack for diagnosing and repairing vehicles. I went to school for quite a while to be a mechanic.

I arrived to find George standing out in his yard smoking a cigar with the hood of his car open wide. I pulled out my very heavy toolbox and walked over.

“What is it doing?” I asked.

“It just won’t fucking crank,” George said tersely. “Hell, you are the mechanic.”

I looked under George’s hood and immediately recognized the problem. The large wire running to his starter motor had become disconnected. I chuckled to myself quietly out of ear shot of George.

“I can’t fix it,” I said as I lied as I wiped my somewhat greasy hands upon my blue jeans.

I didn’t want George driving as he was already drunk.

“Fucking motherfucker,” George said. “I have a poker game at Pookie’s house tonight and have to be there.”

“Pookie lives less than three miles away,” I replied. “You can walk there in less than an hour.”

“Walking is for poor people and crazy white survivalist motherfuckers like yourself,” George said.

I laughed. I got a big kick out of what George had said. George is about as poor as they come these days.

“I’ll see ya,” I said as I grabbed my tool box and walked back to my car.

“What I am supposed to do about tonight?” George asked loudly.

“Walk!” I replied loudly as I smiled and shut my car door to drive home.