He Did Not Care

Joe sat at the kitchen table sipping on an ice cold Miller High Life, thinking.

Beer. What a concept. He started drinking at the age of 15. Schlitz. 4 beers on Friday night, 4 beers on Saturday night, leaving four beers (which he hid in the basement) available for next weekend.

Before long Joe was drinking a six pack each night, then a six of 16 oz beers, then a six and a quart; you get the picture. He loved it. It was enjoyable, and it led to fun times with his equally irreverent friends.

Schlitz segued to Bud, for which he had a passion for a long time. Along the way he dug Tuborg Gold, Miller Genuine Draft, Pabst, Corona, and.........Coors. Man, when Joe first started drinking you couldn't get Coors east of the Rockies. Absolute truth. So when friends came back from a trip with trunkfuls of Coors, it was a goddamn event. Party time!

When he got older he made the obligatory journey through craft beers, IPA's etc, but he never really dug them. Except for Blue Moon. Loved it. Still does. With an orange slice. A long way from "Don't fruit the beer", which is what he and his friends always said to the bartender when they started in with Corona. Fruit in your beer? No fucking way.

But Joe was not thinking about beer. He was thinking with astonishment about what his life had become. A fucking dead end. How? Who the hell knows. Life is a steamroller, baby - hesitate and it will roll right over you.

Suddenly, Joe heard a strange sound. A wail, for Christ sake. Sounded like death and it pierced his soul. He got up and looked through the window to see his neighbor, Ralph, sitting on his back steps with his arms wrapped around himself, rocking back and forth, just cutting loose with his grief.

Ralph was a sad man, defeated by life, with no options ahead of him, lost, lonely and demoralized. He had been talking shit lately, but Joe chalked it up to the deadly combination of alcohol and hopelessness. But as he looked at Ralph he knew he was seeing true death, the death of Ralph's soul; Joe could practically sense it deteriorating in front of him and taking Ralph's life force with it. 

Joe thought maybe he should walk over, try to find a way to console Ralph, but what the hell can you do when another human being loses the battle, when life crushes every source of life in the body and every hopeful thought in the mind? What is left? The vast emptiness of a meaningless life and the eternal torture of wasted opportunity.

Joe stayed put. But Ralph's wail was persistent, so utterly hopeless, expanding the normal limits of pain, and contagious. It pummeled Joe's mind and infected his dying soul. It opened him up to his own reality.

A fucking dead end.

Joe slid down the wall, but his tears beat his ass to the floor. He sat with his back to the wall, wrapped his arms around his beaten body and began to rock. And wail. An almost inhuman expression of pain, grief, and anger. He did not know he could make a sound like this. It had been trapped in his soul for the past 40 years; the intensity of release was shocking.

Joe's sobs racked his body, alternating with ear splitting shrieks, as he rocked back and forth.

He did not know what was next.

He did not care.