The Devil's Elixir

Ends of Roads

Travis walked out of the county lockup, saw Lou, and smiled.

Lou instantly warmed, stood with the help of his cane with the brass hellhound on it.

He hadn’t set out to be - but loved being- the cool uncle.

This chore wasn’t his favorite, but he of all his siblings was the best equipped for it.

“How ya feeling, Trav?”

“Hungry. The food in there sucks.”

“I remember,” Lou said. “We’ll hit Beef Palace or Crosberg’s on the way home.”

“Uhhh…” Travis made a sound like he had been lightly slapped below the belt.

“Not Crosberg’s. I have to abstain from alcohol. I can’t go to Crosberg’s.”

Lou just nodded, swallowed an entire lecture, simply walked with his nephew in silence except for the tap of his cane.

“Not sure I can do this,” Travis said as they got to the parking structure.

“You can do anything,” Lou said, and he meant it.

“You remember the last time you drank?”

Lou shook his head. Not a no, more like disbelief.

“Amazingly I do. Allison reminds me sometimes too.”

“Did you know it was the last time?”

“Shit no,” Lou said. “Does anybody?”

“Did a judge make you?” Travis asked, holding out all the paperwork he had been given when they processed him out.

“Nawww…Nobody really made me. Allison, I guess.”

Lou walked up to his truck, leaned against it.

“Allison’s puppy died. Ate something he shouldn’t have, they couldn’t extricate it. She sobbed for about two days, then climbed up on my lap and  said “Daddy, where do doggies go when they die?”

Travis scrunched his face.

“Did you feed the dog the thing that killed it?”

“Hell no.”

“Then why did you quit drinking because her puppy died?”

Lou tapped his cane on the ground.

“In the next few weeks, maybe months, maybe years, you’re gonna have to do a whole lot more listening than you have been. So start now, and I’ll tell ya.”

Travis reddened, looked down at the yellow lines on the cement.

Lou cleared his throat.

“I told Allison this big elaborate story about where dogs go. Wanted to make her feel better. I named names of places, amenities, shit, I built a whole world of doggy heaven in that little girl’s head. She ate up every damn word of it. I was just suckin’down gin and Squirt and making shit up as I went.”

“That seems like a kind thing to me, I don’t see why-”

Lou spit between the gap in his teeth, and interrupted the interruption, raising his voice.

“The very next day-ask your cousin if ya wanna hear her side of it, she’ll be more than happy to tell you the story, I promise you that- she brought her little friend Marcie over. Marcie’s family had this fat old collie that recently passed. And dammit if Allison didn’t ask me to repeat the doggy heaven story for Marcie. And I couldn’t. Didn’t remember a damn thing I had made up. So I tried to fake it. Stumbled and stuttered and bullshitted like I was lying to a cop. Allison knew. She knew her daddy was a drunk, lying piece of garbage. All the comfort I offered the day before was shattered.”

“So you quit drinking right then?”

“Right then. Gave my booze to the neighbor behind us. Started going to meetings in the basement of the War Memorial.”

“Was it hard?”

Lou looked up at Travis.

“Not nearly as hard as having a 9-year-old daughter who hated me.”

“Allison doesn’t hate you anymore. She loves you. The whole family loves you.”

Lou let his cane drop from his left hand to his right.

 He turned the cane over and let it slip through his hand so he was holding the base and the brass Teufel Hund was at the ground. Then he reached back to his right and swung, hitting Travis in the kneecap with the brass teeth of the hound.

“The whole family loves you too, asshole. Love yourself. Leave the booze behind. You can do it. Now, we’re going to Crosberg’s.”

“But…”

“But what? Booze is everywhere. Ya can’t hide from it. Even in prison. You just gotta keep it out of your own mouth.”

“You’ve been in prison, Uncle Lou?”

“Yeah. And it makes that county lockup look like doggy heaven.” 

***

Anything you’d like.

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