How to Drink Yourself Sober
by Alex Stolis
How to drink yourself sober
The Promises; Pages 83-84
We will be amazed before we are halfway through. We will
be sharp bone. We will be painstaking. We angle into each
other and I name us for stars. We flower against a black sky
our only direction down. Like water, like plums, like sinners
trying to con themselves out of absolution. It’s getting dark
and step after step after step we go backwards. It’s the end,
time for a prayer. I mouth the words, candles flicker in, out
as the last amen drifts away. She squeezes my hand asks me
for a cigarette. She laughs, says she quit a few days ago too
soon and it beats going back to the bottle. But I know better.
I know it’s all the same. I lie anyway. Promise it’s different.
Promise I’ll keep her safe.
How to drink yourself sober
A Design for Living
When she’s five her mother spun a tale of an angel who dropped
to earth, landed in a quarry. She fell in love with a mortal, asked
him to bind her wings tight against her back, tried unsuccessfully
to fit into his world. Years later, when he died, she found herself
unable to fly back to heaven. In her grief she flung herself into a
marble slab where she waits, to this day, for god to split it in two
to be reunited with him.
How to drink yourself sober
Chapter Four: We Agnostics- God doesn’t never change
It’s the mythology he loves. Before he got laid he preferred
the nighttime. Easier to picture life in so many different ways.
If she could, she’d get inside his head, fill the darkness with
fire. You can learn a lot about a woman by getting smashed
with her. He is as ancient as dirt but she scares him to death
says she's the only one that can keep him in line. She sings
stories to him until he falls asleep. Oftentimes she’ll perch on
the edge of his bed, legs crossed, an unlit cigarette between
her fingers. Nothing changes but time. Nothing is eternal but
silence.
How to drink yourself sober
The 12 steps & 12 Traditions as Directed by Leni Riefenstahl
(slow fade to desert)
Joseph and Matt tempt fate. Hitchhike to Bethlehem and try to get work. They drink Miller on tap
at Bartholomew’s Place, watch the Eagles and listen to cracked bells chant the time as dollars fall
into slots and men are twisted in their cups. Ramona and Emily, recent grads of Brown, stop in to
sell flowers for a memorial service that takes place every Saturday afternoon in Loring Park.
(close up of Ramona)
Ramona has wild hair, short heels and a suede skirt that catches Joseph’s eye. He wants to linger at
the pool table and talk her into his bed. He knows Emily runs the show, she reads her rosary to any
one that listens, sells candles and blonde crucifixes from the back seat of her ’72 Nova. He asks
Matt to distract her, buys half a dozen roses for her
(dream sequence)
wedding which is scheduled next Tuesday—a new Holy Day will be declared she says. She booked
John Lee to sing the processional, hired Maya Angelou to write the vows, Emily’s going to marry
the Son of God, that’s the plan and no one will dissuade her. Joseph and Matt long for the days
when Mark and John fed them psalms and they all got together every five years after Golgotha,
reminiscing of the days when
(fade back to desert)
rivers were filled with locusts and fire meant spring was coming, the only wine they ever drank
then was tinged lightly with saltwater. They felt like brothers who lived in different cities each one
carving their own territory to live, raise a family, start a business. It was a daily struggle to forget
the clamor of swords bursting into plowshares, a struggle to remain silent when
(slow fade to black)
their wives stood as pillars of understanding and keepers of the faith because they were too tired
to give a damn. Christ only knows when they will be allowed to walk across broken sand and see
the green hills of the Promised Land.