The two men sat in the dim kitchen. Drinking. Dark clouds hung low in the gray sky like they wanted to open their bellies. Cigarette smoke curled from a glass ashtray. Larry Miller got up from the yellow Formica table and pointed at a steak bone on a plate in the sink. The white plate was smeared dark with A-1 Steak Sauce. Larry said, “That was Jenny’s last supper. A T-bone steak, a baked potato, bread n’ butter, and a Coke.” He seemed proud to Thurman like he wanted Thurman to appreciate it.
“Oh yeah,” said Thurman. He staggered and bumped into the refrigerator. A black cross magnet hit the faded blue linoleum. He thought, bad Juju, and picked it up, brought it close to the fridge, and it jumped out of his hand and snapped back on, upside down.
“You drunk ass,” said Larry, tapping his smoke in the glass ashtray, watching Thurman’s sloping shoulders and oddly rounded hips that he always tried to cover with a long shirt.
“Up Yours.” Thurman tilted his head back and tried to down the Budweiser. He wanted Larry to see how tough he was. Thin lines of beer leaked from the corners of his big lips dribbling off his chin. “Ahh…”
“Jesus, you need a bib.”
Thurman stood over the sink examining the plate. “Last Supper, huh?” They had been drinking all afternoon. Like they often did on Saturdays. He took the last warm drink and choked down the bitter watery taste. It wanted to rush up his throat, and bring up the hot-dogs he ate earlier. His fingers splayed out on the sticky counter, and his dizzy mind focused on the steak bone. A green bottle fly walked on it, like it had every right to be there.
It felt strange, almost reverent looking at the dirty plate that Jenny had her last meal on. The blackened T-bone was chewed, with pink meat left inside the T, hard to get at, without going animal and smearing grease on your cheeks. A sickening spin warped his stomach.
Thurman closed his eyes feeling like a green teenager. Just learning the hard magic of downing beers and dope smoking, instead of a 28-year-old, twice convicted drunk driver, and not much else.
Now the bottle fly was sitting on the ragged pink meat, twitching its red head half off with its hind leg like it was satisfying a deep dirty itch. Thurman willed himself with everything pushing it all down, not to puke. But thoughts of the dead woman, gnawing and gnawing at the pink greasy meat and fat, and the fly…
“Dude? You okay? Don’t puke on my kitchen floor, man.” Larry was smiling hovering over Thurman, but there was an edge to his voice.
“I’m good.” Thurman reached toward the cold water faucet. He thought he would splash his face. Make a fresh start for more drinking. Sometimes puking helped. The girl’s death had affected him. Did she die on a full stomach? The nine or ten beers he drank were popping out on his forehead, in big warm drops, and running down his temples.
“Don’t turn that on.” Larry rushed over and grabbed the plate and clunked it down by the shiny toaster. The bone jumped up but landed on the plate. Larry halted and became still. This was no way to treat someone’s last meal. His face changed, and he eased the plate toward the toaster. Where drunk-ass wouldn’t knock it off. Larry adjusted the bone trying to line it up just right in the dried A-1 Steak Sauce like fitting a puzzle piece. His glassy boozy eyes staring—like it was sacred.
The fly buzzed in Thurman’s ear, and he swatted at it, “You bastard!” Then it did some crazy eights and landed right back on the bone. “What are ya doin’ Larry, savin’ that bone?” said Thurman, wiping sweat off his forehead. Thurman’s mouth puckered out, making an ugly look, but the nausea left. The telltale sign of the drunk came not so much in the slur of words, but in the ever-growing beer stain, darkening his Cabela’s T-shirt. And the flat-broke bumming of cigarettes held between yellowed fingernails. “Can I git a smoke?”
Earlier Thurman looked halfway decent wearing white ALL STAR Chucks, but the right one had a grass streak on it, and yellow spots. He slipped outside pissing by the rough unpainted garage. His light blue Rustler jeans had a dirt mark on the ass. Like a shit streak. Thurman thought they were going to the bar, but Larry made no move to get cleaned up.
Larry shrugged. Then flicked a cigarette from the pack at Thurman and lit one for himself. Larry, tall, dark-haired with working man muscles was wearing his blackened gray pants from a half day’s work at the tire shop, so he probably wasn’t going to the bar. Even dirty, Thurman knew Larry would pick up some fine piece. Thurman didn’t have any money anyhow.
The time of this woman’s last meal was a little unclear to Thurman. He didn’t even know she had died until Larry told him about her car accident, apparently pulling out in front of a Ford truck. T-boned like her last meal. Larry hated Fords. Like the Ford caused her to pull out or run the stop sign? Thurman wondered if Larry hadn’t gotten her a little drunk? It wasn’t quite clear, but he would put money on Larry. All Larry ever did besides work was sit in that kitchen, drinking and smoking.
Thurman knew her viewing was at Porter’s Funeral Home. She couldn’t have died the night before and already had a viewing could she? Unless the undertaker was on speed dial. In Thurman’s memory, Jenny wasn’t a woman at all, just a pretty little high school girl. He never actually talked to her, but he remembered her smile—which was never for him, but it glowed. Jenny glowed. She was beautiful.
Jenny Dunn was two grades behind him, and she was a popular girl. That had been ten miserable years ago. Jenny was just another schoolmate who once drifted through the hallways and gymnasium of Thurman’s life. High kicking at the pep sessions—Cheer-leading—and then she drifted from it, and now in death she came back with a surprising velocity. She had probably been sitting in the very kitchen table chair where he sat. His chest rose, and he tried to smell her, but all Thurman could smell was the constant cigarette burning in the glass “Midway Bar” ashtray. Thurman regretted not having enough about himself to chat with Jenny. He probably had said, “What’s up,” that’s what he usually said to the prettier school girls—surely he had said, “Hi.” But he knew there were people he had been afraid to talk to at school. The better people.
“When did this happen, Larry?” He knew it couldn’t have been too long ago since there weren’t any other dishes in the sink. Or was Larry preserving the plate and keeping the bone? Odd how the bone was still on the plate. Didn’t Larry have a dog out back? Thurman looked out the kitchen window, but only saw the dingy red dog house, bare ground, studded with dog turds, and no dog.
“What?” said Larry. He went back to the kitchen table, not sure if Thurman was over his near puking episode. Larry thought, you puke on my floor lightweight, and I’ll bust your fucking head. He was glad he took the plate from the sink. He wanted to show it to other people. It was cool, to say. “See that plate, that T-bone, that was Jenny’s last meal.” He lit another cigarette and studied Thurman. Thurman looked almost yellow like he had jaundice, probably an enlarged liver. His beer bloated face showed deep black circles under his eyes that had become permanent.
Thurman got two more beers out of the fridge and sat down. He did the quick alcoholic math. There was a full 12 pack still in there, plus four or five loose ones, so that was about 16—eight a piece, that relieved some of his anxiety. He put one in front of Larry. Fssk-ker-pop, dots of beer spotted the air.
“Boy, that’s too bad about Jenny.” said Thurman looking at Larry. Then he said what he really wanted to say. “Did you fuck her?” He smiled showing big boxy teeth. Something lecherous in that smile, made Larry think about something he saw when he was a kid… He could never quite get it out of his mind. Like a dirty joke aimed at the sunshine.
They walked across the Dollar General parking lot. Larry usually held his mother’s hand, but today he was blowing bubbles with a brand new orange plastic bubble blower, dipping it into the green bottle that said JOY LUCKY BUBBLES. Big fat iridescent soap bubbles that looked like gas in a mud puddle, distended and floated heavily away. Then an old man wearing jogging shorts and a white spongy headband, stood, staring at them. Blocking them. White sweat bands on his hairy bony wrist, hands on his bright yellow running shorts, running shoes pointed at them. The old jogger looked at his mom then at Larry, smiling at him. Showing yellow dentures. She grabbed Larry’s hand. “What do you want?” She was loud like the old man was a mean dog you yell at to back down.
“This.” He jerked down his running shorts and underwear. Larry couldn’t understand what he was seeing. A silver nest of hair, a large hanging penis with a blue vein, twitching in the sunshine. Larry’s mother screamed! Then they watched him run in long loping strides into an alley behind the store where the green overloaded trash dumpsters sat. Never caught or heard from again—besides in Larry’s mind.
“What?” said Larry, coming out of his childhood trauma, looking at Thurman. “Have a little respect for the dead.”
“She was good looking. That blonde hair and nice ass on ‘er. Yeah, I’ll bet you did fuck her.”
Larry didn’t like Thurman’s springy black hair that seemed to get flatter the drunker he got. Like someone pushed down on his head with a Frisbee or a trash can lid. He wondered how drunk Thurman might become. Larry smiled. It was fun to watch Thurman get wasted. Larry might slow down a bit. They sat in silence for a while. It was getting dark out, and it rumbled, like it might storm. The smell of rain came rising in the curtains over the sink. Lightning lit and relit the kitchen. Thunder boomed on top of booms! Thurman didn’t notice. He kept looking at the plate.
“Damn we got a storm coming.” said Larry looking at the curtains billowing over the sink.
“Can I have that T bone, Larry?”
“Why would you want that?”
“I don’t know. It’s just strange that Jenny’s gone from the world and that’s all there is left of her.”
“You didn’t even know her. And… I’m sure she left more behind, besides a steak bone with her slobber and teeth marks on it.”
“I told you, Larry. I went to school with her. Did she have kids?”
“I don’t know. Probably… Don’t all of those hot twats have kids?”
Thurman didn’t think someone as decent as Jenny would be at Larry’s, or with any people that Thurman ran with. But people changed. Thurman remembered when he was a square too, getting good grades, helping his Dad with roofing jobs on the weekends, and now look at him. Drunk almost everyday unless he was broke. Living at his mother’s trailer with his alcoholic brother Mark. Pitting their mother against one another. It started getting dark, not thunder cloud dark, but real darkness.
A cacophony of thoughts broke through like they always did after about ten beers. The handwritten will—the stove clicking—don’t look at his crotch. A handwritten will. The cat died. I’ll beat Mark’s ass—shoving Mom. Not valid unless Mom signs it. I love the Devil. That’s a lie! I need God’s help. I love the Devil. No, I love God. Don’t look at his crotch. Rain all at once, pounding, sizzling, silencing his thoughts. It flooded the bare spot around the doghouse. A car ground through the alley. It was a long black station wagon. Thurman glanced out the window and saw the dog’s hollow green eyes light up, inside the doghouse. Like it had no soul.
“Is that a hearse? Jesus.” Thurman’s tongue ran around his lips, dribbles of beer widened the beer stain. “How did she end up here for dinner? With you?” Thurman smiled like Larry was a piece of shit.
Larry smiled back, his sharp, handsome face made Thurman feel low and jealous. Larry rubbed his hands together, a cigarette bisected between his fingers. Two fingers across his lips, taking a drag. Smoke rolled from his mouth. “I know people.”
“Want to see her?” Thurman said this like the dead woman had become a kind of lively destination. Like a side show behind the carnival where they kept the pacing animals and the naked ladies who spread their legs wide open. Come and see!
“Who?” Larry played along.
“Jenny, at Porter’s Funeral Home.”
Larry got up, grabbed the plate, and walked over to the trash can. His tire blackened work boot stomped the foot pedal, and the sticking lid slammed into the plaster wall. He dumped the bone into the trash. The lid shut. The green bottle fly buzzed around in a frenzy, making origami in the air. Then it buzzed away toward the bathroom and landed on the toilet seat. Then it hopped to a wet toothbrush.
“Fuck that, let’s get the grill going. I’ve got two more steaks in the fridge. You hungry?”
Image by Bruno from Pixabay – T Bone Steak on a plate with potatoes.
literally stories 
Christopher
This captures the odd feeling of seeing the last bit of immortality. The last opened cigarette pack on a table, its owner suddenly gone, unaware that was the last pack. Immortal because “no one lives forever except me” exists in the minds of the young. A silly belief, but it is/was there.
Excellent work once again.
Leila
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Hi Leila
Good way to put it. The departed’s belongings radiate from the ordinary to something ghostly.
This story was sparked by a real conversation. Immortality, the fool’s gold of the youth.
Thanks
Christopher
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Hi Christopher,
This is one for the metaphor hunters!!!
The two characters were drinkers but there was a difference between them and one of them felt this more than the other. The inclusion of the dead girl left one with a possible conquest and the other with jealousy. It is so sad that was what was left of the memory of the girl.
The two of them are as destructive as each other.
Sparse, bleak but real.
This is as good as we have seen from you! (Till the next one!!!!)
Brilliant.
All the very best my fine friend.
Hugh
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A grim and grisly piece, in so many respects! But of course it’s the detail and those expertly laid down gritty touches that carry the reader through the scene. Definitely not comfortable reading but very well written!
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Thanks for your kind words! Glad it came across like that.
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Hi Hugh
Yes, funny how people perceive the departed. Almost like witnesses to a crime. You never know what will come out of their mouths.
These two are definitely flawed. The girl’s memory was left in the rough hands of drinkers.
Thanks
Christopher
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This is a grim little thing, isn’t it? the gruesome idea of his wanting the bone made me wonder about having lunch to be honest. I didn’t take to either of these characters and to be honest wouldn’t want to meet them but the fact that I have such a strong reaction is credit to the visible way you have written them. Excellent writing I think – thank you – dd
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Hi Diane
Glad these characters caused this reaction. The grimness struck to the plate. Thanks for your excellent comments! CJA.
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Gritty, grizzly, and an excellent portrayal of a couple of losers. The details sparkle in the grimness.
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Glad you liked the story! Thanks
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Christopher
OMG and WOW again!! This thing is another masterpiece. SO vivid and true and lifelike that it pulses, glows, and burns. I have met these characters, and even gotten drunk with them in past lives. Not that I’m proud of it, but I’d be lying if I didn’t admit it. I have met them, and they are so real in this piece that they actually live and breathe.
The dead girl, or woman, who never appears onstage, is an utterly brilliant effect. She has disappeared from the earth in visible form like we all will (we know not when) but her presence is almost more profound than the two drunks who have boozed themselves into ghosts of themselves.
The ending says it all. It seems “random” like life, on one level, but on another level, it is packed, jammed, crammed, and LOADED with meaning. This is fiction writing at its most intense and most beautiful, no matter how lost these characters are. The subtle meanings predominate.
This story is cinematic. Alfred Hitchcock called the episodes of his 1950s TV programs “playlets.” This is a playlet (or a one-act play) that could be filmed like a Sam Shepard work – but only if you could find the right actors. If they were still young enough, I would cast John Malkovitch and Gary Sinese. This should be adapted for the stage and it should appear in the little theater scene of Chicago where some of Shepard’s and Tennessee Williams’ works used to premier.
That cross that pops off the fridge and then travels back to it and sticks on upside down is a massive thing. As gigantic as a raging flood or a mountain, and as small and natural as an apparently random happenstance.
The way you handled the characters’ minds and memories in this piece astonishes and is amazing. And we can SEE everything in this tale while sensing the life, the sinister and even somehow weirdly happy life (just because it’s life) pulsing beneath.
They used to call Kurt Vonnegut’s work “black humor.” This is black humor, tragi-comedy, symbolic realism, realistic symbolism, minimalism turned into maximalism. It’s Hemingway’s Iceberg Principle, a small part showing and the vast mass of the truth beneath.
There is not a single word in this piece that shouldn’t be here. Not only that, but every single word also appears in the exact right place. A prose style that truly, truly does rival Raymond Carver’s, natural, flowing, compact. And a sensibility behind the words that is intense, profound, “strange” in the best of ways.
AND there is Laugh-out-loud Humor in this piece! Like Dostoevsky, who could make the most brutal things seem funny while also pulling on the reader’s heart strings (because death is so sad and lost lives are sad). Congrats on another great work; I wish I could write fiction like you can.
Dale
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PS
Two of Dostoevsky’s early novels were called POOR FOLK and THE INSULTED AND INJURED (in English trans.). These could be/should be shadow titles for this story…
The dog in his dog house surrounded by feces is another great character and symbolic effect….he IS these two characters….
D
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Hello DWB
Wow! This is a great review!
I like how you have encountered these people before. US alcoholics and drug addled and or addicted thrive and flounder with people like these two. And we do indeed talk about the craziest things trying to insert our machismo on whomever is around.
That is a really interesting point that you make about the two men turning into ghosts themselves. I have felt this way in the long suffering bouts of alcoholism. “I’m half the man I used to be.” (The B’s).
The years fly and the regrets pile up like a yard-full of dirty laundry. Impossible to clean or get clean without an act of Providence or hitting a bottom that is finally understood. A banana peel away from the grave.
I’m glad the ending came across, exactly what I was going for! Drunks are random and insane.
Wow that’s high praise about Sam Shepherd! I just ventured into his play, “Buried Child.” He was so great and it’s kind of sad that people, (I guess people who aren’t in the know,) don’t know how great of a writer he was. I came late to the party myself.
John Malkovitch and Gary Sinese would be awesome as these two!
I was hoping the cross might make an impact. My mind seems to roll into the polarity of religion.
It is uncanny how you point out this happiness underneath their lives, because even though some are revolted by these two. We can see them in a different way. From a perspective of drinkers and fornicators and doers of selfish pleasures. The sojourn of the drunkard, which is a world unto itself.
Black humor love it!
I really need to get back on “Crime and Punishment.” And I’m definitely going to check out POOR FOLK and THE INSULTED AND INJURED.
The dog somehow came alive when the station wagon or hearse came crawling through the alley flashing its lights. Writing fiction is a strange thing of perpetual appearances of things that were not there a sentence before.
Thanks Dale, for all of your great insights into this story. Marvelous!
CJA
PS: I just read Chekhov’s “A Bad Business” that’s a great one.
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Christopher
Yes, there was a friend of mine who was a truck driver and another who was a mechanic. I was in that kitchen and the only difference was we also had hard liquor with us. But I’m sure these two in your story also get their hard liquor. If they made it to the bar, hard liquor was probably on their menu.
Many of your tales also remind me very much of the photographs of Walker Evans. He traveled with his friend James Agee through the South and they took pictures (Walker) and wrote nonfiction prose (Agee) of and about the lives of poor sharecroppers.
Your two characters also remind me of Vladimir and Estragon from Samuel Beckett’s play WAITING FOR GODOT.
Sam Shepard is, big time right now, a VERY underappreciated American writer. He belongs on the shelf beside Tennessee Williams and Eugene O’Neill. How interesting that all three of these playwrights were MASSIVE alcoholics. Shepard and O’Neill escaped THE BOTTLE, but Williams never did.
Your stories are living things. They move, breathe, pulse, reflect, unwind, uncoil, strike, retreat, reveal, just like REAL LIFE, but with that fictional pungency that makes story-telling a thing humans cannot live without.
Gotta run for now and drive one of the kids to the doctor (routine appointment). More later!…
Dale
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Hi Dale
Drinkers love kitchen tables. I can’t seem to separate these places from my fiction. It’s a kitchen where a friend lived and I suppose we were both of these people. Maybe more Larry on the outside, but some mentally ill Thurman too, (at least me). lol.
I could just envision you with your road warrior friends hitting the Jim Beams.Talking everything under sun!
Agee and Walker sound pretty amazing. Doing real life journalism in the South.
Writers and alcoholism seem to be constant companions. Sam Shepard’s “Indianapolis Highway 74” has got to be one of my all time favorite short stories.
Thanks for the kind comments!
Christopher
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PS
The Evans and Agee book (photographs and creative nonfiction prose) is called LET US NOW PRAISE FAMOUS MEN.
(A classic that was initially rejected by all the hoity-toity NYC publishers.)
d
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Christopher
It was a sad day when I finally realized I had to quit drinking entirely, or ruin my mind, AND (therefore) my reading and writing abilities. I was also worried about dying from the drink (like they had told me I might), but the prospect of having a ruined mind and being nothing more than a booze hound was (and is) more horrifying than death. (Especially now when I don’t believe that death is the end. See the song by Bob Dylan, “Death Is Not the End,” in which he isn’t being ironic. They asked him if he meant it and he said, “Yes. I’m a true believer.” And he has reiterated that assertion many times since then. I have a feeling that Johnny Cash and Elvis both had something to do with this.)
Dale
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Dale
Yes, to quote AA: hitting a bottom you understand. Or trading a drink for everything else.
I’m super glad you came out on the other side! And I’m grateful to have met you. It helps my sobriety talking about it. Remembering what I am. To drink is to die, then the prospect of hell is not a big beautiful deal. lol.
It’s neat that Bob D is a believer he is such a mystic.“Death Is Not the End,” that’s going to be interesting! Dylan’s pretty great!
I wanted to let you know, you, DWB were mentioned in a wonderful comment at the bottom of the comments on this story. I wrote one back, too.
Thanks
Christopher
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CJA
Thanks for letting me know about Maria’s comment. I did see it, and am planning on writing back right after this. She’s a great commentator and reader!
Yes, no drinking at all – not even one sip – ever, is the absolute, iron-clad rule for the true alcoholic who’s escaped the death-in-life that is hardcore alcoholism. There’s a massive difference between alcohol abuse, dependence, and full-blown alcoholism – a huge one. I can NEVER stop after one. I couldn’t then, and I wouldn’t be able to now. There were days when I stayed up 72 hours nonstop drinking and had a hangover for a week. Truly like one of the circles in hell in Dante’s Inferno. I’m such a sure-fire and firm non-drinker now that I don’t even mind if people drink around me. But real drunks are usually bores, repeating themselves all the time and eventually becoming utterly incoherent, falling down, throwing up, etc. And their eyes are dead, at least while they’re dead drunk.
The influence of Carl Jung on AA is a hugely interesting topic. AA never worked for me in the group sense, but (paradoxically) I did all of it on my own.
DWB
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Hi DWB
You’re welcome! I thought it was a pretty great tribute to your skills!
Sounds like we are in the real alcoholic club. Abstinence is the only answer. Any willful sip would be a total catastrophe.
I went heavy on AA for 11-12 years then I moved and moved again and just stopped going.
Whatever works for a person is the key. I’m like you I have no desire for it. It’s fun to write about it.
Circles of hell is right! I remember those sickening hangovers so demoralizing finding an empty wallet and the car wrecked sitting at the junk yard. lol.
Yes real drunks aren’t so great. Excellent description… “And their eyes are dead, at least while they’re dead drunk.”
I always felt stupid and low all the time. Just like Denis Johnson said in”Work” for once we didn’t feel like something was wrong with us…”
I would like to learn about Carl Jung’s influence on AA. He is such an interesting topic! Bill Wilson was a pretty good writer. Those stories in “The Big Book” are very compelling.
My next story on LS is called, “Relapse at the End of the World.” About a couple of AA/drunks living next to an air base.
Thanks for your comments!
CJA
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Christerfer,
“I know people,” Larry says. Ecce Homo. They are us and we them and we are all together.
It ain’t pretty, but what did we expect?
Nice job! — gerry
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Hi Gerry
Indeed we are. “Behold the man.” The world is a rough beast.
Thanks!
Christopher
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Hi Christopher,
I’m not sure what I am enjoying more, your story or the comments section! It certainly makes for animated reading and deeper reflection. Sorry just kidding – but I do love and learn from the comments notably DWB’s lesson on modern literature. What a great compliment for your work!
I’m not a real drinker but having kicked around a few sailors’ bars in various places, I feel like I’ve witnessed this type of conversation. The gallows humor – “T-boned like her last meal.” – the personalization of someone you barely knew and all the drinking kind of talk rings clear. I can see them sitting before me. Great perusing their thoughts, and keeping the talk and pace going. An unholy conversation with memories popping into the mind the way they do.
DWB is right, it is a one- act play with a storm brewing. Great stuff.
my best, Maria
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Hi Maria!
Happy holidays. Thanks for reading my commentary. You are a great commentator with a wonderful voice!
Dale
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Hi Maria
Wow this is a great comment!
I was just telling Dale (DWB) today on another site how much I benefit from his comments, and how others could too, if they stopped by and read them.
Dale is an absolute treasure to writers’ and the writer’s craft. He is highly educated, but also very down to earth. The things he knows about literature are amazing! And he’s a great writer, too. I’m honored to call him a friend.
I’m glad the drinkers came through with a ring of authenticity. I’m a recovering alcoholic so I’m writing what I know, lol.
Thank you with tons of gratitude for your excellent comments!
Best
Christopher
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If Bukowski and Proust had a baby it’d grow up to write stories like this. The depth of character, the use of metaphor (but completely uncloyingly) made this a real pleasure to read – masterful writing.
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Hi Paul
Thanks for your kind comments! I really appreciate it!
Christopher
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