Out of Gin

by Kevin White

I had been in the crawlspace for a while, cobweb strands like birthday streamers. I was thinking about juniper. I considered a garden. I debated buying gloves, growing the plants, finding a distributor.

I had stepped onto a wet batch of wood planks that rotted. The house had been rotting for a while: a Cape Cod built during FDR. But I didn’t care about that.

My cell phone bleated from up above in a room over. I had called the dentist for an appointment; that was probably him confirming the time. I had been bleeding from the gums too much and I didn’t like the looks of it. The drinking may have something to do with it; Google wasn’t much help.

I drink for hours. The hours become like crumbs I can just wipe off the counter and onto the floor. They become some laughs, some sexual desire of flesh, some long bouts of dehydrated pissing. It’s a dark yellow unlike the sun and I have to fix it. But water has no taste. Bombay with a little lime makes the summer taste better.

People have been making all sorts of suggestions to me lately, but I’m really liking the cultivating thing, where I can tend to plants and figure out how to turn the end result into a drinkable form of life. It would save me time from driving out to the store and I wouldn’t have to worry about hurting my wallet as much.

I’m pretty sure I did something to my ankle, so I’m just going to hang out down here for a while. I have nowhere to be. I have nowhere to be and that’s okay.

I scooped up a fingertip worth of dirt from the ground and pushed myself to a little section of wall that’s bare of markings. I traced a square of garden, pre-planning for the future business. I could name it after myself or I could make it totally esoteric or obscure. I’d ask some friends of mine but they are not as creative as me.

I looked over the dirt outline of my empire. I looked all over the dirt floor of the crawlspace and I figured I could start down here, get a sunlamp or hook up a water spritzer. I clapped my hands loudly and cheered. This was a plan. I’ve tapped into an electric idea and I couldn’t wait to get started. A supply that wouldn’t end, an endless well of drink.

I tried to stand but that didn’t work out too well. I lost my footing and hit my face on a support beam. I cracked a tooth and started to bleed. I knew I should have called the dentist earlier, but I had been thinking about other things way too much. I let my tongue roll around the spot where I hurt myself, all I tasted was blood and the bitter taste of many earlier drinks. I let it coat my mouth, but it didn’t have the same feeling as before. It never does.

I heard my cell phone bleat again. Had to be important.

“Whoever you are,” I whispered with a tooth half hanging out, “bring some ice and a lime. Don’t worry, there’s enough for us both.”

Kevin White hates whipped cream; he thinks it’s pointless. He keeps his great grandfather’s fake leg in his bedroom closet. He thinks the worst actor in the world is Jonah Hill.