Signing off dead drunk
This ghost, whatever it is, Saint Stephan, or someone else, or someone who never existed. It gives me this bottle of Johnnie Walker, Red Label, I drink it. I don’t know if it gave it to me, or if the bottle showed up on the table courtesy of the ghost, because in my mind I wished it. Or it materialized directly from my wishes, having nothing to do with the ghost.
So you want to blame the whole thing on me? You want to argue the bottle would have suddenly appeared on the table simply as a result of my wishes and had nothing to do with the ghost?
There’s no way! There’s no way that would have happened without him here. That bottle is directly linked to the presence of the ghost, whether I wished it or not.
Calm down, you say. All right – I’m calm. So what do you say next?
You say –
Fine, you say, but then you can’t blame the ghost if you took the drink. If you had a hundred bottles of whisky in front of you, that doesn’t mean you have to drink it, and if you had all the whisky in the world right in front of you, that doesn’t mean you have to drink it. Or if you had just one small shot glass of whisky in front of you, that doesn’t mean you have to drink it.
And what do I say?
Fine, I say, no one’s talking about drinking all the whisky in the world, or even a hundred fucking bottles. But whoever heard of drinking just one goddamn shot glass? That’s ridiculous. That’s insane. No one does that. If you drink, you drink at least a glass, at least two glasses, for it to mean anything. Understand me?
No, I don’t suppose you do. You’re like that goddamn ghost. So above everything, so high and mighty. Yeah, and what made HIM that way?
I don’t trust that thing. Do you see any reason why I should trust? The way he talks to me, he can’t be good. He’s arrogant. The way he talks to me, so damn condescending, like he has all the answers to the questions I can’t answer and he’s laughing at me, all smug and all. He can’t be any good. It’s all covered up with this fake kindness. I’m telling you. Ah, come on, I can see it a mile away, I can see right goddamn through it. Like, oh, I’m so concerned for you and my heart goes out to you and is breaking for your sake under this, under this cover of goodness.
Yeah yeah yeah yeah right!
All sarcastic and all. With its head up, watching me from half-closed eyes, with that smirk on its face, wiping its nose and snorting down at me. All full of ill will.
Who is he? What does he want? Why did he appear when all I wanted was to be in this diner? And why did he leave? Is he still there? Maybe he’s still here, but he made himself disappear without leaving, the way they can do, you know, be in a place without you seeing them, and he’s waiting for some new moment to pop up again. But what is that moment? Why did he come here to bother me when all I wanted was to be in this diner? Did he think he’d be some kind of help, or what is it, what is it, why, why?!? What do I have to do to make him show up again? Hey! What the hell do I have to do to make you show up again?! Is there some kind of secret, or some special magical words I have to utter, or go abracadabra or voodoo-yoodo or what what?! Hey, I said come out, come out already and talk to me like a man, you son of a bitch, you fucking son of a bitch. I said come on out!!!
You stand me a drink, a whole fucking bottle, for chrissakes, you say, here, drink it drink it, you know you want it, so just go ahead and do it, nothing to be ashamed of, go on, Jack, you know that’s what you want, so just go ahead and do it, go on go on drink drink drink and I fucking drink and I drink and you fucking disappear, you disappear, just because you felt like it, or I don’t know why, and here I am, drinking a whole bottle alone, now what the fuck is that, you tell me, what the fuck is that?!?
ARE YOU SAINT STEPHAN?!?!!!
God damn you, God damn you!!!
Ah, what the fuck. What the fuck.
They once accused me of being Welsh Losser. Tried to beat it out of me, beat the crap out of me. Beat it out of me for nothing. Can you believe that? Me. Welsh Losser?
That stupid kid. I tried to help him. Everything I did for him. Everything I taught him. Everything I did. But he goes along with the cockamamie theory of Mack based on some piece of evidence that wasn’t any evidence at all. Like the fucking handkerchief in “Othello”. He just goes along with Mack, believing him like he was some kind of god, without question, without blinking, just went right along with it, tied me up and beat the crap out of me. Oh, so faithful, so dedicated, so disciplined, so goddamn unswerving, so devoted. Yeah right give me a break will you just give me a goddamn fucking break! Ha ha ha ha haaaaa!!! I can’t take it. It’s too fucking much! Ha ha haaaaaaa!!! So stupid, so fucking stupid, him, Mack, and what about me?! What about me?!? What about all the time I put in for him, all the years I worked, never asking for anything, a raise, a promotion, never taking a stinking day off, never wanting any kind of special recognition, just happy to go in every day and do the work, give it my all, because I believed in it, because I liked it, because I couldn’t wait to get there and in every way I knew how work for truth and justice and then he suddenly doesn’t know me. And then suddenly, I’m Welsh Losser! As if he didn’t know who Welsh Losser was, after all these years, yeah, and what the fuck he looked like. Yeah, so suddenly, I’m Welsh Losser. Oh, for chrissakes, give me a break, what was that, anyway, some kind of fucking sick joke, or what? What the fuck was that what what what?!?
Me, Welsh Lossser, me! Can you beat that?! Me!!!
They turn my place upside down when I was at a weak point, maybe when I needed help the most, just that one time and then I’d be okay again, and maybe I’d be okay for good, and so they find this old file with my picture in it and William Lee written on the back and they say that makes me Welsh Losser. William Lee. Yeah, that’s right, William Lee was one of the aliases I worked under in the work of the prophet William S. Burroughs. Look it up, you stupid fucking assholes! It’s all right there in black and white – Billy Lee! Billy Lee, you stupid fucking pricks, Billy fucking Lee – William Lee. William Lee, Billy Lee. Get it, get it – William Lee!
As if Welsh Losser could ever have anything to do with William Lee, or one name be a pseudonym or anagram of some kind of the other. And my name, meanwhile, my real name, Jack Step, not worth a shit.
You stupid fucking assholes!!!
You’re supposed to know your sources. You’re supposed to know what materials you’re working from, but you don’t know shit! I know, but you don’t, and it turns out, I end up suffering because of you, because of the fact that you don’t know anything. Because you don’t know anything, I have to take it. You’re supposed to be professionals but your lack of the adequate and requisite knowledge for your jobs and your positions renders you completely unprofessional. But then, as in the sweet ironies of life, you, thinking you’re professional, but actually being ignorant as hell and completely unprofessional, make ME out to be the one who’s unprofessional! Me!!! And then you beat the fucking crap out of me!
You fucking idiots!!! Ha ha ha ha haaaaaaa!!!
I’m Jack Step, goddamn it, Jack Step! I’m Jack Step, I’m Jack Step, JACK STEP!!!
And who are you? Hey, who the fuck are you?! Hey! You Saint Stephan? Answer the question! Who the fuck are you, Saint Stephan or who who?!?
Come back here! I said, hey, come back here! I said hey come back!!!
Don’t just leave me here, you fucking son of a bitch!
COME BACK!!!
Over and out.
Jack Step, May 5, 2014