“Water”
They ran every Saturday early in the morning before the central California sun really started to broil. The landscape around the UC Davis campus was brown and flat and perfect for running if you didn’t mind the heat.
Shannon was lean and stringy and tanned from years of running. At 38 years old she was in the best shape of her life. Matt was in pretty good shape too, with his well-muscled physique and lantern jaw. They rarely spoke during the Saturday morning run. Sometimes she wished they could run all day, every day, since that was the only time they ever seemed to get along.
On this day the run was going well. The sun was just gathering strength, a burning coin in the gray sky. Shannon’s body was humming with the energy that comes from a good hard run. By the time they reached the campus and slowed to a fast walk Shannon had that tired and relaxed feeling that was not far from the way she felt after Matt gave her a good railing. That was the other time they didn’t fight, come to think of it. And they couldn’t do that 24 hours a day, either.
She became aware, quite suddenly, that she was thirsty.
“Is there a water fountain at the Ag building?”
Matt grunted, his usual response that meant “I don’t know.” But they both walked toward the building.
As they looked for a water fountain Shannon was aware that she wasn’t just thirsty. She was absolutely parched. Shannon didn’t think she’d felt this kind of thirst in a long time—she was an admitted health nut who followed all the rules: keep your carbs low, your protein high. Get lots of fibrous veggies in with each meal. And water: drink at least 8 glasses a day. She was almost fanatical about her water drinking. So how’d she get so damned dehydrated all of a sudden?
When they found the water fountain she felt a rush of relief. The water that came out was tepid and tasted of old steel but she drank it in big gasping gulps.
“Good lord, Shanny. You thirsty or what?” said Matt.
She kept drinking. She could feel her stomach filling up like a balloon. Then, abruptly, a tipping point was reached, and she couldn’t drink any more. She stood there at the fountain, breathing heavy, feeling a little sick.
Matt bent to the water fountain and took a sip, giving her a quizzical look as he drank.
And that’s when it happened. The feeling was as familiar as waking up or falling sleep. Everything became hazy around the edges and a little off-kilter. Aside from that there was a sort of warm glow inside of her, a Christmasy feeling, and the day’s light seemed imbued with energy and vibration. She walked around a bit on unsteady legs, shielding her eyes from the sun with her right hand.
“Bright,” she said. “ ‘s too bright…”
“What the hell?” said Matt. “What’s the matter with you?”
She walked a few paces around the big open plaza in front of the Ag building. She tried to walk in a straight line and couldn’t help but keel in one direction or the other, like a listing ship. A dim sense of alarm: something is very wrong with me. It seemed to be someone else thinking that, someone locked away in a soundproof room in the back of her brain.
And then the realization came to her. She knew exactly what was happening. She looked at Matt and slurred,
“I doan believe this...I’m drunk, I’m fugging DRUNK!”
“What the hell are you talking about?” said Matt. “Drunk how?”
“I drang from th’ water fountain, now I’m drunk,” she said. ‘I don’t know how…”
“I drank the water too, Shanny. It’s just water. It’s not booze.”
Shannon groaned and ran towards a copse of bushes that lined the plaza. She didn’t quite make it. About halfway there she stopped, bent forward, and vomited. Everything came out of her in a rush, splattering all over the hot white concrete. It came and came and when it was finished she hitched and trembled.
Matt walked up and bent forward to examine the stuff that had come out of her.
It was brackish, dark-colored. The smell was unmistakable.
“Jesus Christ,” he said. He looked at Shannon. “This is whiskey.”
“You need to take me to a hospital,” said Shannon.
They drove along in silence in Matt’s Subaru. Every once in a while he would give her a glance. She was leaned against the passenger window, mouth hanging open. She opened her bleary, bloodshot eyes and looked at Matt.
“You’re completely fucked up,” he said.
They drove another few minutes in silence. Then Matt said,
“Shanny? I know you’re sick, k, but we have to talk about this. When did you drink all that whiskey?”
“What?” she gave him an incredulous look. “I barely drink, Matt. That Nor-Cal margarita I had at the tailgate was the last time I drank anything. A month ago.”
“Oh really? I just saw you puke out about a gallon of rye, Shanny. I coulda smelled it from a mile away. So what happened? You go out last night, and not tell me? You said you were going to bed early, so what the fuck really happened?”
“I didn’t go anywhere! I watched Netflix and was asleep by 10:30.”
“And polished off a fifth while watching Netflix?”
“You know what Matt? You know what? FUCK YOU.”
“See? You don’t usually talk to me that way. You’re shitfaced!
Unbelievable.”
They pulled up to the hospital. Matt was dumbfounded. She’d never said “fuck you” to him before except for one time, when they went out for dinner at an Italian restaurant and got into a fight over dessert.
Come to think of it, she’d been drunk then too.
The doctor looked like Tom Bosley, but with moles all over his neck. He seemed mildly amused by the story they’d told him. He and Matt kept exchanging glances, as if Shannon didn’t notice them doing that.
“Bloodwork looks normal,” he said. “Your protein levels are high, but nothing drastic.”
“Protein levels are always high when you’ve been drinking,” said Matt, looking at Shannon. “I did a piss test for a job once after a night out with the bros and they crap-canned the results because my kidneys were making too much protein. Went and drank about a gallon of water, came back...passed it. Bang-o.”
The doctor flashed a perfunctory, condescending smile. “I can’t see anything wrong here. If you want my advice, here it is.” He turned to Shannon.“Have you considered counseling?”
“Counseling for what?”
“How many drinks a week would you say you consume?”
Shannon shook her head.
“I’m a moderate drinker. Matt knows that. How long have we been dating, Matt? Do you ever remember seeing me drunk?”
Matt remembered the Italian restaurant. “Maybe once or twice, but not often,” he admitted.
“One of the signs of problem drinking is hiding the behavior,” said the doctor. “If your long run hadn’t caused you to throw up, no one would have ever known about the little binge you had last night. Am I right about that?” Shannon felt a sudden wave of loathing for the two of them, with their bogus Looks of Concern. In that moment she realized she hated Matt, had probably hated him for some time, but never gotten around to admitting it to herself. Once you got past the ripped torso and the chiseled good looks what was left behind was a patronizing, arrogant dickhead, a scrim of self-confidence stuck on a hollow man. He wasn’t on her side, had never been on her side. What they had was good sex and little else. Fundamentally, she disliked him.
Shannon decided she needed to leave. Her clothes were hanging on a bag on the door and as she walked out in her paper examination gown she had the strangest feeling that Matt and the doctor were staring at her ass with lascivious, reptilian eyes. Maybe moving their hands furtively over one another’s hard-ons. Getting ready to do whatever it took to get rid of that disgusting stuff in their balls, whether that meant raping her or merely jerking each other off.
She looked around the room and saw a long forceps, cold and silver on a piece of wax paper. If they reached for her she’d take that forceps and jam it right into the eye of whomever was closest.
But then she looked back to see the doctor filling out paperwork and Matt digging around on the edge of his nostril with his thumb.
“I’m going to get dressed,” she said, and left the room, thinking as she walked out that she might be going crazy.
She walked around downtown Davis for the rest of the afternoon, feeling that nausea and headache that comes when you start to sober up. Pre-hangover. All around were the college kids going to and fro on a Saturday, stupid and energetic youth. She felt compelled to follow them, and walked into a sports bar with the ineluctable dread of a dream.
As she walked through the door she felt again that intense thirst. Dolph Lundgren was running a dirty white towel over the surface of the bar and pouring drinks and when she found a stool at the bar he flashed his big white teeth as if for an inspection. She ordered a beer. Dolph reached into a freezer and pulled out a mug that emerged from a cloud of frosty condensation. Her thirst was almost unbearable. He put the frosty mug down on the bar and poured the beer into it and she watched the sides of the mug go cloudy as the beer hit the cold glass. Dolph walked away and she downed the beer in three long guzzles. Then she put it down on the bar and wiped the back of her mouth and belched. Someone across the room clapped and whistled.
“It tastes like water,” Shannon said, staring into the empty glass with a feeling of wonder.
“I’ll bet it does,” said Dolph. “You wanna open a tab?”
“Sure,” said Shannon. “And keep them coming.”
She pulled a credit card from her handbag, set it on the counter, and when Dolph brought the second beer she drank it down. God, it was good. Crystal-clear spring water. She felt the sickness and hangover grog dissipate. She felt much, much better.
Dolph winked, took her credit card, and set it on a little shelf over the cash register.
She stayed there the rest of the afternoon, drinking beer and watching the TV over the bar. She felt normal again, the way she usually felt. She had no explanation for what had happened and wasn’t thinking too hard about finding one. She just knew she didn’t want to see Matt any more. The thought made her feel good. He’d texted her, called her. She’d put the phone on silent mode and resolved not to answer it for at least the rest of the day. Later on she would tell him it was over.
8 beers later, the urge to pee hit her. She told Dolph to pour her another one. Dolph raised his eyebrows, thinking to himself he hadn’t seen many women who could put them down this fast, but went ahead and poured another.
The restroom was clean and quiet and she was alone. She went into one of the booths, sat on the toilet, and let loose the flood. The relief was intense. She thought about what had happened that day and wondered if the whole thing had been some anomaly of perception, a shared delusion between herself and Matt. Maybe, when they were running, they’d run through some sort of chemical cloud. Maybe they’d eaten something strange.
Wait. That had to be it!
They’d had breakfast at that hippie place. Omelettes. MUSHROOM omelettes. Maybe the mushrooms had gotten mixed up with, well, another type of mushroom. It wasn’t the craziest idea ever, considering the trustafarian staffers who made and served the food.
She realized that it was an absurd theory, but was so relieved by having an explanation, any explanation, that she didn’t care.
Two women came in to use the restroom. One sat down in the stall next to Shannon and the other checked her makeup in the mirror. They were in the middle of a conversation, the girl in the stall adding emphasis to the story with shitgrunts.
“So I told the lady look: we don’t have your fucking (uhhhh) bag, right? So she threatened to call the store manager. So, (uhhhh) I told her you’ve already REACHED the store manager, and I wanted to call her a cunt too, but I didn’t.”
“Oh my God,” said the girl at the mirror. “For real?”
“For realzies,” said the grunting girl. Then there was silence for a half-minute while she concentrated on finishing her business; meanwhile, Shannnon let loose with another flood.
“Errrgggg.....ahhh...did you bring a fucking bottle of whiskey in here?”
“Noooo,” said the girl at the mirror. Then: “I smell it too, really strong. EWWW.”
It took a moment for Shannon to realize she was the source of the smell.
There was an uncomfortable silence which meant, Shannon knew, the two bitches were telepathically communicating about whoever it was in the other stall. How fucked up would you have to be to take a drink into the toilet with you, they were wondering.
Finally the grunting girl flushed and opened the stall. As the two of them walked out she could hear them whispering and giggling. Then she was alone. She finished, stood up, and looked into the toilet.
It was amber-colored. The spicy smell was unmistakable.
Rye Whiskey.
She sat at the bar, walking around the thing in her mind, careful not to prod it. She thought if she did she might start bawling, at which time Dolph would finally decide she was drunk and kick her out, and she didn’t want to be alone. As it was he’d already told her to “slow it down” after beer #15 and a shot of rye; that too had been as tasteless and odorless as water.
Now the bar was filling up with the nighttime college party crowd, all in their going-out clothes, and here she was, a good 15 years older than most of them, still wearing her running outfit from that morning. She was just starting on beer #16 when a beefy kid with bushy black eyebrows sidled up to the bar and said “Hi there.”
He was a good-looking kid, for sure—probably about 22, square-jawed but not too pretty which, at the moment, held an appeal for Shannon. She though for a fleeting moment about picking him up...he probably had a permanent hard-on, a purple little stabby-stick. The thought made her giggle; the kid’s big eyebrows bunched together.
“I’m sorry,” said Shannon. “You caught me at a bad time. I thought of something funny right before you sat down.”
“No problemo,” said the kid. “I’m Brad.”
She started to giggle again. She wasn’t sure why, maybe just because it was the most generic, shitty name in the world. This time a dull, stupid look of anger crossed the kid’s face. That turned her on just a bit—to jerk him around like that with a couple words. Then the dumb confident sneer came back. The look of Brad. All this alcohol and she was still sober. Too sober to have random sex with a little college boy? Would she feel anything during sex? Maybe she should try some hard drugs and see if that had any effect. Sure, she thought: maybe she’d do cocaine, and shit out baby powder.
The giggles came back.
“Okay,” said Brad. “I get it. See you later…”
“No! wait! I’m sorry. I’m a little tipsy,” she said. “Don’t go.”
Brad’s face lit up like the tacky Christmas lights behind the bar. She figured she’d ride this kid’s face for all it was worth and sort out her new, strange reality in the morning. Hell, maybe a good hard railing would sort everything out.
“Wanna go back to your place?” she said. Brad’s mouth hung open and then widened into a grin.
Brad’s place was depressing. Depressing because it more than anything reflected how young he really was and the fact that he still lived with his “bros.” There were bean bags and video games and pizza boxes strewn about. Between the TV and the couch was a coffee table littered with bodybuilding magazines, diet coke cans, and a sculpture of Darth Vader holding a pink lightsaber aloft in some sort of a samurai pose. Despite the trash everywhere the place felt curiously vacant, as if the personalities of the young men who lived there were not substantial enough to leave any impression. It had the look and feel of a weekend hotel room in Vegas, and it made Shannon aware of her age, because this was the kind of place she would’ve spent time in 15 years ago, trying to impress idiots like “Brad.”
“You wanna drink? I’m gonna make a gin and tonic,” he said.
“Sure,” she said. She had to pee yet again. “Can I use your bathroom?”
“Of course,” said Brad, a flirtatious lilt in his voice—like there was something sexy about going to the bathroom. What the hell? “It’s the first door on your left down the hallway.”
The bathroom was a guy’s bathroom. One towel hanging on a hook that she could smell from across the room. Shaving products, razors. She let loose another torrent of whiskeypiss, flushed, and went back to the living room.
“Here you go,” said Brad. He handed her a watery, flat-looking G&T. “Wanna watch some TV?” he said. Without waiting for an answer he walked to the living room and sat on the couch in front of the coffee table with the pizza boxes and the Darth Vader sculpture and patted the spot next to him. Watching him as he turned his attention to the television, she wondered idly if there was any chance she’d come within spitting distance of an orgasm tonight. She took a swallow of the gin and tonic.
She almost gagged. The taste was overpowering, a bitterness that was not the tonic.
As she watched him flipping through the channels with that little smirk on his face, she realized what it was. In any other circumstance, the alcohol would have masked the taste. How many girls had he done this to?
Before he could look over, she poured half the drink down the kitchen sink.
You should leave, she told herself. Now.
But she couldn’t. She felt like she might collapse. She sat on the couch with wobbly legs. Even the small bit of the drug she’d ingested made her feel strange. Brad turned toward her. His head turned slowly, slowly, the leering smile growing wide to show his big perfect teeth, then slowly the head turned back again, and she could hear the tendons in his neck creak.
She was drowsy. Unbelievably drowsy. Like the night after she’d run the LA Marathon and eaten two large pizzas. The feeling right before she’d passed out that night had been like floating on an ocean of warm milk and light. Which was how she felt now, except down in her guts was that cold fear and...
...Christ, she’d passed out. She was looking at the ceiling. A hand ran greedily over her breasts. Thumb and forefinger ran furtively over her left nipple then squeezed and stopped. He was checking to see if she was awake. She kept her breathing even. She looked down without moving her head. He was leaning over her, head on her belly, with his right hand reaching under her sports bra. His pants were down to his knees, bunched up on the floor, left hand flogging furiously at his penis. When he was sure the nipple-pinch hadn’t roused her he pinched it again, hard, then moved his hand down into her pants.
“Mother fucker!” she screamed.
She reached over and grabbed the Darth Vader statue and swung it back and towards his head. The long pink lightsaber plunged into his left ear and when she pulled it back out it made a wet sucking sound. Brad’s body went rigid, his head jerked up in a silent scream, his mouth stretched wide open, his eyes staring at the ceiling as if the roof had suddenly flown off and revealed the skies of Jupiter. And then he began to convulse. Shannon had never seen anything so awful. She got out from under him somehow and ran out as he fell to the floor and lay on the carpet twitching and jerking.
In the alleyway next to the apartment building she threw up. It all came out of her in a flood, all the beer and the liquor from the day, it wouldn’t stop coming. And suddenly she felt as ossified drunk as any 5 foot 7 woman would after 16 beers, two gin and tonics, and a dose of rohypnol.
She blacked out on her feet. Somehow she must have found her way home because suddenly she was on the couch in her living room, petting the cat. The clock on the wall said 2:38 AM.
She had to pee again. She stood up unsteadily, still drunk, and worked her way slowly to the bathroom.
When she was finished she looked down to see pale yellow in the toilet. She burst into tears and put herself to bed.