Boom! More Than Just A Book By Tom Brokaw

A Foreshadowing or Two

Little did I know, when I emerged from the Goodwill Store Sunday afternoon with an armful of books and a brand new (to me) Black and Decker juicer, that I was setting myself up for the week that was to come.

Last week, at Wal-Mart, buying the new tire and tube that I am riding around on, I had grabbed about a dozen cans of food for Harold, in some of the different varieties that I have seen only there, like chicken and scallops. I was also preparing for this week, without realizing it.

I have been accumulating pandemic unemployment assistance funds on my Master Card, and was also notified that, because of hurricane Laura, food stamp money in Louisiana would be arriving on the first of the month (tomorrow) and not on the regularly scheduled days, determined by the last digits of recipients social security numbers.

So, everything seemed to be hunky dory as I went out for a bike ride around mid day.

The Beer Cave

I stopped at the Shell station, which is run by some Arabic speaking people who are a stark contrast to the one's who run the Brown Derby across the street from it, in the way they treat me.

At the Shell, I have had the experience of having one of their employees, the oldest looking one, drop what he was doing in order to jump on a register and ring my stuff up, as soon as he saw that I was second in line at the other register.

The whole staff there seems to be trying to woo white people's business.

And, as nice as they are to me, I have heard them pushing back against mostly women of color into verbal encounters.

I am pretty sure they are from some male dominated culture like Armenia, and are rubbed the wrong way by any aggressive displays by females.

The black lady had handed the cashier a bunch of change and said something like: "You can count it."

What seemed clear to me, from what I overheard of the encounter from the beer cave where I was, was that she didn't want to have to count out the right amount only to hand it to him so he could recount it, to verify that it was correct.

But, I guess it was a few cents short, whereupon the woman raised her voice, and the situation devolved into name calling before she stormed out of the place; all over a few cents.

I was in the beer cave Sunday, picking 2 Guinness Stout's out of a lone six pack that had only five left in it.

One of the employees greeted me and in very broken English seemed to be pointing out the fact that I had recently fallen into the habit of going there "four times a night."

He seemed to be trying to tell me something, but in a friendly way. Maybe the staff were concerned about my drinking. For a long time, I would only get energy drinks from there, and for a while, a pack of American Spirits. The cashiers started to pull my brand of them (dark blue) down from the rack as soon as they saw me coming in, and have them already on the counter, ready to be rung up. But I had never been going there "four times a night" for those things.

It was a curious encounter, and I still am not sure what the guy was trying to tell me. Perhaps one of the night cashiers linked the frequency of my going there to there being "something going on" with it.

Why don't I just buy a 12 pack and get the thing over with for the night?

I would save a lot of money over buying them at the singles price, two at a time...

But, I am usually cautiously optimistic that "this" will be the night when I enjoy beer sensibly by drinking just a couple of them, paired with a good meal of steamed broccoli in an olive oil and mushroom infusion, poured over whole wheat pasta with maybe a little Feta cheese sprinkled over it; and would be satisfied with that and would relax and enjoy the evening and get something productive accomplished.

In that scenario, about a couple hours after eating and drinking, I might crave more beer, but would have the onus of pedaling my bike there and back, once again, to get it; braving the slight element of danger involved in riding a bike at three in the morning through the streets of New Orleans, and this might help me to cut down on drinking more than would the "deterrent" of having to walk to the fridge and bust another couple bottles out of the 12 pack box.

This has kept my limit right around the eight bottle a night level, entailing the four trips to the Shell and back. 

This is about where the twain meet between the alcohol induced fatigue and resultant dip in motivation; balanced against the desire for two more bottles.

Factoring in the extra labor of pedaling to the store and back and the remote, but still present danger of being knocked in the head with a baseball bat and having the bike, along with the two beers stolen from me

I would have to then make the trip again on foot, to replace the 2 beers, probably without the aid of my glasses, which would be laying mangled in the grass somewhere (to be searched for in the morning light) and with blood running down my forehead into my eyes, further blinding me and making it harder to see then next guy with a bat in the complicated shadows of that oak tree lined walkway.

That is usually enough to tip the scales and make me forgo the procurement of beers number 9 and 10.

I tried to convey that to the friendly and seemingly concerned store employee. Maybe his concern was related to the fact that for the longest time, I never bought alcohol, but now I was being seen staggering in there at four in the morning for the fourth time any given night. He just wanted to make sure I was alright, I guess; but it gave me something to think about...

I bought the two bottles of Guiness Stout and then stood for a few minutes in the sun, rolling the first one back and forth in my hands to warm it up to stout drinking temperature. This is about 10 degrees warmer than what the average beer cave is kept at. And this is an allowance made for other beer that is in it, which are pallid American brews that start to taste nastier with every degree that they warm up to, such as Budweiser.

I was thinking that the B vitamins and the carbohydrates in such a fine brew would be almost like a meal for me. I was getting pretty skinny there a couple months back, and since starting to drink at least two beers a night have put on about 5 pounds, so there's that benefit, I thought

The devil's advocate in my brain was, of course saying; "Then why don't you just get the non alcoholic variety of Guiness Stout, the "N.A." variety; that has all the same nutrients, but won't sabotage your endeavors?

Alcohol, as has been well documented here, is something that I have to be very careful around. 

Ninety nine percent of the days that start with beer for breakfast, end up with that day being chalked up as "wasted", or worse, "a disaster."

This one would end up in "disaster", but wouldn't be wasted, as we shall see.

I think I have the core belief that, since a lot of creative juices seem to be able to flow through me that I am thus being "given" a lot by my creator, and so, a lot is expected of me in return. There is just no wiggle room to allow for drinking.

I can fathom this, at the cerebral level, but as far as putting it into practice; I had to note that I was, once again, on this Sunday afternoon, postponing yet one more day, the return to a life of cleansing and fasting, and the cold turkey withdrawals from all things addictive. Reaching a point where I would wake up first thing in the morning, drink a glass of freshly boiled water, meditate, jog a few miles, then return home to maybe do a shot of kratom and get right to work on the project of the day, as is expected of me.

Is kratom an addiction of mine? Well, when I consume it too fast and feel myself ready to vomit, I grab a huge cup to catch the puke in, so I can re-drink it (unless I'm sitting on a 20 ounce bag of it) so you tell me...

I was still working on that first stout, which was delicious and nutritious when I arrived at the Goodwill Store. 

Out of sheer good will, I left the second bottle in the holder on my bike as I locked it up, thinking that maybe the vitamins in it might nourish the crack addled and meth messed up brain of a skeezer and set her on a path towards sanity

The stout was really so good that I wanted to turn someone else on to it, even a thief...

This is in contrast to what I had done a few days earlier when arriving at the apartment building with a 12 pack of Abita lager, and telling Freddie, a black man: "This is Abita lager!" after he tried to skeeze one off me, as soon as he saw that I had 12 of them, whatever they were.

"Black people don't like this kind of beer; you guys always drink Olde English, or Milwaukee's Best. You probably won't like it..."

Yup, I actually said that to Freddie, who is probably about 55 years old and is very skinny, and has been living at Sacred Heart since I got here.

Freddie actually left grimy hand prints on the wall just inside my apartment about a month after I moved in. I had propped the door open a bit to allow Harold the option of following me as I took the trash out to the dumpster, or to think about it while I was doing so and then meet me at the door on my way back in.

As I stepped out into the parking lot, I saw Freddie and a couple of other guys working under the hood of a car. Freddie was just taking a break from it and heading towards his apartment to use the bathroom or something, and he passed me on his way in, as I was coming out with my trash.

When I got back to my place, Harlod had not only not come to the door to be let out, but was hiding under the bed. On the wall, just inside my door was a set of black hand prints that appeared to be composed of automotive grease.

Since it had taken me only a minute to dump my trash, and I was actually able to place Freddie at the scene, after seeing him walk past me with grease covered hands, it wasn't a far stretch of the imagination to conclude that he had entered my place and run his hands down my white walls. I mean I had his dog gone hand prints as evidence! The prints were about a foot apart and then trailed downward a couple feet.

I remember thinking that, unlike the jury in the O.J. Simpson trial, who acquitted the knife-ster because of the .0000098 percent chance that it was not his blood on the bodies and in his vehicle, mingled with the blood of the victims, and on the gloves that he apparently could never have worn to commit the crime (because they would have been too tight and uncomfortable) I had no such "reasonable" doubt about Freddie's guilt.   

So, I guess it was a little bit of payback, albeit 3 years late, for his having done that. "This is really more for white people, that's the only people who drink this..."

So, I left one in my bike rack and then went inside Goodwill to make what would be one of my last purchases for the next week to come.

There, I saw several books from the "Best Short Stories of (years 1989 through 2019)" series. The eight volumes that I found were all different years than the three that I already owned. And, at 50 cents each (them being softcover) I grabbed all eight.

Then, there was another rare sight in there, not one, but two juicers, with the Black and Decker one seeming to be more heavy duty than the other one they had, and a couple bucks cheaper at $13.99.

There was a pretty long line at the register, so I put the stuff down and then went out to polish off the other stout, which was still there.

Now, I was even more set up to engage in the juice fasting and reading and everything else that I had been postponing through each day spent drinking beer and falling asleep rather than sitting up to read..

To celebrate the success of the Goodwill trip, I stopped at the Brown Derby and bought two cans of a very good IPA ale that's name escapes me, but is made by a local brewery. I had to buy two to cover the 5 dollar minimum.

And, off I rode towards home, sipping the ale on my way to drop the juicer and the books off.

Then I decided to keep riding my bike around in the sunshine and fresh air, but stopped for more ale at a couple places, to include Whole Foods where they put my gallon of distilled water and other items into their only option of a paper bag.

I have learned that any weight over five pounds in those paper bags will cause the flimsy paper handles on them to break, especially when hung from the handle bars of a bike, especially when that bike goes over any kind of bump.

By the time I got home, I was drunk enough so that when the paper bag finally busted open, as it was doomed to do because of the condensation from the frozen items having moistened the paper and weakened it; and as I stooped to gather up apples that were rolling around on the floor, I had pretty much decided that I had had enough of beer drinking for now.

The only problem would be how to discipline myself in just quitting everything cold turkey.

Not a problem at all because, somewhere along the way my little credit card holding wallet had fallen out of my back pocket as I rode; and so I was suddenly without any cash or food stamp money, and will have to wait between 7 to 10 days before having any.

I am kind of glad because now I can fast and cleanse for a week like I've been meaning to do for three months now, and hopefully break the beer for breakfast habit.