After Enough Coronas

Originally written on September 22, 2009 at 4:55pm

I know I shouldn't be drinking because it's the day before school starts, a new quarter, a new challenge, but I can't resist the urge to drown out the voices in my head, the tired march of drums and trumpets, the relentless assault on my sense of self.

The cashier at Cabo knows me by now since back in summer quarter, I went to the restaurant several times a week for the cheap food and cheap Coronas.

I smile and ask if it's happy hour yet.

No, he says, but I'll spot you anyway.

I order four beers and a veggie burrito to soak up the alcohol. I sit in my usual table, outside, watching the traffic stall and stack up in the town's busiest intersection. If life was different, if Hades and I were just friends still, then I would call him. I always did when I was at this particular spot, at this particular time.

Three beers later, and I somehow think that talking (isn't talking the cure for everything?) is going to change something. I, strangely enough, was wrong.

I drink my fourth, and ponder life, because life is super important after enough Corona, life is just one giant puzzle. I laugh out loud at the sheer irony--I mean, you gotta admit, it's kind of fucking funny, but it's a joke I'd be the only one who would get or even like.

I'm lucky no one is at any of the outside tables when I pay for my fifth beer because I'm laughing at things that don't exist, perhaps I am schizotypical after all.

My father shows up at Cabo just after I down my last Corona, and he takes me back to the ranch. I pour my own cocktail, Stoli and cranberry juice, and we talk about everything except for the fact that I called in the middle of the afternoon, and why I called and why I'm drinking.