The Stink

So it was my birthday.
Whoopity Poop.
It was just another day, in another year, in a calendar that marked off the solstices from an arbitrary date that nobody agrees on.
I was here, but I was just a speck on some bigger speck that was circling around some other speck in a sea of specks.
It didn’t seem to matter much.
But it was my day, so I decided to get drunk.
I put on a sombrero because getting drunk is always more fun if you are wearing a hat. I still had my clothes on for now, but that could change. The poncho and the cowboy boots were just for effect. The rest of me was just a vehicle for the stupidity that was to come.
I grabbed the bottle of Old Weller off the coffee table and flopped down into the couch. The bottle monumented itself between my legs and I stared down into its mouth. My thumbs caressed its lips, I raised it up and then we kissed. I sucked in a mouthful and choked it down.
The burn made me smile.
I drank down another gulp and then another. The poison snaked out across my body and seeped into my brain. It found my happy spot and fogged out all the pain. I was once again that happy kid riding a Big Wheel at Grandma Boyles house. I was a child.
I was Happy and free.
I pedaled out into the fog.
Everything seemed so blissful at first, but as I pedaled on, things seemed to change. A chilly wind started swirling around me and the clouds crept closer and closer. Soon all the colors faded away and I was left in black and white. The world tunneled around me and memories flickered everywhere like angry old movies.
I saw that first play I was in when I drew the part of a skunk. Yeah, I was part of a pack of animals that helped save Christmas, but I was the stinky part.
I saw my self getting teased at Central Elementary because I was the new kid and I wore the same clothes everyday for three weeks because my Dad didn’t bring any others when we moved. I was the stinky kid.
I saw myself fumbling anxiously around in the backseat with Becky until I took my shoes off and brought everything to a screeching halt with the stench. I was the stink foot.
I was reliving my life…
And I was The Stink.
This would not do.
I stumbled up straight and pointed a finger towards a direction I thought was important.
“I got something to say!” I blurted out with drunken authority to precisely five people who didn’t give a pickled goddamn about what I had to say and who weren’t paying the least bit of attention to me.
“I DO NOT STINK!”
I looked around and straightened my sombrero. Nobody moved, but I knew they heard me.
I sank back down into the couch.
I grabbed another pull from the whiskey bottle then let a little silent one slip out.
Just for old times sake