The Drunks Across The Street

I'm really enjoying watching the Drunks Across The Street.  They're annoying but they're also entertaining, and a great reminder of what I used to be like and how my behavior impacted other people.  They spend a lot of time outside.  They drink and they lay in hammocks and they wander around, waving furiously at me when I come outside.  They invite me over - "Come and join us!"  I smile and wave back and keep moving in the opposite direction.  I've talked with them a few times and it's frankly not that interesting.  They repeat themselves and blow the hair off my forehead with the brute force of their exhalations.  I check for spittle on my sunglasses when I come in the house.

They don't want me over there, anyhow.  I'd be a disruptive force what with all of the not drinking.  In polite society, in business situations, I deflect an invitation to have a drink with a polite misdirection.  It goes well because people who don't drink too much don't think at all about someone not drinking anything.

"Seaweed, c'mon over and have a beer," one of them shouted a few days ago.

"Not since 1987," I said.  "But thanks anyway."

"You don' drink?" he screamed in my face.  "Why the hell not?"

"I got tired of getting arrested," I lied.

"Wha'cha get arrested for?" he shrieked.

"Mostly DUIs," I said.  I was on a roll.  I started piling it on.  Once I get up a head of steam on a good lie I go with the flow.  "A couple of public intoxications, one drunk and disorderly, and an assault.  That was my one felony.  Apparently I took a swing at a cop."

"You took a swing at a cop?" he asked.  He wasn't screaming anymore.  I had his attention.

"That's what they told me the next morning.  I woke up in jail, didn't have any idea where I was.  I had a busted lip and there was blood all over my shirt and my shoulder hurt like hell.  I don't remember any of it.  Cost me $7000 to plea down to a misdemeanor endangerment, plus time served."  I was smoking this guy.  I was tearing it the fuck up.  I was pleased when I see that my ability to lie had suffered no serious consequences of years of trying not to lie, some of the time, on occasion.

He didn't ask me to come over for a beer after that.