A Snakebite Is A Shot

I decided that whatever Kevin's faults might be, he'd do for the night. I also knew we needed to get started on something stronger if we were going to get through the awkward phase to the going home together phase, which wasn't exactly what I wanted, but it would guarantee a few hours of sleep, which I couldn't do without. I grabbed Kevin's hand and led him to the bar.

"I'll have a snakebite," I said. "You game?"
"What's in it?"

"Jack Daniels, tequila, and Tabasco sauce," I said.

A snakebite is a shot, but the girl working the counter was just out of bartending school and made it like a mixed drink with ice. I told her it was a shot and she let me keep the mistake, which I nursed while she worked on the other one, the idea being that something, however screwed up, is better than nothing.

Kevin pushed his away on principle. He wanted his done right, which is not something you'd suspect from a man who just ordered something called a snakebite, but there it was. I thought about slowing down on the booze, but I couldn't think of a reason not to and plenty of reasons to not - - the perpetual state of mind of someone who never feels quite bad enough to stop or good enough to want to.

"That's a hell of a drink," Kevin said.

"It helps me sleep. Insomnia runs in my family." I thought about my mother not sleeping well for years and eventually consulting a hypnotist who made her a tape of a person going down an elevator, a bell dinging at each floor, the idea that you'd be asleep before you hit bottom. From my own bedroom, I listened to the tape until I heard the click of it reaching the end and my mother's sighs as she rewound it.

"I have a way to get you to sleep," he said.

I looked at him and thought about trying to get home drunk and having to sit up alone in bed while the room spun.

"Lead the way," I said, twirling around and offering him my hands.

We stepped out into the night where I started to shiver because the temperature had dropped, and I wasn't wearing enough layers to endure the wind for long.

"You want to follow me? It's not a long drive to where I live," he said.

"Okay. Just don't lose me. I'm afraid I may never find my way back."

Michelle's Spell of the Day
"Everywhere she went, she went against her better judgment, including here." What Dorothy Parker wanted written on her tombstone

Cocktail Hour
Drinking novella suggestion: 92 Days Larry Brown

Benedictions and Maledictions
Happy Saturday!