18 & Life

Two green bottles of whisky lay in the freezer untouched. The plastic around the caps is still there, with tiny silhouettes of men holding a bow, positioned to release the arrow.

With the wave of cold air swirling around his face, Ricky reaches out to grab one. Slowly, he turns the bottle in his hand and examines the green label.

He understands why they are still full right away. The alcohol percentage is much lower than what dad often drinks. The man’s running out of money. These drinks look ridiculously sissy—spiced apple and cinnamon-flavored whisky—but he has to find a way to survive. Dad won’t survive without whisky, and even the cheap, sissy ones count.

He might not even want the god-damn Blind Archer whisky now, though. He’s storing the bottles in the freezer, and hasn’t felt the need to open them and quench his alcohol thirst. Usually, he repeats that when you put whisky in the freezer it loses some of its flavor.

Maybe he actually doesn’t want it this time.

Holding the freezer door wide open and leering at the bottle in his hand, Rick snickers. Dad would lick the whisky off the floor if he had to. Any kind. Even if it was mingled with piss.

He’s that pathetic.

At the sounds of footsteps down the hall, Rick takes both sissy whisky bottles and stuffs them in his leather jacket.

When he walks out of the kitchen, he has to halt abruptly because dad is standing in his way.

For a couple seconds, their glares lock in each other’s eyes.

Rick has to stop himself from frowning in disgust. The pot-bellied man’s undershirt is dirty with yesterday’s booze. He sometimes drinks it lying in bed or across the couch, and he doesn’t seem to understand that gravity happens.

Before the man can react, Rick is already walking away, but he can see that odd ‘something’ in his son’s posture. He’s crossing his arms firmly, holding something inside his jacket.

The man turns around promptly, striding towards the fridge. With a wild pull, he opens the door of the freezer and finds it blank.

“Ricky!” he shouts, his voice a hoarse mess. Whisky had done that for him, too—made him lose his wife, wrecked his vocal chords, wrecked his son.

He only accepts the last part, but doesn’t take responsibility for it. The boy is eighteen now, damn it! He shouldn’t even be here. He should be working—studying, at least—and he should be out. He should be independent. He should grow the fuck up.

All Ricky does is drink and go out with his friend, who is as much of a fuck-up as him.

The man hears the main door open, and strides towards the living room.

“Rick, get back here,” he says.

Rick’s idiot friend sits by the low-rockery wall outside his house, where Rick’s mom used to grow strawberries and cilantro before she went all religious-crazy—the ‘you-hold-me-back-from-my-real-life-purpose’ kind. Now her small gardening area has turned into a gigantic ashtray, arid as fuck.

“Walk,” Rick tells Dave, walking past him.

Dave grabs his shoulder with one hand and points at the door with the other. “Wait, man, I think your dad’s calling you.”

“Just fucking walk, Dave!”

Rick feels a strong pull on his leather jacket and stumbles backwards. He regains his balance before he can fall and looks back, his arms still crossed firmly over his jacket.

From over his shoulder, he watches his dad glaring at him.

“What’d you have in there?”

“I’ve got nothing!”

The man pauses, but then his face contorts into a demonic-like frown.

“I’M FUCKING TIRED OF THIS SHIT, RICK!” he yells, grabbing Rick by the shoulder to shake him. “YOU’RE FUCKING EIGHTEEN. I SHOULD’VE KICKED YOUR ASS OUT OF HERE THREE MONTHS AGO.”

“Fucking try,” Rick hisses, feeling a lot less confident than he looks.

The man nods: quick little nods that last for a couple seconds but seem much longer. He stares into his son’s eyes firmly. “Get out of my fucking house, Rick.”

Dave’s lips part in an ‘o’ shape as he stands up, filling his lungs with air.

Rick doesn’t react right away. He just glares. He glares at the man who had never really been a dad to him. Not when mom was here, not when mom was gone.

After giving a small step back to face his dad better, Rick opens his arms wide open, like one of those preachers at the church that mom used to take him to when he was younger, and stares directly at his father’s face, waiting for a reaction.

The sissy bottles crash onto the floor, spiced apple-flavored whisky wetting his boots.

The man glares into the sour puddle that darkens the concrete, frozen with disbelief.

‘There,’ Rick thinks, ‘lick the booze off the floor now, if you wish.’