Time itself seemed to halt in the room. Phoebe's eyes narrowed as she confronted the spectre of the memory. "It ain't like you can get pregnant, or nothin'. Hmph. Cruel and stupid as it was, that one sentence saved my life. If he hadn't said that, I'd probably be walkin' the streets right now. But he said it, and something just snapped inside of me. I heard it, and all of a sudden I was as sober as a judge. I just kind of shrugged, and made like I was about to mix another drink, and when he turned around, I broke that d.a.m.ned vodka bottle over his head. He went down like Tyson had hit him. I just walked out with my purse and the clothes on my back, left him there in that broken gla.s.s. Moved back in with my folks, thank G.o.d for them, they were prayin' I'd leave Devon and come home. I thought Devon might come after me, but last I heard he was in jail, busted for rock. That bottle of vodka I hit him with was the last bottle I laid a hand on." She looked around, seeming embarra.s.sed. "But luckily, I still got my job, and I started singin' again, at church last week. Sorry, I didn't mean to tell y'all my whole life story, but it helped. Thanks for lettin' me share."

"THANKS, PHOEBE!"

Silence began sprawling around them once more, and then the newcomer spoke.

"h.e.l.lo. My name's Brandy, and I am alcohol," the voice said, with a deep, sultry purr that was neither male nor female.

"HI, BRAn...dy..." The chorus came automatically, although the name sputtered on several tongues. Most thought the speaker had merely gaffed; Rick included.

Deacon Blues did not. He'd heard this avatar perfectly. He stared at her...it, really, as he sampled the emotions welling up inside him. Awe, confusion, respect, anger, sorrow, betrayal and fear poured into him, as if his soul was drinking them like shots in rapid succession. He trembled slightly, and a more primal emotion conquered the others: Love. Unrequited love, bad love, a love that led to madness, but love all the same.

"I, ah, feel bad for what happened to you. I can't apologize, any more than a truck can apologize when you crash it or a bottle can apologize when you break it. But all these horrors you've been through...they're your fault."

Kyle stood up suddenly, his face reddening, a pulse beating wildly in his temple. "This ain't f.u.c.kin' funny-" he began, then stopped just as suddenly. His face curdled, becoming milk-white. His mouth shut, then trembled, and he turned away and vomited all over his chair. The denizens on either side of him dodged away with bleats of shock and disgust.

"I don't recall interrupting you when you were speaking, young man," the avatar said harshly. "Try it again and you'll be in a coma."

With a bad case of the shakes, Kyle grabbed his slimy chair and staggered to a corner of the room, as far away from it as he could. Yet somehow, he remained. The smell of the vomit was washed away by a tsunami of spirits: schnapps, brandy, rum, whiskey, wine; they hung in the air like mist, mixing expertly and deliciously.

"You call me 'cunning', 'baffling', 'powerful'..." Brandy said. "I'd go along with 'powerful', since I lubricate your entire civilization, such as it is...without me, half of your love affairs, your books, your songs, your fantasies...they're gone, just plain gone. But baffling? What the h.e.l.l is baffling about me? You drink, you get drunk, you fall down, no problem. You know what I do; the only thing I can do. After a thousand years, you finally came up with warning labels: don't drive a car, don't operate heavy machinery! How f.u.c.king simple was that?! And cunning? I don't think so. That presumes I have an agenda. I don't. I do my job, the job everybody wants me to do. Let me tell you what I'm going to do tonight: I'm going to help a kid stand up to a bully that he wouldn't have the guts to stand up to before. He's going to get lucky and knock that sucker out, and he won't be bullied again. Then I'm going to help a guy propose to the girl who's going to be his wife. He needs me to help him, because although his soul loves her, his brain isn't monogamous...none of you are. Do any of you know where the word 'honeymoon' comes from? It's because newlyweds were given honey mead for a cycle of the moon so they could stand each other in their arranged marriage long enough for the man to impregnate the woman, and then the kid would cement them together. Never mind...Next, I'm going to help a girl tell another guy to get out of her life, because she knows they're no good together, but she doesn't have the guts to tell him normally...and he will get out of her life, and they'll both be better for it. I'm going to help another man write a country-western song, I'm going to give another one an idea for a new painting, I'm going to help another one imagine an invention so crazy it'll actually work. Those are just the headlines. In other news, I'm going to help a thousand people find each other, and a hundred people make love. Most everybody else, is just going to have a good time."

She stood up. "What are you going to do tonight? Let me guess. You're all going to go home and hide."

The voice was like a whiplash, but somehow Rick found it oddly seductive. Although she'd commanded his attention, from the corner of his eye he saw Deacon Blues clutch at his chest, his hand disappearing between his shirt b.u.t.tons. He seemed to be imitating Napoleon. Heart attack? Rick wondered.

No, he was clutching at his Rosary beads. Rick felt a brief stab of envy; he wished he had something to clutch; a woman, a bottle, a scalpel, anything at all. But he didn't. All he had was a coroner's stoicism, and even that seemed to be melting away...

Deacon Blues stood up. "You know something? We will go home tonight, because we have homes to go to. We won't be groping some stranger, or puking, or fighting, or crashing our cars. We won't end up sick, or in jail...and we won't be hiding. We'll be ignoring you. The people that use you-they're the ones who are hiding. They think they need you to relax, or feel better, or interact with other people. They need a crutch. They need an excuse...when they're really just stupid, or scared, or weak. It doesn't make a difference; they're all wrong."

Brandy scowled, as a child might scowl at an unruly pet. Her brown eyes grew horribly darker, as their whites vanished. It was as if someone was pumping dark fluid through them, and Rick had a good idea of what fluid it was.

She took a step forward, and as she did the very air in the room changed. It was no longer a scent of high-proof liquor, it was a fog of it. It was as if Brandy had opened a huge canister of an aerosol gas, only the gas was alcohol. She took another moment to stare down Deacon Blues, and in that moment the entire room was saturated. The very walls bled bourbon.

Rick, who was accustomed to the most noxious of gases, ripped his T-shirt up over his mouth and nose...and still got a contact high. The others faired considerably worse. An older man took a deep breath of the sweet, stinging air and died right in his seat. Another man vomited helplessly. Phoebe and three others slumped in their chairs, drooling with idiotic smiles. Kyle and four more people half-ran, half staggered to the door behind Brandy, and wrestled through it. She turned to watch them leave, then shrugged, and turned back to Matt.

She took a deep breath of her own wretched excess, and grinned. "I think I smell...sour grapes," She sighed with sarcasm. "With a shot of self-righteousness. Let me give you a little revelation about your entire race. You're all stupid. You're all scared. You're all weak. It's because you're all tragically flawed mortals. You're talking monkeys, walking dust! It's too bad you're allergic to me, because I'm the only friend you've got on this waterlogged rock. Your lives mean nothing...birth, school, work, death! That's if you're lucky! If you're not, you get heartbreak, poverty, war, disease! I didn't trap you in this maze of horror, I'm the way out! Who takes all your pain away? I do!" Brandy was raving now, spraying spittle everywhere, her voice louder than a thousand bottles breaking at once.

Rick hovered on the edge of consciousness. The right half of his brain was at a swinging party, making out with two girls at once while guzzling champagne from a slipper. The left half of his brain guessed that he had perhaps one or two minutes left in this toxic atmosphere before he pa.s.sed out. Possibly for good. Then the halves of his brain started arguing.

Great! Let's pa.s.s out, and we can stay at this party! C'mon, Left, you're too d.a.m.ned uptight! Look, Metallica's playing! There are hot chicks crawling out of the woodwork! And there's beer! Whiskey! Schnapps! And TEQUILA! Lots of Tequila! Crowed the right half.

Be with you in a minute, the left half replied calmly. Rick's got to help Deacon Blues first.

Help him HOW? Right snickered.

Merely by distracting her, Left said.

Thought became action. Rick looked up at the Avatar, and now saw two of her.

He squinted, and addressed the one on the left. "You-take all th' pain away? Seems t' me ya cause much pain-as you emilina-elinima-mmm, as you stop. Prob'ly more," he slurred. From the corner of his eye, he saw Deacon Blues grab something from his pocket. He couldn't identify it; all he could see was that it gleamed slightly.

Brandy glowered at him. "You've got it backwards, you idiot. Didn't you ever see the b.u.mper sticker 'Avoid Hangovers-Stay Drunk'? You don't feel pain when you drink, you feel pain when you stop drinking. You don't get the shakes or the delirium tremens when you're drunk, you get them when you're sober. All your petty inhibitions and fears haunt you until you drink, not afterwards. Stupid monkey," she hissed, then stopped. She frowned at the small cross at the end of Matt's Rosary, now held out towards her face, at eye level.

"Rick...don't. Get out of here. Take the others with you," Matt said.

Rick raised an eyebrow; even that in itself seemed difficult. "All of 'em?! I can't-"

"Try."

Rick nodded, got out of his chair and fell to the floor. He tried to get up, failed, then started crawling towards the first of the comatose alcoholics left in the room.

Brandy smirked at the Rosary. "Nice workmanship. Are you selling it, or giving it to me?"

"Neither." Deacon Blues gasped, controlling his breath with furious effort. "Get thee behind me. In the name of G.o.d the Father..."

She guffawed. "And the Son...the same Son who turned water into wine, right?" She chuckled softly, reaching calmly into an interior pocket and took out a small carafe of blood-red merlot. "Try again."

"Okay," he said, and brought his other fist up in a savage arc, a left hook from a two hundred and twenty-pound weightlifter that would have knocked any man across the room. Instead, his fist sank into the side of her face, then into a chilling s.p.a.ce of fluids, and out the other side, all within the s.p.a.ce of a heartbeat. There was not a mark on her, and she hadn't moved a millimeter.

Rick reached Phoebe, and slapped her across the face. Her head rolled limply; she still regarded the ceiling with a languid smile. "Don' hit me, Devon...c'mon, le's have a drink..." she mumbled.

Deacon Blues shuddered, but didn't drop the Rosary. Somewhere inside him he knew this ent.i.ty couldn't be exorcised...much less punched...but he needed her attention on the Cross. His other hand sweated around the object it concealed. "What do you want?" He sighed.

Rick pushed Phoebe and the man sitting next to her backwards in their chairs. They fell over onto the floor, still senseless. Neither Matt nor Brandy looked over at the crash. Rick grabbed Phoebe and the man by their collars and started hauling them towards the door. The carpet gurgled beneath them, sodden with booze.

Brandy sipped from her bottle, except that it was a pint of Crown Royal now. "What do I want? I want some G.o.dd.a.m.ned respect. I'm ent.i.tled, I think."

Matt shook his head. He, too, had double vision now; he closed his left eye to focus on her, just as he'd done to line up the lanes of the highway. "Respect? Please. You've got slaves all over the world. I'm only one man. I'm just walking dust, remember? I doubt you need my respect."

Rick got Phoebe and the other man through the door, out into the humid rain, and the outside air revived him slightly. He saw Kyle a few yards away, white-faced and trembling with nausea. "Kyle! Help me out here. We've got to get the others out of the room." Without waiting, Rick lurched back inside.

Kyle remembered a sign that read For This I Am Responsible. He sucked in a deep breath, and followed.

Brandy smiled sadly, and placed a soft hand on Matt's chest. "Okay, you got me. I don't need your respect. If it's any consolation, you've got mine...you stood up to me, you took away some of my 'slaves'..." She sighed, and got closer. Her voice was no longer that of a raging tyrant, but an old lover's. Matt's heart thundered in his chest. His clothes were soaked with liquor, while his throat was agonizingly dry. It isn't fair...

"Listen, I meant what I said earlier. I'm sorry about what happened. I know you've gone through a lot of pain, and you keep going through it. Blaming yourself. Torturing yourself...for what? A life that would have ended anyway, and another that hadn't even begun? I hate to see you like this, Matt. I want to stop the pain. I want to do my job." She held the bottle close, tilting it toward him. "I want you back."

The bottle had changed again; its liquid was now green, and its label read ABSINTHE.

Rick and Kyle dragged the last of Brandy's victims through the door, except for the dead man. Rick turned back to see his sponsor helpless in his nemesis' embrace.

He tried desperately to think of some way to intervene...but even as he did, he felt tentacles of tequila reaching for him once more.

Matt dropped the Rosary, and his mouth opened, trembling. Brandy smiled, and held the bottle up for him. "I told you I'm the only friend you've got..."

Before the first drop could scorch his tongue, he brought his other hand up, directly between himself and his ex-lover. It held an old but still gleaming Zippo lighter. He closed his eyes, flicked the lighter's wheel, and humbly asked G.o.d to remove his shortcomings.

Rick had one second to stare in horror, then another to turn and launch himself through the door.

Matt 'Deacon Blues' Bluzinksi became a pillar of fire, one that was determined to take his nemesis with him. His blazing arms grabbed Brandy in a crushing bear hug and overbore her backwards to the floor. She screamed with fury and betrayal, then her body burst apart and erupted. The alcohol-soaked room exploded, its furiously expanding gases shoving Rick backwards onto the sidewalk. His own clothing ignited and he rolled frantically over the damp concrete, his bellows of pain drowned out by the roars of devoured oxygen. The flames were snuffed out in moments, sparing him all but minor burns. By the time he had risen to his feet once more, the inferno in the room had spent itself as well.

Sirens in the distance came closer; the New Orleans firefighters were on top of their game today. The room had gone dark. Rick reached for the door handle; it was warm, but not scorching. He slid on a thin polyester work glove and pulled it open. Smoke rushed out, carrying horrid smells with it. He coughed, took a look behind him, and saw Phoebe and Kyle stare at him apprehensively, still sh.e.l.l-shocked. The others that he and Kyle had saved lingered at the sidewalk, dry-heaving, trying to regain their senses and courage. "Wait here...try to keep the entrance clear for the firefighters," he said. Taking a deep breath, he stepped back inside.

The room was charred, but not wholly devoured by the flames. Its posters had been reduced to ash, but the furniture remained. There were two bodies in the room; the older man who'd died when his lungs had flooded with the tainted air. He still sat in his chair with his hair burned off, his skin and clothing scorched. Then there was his sponsor, Deacon Blues.

Matthew Bluzinski was face-down on the floor, in an odd, push-up-off-the-knuckles stance. Rick recognized this as the 'boxer's posture' that most burned corpses a.s.sumed...extreme heat shrank the tendons of the arms, forcing them into a pugilistic pose. His clothes were burned badly, and his Rosary had melted on the floor. But otherwise...there wasn't a mark on him.

His skin and hair were wholly untouched by the blaze. Yet Rick had seen him burst into flames right before his eyes. How in the h.e.l.l is it possible...he thought, then remembered the Incorruptibles, a popular legend in forensic medicine. Saints whose bodies simply did not decay after death. It was no more impossible than, say, alcohol itself taking a human form.

Of Brandy there was no sign. No body, not even a singed fur coat. Nothing at all.

A fury of grief surged through Rick: while all the b.a.s.t.a.r.ds and criminals of the world continued to jump bail, defy justice and live happily ever after-inflicting anguish and horror on humanity all the while-another good man had died for nothing.

Not for nothing, a soft voice spoke in his mind, calming him slightly. He died saving you and the others. He helped you earlier, and probably a lot more people than you. He said he wanted to stop some people from ending up like Sarah, and he did. He said he just wanted something or someone to finish him off. Maybe all his prayers were answered at the same time, even the wrong ones.

There was a creaking sound behind him as the first of the firefighters entered the room. Rick grabbed Matt's body around the waist, about to turn him over.

"Hey! Don't touch that body!" The firefighter snapped. "We've got to wait for the-"

"Coroner?" Rick snapped back, taking one arm off Deacon Blues to hold up his ID.

"Oh...how the h.e.l.l'd you get here so fast?" he said, coming closer.

My name is Rick, and I'm an alcoholic, he thought. "I was here when it happened. This guy saved me from the fire...saved all of us." He put his badge away and turned Matt over with a grunt.

The eyes of Deacon Blues looked towards heaven, and somehow he looked a great deal younger. There was something on his face Rick had never seen before.

A smile.

The firefighter stared down in amazement. "What in the h.e.l.l could make him smile like that?" he whispered in quiet wonder.

Rick felt Matt's smile transfer to his own face, like a parting gift.

"Serenity."

Back to TOC.

It would probably be better for the society at large if our various vices only impacted US, and not affect our friends and families. As we all know, that usually isn't the case. As seen on HBO's "Intervention" series, a huge number of addicts would self-destruct if it weren't for their friends and families.

But perversely, often our friends or families can be hard-partying "Enablers" that can either 'jump-start' our addictions, and/or cheerfully match us shot-for-shot down the left-hand path. Harry Mora now poses the question: which of you will reach the end of the road first?

THE TURNING.

By Harry Louis Mora.

"I WON'T WAIT FOREVER!" he screamed after her, though he was sure the sound of the engine as Jessica drove away drowned out the pathetic threat. "I will not wait forever," he whispered again-to himself-as the first pangs of pain began their convulsive trek from his heart to his brain. He slammed the door shut as the tears reached his eyes. Better to lock himself away then let the world know he had been torn apart-for the hundredth time-after having promised himself to never let that part of him need again.

The winter had brought self-loathing, betrayal and ultimately, guilty love. The spring had been magical, a storybook romance. The summer brought squabble, a breach in the idyllic life he had led for one blissful season. It was the first hint of an underlying sickness in their relationship. It was the first hint that it would all end in tears, as it had time and time before.

However, this time he would not wait forever for her to return. He had promised himself that; just as he had promised not to let himself be dragged along, clinging to the shreds of his heart when it started to go wrong. He would end his own suffering long before the world offered to end it for him this time-and he did. So why did this unbearable pain cleave his heart and close its fist around his throat?

He cried, long, drawn-out peals of sorrow and an endless river of snot and tears. He cried until he seemed to be incapable of producing any more liquids. He cried until the sounds of his anguish would no longer come. Only then, when his ragged breath only came in stuttering gasps did he stop.

He looked at himself in the mirror-tears, snot and heartbreak plastered his face. He let the water run- I won't...

-he washed up- WAIT...

-and looked at his reflection again as he smiled.

Forever!

Watching himself smile-a smile of victory, not of warmth or compa.s.sion-he felt something was different now. He'd turned, somehow, either toward something, or into something.

Wearing this mask of happy contentment, he returned to his friends. He returned to the life of hard work and harder play. "Memento" memories; that was what he and his friends had termed those drunken nights when you lost minutes, sometimes hours of your life with no memory, regret or shame.

After a while, the mask he wore for the world changed him. He grew as dark, cold, smooth and slick as the front he displayed for everyone. He smiled his mischievous grin into the mirror and patted himself on the back. How many girls had that smile bedded? How many had that look sent away crawling into the same little h.e.l.l he had become master of?

He took a broken, lonely soul and remade it in crimson and black, leather and tattoos. He created a villain to resurrect the naive white knight that had fallen. He knew many women; but never fell in love with any. He would not allow himself to be hurt again. He would not allow himself to be loved again. Without realizing it, he had become something he never would have imagined.

The Flight Up Bar that night was dark, hot and alive with drunken laughter and voices. The usual a.s.sortment of jocks, sorority girls, old men and tattooed freaks wandered drunkenly around the bar, jumping from conversation to conversation.

Jason popped a few more painkillers as he downed his eighth Long Island Tea. Mike the bartender knew Jason well; he always had a strong L.I.T. waiting around 9 PM and from that point on Jason never had an empty gla.s.s in front of him. Mark, Nate, and Leo arrived an hour after Jason. Nate was already well on his way to a drunken coma before he even stepped up to the bar.

Jason wondered what drunken hilarity Nate would cause tonight. As he shook hands with everyone, he got his answer. Nate took his hand and pulled his ear in close to whisper.

"Hey, wha.s.sup, Nate?" Jason asked, slurring a bit.

"Hey, man, uh, don't tell anyone but...I'm p.i.s.sing my pants right now." Nate smiled that Cheshire cat grin of his. Jason jumped back; he looked down and saw the stream of urine flowing down Nate's leg, past his shorts.

The evening that followed was typical. The band started playing around 10 PM, which is when the shots would start going back and forth between Jason's crew and them. How Rudy stayed up on stage some nights was anyone's guess. The man had catlike balance when it came to drunken stage walking. As Jason stood on his seat with the bands' encouragement and sang loudly along with them, he noticed the tiny redhead looking at him.

Jason started playing his game, giving the redheaded girl in the tight black skirt a glance now and then, making sure she was still looking at him. The game went on as Leo, Nate, and Mark grabbed Jason and poured the remains of a bottle of Southern Comfort down his throat. He drank the dark liquid expertly; he pulled his head away from Mark laughing and saw the redhead laughing with him.

Nate made his way to the front of the stage. Jason knew that it was almost closing time. Nate always made his way to the front to cause a minor riot just before closing. He had a built in alarm when it came to bar hours; Nate never did anything to get him or his friends kicked out of the bar until he knew it was already time to go anyway. They never left without a grand exit.

As Nate started to amp up the crowd in front of the stage, Jason made his way over to the redhead and struck up a conversation with her boyfriend.

Stephanie had been so innocent. It began with convincing her to just spend time together, talk and be friends. As she became bolder and less careful of the time she spent away from Phil, he began the seduction; the playful touching, and the whispers that were faux kisses, the wiping away of a strand of hair that became a caress of the cheek that became the real kiss.

She had known only one man before him. The lover she shared a home with for two years, Phil, always slept unaware as Jason would take her in the shadows of the yard, in the other man's car or on the street in his own car. He would always have her somewhere close to her home, somewhere close to the man she so loved when he first met her and tried to take her out. She would go back to her bed with a smile. She was a villain now, too.