BooksBarbecue
Back Barrel Fever Save as PDF
Chapters (20)
  1. Barrel Fever
  2. Barrel Fever
  3. Barrel Fever
  4. Barrel Fever
  5. Barrel Fever
  6. Barrel Fever
  7. Barrel Fever
  8. Barrel Fever
  9. Barrel Fever
  10. Barrel Fever
  11. Barrel Fever
  12. Barrel Fever
  13. Barrel Fever
  14. Barrel Fever
  15. Barrel Fever
  16. Barrel Fever
  17. Barrel Fever
  18. Barrel Fever
  19. Barrel Fever
  20. Barrel Fever

12:54. I’m back at The Chesterton, in the lounge area of the women’s rest room, waiting for my hose to dry. I’ve got them stuffed into the chute of the hot-air hand dryer, and it’s very annoying because women keep coming in here and giving me a hard time about it. Let them dry their hands on their skirts, it won’t kill them. Who are they? My second outfit is soaking wet, so I’m back in my original choice. I rinsed most of it out earlier in the evening, and you can hardly notice any vomit except on my blouse. If I thought that one of these women had an ounce of compassion I would ask to borrow a shot of perfume that would solve the lingering odor problem, but understanding seems to be in short supply here at The Chesterton. I’ve redone my makeup and used the hot-air hand dryer on my hair before putting the hose in. It’s hard to style your hair when you’re lean-ing over like that. It came out looking very ’70s, a sort of Jerry Hall over-the-shoulder thing, but I guess I’ll have to live with it.

Later. I knock on Malison’s door, room 822. I can hear the tele-vision very ironically tuned to The Hour of Prayer, so I know he’s in there. I knock a little harder and am embarrassed when, after my fifth round — and I’m really pounding away — I hear the toilet flush. I hate it when that happens, I really do. I take a step back and compose myself and look down at the carpet, and someone answers the door but it’s not Malison. It’s that man from the bar, the man with the two canes, and he’s relying on them and grinning like a carved pumpkin. And the worst part, the most revolting part of it all, is that he doesn’t seem the least bit surprised to see me.

Barrel Fever

BARREL FEVER

SHORTLY after my mother died, my sisters and I found ourselves rummaging through a cabinet of papers marked “POISON,” and it was there, tucked between the pages of a well-worn copy of Mein Kampf, that I discovered fifteen years’ worth of her annual New Year’s resolutions. She took up the practice the winter after my father died, the same year she found a job and bought her first rifle. Every Christmas afternoon, after placing the artificial tree back into its box, she would grow reflective. “Do you think I overuse the word 'nigger'?” she would ask. “Was it wrong of me to spit on that Jehovah’s Witness girl? Tell me the truth here. I need a second opinion.”