Drinking Problems
Niall
“I'M FREEZING MY balls off back here!”
“I don’t know how,” JJ yells back, rolling his eyes at Finn from across the corrugated metal of the truck bed. “There’s barely a breeze. And Fitzy only goes five miles an hour on a good day.”
Fitzy, who is the only one of us not currently ossified, doesn’t say anything or show any signs of speeding up.
I don’t even think he can hear us. He’s up in the cab, the heating probably blasting, while we’re all in the back like a bunch of stray dogs being hauled to the pound.
He keeps the little sliding window to the back shut tight so he doesn’t have to listen to us talk absolute shite as he drives us around the winding backroads of Mayville.
“I’m still freezing!” Finn moans. He’s lying flat on his back, staring up at the sky, while JJ and I sit up with our spines braced against the cold sides of the bed.
The three of us have been passing a two-liter plastic bottle of Bulmers cider between us for the last twenty minutes.
After practice, I had to drop Claire and Molly off at the Keane’s house for some sleepover earlier and then I’d met the lads at Fitzy’s.
His Mam gave us a late supper of sausages and chips, bless her, and then we’d gone off on our own to properly ruin the nutrition.
“That just means you need to drink some more,” I say, my mouth feeling thick, the words coming out slower than my brain intends them to. “J, pass the bottle ‘ere, ya absolute hog.”
“NoOoOoOo,” JJ complains, sinking lower against the truck bed, whining like a toddler and clutching the sticky plastic bottle to his chest. “It’s my turn.”
“It’s my turn,” I argue, lunging for the bottle like we were fighting over a football in junior infants. JJ shrieks as I grab him by the collar of his jacket, wrestling the cider away from him.
Finn, who was useless when drunk and only marginally better when sober, just laughs from his spot on the floorboards.
Once I pry the bottle away, I take a deep swig. The fizzy, fermented sweetness burns the back of my throat in the best possible way. It’s always a cheap thrill, but it does its job. It puts a warm, heavy blanket over the buzzing noise in my head.
“Slow down,” JJ whined, reaching out a hand. “You’re necking it all!”
I sigh, wiping my mouth with the back of my sleeve, and handing it back to him. Finn suddenly sits up, swaying slightly as he looks around. “Where are we?”
I glance over the edge of the truck. We’re on a narrow backroad somewhere outside of town, hemmed in by high stone walls and sprawling fields. It’s pitch black—no streetlights, just the pale yellow beams of Fitzy’s headlights illuminating the twisting tarmac ahead of us.
“Dunno,” I shrug, leaning my head back against the metal.
The sky’s clear tonight, the stars scattered across the dark canvas like someone had tossed a handful of salt on the sky.
I wonder if Molly was looking at them from the Keane’s window.
I had told her I look at the stars when I brought her to the Strand.
Jesus, why did I tell her that? I’d bet I sounded like a pathetic sap.
“Fitz!” JJ yells, turning around and pounding his fist against the back window. “Where the feck are we?”
The window cracks open a few inches. “Would you lot shut up back there? I’m trying to concentrate on not putting us in a ditch.”
“Where are we at?” JJ demands again.
“By Rafferty's farm,” Fitzy answers, sounding exhausted. “I’m taking you home. Now pipe down before I charge you for the petrol.”
JJ groans dramatically, flopping backward. “But I’m not ready to go home yet... We haven’t even gotten properly pissed.”
“You are properly pissed,” I point out, watching his eyes struggle to focus on me.
Finn laughs, rolling onto his side, but the laugh turns into a harsh cough. “I think I’m gonna throw up.”
“Don’t!” JJ and I shout in unison, shrinking away from him.
“If any of you spew in the bed of my truck, I’m throwing you out while we’re moving. I mean it.”
Finn groans again at Fitzy’s words, burying his face in his arms. “I think I’m dying.”
“You’re not dying, ya tick,” I tell him, nudging his leg with my boot. “You’re just drunk.”
“Same difference.”
JJ takes another swig before passing the bottle to me. “Your turn.”
I take it, tilting my head back. The cider’s warm, taking on the heat of our hands, but I can’t force myself to care. Finn sits bolt upright again, his face looking sickenly green under the moonlight. “I think I really am gonna be sick.”
“That’s how I feel every time I look at your stupid buzzcut,” JJ nods solemnly.
“Will you come off it about my hair, you absolute—” Finn cuts himself off with a wet, choking retch that luckily doesn’t produce anything.
“Not in the truck!” Fitzy bellows, slamming on the brakes. The truck jerked to a halt. Finn scrambles to the edge on his hands and knees, leaning over the side just in time to empty the contents of his stomach onto the grassy verge. The sound is violently unappealing.
“Disgusting,” JJ says, wrinkling his nose and looking away.
I sigh, handing the near-empty bottle back to JJ. “Right. That’s enough for him.”
Finn groans, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand and spitting into the grass. “I hate cider.”
“No you don’t,” I say, pulling him back from the edge by his jacket so he wouldn't fall out. “You've just had too much of it.”
Finn collapses back onto the floor of the truck bed, staring blankly at the sky. “We can't all be raging alcoholics like you, Blue.”
I roll my eyes, leaning my head back against the metal. The stars are starting to blur at the edges. “I’m not an alcoholic,” I mutter.
JJ snort. “Right. That’s why you’ve been locked every weekend since we were fourteen.”
“Fuck off, JJ,” I say, kicking his leg lightly. But there is real heat in my voice, a sudden spike of anger that makes my chest tight.
JJ raises his hands in mock surrender, sensing the shift in my tone. “Alright, alright. Keep your hair on. I was only messing.”
Finn groans again, curling into a fetal position. “Can we please go home now?”
Fitzy sighs from the cab, the gears grinding as he shifts. “Are we done emptying our stomachs?”
Finn nods weakly, not opening his eyes. Fitzy sighs again. Just as the truck starts moving, JJ chokes on his own spit, goes pale, and then promptly throws up all over his own shoes and a good portion of the truck bed.
Fitzy slams on the brakes so hard I nearly go over the cab.
??ˋ ?? ?ˊ?
“OKAY...OKAY YER comin’ up on a step,” I whisper, using my 'indoor voice' which might still be loud enough to wake Lady, the Marshall’s dog, but I take my chances. She’s not a big barker, luckily for us.
Finn misses the step by about a mile, his boot catching the edge of the concrete, and nearly busting his face before we’ve even gotten him up his own back porch. There are only two steps.
“Alright. Let’s try that again,” I hum patiently, hauling him up by his armpit.
I can feel myself swaying. I know I’d had too much.
I could run comfortably day-to-day with a light buzz, maintaining the facade of the dedicated captain, but it makes it hard to remember my actual limits when the goal is always oblivion.
At least I’m blacking out or having to be the one smuggled home like contraband. Yet.
Right now, I’m kinda wishing I had offered to help Fitzy hose down JJ and his truck bed instead of taking on the task of getting Finn inside.
He trips over the step again. He leans his entire body weight on me, and I’m not exactly a pillar of stability at the moment. But hey, at least my knee doesn’t hurt.
“Fuckin’ hell,” Finn groans. “Leave me here. Let the foxes have me.”
I sigh, resting my hands on my knees to catch my breath. “Finn, your Mam will kill me. And then she’ll resurrect me and kill me again.”
“Better you than me,” he mutters, sliding down to the grass until his legs are splayed out in front of him like a discarded ragdoll.
I bend over, trying to grab him under the arms to haul him back up, but my balance is shot. I stumble forward, my feet tangling with his, and we both go down in a tangled heap of limbs and swearing. Finn lets out a loud “Oof” as my elbow jams into his ribs.
“Jesus Christ,” I groan, rolling off him and lying flat beside him on the cool grass. “Alright. New plan. We’re both sleeping outside.”
Finn lets out a breathy sigh, rubbing his side. “If you need to keep warm, Nialler, just snuggle closer. I won't tell anyone.”
I snort, shoving his shoulder blindly in the dark. “Piss off.”
“You say as if you weren’t the one molesting me a second ago.”
“In your dreams, Marshall.”
Our laughter dies in our throats as the back door slides open, casting a rectangle of yellow light over us. I’m fully expecting his father to be standing there. That would mean a phone call to my Mam, which would mean I really would be sleeping outside for the rest of the year.
Maxwell Marshall’s eyes widen as he takes in the pathetic scene—his older brother sprawled out on the grass in front of the back steps like roadkill, and me lying beside him, my hair sticking up in every direction, both of us reeking of bad cider and worse decisions.
“Oh my God,” Maxwell whispers, looking entirely unimpressed. “Are you two locked?”
Finn groans dramatically, shielding his eyes from the porch light. “No. We’re just, uh... camping.”
Maxwell rolls his eyes. “Ma and Da are asleep. But I can hear you eejits from all the way up in my room. You sound like two badgers fighting over a bin bag. I already covered for you earlier and told them you were downstairs watching telly, so you owe me a tenner, Finn.”
Finn groans, patting his pockets loosely, probably because he doesn’t have a tenner. I sigh, reach into my jeans pocket, and pull out a crumpled and slightly damp ten-euro note. “Here. Now help me get him up before we all freeze to death.”