Jack & Gin: DAMN
I met her for the first time on a cold winter night at Pushkin’s Pub with a cold tub of my favorite drink - Lemon Louie. Such a spicy feeling as it slid down my throat and eased the pain of my past. As I swallowed this beverage, the doorbell clings, and my glass hits the table fast. The bartender said I should go home and sleep off the shots of Louie, before I lose my sense of self. I bid him farewell, tipped my top hat and remembered my secret bottle behind the bookshelf.
Stumbling to my car, I tried to grab the keys from my left pocket. My stomach bubbles and my throat sizzled, then out came a burp rocket. “Whew! That was a load off eh?” I said to myself. Suddenly, as I started my car and the windshield became clear there was a young lady who looked like she lost her lovely way.
Her head was on the swivel looking back and forth with the eyes of a scared gazelle. Was she running away from something or was she drunk as hell? Hell, I was so drunk I couldn’t even tell. Wiping my mouth of saliva I drove past the young lady and continued my way home. The night became a foggy mist of perspiration while the moon hid behind the clouds. Pulling up to a red light, I began to yawn loud; I was so damn tired. “Five minutes till home and no traffic in sight? Hmm…must be one of those days.” There was not one hover car on this cloudy night.
“Help me please! Please someone help me!” A piercing scream cuts through the silence. Cracks separated the ground below and a grand mountain of grass rose out of the crumbling rubble. I swerved to the right and swerved to the left to avoid any incoming trouble. Simple times just seemed to grow weirder by the minute these days. But this day was special, unique even to my taste. “What the hell is that?” Trees started to pile up as the street lights bend inward, hitting each other, until it becomes nothing but darkness.
Only my car lights lit the way for me to see. I sobered up in a hurry and pulled myself together. A woman screams loudly again, and this time I see her as clear as dawn. Elevation rose higher and I could feel my stomach pushing toward my throat. I became terribly sick to my stomach. Grabbing a brown paper bag smelling of vinegar, I began to vomit profusely until the bile on my tongue began to burn. “Lemon Louie, me and you are THROUGH!”
Thinking I was going to crash, I panicked quickly grabbing the steering wheel, but nothing happened. It seems as though whatever force was moving the mountain toward the sky had been moving the car too. Rolling down the window, I peeked outside and saw the most unbelievable thing in my entire drunkard life. A flying woman in a cheetah print dress twisting and twirling through the air with a vine attached to her ankle. Without thinking, I waited for her to fly next to the window and grabbed her dress before she flew any higher.
“Please pull me in - pull me in,” she screamed with urgency. “Holy hell! What the shit is going on!?” Looking down with a blazing gaze of irritation she replied, “If I fucking knew I wouldn’t be flying like a bat out of satan's ass now would I!?! Pull me in!” In my mind I realized that was the same woman I saw earlier that night. She was dashingly brown with beautiful tight curly locs. Her lips were puckered with pink and caramel and her eyes jet black. She had wifey material and a bad ass mouth written all over her, I loved it. The vines had a strong latch on her long legs, but it wasn’t an impossible task.
“I’m gonna pull on three! 1…2…NOW!” And I pulled her in as hard as I could. Nothing happened. They must’ve been made out of steel because I could not for the life of me break them off her. If I don’t think of something quick then she’s a goner for sure. Days ago I was lying down drinking, watching the Nat Geo channel. They mentioned plants and the top ten things that could kill them instantly. In the top five was ethanol found in alcohol. About twenty-five percent or more of ethanol can suffocate a plant to death, if poured directly on it.
My brain clicked immediately and remembered I had Bram Stoker's Vodka in the back of my seat. “Perfect!” Snatching the bottle from the back seat, I popped the bottle and chugged a mouthful of Vodka as fast as I could. Holding it in my mouth I climbed out of the window of the car and grabbed onto the vine hanging at the base of her foot. “What the hell are you doing, trying to look under my dress! Really?! At a time like this!” Shaking my head, I realized beauty isn’t all brains.
Breathing a gust of air through my nostrils, I spit a mouthful of Vodka on the snake-like vine. It screeched like a siren letting go of her legs and whipping in the air. “For fuck sake its alive! Pull me in now,” she screamed as he caught her body. “How in the hell did you get here?” she asked. I became stuck in time as I looked into her eyes, I don’t know what the hell came over me. Maybe this life and death situation made me black out, or maybe I’m smitten by her devilish cat-like beauty. “I’mmmmmm Jack. An–” She quickly cut me off holding her nose, “And you smell like a wet dog mmf. You must live in a pub don’t you Jack?” She lifted her head up in disappointment, talking toward the sky. “Christ Gileema, you were saved by a pissy drunk hobo. Perfect!”
At this moment I didn’t care if she insulted me or not, I just knew she spoke her mind. But my pride wouldn’t give her the satisfaction. “I think I just saved your ass back there didn’t I? What hobo could drive a hover car hundreds of feet in the air AND save a damsel from weeds?”
I could tell her brain was thinking of something clever to say back, but not before we hit the side of a mountain. We crashed hard against the stones of the hill and shards of grass came tumbling down around us. The hover car had almost flattened us like sardines in a can, but we managed to escape by jumping out and grabbing onto a long metal rod implanted in a boulder. “Hang on!!” I screamed. “I am dammit!” she screamed back as she held both arms wrapped around my legs. Panic set in as I looked below and realized just how high we were. Above everything I could see the moon coming closer and closer, which meant that the mountain was still growing toward the sky.
Clouds were only a few hundred feet away from being touched without wings or a hover plane. I had never been that high in the sky before. Gileema was slipping and so was my grip on the metal rod. There was a small kayak boat impaled inside the grassy knoll a few feet below us. Suddenly a humongous brown hand came descending from the sky toward us. It had hair on its knuckles, a large brass ring, yellowish nails, and scars on its palms. “Gileema…whatever you do, don't look up.”
My voice was shaky and so was my body. “Don’t look up. What the hell are you talking ab–” A fast zip came across her mouth as she dangled in disbelief. Soon desperation came sinking in both of our bodies. “We gotta jump. You hear me? We gotta jump!” Shaking her head side to side, that was the very last thing she wanted to do. “Are you fucking MAD? No no NO!”
Whoosh!
Within seconds we began falling. Our arms flailing and mouths gasping for air. It felt like time stood still. The droplets from the sky fell slowly on my face and soon my heart jumped out my chest beating once per millisecond at a time. Our bodies came slamming down on top of the kayak. Her ass hitting the bottom bow and my head hitting her chest. I’m pretty sure I knocked all the air out of her body.
The kayak then slid fast down the mountain hill like a bat out of hell. Until finally it landed on the ground skidding on the concrete. Gilleema had whiplash and I hit my head on her elbow as we came down the hill. We survived that insane night and I gave up on liquor that night. But most importantly she never gave me her number.
Damn.
What a helluva night...
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