Gilfred Wayne Osiris (Freddy-Wayne for short) didn’t know it, but whatever typical anatomical-degradation had accompanied his everyday, average aging had also been aggressively expedited by his loquacious consumption of that syrupy delight–honey-rye whiskey on the rocks. But, irregardless of this, since he was entirely unaware of it, although he’d had his suspicions, Freddy-Wayne decided there’d be no more drinking for him . . . after one more night anyway; and he’d arrived at so seemingly brash a conclusion after the recent, dramatically-inflated legal consequences regarding any such indulgence whatever. Truly, drinking had become a dangerous frivolity, akin to hypocodrone and practically-meth. It seemed the leader of the free world and his legislative specialist had declared aggressive punishments for any individual involved in an arguably-discernible mind-altering avocation and the on-the-spot execution of any individual either peddling the contributory wares or in possession of “excessive narcotical quantities.” This was a real bummer for drunks and their dealers . . . I mean bar owners.

     Poor Freddy-Wayned had attempted all the last month long to abandon his fancy for the sauce, but no try would take root. And on this night there was not a drip of substance at his house, and so Gilfred Wayne Osiris had had to brave great peril for a sip at the last local spot to still serve the ruinous dribbles of the devil’s water. So there he sat, savoring every unforgivable drop. One by one, the glasses emptied down the delightable tippler’s gullet until he could hardly produce a reasonable sounding sentence for the gentleman to his left:

     “Seems so strange to come time I myself be abandoning all those luscious driplets of whiskey and the sorts, the government gone declared the termination of evildoing drug-kinds . . . even if they ain’t killed nobody.”

     The man sitting at Freddy-Wayne’s left was steadfastly situated atop his stool, in a crisp brown suit, and having a glass of icy lime-water:

     “Whatever seems so strange about it, good man?”

     “It just ain’t right, you know. Gotta have someway to escape.”

     “Oh, simple citizen, best be on your way, lest you collect some trouble; wouldn’t you say?”

     “And why is that, Mr. Coffee suit? It’s my last night ain’t it? Why should I leave?”

     “Because, woodland spirit-drinker, we are here to end the peddler of which fruits ye now take.”

     At that moment, merry Mr. Marmenheim–the tavern owner and its regular tender (a double strike for him)–was with great effort dragged from the back room out into the bar and dropped on the floor. He’d been so severely battered that Freddy-Wayne could hardly recognize his longtime friend and confidant.

     Now, Mr. Marmenheim was almost exclusively jolly, but lately his protestuous inclinations had enraged a fervent disobedience regarding the swift outlaw of indulgeable substances. He’d refused to shut his doors and continued to alleviate his patrons’ daily woes to a capitulatory incapacitation up until this very night. His unapologetic judicial disregard would henceforth never again materialize into some substantive distribution.

     Mr. Marmenheim gasped a curdling appeal for air which flung spritz of blood across the floor. The two men who’d dragged him out into the bar had certainly defeated the barkeep’s formidable physique, but at considerable damage to themselves. They were panting, bloodied, and disheveled. Evidently Mr. Marmenheim had put up quite the fight.

     They dragged Marmenheim to the man in the coffee suit, who collectedly erected himself at the man’s devastated condition:

     “Do you, Mortimer Marmenheim, admit the legitimacy of your being charged with being in possession of extremely large quantities of drugs?”

     To which Mr. Marmenheim gurgled a surprisingly boisterous: “What!? Hell No!!”

     But the gentleman in the coffee suit cut him short with a deliberate: “Nonsense!” He motioned to the two men, who were in fact members of the police force: “Officers.”

     The policemen lifted Mr. Marmenheim on to the bar and flattened his back down soundly. Creamy gobs of ether were smeared under his nostrils as Mr. Coffee Suit himself produced a pair of needled vials filled with fluorescent liquids. The officers on each side restrained any of the victim’s floundering the ether’d yet subdued. The first needle slid into Mr. Marmenheim’s arm. The iciest sensation crawled through the man’s veins leaving behind a fleeting sensation of warmness. The chemically-intensified realization of his final moments alive stirred the once-jolly bar tender’s thoughts to his wife and daughter. His lips fumbled a nearly inaudible: “please . . . no . . . ” And with that, Mr. Marmenheim went limp in the arms of his fast-holding civil-servants.

     “How did you like that, Mr. Gilfred Wayne Osiris?” called the man in the coffee suit.

     Gilfred Wayne fell from his stool and staggered backwards toward the doors.

     “Not so fast, my good man. Gentlemen, please bring him to me.”

     Gilfred clambered to his feet and made for as quickly a bound as his body could muster to the hopefully awaiting safety outside, but it was of no use. His determined survival was no match for the failed reality of inebriated kinesthetics. Freddy-Wayne fell almost immediately to the floor and sunk into a brief visual blackness.

    When Gilfred Wayne Osiris came to, he was in the clutches of the very officers who’d assisted in his bartender friend’s single dose of capital punishment. The ghastly likelihood of his similar demise panicked a medley of violent frolicking which contributed minimally, if at all, to any possibility of Freddy-Wayne’s imminent escape. And with that the men raised him up and flattened him atop the bar as they’d done to Marmenheim’s tattered body moments before.

     The gentleman in the coffee suit appeared over Freddy-Wayne and calmly exhibited the glass syringe with its glowing contents as the officers applied the probably unnecessary gobs of either under his nostrils. Gilfred shuddered; the second needle was for him. It pinched into his arm with the cocktail’s hallmark icy surge. Freddy-Wayne felt light and happy. The vial’s contents seemed to quench his thirst, and he relished amid the chilly pleasantries of chocolate and coconuts until his ability to produce astounding recollections extinguished forever on the last night of Freddy-Wayne’s frivolous narcotical indulgence.

 

     Have a nice day guys!

-Matt

 

Copyright © 2018 Matthew Bell. All Rights Reserved.

Cartoon quote from Star Wars: Episode I — The Phantom Menace.

Italicized snippet taken from an actual memo by Jeff Sessions articulating his hopeful employment of capital punishment for nonviolent drug offenses.