Page 96 of Rhymes with Metaphor
“Let’s go to the pub,” said Joel.
So they did.At the pub, Joel ordered something “stringy” to drink.When the bartender stared at him, Joel said, “Shoot me with some whisky.”And made a finger gun at him.
Joel downed the shot and asked for another.
After the second one, Reg stopped him.“Wait.See how it hits you.”
“It’s not hitting me at all,” Joel slurred.
Fifteen minutes later, he could barely walk, and Reg had to hold him upright.“I think you’ve had enough.”
“One more for the road.”
Reg asked the bartender for a glass of water, which Reg made Joel drink before they went back to the house.Reg was practically carrying him by then.
They stopped midway across a stone bridge.Joel leaned over the parapet, staring into the water where reflections of the trees swayed, black against the grey.It was an isolating, dislocating feeling for Reg, being sober while Joel was this far gone.
“I remember,” said Joel slowly.“He used to buy a bag of cream mints, and he’d always give me the last one.”
“Who did?”
“My dad,” said Joel.He started sobbing.
Reg put his arm around him, and Joel threw up over the bridge.
“Sorry,” said Joel afterwards, wiping his mouth.
“It’s the Thames.It’s seen worse.”
Reg guided him back over the bridge, steering his weaving footsteps and curbing his wilder lurches, back to the house, where he was promptly sick into the lilies of the valley by the front door.
Reg held Joel’s forehead while Joel crouched, trembling and gasping.
“All finished?”said Reg.
Joel shook his head and was summarily sick again.
Reg got him upright and into the house where he was sick again in the hallway on the Victorian checkerboard tiles and dropped to his hands and knees, a lily of the valley clutched in his fist.Reg had to hold him up to stop him falling into it.Joel coughed and spat.Reg looked at the cream-coloured foamy vomit on the black and white squares and...it was a supremely unsuitable time to be gripped by inspiration, but there it was.He eased Joel onto his side safely clear of the mess, took the lily of the valley out of Joel’s hand, and hastily brushed words onto the tiles in Joel’s vomit.An entire verse that left him as swiftly as Joel’s sick.
Joel lay on the floor, watching Reg and blinking with an uncanny, knowing stare.Reg felt guilty, like he was profiting off Joel’s misery, which, in a way, he was.He dropped the flower, hauled Joel to his feet, and got him upstairs to the bedroom.
“Lie down,” said Reg.
“I’ll lie down when the bed stops moving.”
Reg coaxed him onto his side where he lay, shivering in little bursts.Reg put a bucket on the floor beside the bed.Then he found his notebook and continued writing.He stayed awake watching over Joel while he wrote.Joel was sick twice more before he settled to sleep.
The next morning, Joel woke groaning.
“You’re alive,” said Reg.“That’s a good sign.”
“No, it’s horrible.I will never eat smoked eels again.”
“No,” said Reg.“Nor will I.”
Joel lay back and shut his eyes.“Did you write a poem in my puke last night?”
“Afraid so....er.There’s a thought.I’d better...transcribe it.”Reg looked around the clutter of the room for his notebook and pen.“Will you be all right for a few minutes?”
