Page 3 of For a Goode Time Call…
“Youarea freak accident of genetics,” she muttered.
I nodded. “True enough. But my tolerance is bananas, even for a guy my size.”
“What’s that look like? How much would you have to drink to get blackout?”
I bobbed my head to one side, running my fingers down through my beard. “This one time, me, Fox, Andrew, and Royal were out in the deep bush, hunting moose.”
“Clearly I know none of these people, but no matter. Carry on.”
“Just friends of mine. Fox is the only one you may ever see in town, though. Andrew and Royal stay as far from cities as they can get. Anyway. We were way the hell out there, couple days’ hike from where we’d left Royal’s floatplane, which was the only way you could even get close to where we were. Far as fuck from any damned thing. Course, Andrew bein’ Andrew, had packed a whole damn crate of booze with him. We’d hike out from the plane, which we were using as our base camp. We’d hunt and hike and camp, come back to base camp to resupply, drop off our kills, and then head back out.”
“How many moose did you kill?”
I laughed. “Well, you go out for moose, come back with deer, rabbits, turkeys, grouse, whatever.”
“Isn’t there some sort of law about what you can hunt and when?” Cassie asked. “I mean, I know literally nothing about hunting, but I just have that impression.”
“We’re all indigenous, and Fox, Royal and Andrew all have subsistence hunting licenses.”
“I don’t know what that is.”
“Well, you gotta know what subsistence means, yeah?”
Cassie nodded. “Sure.”
“There’s still rules and regulations to it, but basically it exempts us from those wider regulations about hunting, provided we are only hunting to provide for our families, which this was, by the way.”
“Hunting for survival, rather than mere sport.”
“Yep. Fox is a trapper by trade, and Andrew and Royal both hunt as their primary means of providing food for their wives and kids. I was just along for fun, although I do keep my license up to date.”
“When does this answer my question about you drinking?”
Bast came by and refilled our beers.
“Gettin’ there,” I said. “We’d been out there for about a week by this time, and we’d only indulged a little bit around the fire, but I’d heard a telltale clinking and rattling coming from Andrew’s bags, and I knew he was packing something with him, just biding his time to break it out.”
I paused to remember.
“Well, one night, we’d gone the whole damn day without seein’ a single animal worth shooting, and we was all frustrated. So Andrew says, ‘boys, I think it’s time we test the upper limits of Ink’s tolerance for booze.’”
Cassie grinned. “Oh boy.”
“Yeah,” I said. “Especially if you take into consideration that Andrew is famous, or maybe it’s better said he’sinfamous—for his moonshine.”
“Homemade moonshine?”
I nodded. “Ohhh yeah. The most potent white lightning you’ll ever taste. It’ll sear the taste buds right off your tongue. I’ve seen grown men, hard-drinking boozers at that, get hammered off a handful of shots of Andrew’s shine.” I sighed. “Now, don’t go repeating this, since it ain’t exactly a legal operation, mind you.”
“Can’t moonshine make you go blind?”
I shrugged. “Sure, if you’re an asshole or an idiot. Andrew is neither—his shine is on par with some of the best in the country. It’s a real operation, with real equipment…it just ain’t legal, as he don’t have a proper permit. Point being, his hooch ispowerful.”
“How much did you drink?”
I shrugged. “Lost track after about an hour. I wasn’t trying to chug it, as I ain’t interested in dying. All I remember is Andrew would refill my cup whenever it emptied. I know I saw him uncork a new bottle more than once, but they was all drinkin’ too. When I came to, there was three empty bottles, and Andrew, Fox, and Royal stayed passed out for a whole day. We were all sick as hell for three days. Wonder of it was that none of us were the worse for wear, but I know after that, Andrew never bugged me about drinking again. Said what he saw me do that night, in terms of the amount I drank, was just purely terrifying to behold.” I shook my head. “Don’t remember much, but when I woke up, my whole body hurt worse than the time I got hit by a truck. None of my buddies would tell me what I done, but there was a whole hell of a lotta broken shit at the camp, so I figure…well, I figure it wasn’t pretty.”
Cassie frowned up at me. “That’s crazy. Charlie and I did a moonshine tasting during a vacation to Tennessee, and it only took us a little bit to get crazy drunk.”
