in final period, while his classmates were conjugating Latin verbs, Whiskey had gone to the bathroom and vomited his guts up, passed out right there on the stall floor, come around hours later to find himself alone in the dark, locked in the school overnight. Another version had Whiskey drinking the booze at home while his parents were out, stealing his motherâs car and driving it into a tree.
Whiskey had ripped jeans, high-top Airwalk sneakers, which you couldnât even buy in Australia, a flattop like Ice out of Top Gun . People wanted to hear stories about him, tell stories about him. He had come from England a month ago, without a past, without a history, and if there were no stories to tell, they would make them up themselves, pass them around until they became accepted truths. Whiskey never confirmed or denied any of the rumors that circulated about him, worked on the theory that any publicity was good publicity. So there was no one to verify the stories except Charlie. And Charlie didnât count.
It didnât matter that William had been called Whiskey since he was nine years old; it didnât matter that the stories couldnât be true because their mother didnât even have a car of her own in England and she always tipped down the sink any whiskey that came into the house because she said their father liked it too much and couldnât be trusted with it. If Charlie had said, âWhiskeyâs just his walkie-talkie name from when we were kids,â everyone would have thought it was Charlie who was lying.
* * *
Even after hours of sitting beside Whiskey, Charlie canât bring himself to really look at his brother. At first, he angles his chair to the foot of the bed so that Whiskeyâs bloody, bandaged head is out of his line of sight and all he can see is the pristine plaster cast on Whiskeyâs foot, which allows him to pretend that Whiskeyâs injuries are in the realm of the ordinary. Later, Charlie looks at the machinery keeping his brother alive. He watches with a certain fascination the IV bags hanging by Whiskeyâs bed. He does not know the exact contents of the bags, but the sight of those fluids making their journey through their transparent tubes and into Whiskeyâs body, the process of watching them emptied and eventually replaced, bring Charlie comfort, make him feel that somehow healing must be taking place.
In addition to the IV tubes, Whiskey is hooked to an array of wires that are monitoring his vital signs. All the information transmitted through these wires is displayed on a small screen next to Whiskeyâs bed. Charlie stares at this screen for a long time. He does not know what the lines and colors mean, but he finds them soothing, like watching television late at night with the sound turned down.
Whiskeyâs right arm is in a plaster cast to the elbow. On the left armâtaking its place between the tubes and wiresâis a blood pressure cuff. Charlie remembers having his tonsils removed when he was eight or nine years old, needing to have his blood pressure taken again and again after he came around from the anesthetic. He remembers the nurses putting on the Velcro cuff, inflating it with the black pump that looked exactly like the one on his bicycle horn. He remembers the tightening sensation, like pins and needles, and then the feeling of release. Whiskeyâs cuff is left on permanently. Every so often, a machine kicks on and automatically inflates it, displaying the results on the monitor. Over and over, Charlie watches the cuff inflate and deflate again, but when the results appear on the screen, he looks away. He has never understood blood pressure, doesnât know what a normal reading is for a person in good health, let alone someone in Whiskeyâs condition. He would rather not know.
x x x
Charlie is relieved when Rosa returns that afternoon.
âDid you sleep?â he asks.
âYour mother made me to take a
Whiskey had ripped jeans, high-top Airwalk sneakers, which you couldnât even buy in Australia, a flattop like Ice out of Top Gun . People wanted to hear stories about him, tell stories about him. He had come from England a month ago, without a past, without a history, and if there were no stories to tell, they would make them up themselves, pass them around until they became accepted truths. Whiskey never confirmed or denied any of the rumors that circulated about him, worked on the theory that any publicity was good publicity. So there was no one to verify the stories except Charlie. And Charlie didnât count.
It didnât matter that William had been called Whiskey since he was nine years old; it didnât matter that the stories couldnât be true because their mother didnât even have a car of her own in England and she always tipped down the sink any whiskey that came into the house because she said their father liked it too much and couldnât be trusted with it. If Charlie had said, âWhiskeyâs just his walkie-talkie name from when we were kids,â everyone would have thought it was Charlie who was lying.
* * *
Even after hours of sitting beside Whiskey, Charlie canât bring himself to really look at his brother. At first, he angles his chair to the foot of the bed so that Whiskeyâs bloody, bandaged head is out of his line of sight and all he can see is the pristine plaster cast on Whiskeyâs foot, which allows him to pretend that Whiskeyâs injuries are in the realm of the ordinary. Later, Charlie looks at the machinery keeping his brother alive. He watches with a certain fascination the IV bags hanging by Whiskeyâs bed. He does not know the exact contents of the bags, but the sight of those fluids making their journey through their transparent tubes and into Whiskeyâs body, the process of watching them emptied and eventually replaced, bring Charlie comfort, make him feel that somehow healing must be taking place.
In addition to the IV tubes, Whiskey is hooked to an array of wires that are monitoring his vital signs. All the information transmitted through these wires is displayed on a small screen next to Whiskeyâs bed. Charlie stares at this screen for a long time. He does not know what the lines and colors mean, but he finds them soothing, like watching television late at night with the sound turned down.
Whiskeyâs right arm is in a plaster cast to the elbow. On the left armâtaking its place between the tubes and wiresâis a blood pressure cuff. Charlie remembers having his tonsils removed when he was eight or nine years old, needing to have his blood pressure taken again and again after he came around from the anesthetic. He remembers the nurses putting on the Velcro cuff, inflating it with the black pump that looked exactly like the one on his bicycle horn. He remembers the tightening sensation, like pins and needles, and then the feeling of release. Whiskeyâs cuff is left on permanently. Every so often, a machine kicks on and automatically inflates it, displaying the results on the monitor. Over and over, Charlie watches the cuff inflate and deflate again, but when the results appear on the screen, he looks away. He has never understood blood pressure, doesnât know what a normal reading is for a person in good health, let alone someone in Whiskeyâs condition. He would rather not know.
x x x
Charlie is relieved when Rosa returns that afternoon.
âDid you sleep?â he asks.
âYour mother made me to take a
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