NEEDLING

Yesterday, an old man came into the store. He was in a wheelchair, and another man was pushing his wheelchair. The man in the chair was 97 and the man pushing him around was around 50. I figured they were father and son, but that's not entirely certain. Father and son out and about doing a little round to the liquor store behind moma's back. They were both quite jovial. The younger man seemed a bit guilty, though, as if he was taking his son into a porno store or something. The old man was overjoyed, as if he’d been waiting for this moment a long time.

“How ya’ll doing today,” I greeted them.
“Fine, thanks,” the 50 year old man said, then added apologetically, “the old man wants some booze.”
“Nothing wrong with that,” I said, “What can I get you?”
“You got some of that Evan Williams?”
“Of course... I’ll go get it for you.”
“I want to biggest bottle you got.”
“No problem.”

I walked to the back of the store where we’ve recently moved the Kentucky bourbons, the Tennessee whisky’s, and all American whisky’s basically. There were two jugs of Evan Williams. A seven year old and a ten year old whisky. The seven year old is a bottle without a handle whereas the ten year old has a handle on the bottle. The old man was coming down the isle with his 50 year old chaperon. I was holding both bottles up, speaking loudly so that he could hear me, almost shouting.

“You want the seven year old or the ten year old?”
“I want the one with the handle, that’s much easier for an old geezer like me.”
“That’s the ten year old, and it’s a little more pricy.”
“I need a handle on the jug, that’s what I need. It’s much more gooder.”

He stressed the last word and repeated it, thinking it was the funniest thing in the world. After he’d said ‘gooder’ three or four times, I said I didn’t think that was such good English.

“I know it ain’t good English, that’s why it’s so funny.” And he burst out laughing again.
“I kept saying that to the nurses...” he stopped and retracted, explaining, “I just got out of the hospital... and there was all those pretty nurses running around. I had a blast with them. Every time I said ‘gooder’ they’d all laugh like it was the funniest thing.” Then he just fell silent holding on to his bottle of whisky thinking about all those nurses.

We got to the counter, he paid up, and told me a little story.

“Tell him about when you had your first legal drink,” the 50 year old man said.
“Oh, I don’t remember, that’s been a long time ago.”
“Not your first drink, your first legal drink... you remember...”
“I’m not sure...”
“Sure you do, about the prohibition and all...”
“Oh yeah... there I was about seventeen years old, and they’d just made drinking legal again. No more prohibition. So me and a group of friends, we all went into a bar. A legal bar, they were few and far between in those days. We were all at the counter and we each ordered a pitcher and a glass.”
“They got a pitcher each,” the 50 year old added, which is good because the old man mumbled his words a little. He was so happy to be holding on to his bottle, plus the old age and all, I couldn’t understand everything he was saying.
“We sat down, each of us pouring ourselves our first legal glass of beer ever, and each bringing up the glasses to our face, almost in unison. Without a word being spoken, we all took one sip, placed the glasses back down on the table, got up, and got the hell out of there.”
“You left all that beer behind?” I simply could not understand.
“Sure the hell did.”

In my mind, I was calculating, trying to understand. Was this some weird political statement. Because they could, they did. Or something like that. It didn’t make sense.

“Why... I don’t understand.”
“Why! That beer was shit! It’d been so long since any legal firm had made any beer, they didn’t know how to do it anymore. I swear to you, I wouldn’t even wish that beer on my hogs back then. That was the worst thing I’d ever put in my mouth. Back then I was still living in New Jersey, and there was this Italian man a little ways out of town who made his own beer. And I tell you what, that was the best stuff I’d ever tasted. Nectar. I don’t know what that Italian did to make such good beer, but it was good stuff, and we straight back to him. The illegal stuff was better than the legal stuff”
“Do they still make beer,” I said stupidly.
“Son, I’m ninety seven years old, when I remember things like that beer, it’s as if it just happened last week, and everything else in between isn’t there any more. It simply doesn't exist. I don’t know if that beer's still there. To me it’s like yesterday, like I was drinking that Italian’s beer last week. What do you want from me?”

But he wasn't mad at me. He was laughing, being happy about the long ago past and the very near present. Nothing in between existed.

There was more that was said, but I don’t remember. He was good old man. I hope he enjoys the hell out of that whisky.