It wasn’t water, that was for sure. It tasted like hot, light oil. He swallowed mostly in surprise. The vodka trailed heat down his throat, then exploded in his stomach.
“Holy Jeezum!” Pete yelled.
Tears sprang into his eyes. He held the bottle out at arm’s length, as if it had bitten him. But the heat in his stomach was already subsiding, and he felt pretty much okay. Not drunk, and not like he was going to puke, either. He tried another little sip, now that he knew what to expect. Heat in the mouth. heat in the throat. and then, boom in the stomach.
Actually not bad. Now he felt a tingling in his arms and hands. Maybe his neck, too. Not the pins-and-needles sensation you got when a limb went to sleep, but more like something was waking up.
Pete raised the bottle to his lips again, then lowered it. There was more to worry about than falling off the loading dock or crashing his bike on the way home (he wondered briefly if you could get arrested for drunk biking and supposed you could). Having a few swigs of vodka so you could brag on it was one thing, but if he drank enough to get loaded, his mother and father would know when they came home. It would only take one look. Trying to act sober wouldn’t help. They drank, their friends drank, and sometimes they drank too much. They would know the signs.
Also, there was the dreaded HANGOVER to consider. Pete and George had seen their mom and dad dragging around the house with red eyes and pale faces on a good many Saturday and Sunday mornings. They took vitamin pills, they told you to turn the TV down, and music was absolutely verboten. The HANGOVER looked like the absolute opposite of fun.
Still, maybe one more sip might not hurt.
Pete took a slightly larger swallow and shouted, “Zoom, we have liftoff!” This made him laugh. He felt a little light-headed, but it was a totally pleasant feeling. Smoking he didn’t get. Drinking, he guessed he did.
He got up, staggered a little, caught his balance, and laughed some more. “Jump into that fucking sandpit all you want, sugarbears,” he told the empty restaurant. “I’m fuckin stinko, and fuckin stinko is better.” This was very funny, and he laughed hard.
Am I really stinko? On just three sips?
He didn’t think so, but he was definitely high. No more. Enough was enough. “Drink responsibly,” he told the empty restaurant, and snorted.
He’d hang out here for a while and wait for it to wear off. An hour should do it, maybe two. Until three o’clock, say. He didn’t have a wristwatch, but he’d be able to tell three o’clock from the chimes of St. Joseph’s, which was only a mile or so away. Then he’d leave, first hiding the vodka (for possible further research) and putting the wedge back under the door. His first stop when he got back to the neighborhood was going to be the 7-Eleven, where he’d buy some of that really strong Teaberry gum to take the smell of the booze off his breath. He’d heard kids say vodka was the thing to steal out of your parents’ liquor cabinet because it had no smell, but Pete was now a wiser child than he’d been an hour ago.
“Besides,” he told the hollowed-out restaurant in a lecturely tone, “I bet my eyes are red, just like Dad’s when he has too marny mantinis.” He paused. That wasn’t quite right, but what the fuck.
He gathered up the darts, went back to the Beeber Line, and shot them. He missed Justin with all but one, and this struck Pete as the most hilarious thing of all. As he gathered them up, he sang a few lines of “Baby,” Justin’s big hit from last year. He wondered if Justin could have a hit with a song called “My Baby Shaves Her Pussy,” and this struck him so funny that he laughed until he had to bend over with his hands on his knees.
When the laughter passed, he wiped double snot-hangers from his nose, flicked them onto the floor (there goes your Good Restaurant rating, he thought, sorry, Burger King), and then trudged back to the Beeber Line. He had even worse luck the second time. He wasn’t seeing double or anything, he just couldn’t nail the Beeb.