My Cardboard Balcony

The Daily Drunkard by Belinda Roddie The bartender reads my mind like I'm a book with the index wide open, mixing me something sour enough to almost make my teeth turn inward. I pinch a peanut from the bowl hard enough to hear the shell crack and split in half, like San Francisco's scars back in nineteen o'six. Plate tectonics shift. So do my bones. Forty-five, to me, feels like eighty. Scouting out a gray hair in my beard, I watch two college girls huddling in the corner of the bar, taking pictures on their cellphones, flashing the peace sign. I'm ready to give it to them in reverse when the bartender sets another full glass down in front of me. Scoured my psyche again. I ought to give her a tip. I'd give her a kiss, but I think she'd clock me first. I can hardly taste the gin in my drinks anymore. In fact, I can hardly taste anything at all. The room spins like perfect clockwork before my knees hit the floor. I don't know where I...

As it stands, we have to try one of two options. The first option is to go on the offensive. Make sure everyone knows we mean business. If they get too close to our territory, we shoot first and ask questions later. And hopefully we won't have to actually ask questions because, hey, they'll be dead. And dead people tend not to be very inquisitive. The second option: Run. Run as fast as we can. When the tanks start rolling in, we'll be long gone. The mountains will still be capped with snow when we hide.

I Just Wanted A Pint by Belinda Roddie Little woman, little man drinking from a cider can. One wears brown shoes, one wears black, one's scheduled for a heart attack. Carbonation in a glass, bar brawl 'bout to kick your ass. Still, you'll get a hit or two, enough to make his face turn blue. Little man needs CPR, little woman's in your car. Stop the bleeding from your nose and feel the rubber 'gainst your toes.

No spoonful of ice cream until you eat your carrots and peas. No visit to the park until your bedroom is all cleaned. No vacant stare at the television until you've picked a book to read. And no getting a new toy until you've helped Dad rake the leaves. There are rules to be followed, and I'm sure you don't understand, but you won't get the things you want until you do as I command.

Humidity by Belinda Rodde The rest of the evening, after the funeral, is spent at Old Johnson's Pub, drinking hard cider and chocolate stout, fighting off the late August heat that sticks to our skin even after the sun sets, and reminiscing about the days we got high on our old school's playground, and drunk on the patio of Mister Sipher's condemned house, his cracked white eyes gleaming from between the slats of his shuttered windows. I try to pick up the tab, but my brother snatches the bill before I can even speak. His signature is sloppy, almost amateur. Usually his autograph is so crisp, so formal, even when he has to sign dozens of copies of his newest book at the conventions and stores. He wipes his nose, but he can't stop a bit of water landing right where he dotted the i of his last name. Jennifer is waiting outside for us, smoking a cigar that's fatter than her thumb, her hair still greasy from both the humidity and the pomade tha...

Georgia was one of the only people I knew who actually liked to talk about the weather. Not only was her husband, Ronald, a meteorologist featured on our local news, but she also found everything, from rain to droughts to floods to tornadoes, absolutely fascinating. When she chugged a couple of good-sized beers, she'd rant about how badly the town had handled our latest hurricane, and somehow, she made it all very entertaining.

Enough. I've had enough of the senseless violence. I've had enough of the uniform being tarnished for the sake of brutality. I see the endless slabs of cardboard and white posters screaming for some semblance of humanity among those who are meant to protect us. I've seen too many dead bodies in the street. I've heard too many mothers crying. How many more will have to die until the institution changes? Enough. I've had enough.