#deirdre01

It doesn’t count as a warning if it’s only in the fine print.

Real warnings are spoken out loud, or written in big block letters on signs: red lights, CAUTION WET FLOOR, don’t run with scissors or you’ll trip and gouge your eye. This, he had to search to find. Second page of the medication pamphlet, the bottom of a column and the start of another. Type so small you could overlook it. Black ink on a blue background -- I mean, who can read a thing like that, really, anyway? Who thought of this design? 

You should avoid or limit the use of alcohol while taking Fluoxetine.

Didn’t say why. And he didn’t ask, didn’t Google. He’d know the damage when the damage was done; that was experimentation, trial by error. That was Salty Dogs, the bar he had to drive to (he promised an Uber back, he crossed his heart in the mirror) and its peeling-wax countertop. He was 20 last time he sat in this stool, trying to pass for 21 -- but he was taller than all the bartenders, so they didn’t pull his card. The staff had changed, since then. There was a small tear in the stool that he covered with his thigh when he sat down, knees pressed closed together, elbows at his stomach. It wasn’t the kind of place that got shoulder-to-shoulder busy on a Thursday night, but still, Nate stayed conscious of his limbs. He was not the kind of person who spread out. He pulled in, and in, and in.

The music had changed, too. Back when this was the sort of place he always wished he could take a date, he’d sit outside and pretend to have forgotten his license and listen to the muted R.E.M. tracks through the half-open door. This was -- he didn’t know this. Or the song that came before it. Six months is a lot to miss, on the radio; and that was fine, he could down his second beer in two more gulps, if he took breath between. He ordered his third and thought about the word avoid, and how much he liked the word limit more.

And, honestly, did either of them matter? The Stella was leaving foam on his lip. He closed his eyes to listen to--to whatever this was, and to sit with the taste of the beer in his mouth, and he pressed a hand against the counter to make sure he didn’t sway too much without the visual guidance. Toucan Sam, they called him in college. Two cans and he’s gone. And it was an exaggeration, but as glass three turned into dregs, he was reaching into the pocket of his jeans to tug out the Marlboros he’d bought last week. The edges were crunched from getting carried around, but inside, only four were missing -- tonight, there’d be a fifth. 

Nate didn’t have cravings yet; he just had feelings, and as he walked outside (tapped the bar for a refill), those feelings were all there. The harsh of his heart. The way his thumb kept rubbing the knuckle of its neighbor’s finger, anxious and ready and Ready, okay? He still had to convince himself he was good at this. He leaned against the concrete outside, where the rough scratched at the nape of his neck, and he ducked down to tug out a single cigarette, pull out the lighter from his other pocket. Everyone made this look so easy: James Dean, James Bond. Meanwhile his thumb was pink from the struggle to sustain a flame. He tucked the filter to the side of his mouth as he tried again, striking, but it was all sparks. “God damn it,” he said, and moved to strike again.