Chapter One, Part Six

John Murts could talk straight, but it was as rare as drunken cats having a gang fight with a whole bunch of dogs. The liquor was the only thing that mattered to him, and if that damned his speech and made it almost intolerable for anyone with a right of mind to comprehend, it was a small sacrifice to pay. Drinking booze was worth more than travelling with Dilly-boy to find his imaginary dragon people. So it was of no surprise that when they travelled through Dragon Forest, Murts was swaying to and fro carrying a few bottles of his god-for-saken ail.
     He made sure that he would be all set for the whole day’s worth trip walking around this forest. Murts had a bag full of any type of liquor the drunk could get his hands on, which was about eight or nine bottles of strong booze. Dilly-boy would give up before nightfall and return home to his wonderful mousy looking wife, Alice.
     Murts would have the pleasure of passing out in his run down shack of a home and drink more booze when he woke up. Unlike his friend, Murts never had anyone to turn to in his life. Well, that was a lie. Once, in the days of his long forgotten youth, Murts had his own little Alice that would keep him sober and fill his head with the hope that Dilly-boy now carried so well. His Alice was now far gone and the memory of her was fading fast. He could remember the smell of her hair and the feel of her hips in his hands, but the color of her eyes and shape of her lips had become nothing more than a mystery to him. He remembered her long thick chocolate smooth hair but that was just about it. He had blocked most of it out through the lifestyle he lived now, and to him, there was nothing wring with the way he was living.
     He didn’t lose his Alice the way his friend had lost his son. No, if that was the case, John Murts would have it a lot worse than a heavy drinking problem. He probably never would be able to sleep again. His Alice had left him. It was plain and simple like a common story. John was once a good looking guy who fell in love with a good looking girl. Good looking girl realizes that she needs more in life than a simple good looking farmer so she grabs her bags and goes off into the city. The only thing that burned deep inside his little drunken heart was that his Alice didn’t have the decency to give him a little note that she would leave him one day. It wasn’t the greatest feeling in the world to fall asleep holding the girl you love and wake up to find nothing in his bed but his bare body. By then his Alice was far north, south, east or west, or just plain out of the Hull. 
     John Murts had never had another kind of Alice again. His new Alice had become booze, and booze was good enough for him. The way he looked at it was simple. A drink never hurt you, complained to you, or gave any negative feedback at all. A drink would soothe the aches in his mind and fill a world full of painful images to a world full of blended colors and blurry looking ‘meople’.
     Dill, on the other hand, had a sober head strapped on his shoulders. He would only have drinks going out with John to the tavern. Those occasions were few and not as exciting as the one from the other night. Gibbs had no time to get drunk and kill his brain cells. He had to take care of a grieving wife and still raise the farm. After what had happened to Billy, instead of damning the man, it had opened up his eyes and forced him to see what was going on in Hull. His story was a story for another time with complicated loops unlike Murts. It would unravel in time, and Gibbs was content to hide that part of him in the past for now.
     The two continued down the trail. One was shorter than the other, but could be taller if his back wasn’t hunched. Murts, unlike most drunks, was as thin as a twig and carried no beer belly. Instead the beer had become something that seemed to suck the life out of him. His skin was paler giving it a grayish quality and his body was not exactly as straight and bold as it used to be. He wore a farmer’s black hat to cover the strip grey of locks taking root in his scalp, but you could see the grey stubbles of a becoming beard clearly on his face. Dill was completely different than his friend. For someone that was around forty years old, Gibbs looked just out of his twenties. He was muscular and tan from all the farm work that needed to be done on his farm. His face was clean and his hair had only one or two grey hairs resting in its scalp. It was an odd pair to see walking in the woods. One strong was strong while the other was feeble. One was bright while the other was wasted. The comparisons could never end with Gibbs and Murts but it would end like this. They were odd and seemed like a pair that would get nothing done correctly and right. Maybe one would, but the other would slow him down. But none of this mattered. Their kingdom, the kingdom they only knew, was falling apart and breaking fast. Hope was all that was, and could be found. And if hope brought this odd pair to do its tasks, then it was alright with them.
     Dill looked over at John; a smile crept on his face as he shook his head laughing. “You’re absolutely hopeless, aren’t you?”
     “Me hopless?” John laughed swigging another sip of his hard core liquor. “Imma no hopless, Dilly-boy! You shoulda be one hopless buddy, you an your imaginary dragin people!”
     Dill just smiled, “If we’re going to try and convince one of them to help us save Hull, I think it would be smart to stop drinking the whisky. We’re not as young as we used to be and I highly doubt two middle aged men that are graying up in the top can take down dragons, don’t you agree?
     John shrugged, stumbling his way through. To be quite honest he was drinking more this morning than on a normal day. He wondered why Dilly-boy wasn’t doing the same, considering they were travelling in a forest that seldom would cross. And they crossed when they had too! This wasn’t a ‘had to’ mission but to just prove to ole Dilly here that the dragon people never existed. It was just some story that kids heard, like how Humpty Dumpty did disco with the queen! Well, he wasn’t sure how that story went but Murts was sure it had to do with discoing eggs and horses on walls.
     All John knew for sure was that he wanted to get the hell out of this forest. There had to be a reason that not many travelers went by these parts. And Dill was a smart guy, he was the smartest out of the two of them and it wouldn’t take him long to figure out that his imaginary folk were long gone and dead. Then they could return home and he could sleep away until it was time to drink the booze.
     John just had to wait for Dill to come to his senses, and that would happen very soon. The drunk smiled, his cheeks blazing red, as he took another swig of his whiskey.
     They would be home in no time!
 

Reviews

[Danny J.H.]

John sounds kinda like someone who would be alone all the time and doing abusive things to his body(drugs,alcohol,etc.)