Mum’s Dream of the Eternal Arms
By Sammy Salem
Mum had a dream about a bar.
The bar is in heaven. It’s where A-List alcoholics go after drinking themselves to death. It’s called ‘The Eternal Arms’.
In ‘The Eternal Arms’ the absence of time means no last orders and a tab that’s never called. There are no hangovers, cirrhosis, DUI’s or interventions. No heartburn, heartache, social services or children wetting themselves in the car while they wait for you to finish up that last, last drink.
A paradise for the permanently pissed.
The doors swing open and a sweaty breeze carries you into the stale smell of beer, vinegar, and urine.
Hemingway and Bukowski are arguing. Their raised voices bring Jackson Pollock back online and he’s surprised to find himself pissing on the bar. Despite the splashback, Judy Garland hasn’t noticed, she’s busy trying to convince her eye to catch the bartenders. An attempt at a wink goes awry as her right eyelids stick together. Pollock wipes his hand on the now snoring Judy’s dress and slides back onto his stool.
Meanwhile, Charlie Parker leans across a sticky menu to pour Edith Piaf another glass of wine and Tennessee Williams tries to shake off Billie Holiday.
‘You getting me a drink, sugar?’
Williams, still waiting for that click, waves Holiday away.
She spits then shifts her weight onto her other hip and looks down the seasick line at the bar.
‘How about you, handsome?’
Jim Morrison necks his beer and unzips his leather trousers.
Serge Gainsbourg shakes his head in disgust before noticing a wobbly Veronica Lake being escorted into the disabled toilet by Montgomery Clift. Gainsbourg drops his cigarette in Patricia Highsmith’s gin and follows. Highsmith downs the gin and mumbles lovingly to her handbag full of snails.
Suddenly laughter breaks out at the back by the fruit machine. Hunter S Thompson has put Toulouse Lautrec on his shoulders and is running in circles around the room. On a tight corner, the diminutive artist tumbles over the bar and takes Hank Williams’ bottle of bourbon with him.
Staring down at the place the bottle used to be the singer is confused, but before the tears and questions can form, Dorothy Parker slides a beer down the bar to him with a wry smile.
She then returns to the entertainment of watching Jack Kerouac drool over Jean Rhys as a dark patch grows wider and wider on the crotch of his beige slacks.
‘Back on earth, they’d all be barred by now,’ mum chuckles as she reaches for her glass.
I put my hand on hers.
I feel it shake.
As her dry lips crack into a smile, she eases her hand free and raises her glass to the glamorous afterlife of the alcoholic.
Now, with the world a person lighter, I raise my glass in this toast too.
I hope you made it mum. You drunk piece of shit.
About the Author:
Sammy is a published writer and recording artist from the North West of England. They currently work in an antiquarian bookshop in London and are assembling what Leonard Cohen called ‘a manual for living with defeat’.
About Weekly Flash Prose and Poetry:
CutBank Online features one work of flash prose or prose poetry every Monday. Submissions are free and open year-round. Send us your best work of 750 words or less at https://cutbank.submittable.com/submit.