A Complicated Issue

He was starving for attention, and still he was getting none of it. He had met with his jockey of a brother two hours previously at La Luna on 24th, and his jockey of a brother had explained to him how he would “not fund your gambling and alcohol addictions anymore”. He heard his jockey of a brother share this, and he saw his jockey of a brother swirl the straw around in his iced lemonade, and still he did not believe his jockey of a brother. But as he was crossing from Montgomery Avenue to 32nd and making his way to Le Clairvoyance, he began to consider the fact (seriously consider) that his jockey of a brother might have meant what he said this time around. 

He ordered a stout at the bar and brought the thick frothy drink to one of the back corner tables. He was not intending to drink with anyone this evening – in fact, it was rare when he would share a drink with someone. He preferred to brood and sink into his cushioned seat and stare at the headboard facing him. He would never overdrink – he knew his limits well after his decades of experience and trial and error, and would typically leave after two or three drinks. 

He would never order any food at the bar. Food in the stomach meant a greater imperviousness to the woozy effects of inebriation. Less food meant that he could get drunk quicker and cheaper. If his jockey of a brother would stop funding his gambling and drinking addictions, then he would have to be much more conservative with his drinking quantities from now on. It would also mean that he could no longer bet on his jockey of a brother at the races. 

That was one of the things he had told him at La Luna a few hours ago.

 “Even if you bet on me, you can’t have the money.” 

“But I always bet on you – you’re my brother.” 

“Even so, you still can’t have the money.” 

He never drank anything else when it came to alcoholic beverages – it was always a stout. Preferably an oatmeal stout, but any stout they had on tap was fine at the end of the day. He enjoyed the fact that stouts were earthy and far too rich and made him sick to his stomach. 

He was starving for attention, and still he was getting none of it. His jockey of a brother had offered him loans in the past, but never much attention. His jockey of a brother was the one who always got all of the attention. That small limber body, that firm square head with the pearly eyes and the crooked teeth, that ineffable way he had of capturing people’s attention during a long-winded story at a dinner party. His jockey of a brother was already stealing the show before he had jumped on the horse. Before he could walk, even. 

He had finished his first stout and he walked over to the bar to order another one. He waited there, ever so slightly leaning against the bar as he waited for the bartender to pour it. The bartender had a perpetually sour expression and sported lots of white specks of dandruff that had gathered on his work shirt. He put the stout down on the counter, emitted a small mumble, and went back to polishing the mugs. 

He brought the second stout to the back table and took his seat. As he was staring at the headboard and sipping away on his second drink, he was thinking of the lyrics from the song ‘Tea for the Tillerman’: “Bring tea for the tillerman, steak for the son, wine for the woman who made the rain come…”

He repeated these lyrics to himself, watched internally as they cycled through his brain six or seven times. He finished his stout and placed it down on the table. Rings of dark brown foam lined the insides of the empty glass. 

It felt to him like a complicated issue, even though he knew deep down that it was not. Be done with drinking, be done with gambling. Wipe your hands of it, chop chop, and move on. Why did it have to be such a complicated issue for him?

He stood up and paid the tab. He had leftover change but he did not tip the bartender. He placed the money in his left-side pocket next to his wallet and left Le Clairvoyance. 

Instead of turning right to his apartment, he turned left – in the direction of the racetrack. Tonight, he would not bet on his brother.