Bourbon, Scotch, and Monologue

A/N: I've been stuck on this story for five years. I have the entire story outlined. I have character development down to every detail I can think of, I KNOW how I want this story.... But after three rewrites and a change from third to first person, I have NO IDEA HOW TO WRITE IT AHHHHHH
I want my idols strung out from the booze, fucked up by the coke, burning the candle at both ends and tripping into the grave, still screaming. None of this commercially packaged shirt churned off the conveyer belt, like safesex for the ears, bleached and sterilized.

Someone give me the wild boys, all the hippies traded their souls in for a two-for-one deal and prepackaged hamburger meat.

I want them playing from their fucking heart, I want the anthems that defined a generation, the men and women that shook the world and made history. I want music for music’s sake.

Words churned and burned in the back of my mind as I cradled the bottle of jack between my thighs. Waking up from doing shots of absinthe in my dreams worked up my thirst for hard liquor. Craning my head up as I took another swig I stared at the posters on my bedroom wall of Morrison, Scott, Bonham, Clark, Pop, and many others. Boys that didn’t survive their wild days and a few that never should have. The power behind the music that snaked its way into my brain and seduced me; it was glamorous and alluring. All it asked for was my soul, but twenty years later I know it wasn’t just the music that sent me down this path.

The digital analog clock glared back at me. July 29th. Today was my 35th birthday. Booze in bed and it was only two in afternoon. It was turning out to be a great day.

-BREAK because I don’t know what else to write here-

I started scribbling memories furiously the day I found out my liver was failing. I remember this birthday pretty well because it was the day before we flew out to Greece for the big family reunion that was held every three years. As I got worse it was harder to keep things straight, and right before and after I got my transplant it was damned near impossible to recall anything. I kept thinking I was going to die, and kept freaking out thinking that no one will remember me. The real me. Not the one night stand, not the fag rock star, not the alcoholic bastard, not the party monster. We had fourteen studio albums and rocked for twenty years. We smashed guitars, cars, and faces and I’m worried about what people will think of me after I’m gone?

Our lives were stained with sex and drugs, and though we were never even close to the men who burned out so early in their lives, we still had a story to tell. How we got to where we are now is something I’m still trying to figure out though.
When we brought forth the idea of writing this biography, we couldn’t work on it fast enough. Shit pour out of our heads, and we were pulling all nighters cause we were just so engrossed, so entrenched in this work we never noticed the sun go down. Or come up. We had the giddiness spark again, that excited youthful anxiety that you get when you’re a new freshface band, your first gig, the first single. Decades worth of shit to work out, of squabbles and fights revisited, of opportunities missed and friends lost. Ashtrays filling with the cigarette butts and stained napkins of our conversation as we put our life to words. And we reconnected.


BREAK WAT


I was born in a little unknown place in Greece, but reared in England. The oldest of what would eventually become known as the Antoniou Five and the only boy my mom was blessed with before the adoption, I was nine years the elder to my youngest sister. Most of my dad’s family was in England and had been there for a few generations now-three, if I remember correctly. Mom had timed my pregnancy so she’d be in Greece visiting her own family; she wanted an real authentic Greek boy.
I had a generally normal upbringing, so how did I end up becoming the only loose screw out of the whole bunch? I can’t chalk it up to have a predominately female presence in my life, as Milliken turned out to be more than okay. The model son, I’d often snort as people grinned when he’d show up in pressed slacks yet grunt at my cut-off jeans and dyed hair. But I wasn’t bitter. I was satisfied with the way I was.
The family still lives in the same house I grew up in—a moderate sized English Victorian that still felt cramped despite how unusually large it was. I can contribute this to the large number of family members living with us, there was no time or place where one could be left alone. I remedied that by retiring to the old woods behind our home, where the underbrush was so thickly woven between the gargantuan oaks it took woodcutters and a shit ton of patience to make a path get anywhere. I was allowed free reign with the only requirement to be home on time for dinner each evening.
Stealing old blankets when I could, and dragging pieces of wood board and any other ‘building materials’ I got my hands on, I made a mish mashed fort. One time I managed to save up enough nickels for some paint and then the place looked like a clown exploded.
With my brown worn sandals slapping against the pavement as I carefully balanced the little tubs of paint, I was exhausted and sticky with sweat by the time I got home after the half mile walk to the ‘Jimmy’s Corner Mart’. The dripping sweat glowed golden against my tan skin in the fading sun. I wanted to go back to my fort before the sun was completely down but my parents stopped me when I reached the back yard, somberness hanging heavy over their shoulders.
They were quiet, uncharacteristically so. Tenderly, they ushered me to the cement stairs where they broached the subject of ‘adoption’, pausing tentatively and often as if to make sure their conversation wasn’t upsetting me. At the mention of getting a new brother but having to forego all that baby stuff, my ten-year-old body quivered with anticipation. Three years older than the eldest daughter, the age gap was still enough to leave me wishing I had someone closer to mine to play with and after three sisters I cherished the thought of a brother. To say he was not what I expected was the least I could say of him.
He was a sniveling little thing when I met him, skinnier than me and a lot shorter. His shaggy blonde hair and pale pink skin was so different from my own Mediterranean ethnicity. It threw me for a loop, not that I wasn’t used to Caucasian families, but in the Seventies interracial mixing on the family level was still something that was not all that common in my life.
He was nine at the time; very quiet and jumpy. He didn’t talk much, and I heard the word abused being thrown around when the adults didn’t think I was listening. Very much of this talk flew right over my head. I was oblivious in my child-like state of mind and did not really understand the crushing power that words like abuse, disownment, and negligence had.

Darius

Darius groped around in the dark, hand brushing against the dimpled wall of the bedroom while he tried to reach for the light. The alarm clock across the room was flashing twelve; the power must have shut off during the morning. That would account for the lack of air conditioning, he thought. His hair, thick with sweat, stuck to skin where skin was available. The light flicked on and he put a name to the what was making that horrible nose–burning smell. He could practically taste the alcohol mixing with the smell of vomit–he had dropped a bottle of Jack Daniel’s on the floor last night. Rather, this morning. Very early morning. He was surprised he made it to the bed this time.

“Shit.” Whether it was about the loss of a good bottle of Jack or the mess on his floor, his expletive could go either way.

He welcomed into the world that day a very deserved hangover, but the effects would be over quickly. Comparatively, this year that was comprised of what most people would see as a complete and utter breakdown is nothing but a speck in his mind, a second making up what he felt was a long and laborious life. Not everyone could agree with him on that matter though. And one of those somebodies was thumbing through a magazine looking incredibly bored and irritated while sitting on his couch. He snorted in the brief glance away from the magazine. Definitely irritated.

School Boy Crush

Author's Notes: Character development monologue for my greek character, Darius. I've been picking this up and putting down again, nitpicking with it. I will probably play around with again sometime soon. I want to make it longer. I love this character so much. oWo


There really isn’t any sort of situation where I could classify myself as shy. The slip of a girly-boy that I am, the eccentric spirited sort that craves attention and love like a serial killer craves squeezing the life from a broken body to echo their own tumultuous climax...I’m never shy. My life can be defined by exasperation and complete utter stupidity. Who can blame me for being blind and self-absorbed when there’s not a one person I can think of that is better than me. We’re all the worse for wear on this quaint ball of mud, whether it’s for the drugs or violence. We all have our misguided vices, and they are as colorful and varied as the individuals that populate existence. Cumulative society pushes us in one direction, farther and farther from the roots and carnal urges of our predecessors. Mindless sex is something of the past, looked down upon in the present, and perhaps even stamped out in the future.

It’s a me-first, instant gratification world, and I can’t help but go along with it or be swallowed up. So many of the quiet types so afraid to put themselves out there because they’ll get hit by the rest of the buzzing populace, never heard, always drowned out. The deeper meaning lost because people are always looking out for themselves. You are not without guilt, my friend. I love to be loved, but what are your faults? You can tell right up front what kind of man I’ll be. Look at my wrist and you’ll see my heart. I love my friends, I love myself. I put myself out there because I want to be noticed. I want the attention.

I only say wrist because I’m not wearing a shirt.

At least in times of unrest in the past, wonderful things would come of it.

Its unlike me to be so thoughtful and contemplative. I feel like I’ve been living the life of a rock star hundreds of years before there were any.

I’m an ambitious sort, and quite comfortable with my endless life of loveless sex and trail of lovers. I’ve always got what I wanted, and what I wanted was sex. No man was safe. There was no deeper meaning for these flings, except for the fact that the pain that came from being alone was too much to bear. So unbearable, I grew addicted to relationships. I needed them to keep me happy. So I thought.
Decades could not prepare me for the first time I fell in love. It is the most painful and wondrous thing I have ever experienced, and it was completely one-sided. Did I even think to approach it carefully and tentatively? I’m not know for tact, and like the way I treat everything else in my life, I dove right into the middle of it and drowned. It snuck up on me so I turned around and smacked it right in the face.

I feel my heart, my stupid little blood-pumping organ that keeps me alive exploding. A resistant man made me realize how blind I was, and love made me realize how fucked up I am. I’m sorry because he never asked for any of this, but I can’t help but remain angry all the same. I never asked for this either, and I certainly didn’t ask for my entire lifestyle to be turned upside down. All of my advances seem so innocent until emotion decided to complicate the hell out of everything. Don’t kiss and tell, my friend. Don’t fall in love with a man that doesn’t want you either. It took me a long time for me to realize that I didn’t want to treat this man like all the others.

Anything can become an addiction. I’ve been nursing my sex-addled brain for countless years. Had I been into any other type of drug, a man like me in withdrawal would have been dangerous. There are secret things that only my tear-stained pillow knows, and other secrets I cannot bear to think about that have come about from my refocusing.

I’m really tired. For once, the life of drinking, men, and attention just isn’t cutting it anymore. I had a good run. My carelessly constructed world is falling apart because of one raven-haired man that just wouldn’t give into my game of fuck and dump.

I can’t say I blame him for rejecting me again once after I profess my very fragile love. He can see me for the monster I really am, and who’s to say that I won’t turn on him and relapse back into my old ways. Its masochistically amusing to me because once I started putting him first, I started hurting inside.
I feel like we’re acting out a drama on a celestial scale. I’ve got the part of the Phantom, only my scars are on the inside and I’ve a pounding that won’t go away. It’s my heart beating and I’m wondering why I can’t rip it out.
When it comes to love, I’m like a bumbling school boy with a crush on the prettiest girl in the class. But in this world, bloody hearts end up in the desks on Valentine’s Day.