The Joy of Absinthe

Have you every been to a little town called Adams, Tennessee. No, I suppose you, dear reader, wouldn't. Its asshole of a town along US highway 41, several miles south of the Kentucky border, that's been in gradual state of necrotic rot for the last few decades, putrefying from the inside out, the kudzo strangling the many buildings like a bizarre act of euthanasia. The heyday of this town was in the early 1800's. This was the time of the terror of the Bell Witch; in which the ghost of an abused slave returned from the grave to inflict unholy vengeance upon the family she so dutifully served during her miserable lifetime. But this is not the story of that family, or the witch. There are things far more disturbing then the undead returning to destroy you.

Instead this is the story of two boys who lived in the town. Both boys were thin and cadaverous in appearance, with a pallor suggesting the stage of decomposition just before a cadaver's stale, putrid blood oozes to its lower regions to collect in purple botches. In other words, as the saying goes, they looked like death warmed over; but not quite like one of John Carpenter's nightmare zombies. Yet. The ghastly appearance of the pair could be attributed to any one of a number of factors: drug abuse, malnutrition, disease, etc. The towns folk of Adams, having grown up around the legend of the Bell Witch, had a different idea. Around Adams there was a wild rumor that began with some of the ladies in the town's one remaining church, but quickly spread through the entire community. The rumor was that the pair were vampires. Once and a while, a more sensible citizen of the town would point out that they could be seen, rarely, during the day, seemingly disproving the vampire theory. But in the rural south, rumors tend to fester and linger long after contrary facts are established.

The pair did have names, although few knew them. There names were John and Spooky, although the good folk of Adams usually referred to the as "Freak" or "Fag", or even, once in a while, as "Motherfucker". Spooky was the older of the two, perhaps 17. John was a couple years younger. However, John was to more dominate one. Where John went, Spooky went. What John did, Spooky did.

Both had run away from home several months prior. Neither of their parents expended to much time or energy searching for them. Their pictures never appeared in Walmart's missing children board. John and Spooky were now living as squatters in an abandoned hull of building in the ghost town that is downtown Adams. Of course, being squatters, they had neither plumbing or phone service. They did, however, have electricity. John's father was an electrician and somewhere along the line he had learned to tap into the power lines and steal electricity, a common practice in some parts of Mexico. For the most part every day was the same. They would wake up on the same filthy, mildewed mattress that John found along the side of the street. In the harvest season, they would sometimes work for a tobacco farmer, cutting the leaves of the weed and trying them in little bundles. Usually by the end of they day, their hands would be blistered and cut. They would fuck a lot, with Spooky usually as the bottom. Languid weeks went by of sleeping, cutting tobacco and fucking.

"Go ahead, drink it!" half encouraged and half demanded John. "It will free your mind. Make you, like, uh Ernest Hemingway! And Van Gogh! He drank it, ya know."

Spooky continue to just stare at the fluid in the shot glass, his hands clutching the shot glass tightly, his palms becoming slick with sweat. "I-I don't know, John. Why does that wormwood have a poison label on it?"

"Only because it is poison!" John laughed and poured himself a shot. "The thujone, which is the active ingredient in wormwood, is a neurotoxin." John raised he shot glass and toasted "Here's to green fairies!" and pour the dubious green fairy down his throat. The whole shot glass , without diluting it or pouring it through sugar. His face tightened in a horrible grimace as he choked down the bitter witch's brew. It tasted like half black licorice and half dog shit, strained through viscera. "See, I'm fine! Now you have to drink yours!"

Spooky reluctantly to took the glass to his lips and took a sip. He gagged as it strained through his rotting teeth on unto his fuzzy tongue and flowed like sewage down his throat. "This shit takes like....shit!" His face tightened and he dry heaved several times, his gaunt body trembling slightly. "So this crap frees your mind by making you lose your lunch?" Spooky smirked.

"Well I admit it does need..something" John grabbed a marijuana joint from a ziplock bag and lit it. He inhaled deeply, holding the sweet smoke in his mouth, shuddering slightly. He let a small amount of smoke escape from his nose and then passed the joint to Spooky. Spooky repeated the procedure. "After we get a little high, " said John, "we can try it again." John took another drag of the joint. Instead of holding the smoke in his mouth, he opened his lips over Spooky's, and exhaled in his mouth. His hand reached down and fondled Spooky between the legs. He smiled faintly, feeling Spooky's penis firm to his touch. John took enough drag of the joint, inhaling it deeply and passed it to Spooky, who also inhaled deeply. The pair lay on the mildewed mattress, sharing the joint, getting high for a good 30 minutes. John gave Spooky a kiss on the lips and and a squeeze on the genitals and said "Ok, lets try this again!"

"Uh, ok" said Spooky.

John poured to shot glasses of the green substance and handed one to Spooky. "On the count of three.....one, two, three!" On three both shot where emptied down there owners throats, with gagging and dry heaving and shuddering.

Spooky, even high said, "Ugg, this shit still tastes like ass!"

John's fingers undid Spooky's zipper and gently pulled the older boy's penis out and began to masturbate it. Spooky shuddered to the hand stroking his increasingly hard penis. "That's why we need to drink more!" opinioned John. He released Spooky's penis and poured two more shot glasses full the so-called absinthe.

"No more for me, thanks"

"Just one more?" pleaded John. "Maybe you can go into the kitchen and get us some sugar? Maybe that will make it less bitter and taste better." Spooky nodded and went into the kitchen to retrieve the ant filled sack of sugar and an unwashed spoon. Spooky resolved that he would drink this one last glass, but that would be the last glass of that repugnant stuff. John emptied out the top fourth of Spooky's glass and replaced the missing 'absinthe' with pure wormwood. He also added some power Methamphetamine to the mixture and stirred very well. John realized that might have been an incredibly bad idea, but shrugged because Spooky would be back too soon to pour another glass. Beside, it would still be Ok. Probably.

Spooky returned with the sugar bag and carefully spooned some sugar into his undelicious drink. "This seems darker then it was before," noticed Spooky.

"Uh, yeah. Its just the lighting in here. I think the lightbulb is about to go out." John pointed at the ceiling and sure enough, the bulb was flickering slightly and had instead of strong white light, it was dim and vaguely yellowish. "Plus I think a need to do some maintenance on the power tap. Anyway, bottoms up!"

Both boys drank their concoctions and where by now feeling the effects of the substance. Despite the horrible taste, the effects weren't too bad for John. He had a nice buzz from the alcohol. He looked up at the dim lightbulb suspended from a single wire from the water stained ceiling. It somehow seemed brighter to him now. He felt his hand reach out to fondle Spooky again, caressing his cock and fondling his balls. "Mmmm, that's nice," he commented. He kneeled before the older body and slipped his mouth over Spooky's penis.

A wincing voice said "John, stop. I don't feel so good."

John looked up. Only now he notice Spooky was face was contorted in pain and he clutching his guts like that would spill spill out of his abdomen. Spooky fell to his knees, hunched over in pain, as his body trembled, his breath ragged and wheezing "What's wrong? You don't look so good either." John's heart began to pound faster in his chest as he realized what was wrong. Spooky, of course, had an overdose of the wormwood. Spooky turned his head and the blood vomit spewed from his mouth. John held his friend, rubbing his back, "It will be ok. You'll just be sick for a few hours." Spooky vomited again.

A booming voice called out "This is the Cheatam County Sheriff's patrol! Come out with your hands up!"

"John, what the fuck's going on?" asked Spooky, with traces of vomit still dripping from his chin.

"Listen, I've been selling Crank and E outside some of the clubs in Nashville. I wanted to use the money to get us a real place. In the city. It will be Ok, though." He loaded some rounds into a revolver. He stole the revolver from his father's drawer the night he ran away from home, it was there for his families protection. There was a loud crash as the Sheriff's Deputies kicked down the door. Two shots rang through the night and the boys were dead.

The Clarksville Leaf-Chronicle carried the story in the next days paper. The headline read "Murder Suicide of Adams Teens"

ADAMS - Cheatam county deputies early this morning discovered the bodies of John Whitechurch and Philip 'Spooky' O'Ryan in an abandoned store in Adams. O'Ryan was found with a single gunshot to the back of the head. Whitechurch was found with a with the back of his head blown out by a gun, a wound Cheatam County deputies believe is self-inflicted. Local law enforcement refuses to speculate on the reason for the ghastly apparent murder-suicide. Deputies did reveal, however, that Whitechurch was wanted for questioning in the overdose death of a Nashville teenager from the drug MDMA, or Ecstasy. Ecstasy is a drug popular with party goers.

The brief, one paragraph, story was carried on the fifth page of the paper.