"Sorry Loy," mumbles Oil from his bench in the mess tent on the night after his outburst.
"Say again?" responds the lanky prisoner swaying over with his food tray.
"Just trying to apologize."
"Do what?" puzzles Loy not hearing a word over the dizziness as he pitches into the next bench.
"Don't want you to do nothing," Oil shouts with growing frustration as the guards and other inmates fall silent.
Dipsomania was always a drink away in whiskey-making families, and abuse of one kind or another was one step behind that flask. The Patricks of Magoffin County were no exception, and Loy's father had made teatotalers of his thirteen children. That wouldn't stop two of them from entering the family business, but at least they didn't piss away the profits. Alcoholics Anonymous would soon sweep the nation including the prisons, but in 1938 Bill W. was still stumbling into and out of New York bars.
Loy's dizziness was of a different sort. The blow to the back of the head had bruised his cerebellum, causing a floating sensation called ataxia. It made him off-balance all the time, especially when moving, and that feeling of falling dominated his other senses.
"Oh nevermind," Oil concedes as the spectators return to their own plates. "Pull up a seat and let's eat!"
"Not much appetite in these rough seas," Loy sniggers.
"This grub don't help, but we'll be tilling soon."
"Ma always said if you plant corn, you get corn."
"That reminds me Loy, could a fellow make a batch of the recipe?"
"Might need a starter this far from the hills," ponders the moonshiner scratching his head.
No comments:
Post a Comment