Liquor & Lust

1929, United States Of America

Why do the forbidden things taste so good? Is it because we get to enjoy them seldom? Because the memory of the taste feels better than the original flavor? Or maybe because they don’t wear off as quickly as leather oxfords?

I’m asking myself these questions over and over again, trying to find an answer which would help me cure a few weaknesses in my character. Unfortunately, they’re all related to the capricious nature I was endowed with, which stubbornly functions according to an  annoying rule. And the rule is, ladies and gentlemen, the more I can’t have something, the more I want it.

Of course, I try to convince myself that things I can’t have are bad for me – and they are: either immoral, or illegal. However, what I can’t have (or shouldn’t do), still intrigues me enough to occupy a significant part of my mind. I daydream about it in my tedious job and later feel remorse.

I want to live up to my own standard of decency (which is pretty high), yet deep down, I know I'm not a righteous man. I'm a weakling who gives in rather easily to their desires, whether they’re carnal or gustatory ones.

*

I open the bathroom cabinet. It's 7 am, the dim glow of November sunlight falls in through the window. I don’t look outside; there’s nothing to see.

I reach for the tiny glass jar with shaving cream, and a  new blade. I prefer my face smooth. When I’m done shaving, I glance at myself in the old mirror. My eyes are colorless light blue, and my blonde hair looks like hay. I’m still young, in my late twenties, but I don’t look that healthy or well. I take a deep breath, as if it could help. The morning air tastes cold, almost metallic.

I pick fresh clothes hanging on the hook. It’s a white shirt, a jersey vest and matching ash grey pants. I can't help but notice I've lost weight again... It's stress.

I walk out and go to the kitchen. My sister Doris is ironing her Sunday dress. She's undoubtedly preparing to go to church. She's a strict Protestant, and a fanatic belonging to the Women’s Christian Temperance Union. Together with women from different generations, she fiercely reinforces the Prohibition.

*

The day on which I saw the “U.S. IS VOTED DRY” headline in the newspaper will haunt me forever. It was an ugly January day, two years after the end of the World War. When the Volstead Act was passed, we’ve all thought that it was a joke. But it wasn’t. I wondered how we would cope without alcohol, our social lubricant. Yet, time kept passing, people found new ways to drink, and somehow, the life went on.

I persuaded Doris to stop expecting everyone would follow her strict views on alcohol restriction. I tried in different ways, but she just couldn't accept the fact people would lose to their addictions... and desires.

“Character can be shaped through habit. Habits require a strong will, which is nothing but taking a decision and sticing with its consequences,” she proclaimed once with a unique stubbornness in her eyes, so similar to mine. “What good could there ever be about alcohol, James? It weakens family ties, it corrupts decent men. It drives them away from their wives and children, straight into cathouses,” she grimaced.

*

I know that she will never understand. She has a reason to love the Prohibition, I know it well. She was unlucky to have married a certain gentleman named Willian, who was an avid drunkard. My father knew how addicted he was, as the two of them used to meet at the bar. However, he never told Doris, or me, about William’s nature. He just silently watched his daughter give her hand to the wrong man.

We all learned the truth after the father had died. During the funeral, William slipped and accidentally mentioned how he and my father used to drink together, long before he’d ever met Doris. She suffered for a year, and separated from him as soon as the Prohibition was enforced. Nobody can talk me into being a criminal’s wife, she decided, and we all had to agree with her.

Our mother died right after our father, which left the two of us – Doris and I – alone.

I frequently work overtime. Overtime is actually a disguise, a desperate attempt to limit the financial costs of two shifts. I get paid less for the afternoon hours, but I tolerate it because I need money too much to protest against this injustice. Moreover, there isn’t much to do at home.

Doris teaches at the elementary school, hence, she has lots of free time - and she’s lonely, especially after the passing of our mother. There is nobody to talk to her, but at least, the Temperance Union expanded her social circle.

I can’t say it aloud, but I’m sad she and William separated. He had a drinking problem, because he never got over the war. Although he didn’t suffer severe physical wounds, his psyche was damaged. He self-medicated with alcohol, and knew it was wrong. He wanted to get over it, and he really loved Doris. I could see it in the way he looked at her, in the way he held her hand. I pitied their troubled relationship, and although I knew that the break-up was Doris’ choice, I couldn’t help but think that this, was another effect of the war, and the Prohibition.

*

“Aren’t you worried about your ex husband at times?” I asked Doris once in an attempt to reconcile them.

“My husband?” She pressed her lips tightly together. “By now, he had probably died from edema,”

“Edema?” I winced from skepticism.

“Yeah, the swelling of body organs, a surefire side effect of consuming too much alcohol...”

“I know what that is,” I said. “It’s just... It doesn’t make any sense from the medical point of view, you know?”