LIVINGROOM JOHNSTON
DOWRIES FOR DIONYSUS Dowries For Dionysus is a story written and published in Contrast magazine in 2010. http://www.contrastmagazine.com/
Dowries For Dionysus By: Livingroom Johnston Paul was an ordinary awkward guy in every sense. He was awkwardly tall. When he walked it looked as if he would fall flat on his face. As any serious drinker would, Paul got himself into a rut of depression. He had a desk job shoving paper back and forth in an office where he, and everyone on their chairs in their cubicles, farted and worked their asses off with tense shoulders and weight problems. Paul didnʼt have a problem with his weight. He was thin. What he did have a problem with was his life. His parents, Annie and Damey died in a fire when he was 20. Paul was 30. Dead parents left him with even less to live for. He had no intention of committing suicide because he was taught he would go to hell if he ever decided to do so. And did it. That was all he remembered being taught by Annie and Damey. He was there to feed, clothe and keep a roof over his head, in their eyes. They barely talked to him as a child. Thatʼs what schools were for. To teach kids what they needed to know to carry on as adults when it was time for them to move on. Paul inherited an antisocial personality from Annie and Damey. Paul was also color-blind. Anny and Damey never paid enough attention to him to know. Not that they would have done anything about it. Paulʼs escape was drinking and his imagination. Drinking is a killer to most. But to him it would lead to a life changing experience. Unlike anything anyone could imagine in reality. At the moment Paul was living his mundane life with no direction. Whenever it would end it would. So long as it wasnʼt painful he was all right with it. Five days a week Paul would exit the Clinton and Washington train station in Brooklyn, walk down the hill, get a pint of whiskey, and go home, where he would change into the same black tee-shirt and black jeans he had been changing into for the last decade. Then he would go to the bar and drink until around 10 p.m. then go home and eat noodles, puke, sleep and start over the next day. On Friday, Paul pushed paper into a bin on his desk and farted. He worked in a cubicle in a large office space in Mid-Town Manhattan. There were a shitload of other miserable motherfuckers who lived for no more than he did and worked there as well. And farting. The office smelled like a shit hole.No one seemed to notice because they were immune to it. Paul swiveled around on the chair. He glanced at the other cubicles. At the photographs and posters and no smoking signs. Nothing was different. All was the same. Al walked his huge gut over to Paulʼs cubicle. He was 5ʼ6” and went unnoticed by most people. “What do you say we get a drink when we get off Paul?” “No thanks. Iʼm going home. I got a pint waiting for me”, said Paul. “Come on guy. What do you have to lose? The pint can wait for you,” Al rationalized, “Plus, thereʼs a new bar on the corner