Vacation Brothers

   Sprawling out on the ragged couch in my terminal, staring at Harold through the glass lid of his travel agent, I see his long kinky hair, his bushy eyebrows and prominent nose, his maybe permanently shut eyes and wonder where his consciousness might be while his body's being kept alive by the travel agent's life-support system.

   I mechanically stride down the hall into the kitchenette to deaden my brain a little, but only a little, because Below Beer is the lone legal alcohol when you're seventeen and it tops out at one and a half per cent. I take a can from the little refrigerator, pull it open, pour it into a Bonkers Bear Root Beer mug, then head back to a room I've been spending far too much time in lately: my terminal.

   After guzzling about a third of the beer in the mug, I bite into a pretzel, vaguely hoping it might somehow motivate me, but no matter how thoughtfully I chew, there's no corresponding mental salt rush. The second bite's even worse, because I forget about the latest toothache the dentist gave me. Instinctively, I rush a hand to comfort my mouth, but the pain doesn't change. Fumbling through the mess on the coffee table till I come up with a two hundred fifty count container of Buybright Extra Strength Dental Pain Relief, I grab two caplets and wash them down with a swig of Below Beer.

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