27 Whiskey Club

Lyz Mancini

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     “You ever heard of the 27 Club?” Oliver asked. At least, that’s what I thought he said. It was hard to make out the exact words with his face smushed into the bar after blurry countless whiskey shots. I wobbled on my stool and watched the ceiling spin. 

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     We’d been drinking all day, one of those weeks when we all had a little more money in our pocket for some reason and decided to blow it all on bad beer and sharp darts at My Father’s Place, a sticky dive that Oliver loved because Elliott Smith supposedly frequented it. It was past 3am and the rowdy crew we blew in there with had shuffled back to their tents and benches and trailers to tuck in for the cold December night. 

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     “It’s almost Christmas,” I said, to no one. The bartender looked like a walrus, so old the wiry white hair that grew from his ears looked oceanic. He eyed us, but kept filling our shot glasses. Oliver sat up suddenly and grabbed my face. His hands were warm. 

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     “Isn’t twenty-seven so old anyway?” he asked. “Wouldn’t it be satisfying to fucking croak, but then leave behind truly incredible, transcendent art?” He turned back to the bar, his eyes widening when he saw the sparkling amber liquid that had been poured before him. He swallowed it and turned back to me. A thought appeared far away in my mind, that we’d drunk far past the money we had. I pushed it away. I could run fast. 

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     “I don’t make any art,” I said. “You’re my art.” His face was art, I thought. The freckles that appeared in the summertime across his shoulders, his bitten-to-the-quick-fingernails, hip bones like ski slopes. Art. 

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     “Do you promise me, V, that if we get to twenty-seven, and we’ve both done at least one thing that’s truly incredible, enough to stamp the earth with and be done with it, that we’ll kill ourselves? Together? Maybe also if we haven’t done anything?” His eyes were urgent, threatening to spill tears like they always did when he was this drunk. I meant to kiss him lightly, but he pulled me in. Hands in my hair, teeth biting down like I was a beach-warmed plum. I wrapped my arms around him inside his jacket, to touch the light down on his lower back, to breathe in cigarette smoke and campfire. Cheap whiskey and always a little bit, me. 

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     “How would we do it?” I asked. A game we played. It felt so intimate, so important. “Drive off a cliff?” 

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     “Cut each other’s wrists at the exact same time?” he said, pulling my wrists out in front of him and grinning. “Down the road, not across the street?” 

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     “We could write each other’s suicide notes,” I said. An old woman drinking alone rolled her eyes and crunched an ice cube.

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     “Dear World,” Oliver said, affecting my California girl lilt, no matter how hard I tried to get away from it. “I lost my eyeliner, my little white pills, and my man. What else do I have to live for? Give my dumpster dresses to the poor. Love, Violet.” 

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     I snorted. “Dear World,” I said. “YouTube stopped letting me upload my whiny sad boy songs and my girlfriend lost her eyeliner so I can’t steal it. Please send my body back to my rich fucking parents’ mansion. Oliver.” 

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     We slammed another shot. It stung my throat and threatened to come back up. My eyes watered. 

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     “I only need you to live,” he said. “You and my silly little dumb fucking songs and that’s all I need.” He reached out to touch me again, this time tipping his stool over and tumbling to the ground like a puppy from a basket. I hiccupped and giggled. The bartender sighed. 

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     “Time for you guys to go home, maybe?” he asked. I saw the woman next to us nod. I grabbed Oliver to pull him to his feet, but his arm loosened from his jacket and his head knocked against the dart board. 

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     “Owwww,” he whined, grasping his hair. I yanked him up. 

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     “He just needs to pee, we’ll be right back,” I said. The bartender sighed again and picked up a shard of broken glass from the floor. 

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     I closed us into the coffin-like bathroom, graffiti scrawled around us like diary entries. Oliver had gone quiet, his eyes closed, but his hands grasping at me. I was used to this. There was a romance to it, getting to care for him. The songs he wrote about me. I ran my hands under cold water and placed them on his face. He jolted awake. 

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     “Violet!” he said. “Are you okay?” 

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     I laughed. “Yeah, why?” 

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     He breathed out a sigh of relief, his eyes heavy-lidded and sleepy. 

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     “I just dreamt you were gone,” he said. He reached under my shirt, warming his palms on my stomach. “I’m so glad you’re not.” He started to cry.

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     “You won’t go away, right?” he said. “I can’t be alone, I don’t want to be alone.” A warm pool of bile crawled up my throat. I knew deep down if anything, I wasn’t the one who would leave. Even when I was someone’s first priority, I still came second. 

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     I stuck my nose into his hair, stroking his face as he sobbed. I was happy to say the words that had never been said to me. 

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     “I’ll always be here,” I whispered. “I won’t leave you. I promise. Never.” 

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     He smiled. He sighed. His hands moved further under my shirt. 

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     “Okay, are you ready?” I asked, thinking of our growing bar tab. 

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     “For what?” 

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     I placed my hand on the doorknob.

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     “To run.”