Rapture

Chapter 2

As the night went on, Vince's vision and inhibitions faded more and more. The bartop started getting full with drinks. "Damn! You still got it!" Lucas cheered him on with another drink down. "Only Lucas can make a person drinking alone at the bar feel like a winner" Vince chuckled in his mind. His phone sat on the bartop. Alice wouldn't text him tonight, not like she needed to know how he was coping with this. "So i gotta ask, what brings you in like this." Lucas had a concerned tone. "I just needed a drink" Vince gestured to the bartop. Lucas went to go grab a water and Vince went to the bathroom to puke. This was the point he needed to sober up to figure out how to get home. He sipped on water and scrolled through his contacts. Every name he scrolled past he could just picture concern or disapproval on their face. "What else is new? " he muttered to himself as he switched to passing time on social media. Every meme or video he saw was ominously close love quotes to his situation. This entire situation he had pretended to just be single and happy. "It was a joke for me to ever pretend that i was anything to her." He muttered to himself as he scrolled past yet another quote. Maybe he could just chat with someone. About what? She wouldn't leave his mind. His thoughts brewed up in such an intensity he called across the bar "i'm ready to close out". "Don't worry about it" Lucas waved. Vince left a tip at the bar for him in cash and left. He found himself focusing so strongly on making his steps and walking straight. He got to his car and drove home. He focused the whole way home on not swerving and staying focused on the road. Taking back streets, he eventually got home and climbed through his window. He fell on his face and he found himself looking at a bottle of whiskey on his desk. "Wouldn't wanna go having feelings again." He grabbed the bottle and blacked out. The next morning came and he had missed calls on his phone. Some from Alice and some from his best friend Mike. "I don't have the energy for this." Vince woke up with a hangover. A nice hot shower was definitely in the cards this morning before a long day of manual labor. After his shower, he checked his phone over breakfast to see that he blacked out and texted a bunch of people. "Help!" was the only word that could be read. "Of course they would freak out." Vince put his palm to his face embarrassed by last night. "Everything is okay. I'm sorry to worry you." He texted them both. Going through his morning routine was the best he could do to get over this hangover before work. "Ugh... Alice is gonna see right through this" he checked his phone again. "Can you give me a ride to work today?" Alice texted him. He checked his watch, "on my way". Things would be tight but he would make it. This would be an awkward car ride. On the drive he thought deeply about the concept of giving. For Vince, he jumped through hoops for the people in his life. When it came to his best friend though, he always felt like he had nothing to offer. Vince wondered if this is how people that he helped like Alice felt. Her husband hated Vince's guts of course. Women always seem to have that opposite s*x close friend that makes their partner uneasy. Maybe Vince could keep him on his toes enough to treat his friend right at least. It wasn't his business and he didn't wanna get involved but he was simply just helping a friend. Pulling up to her apartment, Alice got into the car. "You look like s**t" she took one look at Vince. "Is it that obvious?" Vince rubbed the back of his neck self consciously. "You really need to lay off the alcohol." she chucked her backpack into the back seat. "I know, I know." Vince rolled his eyes. They started heading towards work, "i will never understand how you're able to effortlessly kill it every day at work with how you put down your liquor." Alice jabbed at him. Vince just shrugged, "its a shitty warehouse job. There's not really much to it. I think i do better because i just don't care on any level." Vince let out a sigh. "Look at Shmead though. He's a complete health fanatic and he blows everyone outta the water." Selene seemed to have stars in her eyes. "Yeah he unnecessarily picks way over the maximum bonus. I could do that but there's really no benefit. When i can consistently be where i need to be no matter where i work, there's just no need to push any farther than what I'm getting paid for. At that point I'm just losing money in hours. Hell, with the bonus system you could easily increase your bonus to the next tier by just working your 40 or using your pto." Vince explained. "Look at the math whiz over here" she punched his shoulder. "Yeah wasted at a job like this." Vince sighed. "Join the club. I'd take geology or botany as a job over this s**t any day. I barely make enough to get by and i can't reach those bonuses like you do." She complained. "Are you still getting food stamps?" Vince asked, "they reduced it again." Her head sank in depression at the thought. "I wish i didn't have to live like this in this bullshit system of society. The only thing stopping me from getting literally everything i need is taxes and corporate pollution. I really just wish i could go out to those mountains and live off the land with my family. Put my middle finger to this way of life. But i know that even if i find a place in those mountains that isn't related or taxed, i'd probably have someone on my ass." Alice was venting as they pulled into the work place. Vince felt his heart sink in his chest at the thought of her leaving but he shoved it down. "Thank you for indulging me and listening to my rant." she chuckled self consciously. At work there was a different mode for Vince. He just spoke without a filter or without care. Work was a place where it was half autopilot and half f*****g around. When work ended, Vince met up with Alice and they got into the car. "f**k I'm tired" she groaned taking her boots off and putting her feet on the dashboard. Vince handed her his phone with a chuckle "okay dj". With music in the background they both talked about work as Vince brought her back home. When vince dropped her off she asked "what are you doing tonight?". Vince shrugged, "I was gonna drive around and see where the night takes me.". "That sounds so fun. Sadly i cannot indulge such things." Alice said dramatically as she got outta the car. For a moment, Vince just sat in the apartment parking lot staring at the walls wishing she could come back and join him. Sometimes it was like the second he was alone these thoughts creeped up like whispers in his ear. A heaviness could be felt in his chest thinking about his life. Shadows whispered in his ear "You're not enough for anyone. Alice left, your friends left... there's nowhere left for you to go in life." Pictures of himself sitting in college offices and job interviews with a cascade of apologies. Society didn't give chances to cons. A faint whisper echoing in his mind "I didn't do it". Tears rolled down his face and he just begged the thoughts to end. Pulling out his phone, he scrolled through his contacts and all the faces smiling became blurry. Name after name just became a picture of anger telling him to be stronger. What good was knowing so many people if the only thing they valued was a smile that gradually faded while he slowly slipped a pale mask over his face with permanent marker etched on the face saying "I'm not okay". All this time Vince was going through the internal timeless journey of an existential crisis while sitting perfectly still in his car. His tears grew subtle as he internally screamed for it to stop. "I need a drink" he snapped out and threw his car into gear. As he drove, the streetlights whispered "you're so weak, is this what you really need to exist? You're pathetic". His heart raced in a panic just trying to get to that one place where he knew the voices would stop. Voices for vices... what a trade. Walking through those doors as casually as possible he saw Lucas working again with a drink ready for him like the reaper beckoning him to manifest himself outside of the grand picture called life. When Lucas turned his back the drink was already gone. "At least I'm good at something" Vince said distortedly. Of course Vince was good at many things. He was always staying busy and became good at many things. He was one of the best at his job, he was a talented artist, and on top of that a skilled tradesman. His closest friends urged him to trade his stable job to go back into the life of trades where pay checks were far from guaranteed. Yeah there was a future and good pay in the long run but the first year of that transition would leave his family without food and many unpaid bills. Something needed to be done, bottom line though. Everytime he thought of trades he thought of how absent his father was. This thought process was a cycle of excuses for his only option left in life. Reality was that he wished with every fiber of his being that he had another choice beyond becoming a dead eyed clone of his absent father. The one that always chose work over family, the father that only made his presence in anger, the father that sat on that couch every day begging him to not make the same mistakes. Vince looked at that drink that was as empty as him. He felt nothing, no relief. "I'm going home. Keep the change." He slapped a 20 on the bar top. When he got home his father was up and watching tv. He couldn't sleep much because he had a chronic cough that the doctors never cared to give any attention to. Strewn across the table was unsorted mail and stray cough drop wrappers that didn't make it to the trash bin from an earlier coughing fit. Vince sat on the couch and saw on the tv was another B movie western because his father had a talent for binging every show on tv and that was all that was left. Mom was in her room laying awake like most nights. There was an itching feeling that his mother was sneaking in an alcoholic drink herself despite constant efforts to keep her from it. "Could you grab me a snack from the kitchen" his dad asked. His dad could barely walk on his good days but most days he was just physically stuck on that couch. Vince cooked a late night dinner for his family. These were usually quick meals to cook but his parents were always grateful. When the food was done, he made his father a plate and knocked on his moms door. She answered walking perfectly fine but most of her talking was 2 words or just noises that didn't signal what she was trying to say. Vince loved his parents but every day he woke up and saw them both like this, he was torn by feeling guilty about wanting to leave and have his own life just like his sister had done. However, looking at them in their state it was hard to just leave people he knew needed them. What options were there though? Put them in a home? His grandparents were all abused and neglected in homes left behind to die miserably away from everyone and everything they knew. Putting elderly parents in a home had become the equivalent to abandoning your children to foster care in the current system. His friends and love interests never seemed to understand his reality with this, work, or his record. They all lived in a world where they had a choice where they could say "just do what i did". Vince worked a dead end warehouse job but at least it paid the bills. Vince's father looked at him with concerned eyes as he saw him in deep thought. "I saw your art on f*******:" he welled up in tears. Vince had made a painting of a child made of clouds crying on the ground as he laid bricks separating himself from a beautiful landscape of flowers. Above the child was a barrier of clouds with the shape of a menacing smile. "Its not what you think." Vince let out a sigh. "I'm sorry son. I didn't want to squash the sunshine from your life." His eyes were bloodshot from all the sleepless nights and he was really hard to look at. This was his father though so he looked into those bloodshot eyes despite the discomfort and the visceral pain he could feel manifesting through his empathy as he looked into his eyes, "no i did that to myself" he said coldly. His discomfort reached a boiling point so he grabbed his bag and went to his room while his father cried alone in the dark. That's everyone's favorite hobby in that house... crying in the dark. Listening to the whispers of these walls telling us everything we hate about ourselves. Making us all beg to any force that will make those whispers go away.