The Bottle Makes Three

And the Bottle Makes Three

Loose valve in the plumbing a faucet drips, and the single wave of
sound is caught in the room warping the air. The light is dim,
sourceless, paused in its endless rush to reflect, refract and fade
away. In the frozen fluid air he sits. His head is slumped over a
common oak table. Long strands of curly brown hair shade his
eyes.

"It could be worse; I could be on fire," you think. "Or sitting under
a shower of angry scorpions? or?" With the back of your hand you lift
your thick hair from your eyes, and you appreciate the dull sheen of
the switchblade jammed into the table just in front of you.

I reach out and jerk the knife free from the table. The blade is
virgin, polished and clean, the kind of blade suburban kids show off
and smile to touch. I wonder if it is a phallic symbol. I turn my
attention to the paper that was pinned under it. This is disappointing.
Death threats should never be anonymous.

Drip. The same sound wave washes over the room. This time he holds a
slip of paper between his hands, but his eyes look past it. In front of
him is a vast sheet of glass, a single window that makes up the east
wall. In the dark it reflects both light and sound.

You put the paper down and lean back, tense with fear and a comic
anxiety. You begin to wonder who it is and how it will come. Maybe it's
the mob, and they'll kick the door down, tommy guns blazing, your body
convulsing as it catches a half-gallon of bullet-lead. Or maybe there
will be just one of them. He puts a gun in your mouth. Fire, and the
Hollywood blood mist appears behind your head.

But I have no enemies, no spurned ex's, no gambling debts, no mob
connections. Maybe it's prophetic. Maybe it's a death threat from God.
That's clever. I'd write it down if only I had a pen.

Drip, the faucet again. It catches him staring at his own glazed eyes
reflected in the big dark window. On the table in front of him there is
a tall, slender bottle corked and wax-sealed at the top.

I suppose I should drink that wine we've been saving for?? Anyway, it
won't get drunk and neither will I if I don't drink it now, so cheers
to all who couldn't be here, and Luck if you've ever been a lady
before, Luck, be a lady tonight.

Behind the bottle you see the dim light huddling in the metallic
curves of the letters, "You and me and the bottle makes three tonight,"
engraved in your whiskey flask. Suddenly this seems more attractive to
you than the wine; besides, you don't have a corkscrew.

Drip. His fingers are wrapped comfortably around the flask, eyes fixed
on the letters. His arm reaches past the bottle?his elbow gently
brushing it. The bottle is tipped precariously?.

You remember the third grade when you and your friends spent recesses
drawing diagrams of the fourth and fifth dimensions. If only you could
bring those with you, then you could see just how close to reality they
were. You wonder if heaven really is an eternal orgasm and all this is
just the tension building up to it.

My brother once said to me, "Heaven is like jellyfish and glitter." I
responded firmly, "Then I'm not going." But I don't really believe
that. If there is neither male nor female in the kingdom of heaven then
that seems just the place for a lesbian trapped in a man's body.

Drip, and his eyebrows are in mid-quiver. The first glistening hints
of cold sweat are visible on his flushed brow. His mouth is partially
open, and in front of it hovers a warm and misty breath. In one hand he
holds the flask, in the other its cap. On the floor the bottle is in
two pieces joined only by glass fragments and a thick puddle of red
wine.

The drama of the scene reminds you of Broadway. Not that you've been
to Broadway, but you would have and you might still if it weren't for
that divine death threat. But your thoughts are interrupted by the
stage-fright knot in your stomach that draws everything only to itself.
If applause falls on a stage and the actor isn't there to hear it, did
you still move the world?

I make every effort to act like a member of the body of heaven, but
they told me I couldn't fool God by acting. I'm not so sure. Maybe all
God asks of us is that we fool ourselves. I can't tell the difference
between myself and my character. If one is damned and the other saved,
I won't know where to go.

Drip, but the faucet is inaudible this time. Its pulse exists only
beneath the roar that penetrates the window. Brilliant white light
floods through the once-dark glass. It bleaches the room. He is
standing beside his over-turned chair, shining silver flask just
slipping from his open palm. His eyes glare forward throwing back light
for light.

I never saw this coming. It is too wanton, too absurd, to fitting. I
want to ask, "Why me, why this, why now, what kind of God leaves death
threats switchblade-pinned to old oak tables?" But the only line in my
head repeats over and over again, "I believe in kingdom come?"

Somehow, apart from it all, you realize that if there is a time in
this play when everything should burst into song, this is it. You like
the idea that you'll take your last breath the way your voice teachers
taught, and your last words will be full in song. Sunday bloody
Sunday.

Crescendo peak. Every particle of the room screams the vibration.
Where the window was a rusted metal bumper and a grill are barely
visible through the blaring, glaring white of the headlights. The glass
is a blossom of tiny shards, flowering out from the hood of the truck
to every corner of the room. The tiny razor pieces rest in his skin as
carelessly as they pierce the cheap wallpaper or pelt the old oak
table. His lips are open wide. Adam's apple raised high. Every glass
fragment breaks the white light. The rays are scattered through the
room?

Where all the colours bleed into one?