Dinkaltranen

I had won the last round – by cheating, kind of. I told my opponent, a woman, that she looked familiar, and that I might have seen her around. A little small talk later, I have an idea of her boyfriend. My ‘story’, is that I saw her boyfriend having an affair. It works every time. Somewhere between coughing on the scotch I’d brought, a Balvenie 12, and the story I spun she started to cry, and was thus disqualified. She’d brought some kind of premixed coconut and pineapple vodka in a can. I drank it in the few minutes I spent listening to her and concocting my story. She walked away, and I finished the scotch she left behind, at $140 a bottle even 20 mls was not going to waste.

My next opponent was harder. He nearly made me laugh, but I managed to play the joke completely straight and improv my way into making him burst out laughing – another disqualification. Laughing, crying, passing out. That’s the only way you lose. Some people hear that last one and think, wow, I’ll bring the strongest stuff possible. Unfortunately, when you lose, you have to drink your drink for your next opponent, and when you win, you have to drink your next opponents drinks. You easily can get fucked by being forced to drink whatever stupid amount of whatever stupid drink you specified and brought.

Most games don’t have a clear winner, usually there’s a bunch of ties. In which case, at the end, the disqualified vote for who was the most entertaining, or rather, whoever they liked the most. What can I say, it’s not really a real game, it doesn’t even have a name, it was just called The Game.

Speaking of which, onto the last opponent of the night. A real psycho, big guy, overweight, with a deranged, lopsided grin that told you he was already drunk. The dude slammed 375ml of Johnny Walker, red label onto the table.

“We splitting that?”

His grin widened. He had British teeth.

“What’s wrong? Afraid you might feel something?”

He had lost the last round, and I had won. So I had to drink roughly 12 standard drinks in less than 20 minutes, not laugh, cry, or pass out, and figure out some way to disqualify him. My best bet was making him laugh. I passed him his drink. He passed me the vase full of Johnny Walker.

“I’m Ethan.” He said. “Nice to meet you.”

“Ian.” I raised the vase. “Próst.”

“Próst.” He sculled the wine and I winced, trying to follow, but I barely made it through a quarter of the glass before my gag reflex kicked in. It wasn’t that I was a snob, hell, it took me years to realise I could barely tell the difference between $70 scotch and $500. Just that much alcohol, it activates something, that ethanol seems to trigger something and when it detects too much, maybe it’s in your tongue or your throat, it says “okay you’re being poisoned” and kicks in to protect you.

Fuck you, I thought, as I tried to override it. Fuck you, the liver is evil and must be punished.

Nope, that’s all I can take for now. The loser gets to tell their story first.

Ethan’s a good storyteller. He talks to people like he’s their friend, in a rambling, parenthetical manner that didn’t feel rehearsed like most stories people told. It was a conversation, mostly one sided, but a conversation. It felt like sitting around a table with a group of friends on monobloc chairs at 3am on New Years. His story was about a date gone wrong, and I was almost certain despite his straight commitment to it that it was drawn from something real. But he knew which elements to embellish, which notes to play for comedy, and how, most importantly, to take you along for the ride. By the time he’s finished, I’m smiling enough to let him know I appreciate his story, and more importantly have finished the other half of the drink.

His story was bullshit, all of it. It didn’t take a genius to realise this overweight, crooked toothed drunkard had probably never been on a date in his life. The embellishments were themselves red herrings, lies on top of lies to distract you from the fact that the entire thing was false.

I recognised Ethan. I don’t think he recognised me.

He was completely unlovable and friendless. There was a silent scream emanating from him at a frequency that only some people, people like me, could hear. This was a man who hated himself, and would do anything to not think about who he was, what he’d become, how he’d failed to shape up. He could sleight of hand his way through casual conversations like this where there were no stakes, but a relationship, anything long term? No chance. The cracks would eventually show, and either narcissistic injury would take over, or people would recognise the danger of that and bail.

Feeling anything real would kill him.

I pitied him. I once was nearly him, or I could have been him, had things gone differently. To be honest, this was as close as I get to being the past ‘me’ as I can tolerate. It was like staring at the Ghost of Christmas Yet To Come, except today was that future. A reminder that I had changed my ways, and no longer had to live like Ethan. I no longer had to scream like he did.

The story I told him was almost completely fabricated, one I had told before. However, I added none of my usual deliveries, no voices, no enunciation’s or dramatic pauses, no red herrings for the actual lies. Just a story about loss. Without them, it was obvious the story was a complete lie.

Ethan smiled politely when I finished, raised his glass to me, and gulped down the last of his drink. It was a faux smile; he was trying to figure out the joke, if it was on him, or if there even was one. I finished my own drink in silence as we stared at one another. We sat there like that for a few more minutes before he finally spoke.

“That was a good story.”

“I’m glad you liked it. I practiced a lot.”

Another long silence, this time broken by me. “Was yours true?”

Ethan smiled again, that same phoney smile that didn’t meet his voice or his eyes. “Parts of it were. Do you concede?”

I scoffed. “No. Let’s go again. Either one of us will pass out, or-”

“That’s not in the rules.”

He didn’t get it. There were no rules. This entire thing was just an excuse, an impromptu social experiment, a space where the unreal met the real and ambiguity was king. He thought he was king, but really, he was just a pretender. He seemed open to the idea of another round, so I gave him some time to think about it. Eventually he reached out a hand. “Round two?” He asked. His handshake was far too tight, and he knew it.

“Yes. Round two. New rules. A real story. A true story. A story neither of us have ever told before.”

It was time for some tough love. Before he could go for it, I reached over, and took his last bottle of JD, simultaneously sliding him my last serving of Balvenie. Ethan stared at the small glass, 30mls of smokey, divinely-infused ethanol.

I opened my mouth, and drank half of the bottle of JD, watching him even as my eyes watered.

His hand trembled as he reached for the Balvenie, and then he swigged it in a gulp.

“Can I…?” His voice trembled as he met my gaze. “Can I have what’s left of that?”

I grinned, and lifted the bottle of JD to my lips.

“What’s wrong, Ethan? Afraid you might feel something?”