Weekends of Debauchery

Vince lifted his beer to his chest, tilting it toward his cheek as he scratched his chin with his baby finger. He folded his arms in front of him and leaned away from the dining room table, making sure he had the full attention of his host. “It’s a lot harder to make a man these days. That’s all I’m trying to say. Take yourself for example. You’re the biggest pussy I know. Whose fault his that?” He took a willful swig of his beer. “It’s your mother’s fault. That’s whose fault it is. She makes nothing but pussies.”
Niko remained silent. The muscle-toned Greek rarely needed long to respond to a challenge of his manhood, but on this night the bottle had impeded his wit and he had nothing to offer his guest other than fiery eyes and a bobbing head of disapproval.
“I’m not done,” Vince continued, now sculpting his thoughts with crisp dancing hands. “Does your brother still live at home? How old is that fucking guy, like twenty-eight? Is your mother still breastfeeding him? What’s his deal anyway?”
Niko sprung from his chair and pointed to the door. “Get the fuck out of my house, you fat shit.”
Chloe, seated to Niko’s left, exhaled wearily as she rose and walked toward the kitchen. She wrapped her arm around the wall separating the two rooms before pulling herself back to face her irate boyfriend and his tormentor. “Do either of you want a beer?”
“I can’t believe you’re offering this idiot a beer.”
“You’re just upset because you can’t think of anything to say. Why don’t you spare me having to listen to this nonsense and go outside and fight? She considered the inevitably of her suggestion then resigned herself to the kitchen. “By the way you’re the idiot,” she hollered back. “Do you want another beer or not?”
Niko threw a backhand into the air and muttered inaudibly. He stared indignantly at Vince, who, concealing a smug smile, picked up the dice that had been sitting stationary for the last ten minutes. “Shall we continue?” he asked.
Niko shook his head. “I invite you in my home for a man’s game, a game of intellect and art and science and literature and you callously degrade my mother with that blubbery, fat-ass tongue of yours.” He watched as Vince rolled the dice, and shook his head at the sight of another pair of sixes. “Two beers,” Niko yelled repugnantly. “Two fucking beers.” He looked back to Vince. “Now I’m supposed to sit here and watch you drink my beer in my house.”
“You can do what you want,” Vince replied. You can watch me drink your beer or you can go to bed and I’ll drink your beer with your girlfriend. I don’t care what you do.” Niko followed Vince’s movements closely now, but Vince, peeling the label from his beer, was withdrew swiftly from his ambush, now offering his friend only a disinterested countenance, knowing full well it would offer only additional agitation.
Vince took pleasure in provoking Niko’s passion. Staring at his adversary with an uneven smile, releasing to his catch now the slightest bit of slack, he took a final moment to savor his friend’s synthetic hostility. Then he continued. “The thing is you used to make men by sending them to war or boarding school or something. Boys had no choice but to become men. They were on their own. Their balls had to grow or shrink, one or the other. Nowadays parents do their children’s homework and go on job interviews with them. That isn’t a recipe for independence. It’s a recipe for creating a generation of pussies.” Vince drank the final mouthful of his beer then smoothed away the ring of condensation left by his bottle with a brush of his arm. From the pub table at which he sat, his eyes followed the crown molding around the ceiling, danced over the decorative collection of books on the shelf behind Niko and then fixed themselves onto the wood-burning fireplace. “See, Niko, you’re alright. This is your house. You pay the mortgage. That’s your car in the driveway. You built that fire over there with your own two hands.” Vince nodded in the direction of the heat source while tightening his lips to shield any hint of sarcasm. “Really, you’re the epitome of manliness.”
Niko accepted all these comments as facts not worthy of consideration, nodding approvingly as he focused his attention back to the game board.
Chloe returned to the table as well, with two beers and glass of wine for herself. She considered the last of what she had overheard but bit her lip before she sat to rejoin the game, deciding that the rivalry of two men sharing her company needed no further impetus. Although it attracted her to him, the admiration Chloe possessed for her boyfriend’s passion had its limits. She had seen Niko in his share of bar room fights through university and with each passing one the allure of his barbarianism dissipated, replaced by feelings of awkwardness and embarrassment. It was only a year ago that Niko had lost his temper in traffic, pulling a twenty-something Chinese man out of his car to lecture him on the customs and protocols associated with changing lanes. When he had later recounted the event to friends, he spoke without shame, instead showering in the adulation of what he and his friends considered his spirit. Chloe squeezed his thigh as she reminisced. Attempting to return to the game its lost momentum, she picked up a card. “Alright, whose turns it?”
It’s fatty’s turn,” Niko answered without hesitation.
“Alright, Vince. What’s the capitol of Venezuela?”
Vince ruffled his hair, squinting his eyes and twisting his head as if he were trying to pull the answer from the back of his head with some sort of imaginary rope clamped between his teeth.
“Reread the question,” he said abruptly, looking downward.
“What do you mean reread the question?” Niko snapped. You stupid shit, the question is five words long.”
“I need to hear it again. The capitol of Venezuela, is that what is was?”
“Then what the fuck do you need to hear? You just said the question, ass.”
“Would you shut the hell up? I need to hear it again.”
Chloe looked over at the television screen a room away. She considered abandoning the game and curling up on the couch in front of it, closer to the fire. “Alright, Vince, here it is again: What is the capitol of Venezuela?”
Vince nodded. “That’s what I thought you said.” He took gratification from being a peanut gallery onto himself. He smoothed his hand over his unshaven face. “Is the answer Venezuela City?”
Niko shook his head. “I should fight you right now. You’re a complete fucking idiot.”
“The answer is Caracas,” Chloe interjected, pulling back from the table and rolling her eyes.
“Of course it is,” said Niko. “Of course it is.”
“Whatever,” Vince replied. “I need another beer. Niko, go get us another round. The capitol of Venezuela is Caracas,” he said, locking the fact into memory. “I’ll be damned. That’s something I won’t soon forget.”
Niko started for the kitchen. “Why do you need to hear a question twice if you have no clue what the goddamn answer is? A goddamn clown you are.”
Chloe was now covered in a blanket on the couch. “Seriously. You two should just put the game away.”
Vince shifted in his stool to face her. “That’s easy for you to say. You’re a woman. We have man things to settle here.”
“Is that so?” She sunk back in the couch, barely interested in continuing the conversation.
“You just snuggle in there, Chloe. Enjoy the fire that man has created for you.”
She sighed, and then surrendered what he had told herself to hold back. “I created this fire. The man that lives here doesn’t know how to create fires.”
No other words could have floated so swiftly across the room. They jolted Vince. Nodding approvingly, he sorted his thoughts, judging his coming actions.
Vince was a man who commanded attention whenever he spoke regardless of the triviality of his words. His prowess was of cadence and timing, and whatever he lacked in civilities he made up of for in sheer volume. He possessed an uncanny ability to see connections and draw from them derision that penetrated as easily as it engaged. His charm was so appreciated by friends and friends of friends that he had been the master of ceremony at seven weddings over the last year, and so effective was he in this capacity that random strangers had begun calling his house to book him for their weddings as well.
Niko returned and stood a beer in front of Vince, who had no inclination to delay his scorn. “You’re no man.” He allowed the words to hang in the air briefly. “Chloe just told me that she built that fire.” He turned to Chloe. “Chloe, where did you get the wood for that fire you built?”
Niko was ablaze.
Chloe couldn’t hide her smirk. “It comes in a bag. My lumberjack lost his axe somewhere.”
“Comes in a bag,” Vince repeated, “Isn’t that something.”
Niko, still speechless, twisted the cap off his beer, looked Vince over, and then fired it at him, hitting him on the tip of his nose. “I have had enough of you for one night, porky. We’re going to settle this outside.”
Chloe advertised her displeasure with a groan.
Niko glared at her. “I can’t believe you,” he said. “Why are you feeding this idiot this bullshit? I didn’t start that fire but I’ve started plenty of others.
“When? When have you ever started a fire?”
“I don’t know. Plenty of times.” He held up his beer, using it to point at dates on the imaginary calendar hovering in front of him.
“This confirms it, Niko,” Vince offered. You’re bullshit.”
Niko walked around the table calmly then shoved Vince violently, sending his guest back a pace. Niko offered a nonchalant shrug. “Your move, pecker head.”
Vince mirrored Niko’s shrug.
Chloe turned over on the couch and begged for sleep.
The northern Manitoba winter had been a harsh one. Snowstorm after snowstorm had pounded the tiny city of Shawbrook with fierceness not seen in years. The city’s only reprieve from the snow came from weeklong spells of the bitter cold. It was during these weeks, when the thermometer dipped below -40oc, that the outside world became a very poor place to be, with residents of the city venturing outside only as necessity dictated. In the backyard of Niko and Chloe’s Queen Anne home, with its wrap-around porch and fanciful towers, Niko and Vince displayed for one another their insusceptibility to this extreme cold. Neither winced, neither wanted to be the first to cower.
Niko was first to speak. “Just admit that you’re a big pussy and you need to go home and wash that your massive vag and we’ll forget any of this ever happened.”
“Now you’re a talker, huh?” Vince danced in and out as the two circled, pushing at Niko’s shoulder as he spoke. “Inside you were all fire and no words. Now you’re all words. You don’t want to know what that tells me.”
Niko thrust forward, locking his powerful arms around Vince’s knees, pulling them together and then forcing them back. Vince fought to maintain his balance. Standing over Niko now, struggling to right himself, he thumped his arm over Niko’s back. The Greek felt it, but he pushed on, driving his shoulder into Vince rib cage and forcing his counterpart to stumble to his knees. Vince tried to pull Niko down with him, but Niko spun from his grasp. He kneed Vince in the thigh and then plowed through his shoulder, sending Vince face first in the crisp snow. “Submit, you pussy.” Niko commanded. Now sitting on Vince’s back, he began to slap his opponent on the back of head.
Vince was exhausted. He breathed heavily, wearily. He was drunk and out of shape. “You son of a bitch,” he said. The pace of his breathing accelerated, decelerated and then accelerated again. In one sudden, spastic motion he bucked, spun clockwise, and swiftly landed an elbow to Niko’s kidney, sending his nemesis sprawling. Vince was free, but he was still gasping for air. He watched as Niko leapt effortlessly to his feet from the snow-covered ground. Vince backtracked further, dizzy and disoriented.
Niko followed, giving his opponent time to catch his breath. “Do we need to have an intermission?”
“Only if you need one,” replied Vince. As he finished his sentence he stepped backward into Niko’s shed. “You’re just a hot-tempered little half-man.” Vince turned to his left, spotting a plastic snow shovel leaning against the shed. He grasped a hold of it as Niko closed in. Vince swiped low and the shovels’ shaft smashed against Niko’s shins.
Niko yelped in anguish, stumbling backward across the yard. “You fucker.”
Niko was hopping on one leg so Vince didn’t hesitate. He charged across the yard, delivering a stiff shoulder to Niko’s jaw, plowing him into a snow bank. Niko lay inclined, stunned by the force of the big man, and sill aching in the shins from being hit by a shovel. Vince jumped on Niko’s chest and with his right arm forced Niko’s chin up, exposing his neck. Niko tried to pull his body up, but his back was sliding. He couldn’t slip out. He tried a few jabs to Vince’s face but couldn’t muster a back swing to produce enough force to stun him. He wiggled and twisted, all to no avail. Vince cupped his hand and began shoveling snow in Niko’s face and across his neck. Niko growled and began snipping at Vince’s wrists.
“Here I come, asshole.”
“Here you come?” Vince’s breath was controlled now. “Enough with the dramatics. Just submit.”
Niko planted his elbows. He had shifted enough by now to create a firm snow-padded surface from which to propel himself. He pushed with all his drunken might, but he only moved the big man slightly.
“Here I come, asshole,” he repeated.
Niko pushed up a second Nikoe. This time he had no intention of twisting. Vince followed his momentum up, expecting to cradle his force and then plant him back down into his snow angel, but Niko used the slight gap he created to lift his right leg and drive his knee into Vince’s testicles.
Vince dropped immediately. He writhed in agony as Niko stood over him.
“Do you need your mom to come pick you up or should I call you a cab?”
Vince turned over, his face contorted, and peered into the distance. “I think the cops are here.”
The two men looked to he east side of the house where a red light peppered the night sky.
“Shit,” they said in unison.
Constable Fred Sexsmith startled them when he appeared from the opposite side of the yard. He spoke before either man saw him. “I should have pulled my gun, scared the shit out of the two of you dummies.” Instead of a gun, Constable Sexsmith held a cigarette, which he held tight to his body as he vibrated to keep himself warm. Sexsmith was a thickset, redheaded man who trundled rather than walked. His arms and chest were one. He preferred a bear hug to a handshake, and his hellos were like barrel rides over Niagara Falls. Both men held him in high regard.
“We’re just settling a few things out here,” said Niko. “If Vince had been reasonable we would be in this mess. Nothing to see hear. Go back to your cruiser. Go have a nap down the street.”
“Well your neighbors called 911, thought someone was breaking into your house or throwing eggs at it or something.” He hesitated. “You guys are thirty years old. What in the hell are doing out here anyway? It’s forty below!” He glanced at his watch. “Don’t you both have to work in about six hours?”
“Someone has a short fuse,” replied Vince, finally upright but still grimacing.
Niko refused to concede the point. “Give Vince a ride home, Sexsmith. I’m tired of his face. He’s leaving here a lucky man.”
“You guys are both lucky men. Had anyone else shown up, you two could have been spending the night in the drunk tank.”
Vince stared Niko down a final time. “Let no one here tonight forget how this evening ended.” He raised a sermonic finger. “That little fucker kicked me in the balls.”
“Go home. You sound like a baby.”
“I will go home, but I will go home knowing that real men don’t kick each other in the balls.” He opened the passenger side door of the cruiser, now hollering at Niko from afar. “Thank you for a lovely evening, and let Chloe know I enjoyed her company.”
Niko swiped the snow from his pants and headed inside. He had a busy day tomorrow. He had full slate of patients at the chiropractic clinic. Vince's class was starting algebra.


2

Vince Best’s Monday started like any other. He masturbated twice, once in bed and once again in the shower. Contrary his hopes, a frigid shower did nothing to tame the alcohol-imbued wildebeest chewing away at the insides of his brain. So he was soft on his feet as he pulled himself together, allowing his towel to do the work for him as he dried off, brushing his teeth in gentle linear sweeps and lifting his eyes off the floor only when it was necessary to avoid running into immovable objects like walls and doors. He found some wrinkled pants and a navy blue golf shirt with pinstripes on his bedroom floor and gave each a quick once over on the ironing board. Socks were not an issue. He still had a few folded pairs from the vast supply his mother had given him for Christmas. He had no underwear. But after consulting the mirror and seeing that his penis and slightly swollen testicles left only a slight imprint on his pleated khakis, he decided the issue was only nominally problematic. He wasn’t planning on being on his feet too often today anyhow. Taking a deep breath, he flung his school bag over his shoulder and took a final glance in the mirror. He looked decent, he thought. He demolished a pizza pocket and banana for breakfast then started his car, and while it warmed he masturbated a third time. Or at least he attempted to.
Work was only a short drive for Vince, a few blocks from his quaint starter home just off the main drag of the small, scattered city.
In Vince’s opinion, Terry Major Elementary School was a giant piece of shit. It had been built as an educational institution for the children of prospectors who were now, according to the plaque on the exterior wall of the gymnasium, at least one hundred and forty-five years old. The building’s romantic exterior of dark red brick and immense windows, Vince believed, falsified a premise in rank disrepair. The original pine floors offered slivers to whomever walked on them, chunks of the ceiling in Vince’s classroom had fallen on his head more than once and over his five-year career, and air quality in the building had been a steady issue.
Vince entered the building through the gymnasium to avoid the office. He walked through the concrete-lined corridor linking the gym with the school basement, and then, cradling his mass on the handrail to avoid vibration, climbed the four flights of stairs to his classroom, where he immediately accepted the solace of the grade seven reading couch.
‘Fuck me,’ he thought, palming his temples, his forehead planted between two cushions.
To some extent it was unusual for Vince Best to be suffering from a hangover at work. This was merely the fourth time in four years he had succumbed to such an ailment. Three Superbowl parties had gotten the better of him previously. On this particular day he would have called in sick, but he always left early on Fridays and had nothing planned for a supply teacher.
Vince didn’t feel like a coffee, but he knew if he was going to fake his way through the day he had better get a jolt of caffeine before the bell rang. His colleagues had forbidden him from using staff room mugs because he would never clean them, so he found a dirty one in his classroom sink, ran it under the water, and then dried it with a Kleenex. He affirmed his sobriety by spinning the mug end for end, and then headed for the staff room.
Mrs. Janice Bowden and Ms. Adrian Knox were each standing by the fridge enjoying coffees when Vince entered the staff room. Janice acknowledged Vince with a smile. The physically fit thirty year-old looked him over carefully as he plodded across the room. “You don’t look good, Mr. Best.”
Vince sat with his back turned and dropped his head to the table.
“She’s right,” Adrian added. “You look terrible. Half my class was absent on Thursday and Friday because of that nasty flu going around. Go tell Paul you need to go home. You shouldn’t be here. You should be in bed.”
Adrian was a rookie to the profession. Pretty and petite, she possessed the glow characteristic of young teachers who doggedly compel themselves to the pursuit of making learning enjoyable for students, the type who either burn out shortly into careers or conform to the tenets of disenchantment shortly thereafter. A straight haired brunette with a delicate little nose and mouth, she saw the best in Vince. She saw a man with a special gift— an underlying electric quality she could not precisely identify but for which she knew was meant for some grander stage.
Adrian smiled at Vince; though she wished to be more deliberate. Adrian wore a white blouse and green satin belt. She loved the colour green, but she hated her arms. She hated the way her arms looked in every short-sleeve shirt she owned, green or not. Whenever she felt self-conscious about them, she would pull one tight to her chest and sprinkle her fingers over it.
Vince didn’t notice any of this. He liked the way her breasts looked in her white shirt.
Vince managed to look her straight in the eye. “I wish I could go home, but I’d rather not tell Paul I have a hangover. I think that might influence my evaluation on Thursday in the wrong way.”
“I’m supposed to be learning from you, Vince. You’re not setting such a great example here, you know.” She stood up and patted him on the back before leaving the room.
Janice was standing over the garbage can, peeling the wrapper off a muffin. She wasn’t looking at Vince. “You know,” she started, “the only way to cure a hangover is to keep on drinking. Why don’t you concoct some moonshine over in the science lab to get yourself through the day.”
“Thanks, Janice. I’ll consider doing that.”
She walked back to where he was sitting. “Look at that bruise on your arm. What in the hell are doing with your weekends, Vince?”
He pulled his sleeve to examine the huge yellow bruise. “I went snowshoeing yesterday and came upon a pack of wolves. They attacked me, so one by one I slaughtered them with my bare hands. I didn’t want to tell the story. To be honest, it makes me sound arrogant, but there it is. Now you know. Keep it close to your chest.”
She smirked. “Good luck today, smartass.”
“Have a good one,” Vince replied.
Vince greeted his students one by one as they entered his classroom. He chose to nod instead of speak because he wasn’t sure whether his students would be able to detect the odor on his breath. He tried to appear as grumpy as possible. Few students acknowledged him.
The national anthem seemed to last twice as long as it should have. Vince wanted to lay down half way through the interlude. He slumped back into his chair when the morning announcements commenced.
Vince Best hated Paul Park. He felt he was a tight-ass fossil of man devoid of any shred of intelligence or creativity.
“Good morning, teachers and students. Welcome to another beautiful week here at Terry Major Elementary School. I have just a few things to pass along to you, but these can wait until I see you at the student-of-the-month assembly at 9:30. Have a great morning!”
‘Shit.’
“Alright, keep it down.” Vince walked to the front of the classroom. Holding the attendance sheet in front him, he scanned the room, his eyes burning as he followed the names of missing students across the rows on the page before him. “Good morning.” He handed the attendance sheet to Ada, who sat directly before where he stood. “Run that down for me.”
“Take at your math exercise books. You’re going to be taking a short note.”