Single Malt
A sip of scotch, and suddenly every texture, smell and sight at my grandmother's house comes into focus. The hard, waxy, gray and yellow squares of linoleum and speckled counter top, pine cabinets filled with cream of tartar and mace and food coloring and coffee syrup and condensed milk and canned mince meat. Dusty things. Yellowing things. Things I hope never end up in a recipe I have to pretend to enjoy. Actually, that was never a problem when Gram was around, just now, when Aunt Bea routs something out of there. No, Gram was a kick-ass cook. Fuck. She kicked so much ass.
But that was awhile ago. And a sip of scotch brings me there. They all drank it. Grandpa, Grandma, Aunt Bea. My mind travels inexplicably to days filled with baskets and baskets of blueberries, a serious business, this was, blueberry picking. Pint after pint, they would spend half a day, Aunt Bea, Gram, and mom. Sometimes we went, too, but children are unreliable for such tasks, eating half of what they pick and inevitably distracted. No, blueberry picking was serious business, because of course you want your jam and your pies all winter, don't you? Nothing else can compare.
Sips of scotch remind me of ill-advised and uneducated experiments with fine whiskey as a teenager, utterly ignorant and innocent, always wretching and completely gone at the end of it all, and swearing off the stuff until some other fool convinced me otherwise. Fools. Fools and their whiskey. Whiskay druuunk... like a whiskay skuuunk, the refrain to an inspired free-verse song coined by a pair of drunkard male friends way back in the day. It inspired the most crazed behavior of all, whiskey. The same two friends throwing giant potted plants down the stairs at poor TF's house, then diving down the stairs after them, dragging the beaten bodies of the plants out into the street, leaving them for dead.
But back to the sips of scotch. I think I understand why a drunk might adore it. It seems to store memories, almost holographic in detail and scope. Full, round, textured memories live in the full, round, textured taste. It feels almost like a collective memory, where you feel and taste the drunkard's walk home from the bar, the night after night in a stone house or cramped apartment, the dull pulse of a city, the darkest of rural roads, fevered love-making and other acts of creation, earnest confessions and sloppy messes of lies.
Rain falling in tap-tap______tink__tap_tink-tap__tap_tinks on the metal awning, trickling slowly into the soft earth, feet sinking in, lungs drinking in every vapor, every sweet and sour scent.
The clothesline traces graceful gray arcs adorned with tiny wet orbs of light, hung out to dry.
The parentheses of steel posts and wooden T-bars shrug, blameless.
But that was awhile ago. And a sip of scotch brings me there. They all drank it. Grandpa, Grandma, Aunt Bea. My mind travels inexplicably to days filled with baskets and baskets of blueberries, a serious business, this was, blueberry picking. Pint after pint, they would spend half a day, Aunt Bea, Gram, and mom. Sometimes we went, too, but children are unreliable for such tasks, eating half of what they pick and inevitably distracted. No, blueberry picking was serious business, because of course you want your jam and your pies all winter, don't you? Nothing else can compare.
Sips of scotch remind me of ill-advised and uneducated experiments with fine whiskey as a teenager, utterly ignorant and innocent, always wretching and completely gone at the end of it all, and swearing off the stuff until some other fool convinced me otherwise. Fools. Fools and their whiskey. Whiskay druuunk... like a whiskay skuuunk, the refrain to an inspired free-verse song coined by a pair of drunkard male friends way back in the day. It inspired the most crazed behavior of all, whiskey. The same two friends throwing giant potted plants down the stairs at poor TF's house, then diving down the stairs after them, dragging the beaten bodies of the plants out into the street, leaving them for dead.
But back to the sips of scotch. I think I understand why a drunk might adore it. It seems to store memories, almost holographic in detail and scope. Full, round, textured memories live in the full, round, textured taste. It feels almost like a collective memory, where you feel and taste the drunkard's walk home from the bar, the night after night in a stone house or cramped apartment, the dull pulse of a city, the darkest of rural roads, fevered love-making and other acts of creation, earnest confessions and sloppy messes of lies.
Rain falling in tap-tap______tink__tap_tink-tap__tap_tinks on the metal awning, trickling slowly into the soft earth, feet sinking in, lungs drinking in every vapor, every sweet and sour scent.
The clothesline traces graceful gray arcs adorned with tiny wet orbs of light, hung out to dry.
The parentheses of steel posts and wooden T-bars shrug, blameless.
posted by Black Egg at 10:05 PM
2 Comments:
lovely post. makes me want to like scotch. i was listening to the rain tonight too. i miss tin roofs. mine doesn't "ping" like my childhood tin roof did. such a nice sound.
Thanks. There may come a time when you like scotch. It is definitely an acquired taste - I came to it rather late. But it is an amazing thing, it's unlike any other alcohol. And if you ever have a chance to drink a really old one - wow! Shit tells stories, I'm telling you.
I'm always taken off guard by the first few drops of rain on the awning - it's a really weird, hard sound, and I always think the cats are doing something they shouldn't be before I realize it's just the rain...
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