Hard Drinking Hugo

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Hugo's the name and see me I'm as happy as
long as I have a drink and a place to enjoy it.

Do you see Mad Dog Tucker, well I'll tell you at fifteen I was as mad
as he ever was and Tucker who is twice my age is still only half as
smart as me .

My family are all fond of me . Some of them like a drink even some of
my friends too like a drink . If I have any friends left that is
.
But of everyone I knowe there's none so fond of the drink as I am
.

It just seems like yesterday .
I can still remember sitting there in the Park on Friday nights as
drunk as a skunk with a Scrumpie bottle on my knee .
I was a wild child at fifteen and my memories of fights on Friday
nights are still as real to me as are the days when I played football
with the lads on the Bone hill .

I can tell you something . I was one of the were the main men . I was
one of the bold mob as we were called. We were all heavy drinkers
before our teenage years . We were rough and ready for anything then .
On the edge of a session there was always a song or two or a poem that
would present itself . We made the words up ourselves and then we would
wash them all down the throat with bottle after bottle and it was the
measure of a man not to throw it all up .
There we would be . The wild bunch of hard cases . The sailors all at
sea
without a care in the world . People such as the likes of us you would
never see again . We were the ones who could change the world . Yes as
sure as my names Mick I don't know how the world ever got by without us
.
We were all in a gang joined together by the connection of drink
.
It's a wonder we had our sanity intact after all those Fridays nights
.
I don't know how we never got sent to a lunatic asylum back them
.
I still get half tore just thinking about it .
You could bet your life that some of our never even recalled what
happened
The night before the day after .Saturdays mornings usually came and
found some of us still in the shed at the park connected to an empty
bottle of scrumpie cider .With no knowledge of what had happened the
night before we made our way home as always very loose and lubricated
.
I grew up as one of the boys in the mob . I was a well liked lad by all
those who meant something . I could have been anything to anybody but I
dedicated my life to the drink . It was my decision and hard as it was
I had made up my mind to spend the rest of my life on the drink .
It really wasn't that hard a decision and in the back of my mind there
was a get out of jail free card . Even though I realized then I
couldn't turn back down a straight road It never worried me one bit
.
Why wasn't I bothered ?
WelI I just couldn't contemplate a life without drink and that's when I
realized that I was on the road to self destruction .
The thing is I didn't want to go down alone and so I went out to find
company
In the night life . I can remember sitting around in The Plaza Ballroom
feeling as if I was a pilgrim on a wagon train looking for company in
one of those big open spaces . Anyway it was there at the Plaza
Ballroom that I met my wife .
It was as if suddenly the Calvary rode in and threw me a life line and
without firing a single shot I watched all the Indians burn their tee
pees at sunset .
I never explained to my wife that I had a drink problem and tried to
sit down with her and all the rest of the pilgrims looking for another
drink .
I knew It was going to be difficult but I threw all my cares to the
wind .
I concealed my drink problem from Maggie very well I thought .
The drink was like a worm on a hook for me and I swallowed whatever
came my way . Most of the time I felt as if I was a drowning man at sea
clutching on to straws just to keep afloat in a crazy gasping for life
.
Maggie soon woke up to me after too many late nights and not enough
sober days . I had always another good excuse for getting drunk .
When we drifted apart she pulled it all together again .
All for the sake of our three of kids who had grown up so fast .
Apart from Maggie worried about me my Mother was in such a mess .
Each time I was admitted to hospital for detox she prayed it would
be
the last . One of the last times I was in hospital was about 1964
.
After I jumped out of a fourth floor window and broke my ankles they
asked me why I had jumped . All I could tell them was I wanted to get a
drink .
The doctor had told my wife and Mother at this stage that If I never
stopped drinking I would be dead in six months .
They tried very hard to convince me and in fact I almost began to think
about trying to quit but suddenly then the troubles erupted in Belfast
. It was 1968 and petrol bombs and Cs gas flew through the tiny streets
of my village .
There was rioting every day and night . The tragic thing about this
situation was it presented me with a new reason to hit the bottle and I
did so in a major way just like the violence had arrived in a big way
so did my new bout of heavy drinking . It was 1968 and all hell broke
loose .
Between the devil and the deep blue sea the Captain and the crew had
all but deserted me and I had been thrown overboard into the depths of
despair . Either you sink or swim . I was just trying to keep afloat .
I hit the ballroom floors and danced with tears in my eyes . All the
girls thought I was a great dancer . They thought I was the best
looking fella in town . They thought I was the best catch around . Yes
me Hugo the lad was I .
None of them knew I was a drunk most of the time . None of them had the
faintest idea of the workings going on inside my head . If I wasn't
drunk then I was looking at ways to get drunk . I lived in a world that
kept me blind and confused to the real issues of life .
One day I woke up near Cave Hill with an empty bottle in my hand . The
bottle was covered in blood and there was another man at my feet with
his head all opened up . I just sat there as the wind blew cold and the
rain was like ice on my face . I never knew what had happened and
brushed it off as if nothing had taken place . I tried about a dozen
times to stand up and walk away . In the end I kind of swayed back and
forward up the road still clinging
On to the empty bottle . I was almost sober when I got home . Maggie
never opened the door most times now and I lost count of how many
broken windows there had been . The neighbours were sick and tired of
me screaming out but I didn't care . All I was after was a few quid to
buy another drink . Maggie watched me slip further and further away
into the bottom of a bottle . I found it hard to remember what the kids
looked like and even forgot
How I appeared myself . Somehow I was able to justify all I did . I was
the man with the answers for I was able to read the message in the
bottle .
The word was meant only for me and nobody else .
It wasn't long until I forgot my way home . I couldn't say when or how
but my memory went . I had to knock on peoples doors to ask if they
knew where I lived . Most people either said in one of the pubs or
clubs around town . I in turn went off to find it but nothing really
made sense anymore .
It never really mattered where I slept because I slept where ever I
fell .
Thinking was something I couldn't do anymore . Concentration was all
but was gone from me now . My entire focus and energy was directed to
drink .
I was still able to justify everything in my own mind . I still
regarded myself as the most popular kid in town . Everybody bought me
drinks because I begged for money on the corner . All the women would
go out of their way to talk with me . Most of them full of abuse and
scorn . To me I was still the main man . The center attraction . But
who was I trying to kid . I took a long look at myself and got very
angry with the person I saw . I began to pick fights with strangers for
no purpose and my temper exploded on anyone who got in my way .
Nobody could stop me from drinking and dancing .
I was thirty and attracted to men now . I undressed on the dance floor
.
All the boys regarded me as a joke . They laughed and ignored me
.
The girls walked off the dance floor and looked away .
Most of the time I was like the dregs of an unwanted bottle in the
gutter .
I was just a dim light these days among the shinning stars .
I started to see things as they were and hit hard . The limelight was
over and I had become a pain for others . I was a socials misfit now
.The things I had blocked out flooded my mind and the message was clear
.
I had to stop drinking . I was fading away into nothing .

Maggie and my mother had told me an ambulance had found me just in time
.
I couldn't even remember what had happened .
All I felt was shame but I had returned to life and asked my loved ones
to help me cope with the guilt of my actions . They forgave me I
suppose for my drink problem and stayed by my side until I came back to
the family home .
Waiting there with my kids was Gerry my old school friend .
Gerry never married and I guess we never saw eye to eye on some issues
.
The last time I saw Gerry was when he stood between Maggie and I
,.
I thumped him and told him to get out . Gerry came back with a carving
knife and I grabbed a poker from the fireplace. There was nearly a
murder that night . After that I never saw Gerry again until now .
There he was with a welcome look on his face standing with my kids .
You know I felt bad about so many things but Gerry put his arms around
me and gave me a big hug .
I had red rashes all over my body . It was brought on by a case of bad
nerves they said . My nerves were wrecked .
For about six months I sat and stared into a fish tank with the terror
of the drink burning inside me . At night I lay down on the sofa and
sometimes
Got up to bang my head on the floor . Apart from everything else I had
a reasonable relationship with Maggie and the kids . We tried not to
argue .
My mother worshiped the ground I walked upon . I could never do any
wrong in her eyes . No one ever said a bad word about me in her
presence .
In my absence and on my behalf she had spoken up for me .
She was always willing to open up new lines of communication and
cherished me as her son . We saw a lot of each other the first year I
was home .
The message arrived one day after a visit from the Doctor .
There was I lying face down on the sofa when he told me I had three
months to live . I looked at the kids and my wife . It was just too
much and I went out and ordered a drink down at the local . The church
got wired off and it wasn't long before the priest arrived trying to
persuade me to stop drinking .Then
One by one in came the Cavalry . The milkmen and the postmen with the
Butcher and the baker . Everyone tried to talk some sense into me
.
It was my choice and as I looked into the bottom of a bottle the
message was floating to the surface again . That night I walked the
streets of my childhood and tried to remember the old songs I used to
sing on Friday nights .
Those early days in the Park had made a big impression on my life .
Somewhere there was a gap between then and now . In that gap a lot of
things had been lost forever . There were scars that had never healed
.
There was an emptiness that drink never filled . As I stood there drunk
and lost in that space of my own making I spoke in silence to myself
.
In the deathly silence no one answered and I walked home to my wife
.
She had thrown everything I owned out onto the street and there was a
note on the front door of the house .
The note said .
If you want to destroy the last moments of your life then do it by
yourself . Its too late now for you . You never thought of anyone but
yourself .
Go and leave us all alone for we have had enough of you .

I took the note in my shaking hands as tears fell from my eyes .
I don't remember anything after that except knocking on the door of a
fella who had helped Maggie in the shop from time to time .
He opened the door and took me in . He and I became good friends and I
shared my life story with him . He told me he was a writer and asked me
if I minded being included in a book he was writing .
I pulled the top of a beer can and drank the contents .

So its ok I said .
Share my life, after all its just a a short trip I'm on .

By Paul McCann
The End