Fucking and Drinking

By Shane Grey

An alcoholic writer working in a psych hospital deals with a destructive sex/love addiction while attempting to understand life, find meaning, and above all the next drink. Fucking and Drinking is a grimy, raw, emotional page turner with an end you will not see coming.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Shane Grey
• Release date: Aug 15, 2014
• ISBN: 9781310198755

Shane Grey

Shane Grey is an American Author, Multiple Power Curl World and State Champion, a Father and loving Fiancee.Here is what people are saying about Shane Grey:"Shane Grey is one of the hardest working men in podcasting." -Mike Russo, Growing Up Not Growing Old Podcast."The essence of Richard Laymon is alive and well in Shane Grey." -Joe Cauwel, Horror Film Reviewer.[Shane Grey's ebook, Sincerely, Me] "I really liked this piece. It's creepy and builds up to a surprise at the end. Good job. Worth the read."-Ser Livre, author of We The Victims: A Guide To Relationships For Victim Type Women.[Shane Grey's ebook, Sincerely, Me] "Weird, but ok, liked somewhat." -Eloise Tavares, Smashwords Reader.[Shane Grey's ebook, Phoebe] "A page turner that keeps you reading, a nice bridge between reality and fantasy." -Arnold Brown, Comedian/Actor.[Shane Grey's ebook, The Last Story I Will Ever Write About Her] "Such honesty makes this story a brutal break up story-it made me feel sorry for Missy. Most guys would relate to this story, most ladies would want a guy who really loves them like the main character." -Dora Okeyo, author of From The Heart.

Book preview

PROLOGUE

I sat in what I was told is called a Containment Room. The patient I watched was suspected of having TB. Because of this I wore one of those surgical masks. The tight rubber bands pulled on my beard and sideburns. The only way to describe the smell was, sterile. Each breath I took, my glasses fogged. It reminded me of youthful Halloween nights when I decided to wear a mask over my glasses.

The patient I sat with stared at the wall in misery. He was a skinny old man. He looked at me.

I don't wanna be here. I wanna go home. I live in the desert. He said.

You will go home eventually. First they have to make sure you're healthy. Then they'll send you back to my hospital and once the doctor sees that you are stable he'll discharge you. I said. The guy looked at me.

I'm homeless, I don't have a place to live. He said.

I had to think twice, I was sure he just told me he lived in the desert. Shit, maybe he meant the ACTUAL desert.

Then I realized he was snaking down the bed, his feet almost on the ground.

Sir, you need to stay in bed.

No. I'm getting the hell outta here. He replied. I came up behind him, grabbed him from under the arm pits and hoisted him back on the bed.

I'm here to make sure you don't leave. You're on a fifty-one fifty hold. It means you can't leave until a doctor writes a discharge order.

In the background an unwatched TV played a baseball game. I glanced at it a couple of times. I never did like sports. I didn't understand the point.

I wanna go home. The guy whined. Defeat in his voice.

I'm sorry, you can't yet. I said, calm, patient. Then he swung a right hook at me, it was slow, I caught his small fist. I pinned both arms down to the bed and said flatly, Please don't try that again. I sighed.

Three years.

My three year anniversary was soon. The old guy calmed down, I let him go and sat in a chair next to his bed. I stared at the TV. One simple thought crossed my mind, I wanna go home too. Then another thought, I don't want to work this job anymore. Then another, If I can sell a story, live off my writing one day, and never have to wear scrubs ever again, that would be perfect.

I couldn't get hired at a record store. No bookstore wanted me. I tried to get work at a sporting goods warehouse, no dice. I had also been turned down for office jobs, delivery jobs, even once as a mall security guard. But for some reason I managed to hold a job at a psychiatric hospital.

Not good enough to sell books or protect the mall, but good enough to monitor the violent and schizophrenic and bi-polar. Something about that didn't sit right with me. I was a sort of hard worker. I could certainly work a cash register, drive, and deliver pizza.

I went to nine months of Medical Assistant school, a drive-thru college, and a psych hospital hired me. But with years of customer service experience I was unable to get hired in that field. The record store hired loser hipsters. The video store hired virgins in their twenties that still beat off to comic books. Sporting good warehouses hired ex-convicts. Pizza places hired divorcees and college students.

What choice did I have?

The first thing you should know about working in a psychiatric hospital is that you will at some point get hurt. Maybe not right away, maybe after a year, maybe after a few months. I knew a therapist that had been working in psych for seventeen years and had never been hurt. One day a patient hearing voices punched her square in the face. I was there, but down the hall. I heard the commotion and ran to the nurses station.

The therapist was seated with nurses all around her, her glasses were across the room, I will never forget the look on her face. The look read pure surprise with undertones of betrayal. Like some cosmic force had kept her from being hit all those years suddenly turned its back.

I didn't see her again after that.

The second thing you should know about working as an unlicensed nursing floor staff at a psych hospital is that you are NOTHING to the administration. The suits. You are a robot. Disposable as a condom on prom night or tampon on period day.

The third thing you should know about working in a place like that, a psych hospital, is that it will consume you. In some way or another, it will imprint on your soul. Whether it's the feeling you get around people, wondering if they are schizophrenic or if they ever cut themselves to feel feelings.

Even if it's noticing that some one has strings in their hooded sweatshirt or draw strings on sweat pants. Those damn strings that must be removed. The visceral reaction you may have to a page over the intercom in a grocery or retail store. The page that makes your rectum clench. Because for years that speaker voice could have been saying: CODE GRAY.

Humans weren't made to have to endure this much drama and tension. Dealing with this much human emotion. It will own you, consume you, and one day it will change you.

Also, expect that you yourself will one day wish your head would explode, if you don't have a head you won't have to go to work. You will hope that maybe you get a flat tire or maybe that your car won't start. You clear your throat to check if it's sore. Feel your head to check for a temperature.

If you work in psych, one day you will wake up and the sympathy and empathy will be replaced with apathy.

One night a skinny fifty year old Filipino man was beaten to a point of almost unconsciousness. He ended up with stitches. Fifty years old and his first time ever having stitches. The Filipino was staff, six months on the job, the one doing the beating a scrawny muscular gang member who suffered from severe delusions. Delusional boy was too far gone. We never did get a clear answer on why he did it.

Once a twenty one year old street girl with breasts the size of melons attacked her sleeping roommate. Her roommate was a fit bubble butt brown haired girl with a weakness for crystal meth. I looked down the hallway as I often did. Just then the fight spilled out into the hall in front of their room. They slammed tiny fists into each others faces. It was the first time I had ever seen girls box without hair pulling.

When later asked about what triggered the altercation, bubble butt replied, This fucking bitch just started to wail on me

When big breasts was questioned, her reply was, That bitch tried to rape my fucking daughter. She paused with insane eyes, then looked at one of the male nurses, You raped my fucking daughter. She was put in the quiet room(seclusion room) where she slept off large doses of medication that we injected into her glute.

Because our doctors were so thorough, bubble butt also got the same cocktail. She was compliant but felt it was unfair because she didn't start the fight. I was on neither of their sides. In the madhouse you learn to not take sides. Only the side of the staff and doctors.

1.

It always started with a line. One thought. Then that one line repeated itself furiously. Over and over it would play against the walls of my brain. Like a tennis ball being thrown repeatedly against a wall by a child on punishment. A ricochet. A stray bullet bouncing around in an empty metal room.

Then I would sit down and I would write. Finish a bottle of wine. Crack open another bottle and keep writing. By dawn I was more than drunk. The words were making even more sense. The alcohol in the wine allowed me to not over think myself. It allowed me to not feel anxiety over every word I stamped down.

The bottle was freedom.

I focused on the next drink. The next short story. I read Charles Bukowski every night. I read John Fante on lunch breaks. I read the same stories over and over. The same novels.

I had a kindred connection with Bukowski.

I looked at the madhouse as my post office. This is where I will slave away, the same as Bukowski did at the post office, I thought. This madhouse will fuel my writing.

I stopped buying bottles of wine and started buying boxes. It was a better value. It was all cheap rotgut anyway, might as well save some money. Though money was not an issue. I had more of it than I ever had before.

Wrestling the crazies paid off well.

Some nights I would try to write but the words wouldn't come. On those nights I cursed internet pornography, media streaming devices, Netflix. I cursed the easy access to films. All of it was the enemy of writing.

A real writer will use any distraction as an reason not to write. Writing is having to feel. Writing means having to express or entertain. If a writer thinks of all these factors it will drive him insane.

I had a beard in no time. I stopped getting haircuts. That was all simple. Less money spent on razors and barbers meant more money for precious wine and beer. Everyday I looked more and more pale. The circles under my eyes went from black to gray, where they remained that color for two years.

One day at the madhouse a new girl started work. She was not in my department. But I noticed her. Her eyes first. Like solid cold emeralds. Her hair jet black, dyed. Her breasts seemed to be large even under the bagginess of medical scrubs. I decided to ignore her. Women were trouble and I knew such things. The green eyed ones especially, they were spawns of Satan. Often times they had no remorse or soul.

Our first kiss was at the gas station. I followed her there for safety reasons. It was after midnight and we were both off work. I went inside the mini mart to buy a case of light beer. In the reflection of the glass beer cooler door, I noticed my beer

Reviews for Fucking and Drinking

[Mimi Bordeaux · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This is a journey of a man who loves alcohol and is easily smitten by women. It has a kind of beat language which I liked. Go enjoy ?