Hank the Were Rooster 03: Drunk Were Rooster
There are many things in life which can drive a man to drink: a shit job, family problems, the horror show that is modern politics, and the existential dread that comes with consciousness. Hank’s got all of that, and a little bit more besides, because no political party is standing up for were-rights. (He doesn’t need much from his representatives, just legal protections from his irate neighbor and the knowledge that his medical insurance will cover anything nasty that he picks up off the ground. Somehow, even that is too much. It probably didn’t help that his senator tried to get him institutionalized.)
When he’s not on a date with Stacy (God bless that wonderful woman, especially the fact that she’s always busy on nights with the full moon) or otherwise occupied, Hank sits at home with a cold bottle in hand. Sometimes he drinks in silence. Sometimes he distracts himself with sports or a comedy. When he’s really morose, he puts on the news and ends up weeping.
However stupid Hank has been on occasion (and, trust me, he’s had some epic moments of idiocy over the years), Hank has never gotten drunk during the full moon. That’s not planning or restraint. When the moon is full, he’s too distracted by other things to get close to booze.
This full moon is different. It was a shit day at the office: Hank’s boss yelled at him twice, a coworker gave him a guilt trip for forgetting about a project he was supposed to do, and Stacy wasn’t able to talk over dinner. It’s summer, so the sky is still blue when Hank sits down in front of the television with dinner. He gets through a few bites before it all gets to be too much. He puts the dinner aside and grabs three bottles from the fridge.
By the time the sun sets, he’s gone through those three and two more besides. Life is wonderful now, all swimmy and vague. A noise escapes Hank: a cross between a giggle and a hiccup. He starts on bottle six and gets a good way through it before he notices the moon. It’s barely above the horizon, as beautiful as ever.
“I love you.” Hank raises the bottle in a toast, chugging the rest of it in one go. Unlike most nights with the full moon, he’s able to pull his attention away. He gets three more bottles from the fridge.
By the end of the next bottle, he’s outside in his backyard, one foot on the ground, the other poised at an awkward angle. “We’re doing this again, aren’t we?” Hank waves the empty bottle at the sky. “I fucking hate you!” He starts the next bottle.
The worms and bugs taste better than normal. Or the alcohol is covering how they taste. Hank giggles around a beetle and washes it down with the rest of the bottle. If the beetle wiggles on its way down, he doesn’t notice. The beer makes everything better.
He leans against the fence as he starts into the last bottle. Why the hell hasn’t he done this before? This is so much better this way. He kicks at a tuft of grass and laughs. “You know I love you,” he tells the moon.
Then something shifts. Everything comes back up: alcohol, grass, his supper, a beetle which he really hopes is dead. It hurts on the way up, and he’s pretty sure the beetle was still moving.
“Kill me now!” he screams. It hurts his ears, but he yells again. The sun begins to rise, and he begs for mercy until he spots his neighbor with a shovel. Then he crawls into the house where he tries to die. Since life is cruel, he doesn’t manage that. He ends up late and hung over and sick, and everyone at work yells at him again.
Hank swears to never again drink on the day of a full moon.
