Short Story Weekly: Canary Crawl

Short Story Weekly: Canary Crawl Summer nights, coming into cool autumn mornings. I was always sifting through the heat f the calloused sun. I looked up at the bridging light from earth to the heavens, and reflecting back a shimmering of boiling heat. The sidewalks looked like waves of sandy pools of mucky water, as the leaves begin to dry and cook, turning fiery shades of orange, yellow, and bleeding reds. The canary crawl, the last big even of the summer, t was sort of a big deal for undergrads. Autumn was right around the corner, it could be caught on the wisps of the wind that whispered: “September”. Late August was a brilliant firestorm of last chance heat waves, and foliage to match the fire in the sky. I had been twenty-one for barely a wee, and able to compete in the Canary Crawl, and it was a fabulous way to spend away the wear nickels and dimes my parents have saved up for me since I was still in the womb. I hated that I had to go off to some hallowed hall of higher learning, simply to appease their lack of buying a new car when one shit bricks. I wasn’t without gratitude, but college was not my idea of sending their money wisely. I was always dumb enough to take charge of doing whatever my friends were doing, and they were about as Ivy League material as a piece of rotting fruit is a subject piece for a still life. It was morning, and the sun was already brutally making the crawl impossible. I was about halfway through, started the evening early, and most of the streets were cluttered with freshman making piss-poor decisions, and cops dragging off unruly second-year squabs, but I was still coherent enough to hear my liver beg me to stop. I wanted to complete the crawl, it was essential to submitting my application for a potential position in the most famed fraternity off-campus: Sigma Theta Delta. The Canary Crawl is called such that it is akin to the idea of sending a canary down a mineshaft. If the canary dies, you know that it’s too toxic to continue, and the men can be said by collapsed bodies of alcohol-poisoned frat boys and sorority queens lying about out of the ten blocks of nothing but old-world taverns and bars. I was about six blocks into the ten blocks needed to complete he canary crawl. I was smart to pace myself: a pint per bar, a pitcher per tavern, and two pitchers at the end, and you’ve practically done the improbable. Most people don’t get past the first few blocks, freshman with fake I.D.s. I never even attempted to try the crawl the first year I started going to Friar Angola University, I was too bus trying to be productive in my classes, because I felt I had a great deal to prove. This year, I wanted to complete the crawl, and live to tell the tale. Ten blocks, five bars, six taverns. I was very drunk, no-doubt, and these taverns unwittingly stayed open well past last call for this event. The cops enjoyed it, because they met their quota for citations, and filled the jails to get their bonus from the state. The school was not given the part school” idiom that so many other universities in the Mid-West were given, but the Canary Crawl was legendary. Supposedly on one Sigma Theta Delta ever actually completed the crawl, and he was a legacy to one of the sons of the founding member of the fraternity. His name was Donald Gallant; even his name was full of perseverance. He wasn’t eve given a nickname, because it was deemed insulting to the man he was, and the legend he became. I wasn’t much for the brotherhood aspects, or the near-coma demands of becoming a part of the fraternity. I wanted to do this for myself, and because it was never something expected of me. I wasn’t much of an underage drinker, but I knew from watching others how to pace oneself, why I was still visibly aware of my surroundings, and standing n my own power. I rode into the next bar, without much cause or concern. The bartender didn’t even take the time to add up the age on the card, and handed me over a pint. I tipped imp, and sipped it until the froth died down, then I threw it back, the flavor of the port ale mixing with the piss vinegar beers of the other taverns made me burp up an egg smell that nearly made me lose my stomach. The rules were simple: you had to hit every bar from one end of the town, to the next, heading through a wooded park to get to the final, oldest tavern I town: The Rockaway, and do two whole pitchers of their signature beer: The Rock Lobster Ale, which was supposed to be impossible to complete. You weren’t allowed t pules, and had until high noon t complete the crawl. You were given a card that is slipped underneath the door of your room the night before, and that card is marked by specific bartenders and innkeepers at each sop. If the card eve has a bend o it that looks like it was tampered with, you were out of the competition. The person with all twelve marks completed would essentially “win” the crawl, but by then, you’d be most likely getting your stomach pumped. With that last drop of beer, which the bartender inspected he marked off my card, and I had seven down, three to go. The last beer was settling unnaturally low in my gullet I had to relieve myself earlier, but t didn’t give me the relief I was hoping to gain, my bladder just seemed to fill up for backed-up fluid, and I had to fight the urges of phantom piss. I walked out as a guy with his old lady walked din, both were drunker than I could ever imagine, definitely freshmen, not even trying to hold their composure. I felt ancient I drinking year compared to the eighteen and nineteen year old imbeciles coming b just to get completely inebriated. I didn’t hesitate to gurgle up a burp, and I headed towards the furthest of bars and taverns at the edge of the town. The Rockaway was fast approaching but I still had another bar, and another tavern to go before having to deal with the Rock Lobster Ale that has been as legendary as the crawl itself. The drunkards were sprawled in the street like an inebriating riot had claimed victim to a host of underage casualties. If I were asked why I pressed on, stumbling through to the next tavern, the disarray of pints to come, I was quite honestly unsure as to my stupid actions either. I found it quite hypocrite of myself to damn these people fro being strewn out like drunken bums, and I’m doing the exact same thing, but even with a fairly conservative pace, I knew the alcohol would catch up with me, and the beers would either render me unconscious, or rediscovering that long lost marble I swallowed at age five, because the vomit wood flow like a broken levee. The next bartender was a college-aged girl, definitely new to the scene, ad very much out-of touch with the canary crawl. I was starting to wonder if the name were true, after this pint, I’d have to do two at the last tavern before the dreaded rummage through the forests, where my fellow classmates would most likely be strung out the most. She gave me my tall frozen glass, and I heartily drank it down, feeling the viper nip at the back of my throat with the frothy coolness. The second it hut the gullet, my head was beginning to spin, and it felt like it was time to go ahead, and move on before I was able to even thank the bartender for her service. She looked at me with a fright, as though she’s seen a ghost. I was still standing after a grand total of too many beers that I couldn’t count past five. I wasn’t inebriated like the rest of my fellow challengers, trying to make their way into Sigma Theta Delta, but I wasn’t going to let on that I was pretty much as inebriated than what a person can be. The last tavern before the run through the wooded park, which opened up to The Rockaway, was called the Ol’ Jezebel. It was formally a house o ill repute, and hosted some of the best burlesque shows to keep with its ‘tainted origins. The barkeep behind the counter was a sturdy old man, who had run the place for the last twenty-five years, and was known as Old Rust. Old Rusty was on twenty-seven years my senior, younger than my father. He was nice enough to give me the two pitchers I was supposed to drink at echo tavern. He saw I was becoming inebriated past the point where it was legally, and morally sound to serve a beer. Yet, he sat me down on the stool, and looked me over. “You know boy, it isn’t a shame to throw in the towel. It’s not like you’ve got something to prove, other than being a moron for drinking yourself into an early grave. Still, I gotta say, it’s not really smart of me to serve you, but I know talking sense into you kids doesn’t do much, until you’ve learned our lesson. So here’s what I’m going to do: I’m going to serve you the two you’re supposed to have, give you the stupid stamp, and you can carry on ruining your future. I’m a barkeep, not a psychologist, I don’t know what our damn kids see in doing this canary crawl anyhow! I”I worked in the mines, as did my grand-pappy, and his grand-pappy before him. The knew when to turn back, and admit that tomorrow you’d fight another battle, but I aint never seen someone with the balls to just pressure onward , don’t those kids laid out in the street tell you something Most of them are probably doing irreparable damage to themselves, and there’s nothing about it that you can fix, but just stop now. Unless…you’re as suicidal as the rest of them!” I didn’t say anything, but no matter if I was doing the right thing, or the wrong I hated being lectured to like an imbecilic child. I swigged down both pitchers with ease, a newly-awakened drive in me from out of his foolish tongue, licked the back of my ear, and sent me into an affixed rage. I was p and moving, ready to complete my task, as I shoved the papers in-front of the barkeep, and had him stamp his mar, making it official: there was just one place left: The Rockaway. If I was able to finish, I’d gain a notoriety standard that would surpass most others at Sigma Theta Delta, as even same of the most elite ranking members of the fraternity never finished the crawl. Most ever even get this far, but it was, for me, the one thing I knew I could do. Mom wanted me to be whatever I wanted, Dad wanted me to be something I wasn’t, and together, the game the most juxtaposing life a child could ever want. I didn’t know much about what I wanted, but it was almost impossible to make either of the proud of me. Especially since making one happy with how I would run my future, would instill the other with vast amounts of disappointment. Still, I carried forward, the last of the Canary Crawl, and my place in the legends’ books of Sigma Theta Delta were at hand. I bid the barkeep so long, and made y way throw the thickets that separated the town from the Rockaway. It was aptly named The Rockaway because the owners were originally from Rockaway Beach, and wanted to keep something of their childhood love nest in the business. The old couple were the last stop on the crawl, not excuse there were the furthers away, although that nicely worked out in location; but because they were the hardest to get to stamp your card, mostly because they too were so incoherent from their lack of hearing, and their loneliness. Most people avoided the Rockaway, where most elderly people went for an early lunch, and some old time reminiscence of a time well passed. I was determined to make it to The Rockaway, even if I was starting to feel the affects of a bladder bout to burst from too much fluid, and a brain that was functioning near-death from the feeling of being well-past shit-faced. Up ahead, there were bodies strewn everywhere in the most awkward sleeping position I’ve ever seen. People laid out on rocks and thorn thickets, like a warzone has wiped through and left them with no remorse. I wasn’t quite surprised t se so many people make it this far, and essentially fail. Most of them would be joining Sigma Theta Delta, even though they barely made it partly towards the Rockaway. Sigma Theta Delta, despite being known for the completion of the Canary crawl, and having aptly named it from the damage that it does all around, didn’t seem to care f their ranks were filled with second best. Sadly, this wasn’t their earl I was going to complete the crawl, and I would get m ticket stamped, and be a legendary by rite in the fraternity. People were whining and moaning in cacophonic wanes around the park. Brooding couples that tried to make it through were laid out and trying to make sense of each other’s slurring bemusements. Though women weren’t allowed in the fraternity, they went to support their boyfriends, or because they were adamant about getting as rocked as their boyfriends over just how big of a party it turns out to be, but the end result is more horn than fun-time adventure. I cut myself multiple times walking through the thickets, but I had the misfortune of hurting myself more often from the bodies laid out in nearly perfect rows of disorder, always tripping my feet when I was certain to have stepped over et another near-death corpse struggling to sound out the most simplest of syllables. Sure, I was slurring as bad as the rest of them, but I was on my feet, and trudging side-to-side through the forest. I could even see a glint, a shimmer of light coming from off the Rockaway’s twenty-four hour sign. It only served alcohol at certain times, but the Rockaway did double as a restaurant, and that was open until the cows came home. I was happy to see my objective in sight. I wanted to cry, and also puke up my guts, but I stepped forward, one foot at a time, towards the hazy, almost blinking form that was The Rockaway. The sky was nice and clear, the sun was practically at the highest point it cold gets, it almost seemed to stretch even higher than normal, but that was probably the beer. Despite the sun being so bright, the heat being so nauseating, and he befuddlement of my wobbly head, it was still quite shaded throughout the park, the forest that really separated the town from the wild. I was determined to get there before I passed out, because I wanted to prove myself. To who? I wanted to say it was to myself, but I also knew it was a big middle finger to m mother and father, who have practical thrown me under the bus for everything past high school. At least the didn’t judge me outright back then, the more often just hinted, and poked and prodded, rather than telling me straight out what a mistake I was becoming. The shade grew brighter as I stumbled over the last body, which had to be dead, because it didn’t move a bit, and the breathing looked to be non-existent, and cleared the park, staring directly at The Rockaway. The old stone building came upon me like a horde of plaster and sheet rock. I felt woozy, as the thoughts of salty old men, and sassy older women, the stench of Old Fashions spilt n the bar counter. I nearly hurled there, but I pressed forward through the welcoming cigar smoke, and the circa 1950s aesthetics of the bar, hobbling up to the counter. I quickly ordered in my best drunk voice, knowing I probably made each word sound as ridiculous as the next: “Twoooo pitcherssss of Rockk Lobbbsssttteeerrr, pleasee!” That was probably the hardest part of the whole deal. The two pitchers went down like water to man dying in an arid desert. I showed my card to the ancient bartender, she just smiled at me, as I left her a very nice tip, and smiled a besmirching, beer-stained grin. The beer was exquisitely sharp, like drinking liquid knives, and it stun with each and every hop-filled gulp. The bartender smiled, and thanked me kindly for the overly grateful tip. She then, hesitantly marked my card, and I looked at the seven copies that floated around in circles in front of my eyes to see that all the bars and taverns have been stamped. I have successfully completed the Canary Crawl, and I didn’t feel any smarter, in-fact; I felt like a complete buffoon. I wasn’t any happier, it jus meant I’d be praised for a year of school by a bunch of self-absorb assholes, and I would have to be lumped in with the rest of them. I only felt sick, as I nearly passed out, going through the doors, because the crawl wasn’t officially over, until I made it to the fraternity I sprinted through the woods, and if you’ve ever sprinted while completely intoxicated, you’d be shocked to know it’s like running around in a dryer made of mud, as every step you take is off-balanced, and it feels like the world is set on the most obscure spin-cycle imagined. I didn’t quite care; I needed to get back. The frat was off-campus, but still a ways away. I sucked it up and plowed forward, taking extra precaution to go in the right direction. I stumbled back onto the main strip, and from the mirage-inducing heat, it looked like every bar, building, and bastion of civilization looked precisely like the fraternity. The alcohol has turned my brain into fodder, and I squirmed my way towards the fraternity, the real fraternity. I reached the doorsteps, assuredly prepared to hear my parents freak out that I’ve done something so unsavory, so irresponsible, it was completely out of character. Naturally I was met with a rowdy, drunken applause; nearly deafening, and obviously falling on numbed skulls to think that my pounding headache was anything short of an avalanche welcomed me. Sloppy handshakes commenced, as I was officiated into the fraternity. It was all mindless jabber, all grandiose grandstanding nonsense. What was the point? I can drink to excess of a near-death experience, and I’m allowed to join a bunch of moronic wastes? I’ve done what few could do, and in short order. A photo of me sloppily trying to stand up was placed on the legends’ wall, and I was forever a member of Sigma Theta Delta. I was king for the year, could get any girl I wanted, all the guys envied me, it was almost unapparent to me that I was actually there to learn something, because it felt like school took a backdrop to the fraternity. Whatever the Canary Crawl represented, whatever it was supposed to teach me, all I knew was that I was forever in a club that was designed b academics, but grew to represent nothing but misogyny, poor grades, and drunken stupidity. Mom said I could be whatever I wanted, and I decided t join a fraternity, and become a professional nothing. Thank you for reading the Malacast Editorial, I will have the second and final half of Brightside up sometime next week, scout's honor! I got very busy on other projects, and I will be reviewing the game Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain in the very near future as well! Thank you again for all your support