Broken Carts ✔️

Aisle 19: Repetition

I soared down the dark highways with the windows cracked and breathed deeply, ignoring the shaking in my hands and the remnants of a buzz in my brain. My focus was planted on was the sensation of the wheel in my hand and my feet on the pedals, and how the fuck I was going to approach Ezra when I saw him. Whenever I had a moment of self-doubt or felt the desire to turn around, I imagined a scenario where Ezra got arrested for some ridiculous reason. That usually made me drive even faster.

I don't think I took a single breath until I'd safely parked in front of the bar. My confidence was boosted when I realized I'd shaved off nearly an hour of travel time and knew I'd be able to get home before sunrise. When I walked up to the bar and saw Clyde waiting, however, I noticed my hands were still shaking.

"Hey," I said with a smile and a wave.

Clyde waved back, but didn't smile. "Thanks for coming," he said. He sounded exhausted.

"Where's Ezra?"

"He's puking in the bathroom."

"Are you sure he's puking in the right place? Like, in an actual toilet?" Clyde looked at me quizzically. "Uh, it's because this one time... nevermind."

"Right. I didn't let him have anything else to drink here," he clarified. "We just needed him out of our apartment on the double, and this was, of course, the only place he'd go willingly." He rubbed the back of his neck. "I apologize for the inconvenience. We just... can't deal with him right now."

"Nah, it's not a big deal."

Clyde shook his head. "He's pulled this stunt before, you know. He'll take a bus and see where he ends up, getting plastered on the way. I'm sure he has some absurdly poetic reasoning behind it. I thought he grew out of doing it in college." Clyde sighed and reached in his pocket. "By the way, could you give this to him? Maybe not now, but if... when he sobers up." He handed me a folded-up piece of paper. "There's a chapbook competition going on that fits his style of writing. Thought he might want to enter. Might get him on the right track toward, well, getting his shit together."

"Chapbook!" I said, snapping my fingers as I remembered the mysterious Ezra-related picture on the website. "What is that?"

Clyde raised an eyebrow. "It's a kind of short publication of someone's work. Little, cheaply-produced books. It's pretty cool to get a chapbook of your work published."

"Did Ezra ever have one published before?"

"That's the funny thing," Clyde said wistfully. "In college, he entered a school-wide fiction writing competition. Winning was an immense honor, because first place got their chapbook published and circulated around local bookstores. Ezra ended up getting expelled a couple days before they named the winners, so even though he was slated to win, they gave his prize to some other kid."

So that's why his name was listed on the site, I thought. Someone must've screwed up and written the caption based on outdated information. "That's dumb. If his shit was the best, he should've won," I grunted.

"Yeah, that's what I thought," Clyde murmured. "He's not aware he would've gotten first place, as far as I know– I found out through one of my professors. So don't tell him."

"Why not? That's pretty exciting."

Clyde cringed. "Or it would make him hate himself even more."

Suddenly the front door of the bar clattered against the outside wall, making Clyde jump. Ezra, one hand holding the door wide open, stared at us blankly for a few seconds. "The fuck'd you get here?" he asked. My stomach turned.