Juice String Cheese and the Retreat Plan
by Ryan Brosmer
Mitch carried a mini-Bible in the left breast pocket of his jacket and a flask of bourbon tucked into the inside pocket. He carried both for his own protection. He never opened the Bible, not once since he had purchased it at the small Christian bookstore on the corner, across from the hospital and next to the liquor store.
The Bible he carried was only a few inches wide, with gilded pages that were real small, so it made the book thicker and it bulged like a pack of cigarettes. He kept it over his heart to block bullets. He had seen it happen in a movie on TV once and he always felt certain someone was watching him and that that someone had a gun trained on him at all times.
The flask was a tarnished silver, smooth on the outside, smudged with fingerprints. Mitch had opened the flask, often. He drained it, rinsed and repeated many times over. It seemed to Mitch that he hadn’t done much else during that time but wander the streets, drunk.
He was homeless and he felt like some cliché. He felt bad. Were the other bums mad at him? Was he giving them a bad name? Should he call them bums? Why did he still say “them” when he was included in the group? All of these thoughts battered Mitch’s mind and he started to think he just wanted to sit down where nobody could see him and disappear. Instead he kept walking, and things began to look crooked. Mitch felt he was losing his grip on reality.
“Great. Now I’m a drunk and mentally unstable,” Mitch said. “Fuck. Now I’m talking to myself.” Mitch suddenly felt claustrophobic. He crossed the street, taking a jagged path around the cars making their way down the boulevard.
He went down a side street, then into an alley and sat against a dumpster. He was tired. Mitch felt to make sure that his Bible was still in his pocket—something he did compulsively throughout the day—then he took a draw from his flask and fell asleep.
Mitch always hoped to dream of his teenage years, when he spent summers on the Gulf Coast of Florida with his grandfather learning to sail and to sip whiskey. He never had those dreams though, and the memories were fading. It hadn’t been that long ago. Mitch was only 23. But now he mostly dreamed that he was in a rock band. He played lead guitar and they were the biggest new sensation out of New Jersey.
Mitch would wake up and continue to carry on conversations in his head with his band mates.
“We need to change our name. I’ve had a vision,” Mitch would say with authority and a slight smirk.
“What’s wrong with The Reds? Other than all of the suspicious offers to tour China?” imaginary bassist Chas would ask.
“From now on, we’re Juice String Cheese, and we’re only ever going to tour with Bruce Springsteen. But we’ll keep our same style. We won’t change for him. In fact, maybe we’ll make him change for us. He’ll open for us. Out with the old, in with the new.” Then Mitch would start to hum “Born in the U.S.A” and mutter “Juice String Cheese,” every couple of minutes and people would stare as they walked past and ask their friends if they heard Mitch say what they thought he said and they would laugh.
