There's a song about it, did you know that? I didn't, until recently. My son helpfully sent me this video...
...after we heard the most absurd story about the town drunk.
If you're from a small town then you'll know that 'the town drunk' is not just a funny character in a movie, or a meme, it's a reality. A person who wakes up in the morning and heads to the local store for a twelve pack, then at noon stops by the liquor store for a fifth. Then back to the local store for another case of the cheap stuff- think Natty Ice or Milwaukee's Best (The BEAST), which he(or she) will spend the rest of the day drinking on the corner of main street as he(or she) harasses passersby with an obnoxious opinion, a jovial salute, depending on the mood he (or she) is in.
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In this case it's a he. And obnoxious opinions were his general motif. I'm sorry to be talking ill of the dead, but a positive contribution to society was just not in his earthly itinerary.
He was a man in his late forties who spent his days trying to drag others into his own personal misery, be it with an insult or a piece of vicious gossip...and the universe apparently had enough of him.
The night of the snowstorm AKA John's Grand Finale:
My stepson Billy arrives at his house with his newly purchased snowmobile only to have John stagger onto his front yard and do his utmost to ruin his good mood. We got a phone call about it directly after which is why the series of events feel linked to my family in a strange way. Bill basically told him to scram before he was forced to engage him in a one-sided snowball fight, at which point ol' John swerved his way down the street- where he was found by the local Grocer stumbling around in the parking lot.
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The grocer, concerned the man would pass out and die of exposure, insisted on escorting him home, but as they neared the local laundromat John became belligerent, insisting on going inside. Since it was warm and dry in the little 24 hour business, and only a few hundred yards from John's abode, the grocer determined he'd done his civic duty and left him to his own devices.
The next day it was all over the local gossip chain in the way things spread in a small town: The cleaning lady of the small 24 hour laundromat found John dead on the floor when she'd come in at six am.
At first the details were vague and heart attack was the assumption, but as it happens there was video surveillance and by early evening everyone in a fifteen mile radius had been apprised of the details of John's demise...
He had continued drinking for the next couple hours, there had been no business, no one to harass, as the snow came down harder and harder, and so he seemed content to rage at the empty space. Sometime after midnight he stumbled to a corner and vomited...and here's where it becomes ludicrous...
He turned away from the mess he'd made, caught his foot in said mess, slipped in said mess, hit his head on one of the machines...
and choked on his own vomit.
Yes.
I know.
It's outrageously horrible and tends to leave one speechless for a few minutes.
Outrageous being the key word here, because this kind of thing happens only on screen or in a book, definitely not in real life. But there you have it, the real obituary that will not be written in the newspaper.
If it makes you feel any better, had it been something more mundane like a heart attack, he would be forgotten in record time. But as it stands- no one around here is likely to forget the saga of ol' John anytime soon, and it will serve as a cautionary tale for generations to come.
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