Kasher In The Rye: The True Tale of a White Boy from Oakland Who Became a Drug Addict, Criminal, Mental Patient, and Then Turned 16 by Moshe Kasher Page A
Authors: Moshe Kasher
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a man can buy,” he told us. Hard to argue with. Only the best comes in 2.5-gallon bottles. Rossi was the finest wine we ever drank. We started with Cisco, and then came Boone’s Farm, and on the nights of celebration, we cracked Rossi.
Shane liked Rossi but I liked Cisco. Leotis, a Cisco drinker, taught me the “bang for the buck principle.” In the world of cheap drink, there are levels. Here’s Leotis’s Talmudic treatise on the wisdom of cheap drinks:
Malt liquor is standard alcoholic drinking fare, but there are levels. First, there’s Mickey’s—known as “white boy drink,” reserved for chicks and people who are still employed. In the middle of the spectrum is Olde English, a drink for Shakespearean alcoholics. And then there’s the bang-for-the-buck favorite, St. Ides. Ahh, St. Ides, the patron saint of cirrhosis. The only thing better than St. Ides is Crazy Horse, a true rarity, but if you ever see it on the shelf, you
have
to go for it. You know a drink is strong when, without any self-consciousness or irony, it is named after a leader of a culture that’s been decimated by alcoholism.
Wino wines had similar strata. Boone’s for girls, Rossi for groups, and Cisco for real men. Cisco was my favorite. A lethal sort of synthetic bum wine, it was made out of a combination of distilled Now and Laters, Ajax, and broken dreams. People called it Liquid Crack. I called it dinner.
Shane’s favorite was always Rossi. He and Corey came home one day with two jugs of the stuff and a look of delight—and a girl! Melissa.
Melissa was, for a time, Shane’s girlfriend. The only one of us who had one. She was an alcoholic, too, but much like alco
hol
, there’s also a spectrum of alcohol
ics
. Melissa wasn’t quite young and dumb like us, but also not as old and crushed as Shane and Leotis. She was pretty, although a few more years of drinking the way she was would take care of that. Mostly, though, she was sweet and quiet and racked with a kind of combination love/shame for Shane. Her father had been an alcoholic and had beaten her, and probably worse, all of her life. And—like many kids with alcoholic parents—in the ultimate irony, she started drinking to make that pain go away.
As we passed around the jugs of wine, Shane showed us how tocradle them in the crook of our elbows in order to raise the jugs to our lips without struggling with the weight of the thing.
“It’s like my arms were made to hold bottles of wine!” Shane mumbled, barely comprehensible.
“You sound like such a fucking drunk, Shane,” Melissa shot at him, clearly a bit embarrassed that Shane seemed to love this jug of piss wine more than her.
Shane, red-faced and humiliated, shot back, “You shut the fuck up!” She did.
I heard Melissa eventually ended up getting the courage she was looking for at the bottom of the wine jug and left Shane.
I still see Shane now and again, wandering the streets, babbling to himself, piss stains crusted on his pants, his mind a joke. He hasn’t recognized me in years.
Leotis disappeared into the forest a long time ago to go join the Narinan resistance or to hustle up a life or something. But before everything changed, we had our little hustler training ground.
No matter where we started our day, we all always ended up at Mikey Rip-It-Up’s.
Mikey Rip-It-Up loved to rip it up. He’d crack bottles of booze and drink till we told him to stop. He’d take any dare. He’d lick a car battery or punch himself in the face ten times if we asked. He just didn’t give a fuck. I remember his teeth, too. They didn’t give a fuck either. Yellow, grimy—like God knit him a little canary sweater for each tooth. A teeny Christmas present of yuck. Man, when you’re thirteen and you have a thirty-five-year-old to hang around with, you are king. He was thirty-five, but cool. And he’d never kissed a girl! Just like most of us.
When I found that out, my mind was blown.
“Wait a minute, dude,
Shane liked Rossi but I liked Cisco. Leotis, a Cisco drinker, taught me the “bang for the buck principle.” In the world of cheap drink, there are levels. Here’s Leotis’s Talmudic treatise on the wisdom of cheap drinks:
Malt liquor is standard alcoholic drinking fare, but there are levels. First, there’s Mickey’s—known as “white boy drink,” reserved for chicks and people who are still employed. In the middle of the spectrum is Olde English, a drink for Shakespearean alcoholics. And then there’s the bang-for-the-buck favorite, St. Ides. Ahh, St. Ides, the patron saint of cirrhosis. The only thing better than St. Ides is Crazy Horse, a true rarity, but if you ever see it on the shelf, you
have
to go for it. You know a drink is strong when, without any self-consciousness or irony, it is named after a leader of a culture that’s been decimated by alcoholism.
Wino wines had similar strata. Boone’s for girls, Rossi for groups, and Cisco for real men. Cisco was my favorite. A lethal sort of synthetic bum wine, it was made out of a combination of distilled Now and Laters, Ajax, and broken dreams. People called it Liquid Crack. I called it dinner.
Shane’s favorite was always Rossi. He and Corey came home one day with two jugs of the stuff and a look of delight—and a girl! Melissa.
Melissa was, for a time, Shane’s girlfriend. The only one of us who had one. She was an alcoholic, too, but much like alco
hol
, there’s also a spectrum of alcohol
ics
. Melissa wasn’t quite young and dumb like us, but also not as old and crushed as Shane and Leotis. She was pretty, although a few more years of drinking the way she was would take care of that. Mostly, though, she was sweet and quiet and racked with a kind of combination love/shame for Shane. Her father had been an alcoholic and had beaten her, and probably worse, all of her life. And—like many kids with alcoholic parents—in the ultimate irony, she started drinking to make that pain go away.
As we passed around the jugs of wine, Shane showed us how tocradle them in the crook of our elbows in order to raise the jugs to our lips without struggling with the weight of the thing.
“It’s like my arms were made to hold bottles of wine!” Shane mumbled, barely comprehensible.
“You sound like such a fucking drunk, Shane,” Melissa shot at him, clearly a bit embarrassed that Shane seemed to love this jug of piss wine more than her.
Shane, red-faced and humiliated, shot back, “You shut the fuck up!” She did.
I heard Melissa eventually ended up getting the courage she was looking for at the bottom of the wine jug and left Shane.
I still see Shane now and again, wandering the streets, babbling to himself, piss stains crusted on his pants, his mind a joke. He hasn’t recognized me in years.
Leotis disappeared into the forest a long time ago to go join the Narinan resistance or to hustle up a life or something. But before everything changed, we had our little hustler training ground.
No matter where we started our day, we all always ended up at Mikey Rip-It-Up’s.
Mikey Rip-It-Up loved to rip it up. He’d crack bottles of booze and drink till we told him to stop. He’d take any dare. He’d lick a car battery or punch himself in the face ten times if we asked. He just didn’t give a fuck. I remember his teeth, too. They didn’t give a fuck either. Yellow, grimy—like God knit him a little canary sweater for each tooth. A teeny Christmas present of yuck. Man, when you’re thirteen and you have a thirty-five-year-old to hang around with, you are king. He was thirty-five, but cool. And he’d never kissed a girl! Just like most of us.
When I found that out, my mind was blown.
“Wait a minute, dude,
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