Corkscrew.

"Where's the liquor store?" I asked.

"Just around the corner. Across the street," Michael said. "It's weird. There's also an Alcoholics Anonymous place there. The meetings and shit. And a dentist."

"In the liquor store?" I asked.

"Well, in the same building."

"Oh."

We passed a Ben and Jerry's. The small parking lot was littered with yuppie offspring trash. Tourist kids who would never know the meaning of "broke", who would never have to beg someone for a few bucks so they can eat that week, who have never had the pleasure of getting clearly used presents at Christmas, and they let you know, every time they fucking looked at you. They were trash. And there were a lot of them in Springer in the summer. All up and down the streets. The clean, trendy ones, anyway.

"I need a belt," Michael said.

I looked over and he was hiking his cutoff shorts up around his waist.

"Fucking things keep falling," he said.

"Get rope."

He laughed. "That might be a little too punk for me."

"Pussy."

"How about you give me your belt and you wear fucking rope."

"Okay. Find the rope, and we'll trade."

"Whatever."

We continued up the street, and turned into a large parking lot just before the intersection. We walked along the side of a row of buildings overlooking the park and I kept an eye out for loose rope. Punk as fuck.

"It's in here," he said.

We came to a large black glass door that read "Springer Wine Merchants: EST 1907" in large gold leafing. We went in. The air was cold, the A.C. unit boring away loudly somewhere in the darkness. My eyes slowly adjusted and against walls, floor and ceiling of black, rows and rows and rows of wooden wine racks stretched out in front of me. I suddenly felt very intimidated with my limited (at best) knowledge of wine. I assumed I would soon be getting frowned at by a wine merchant, begrudgingly packing my $6 bottle away into a paper bag. The air smelled of cedar and drywall. I wondered if a re-model had just taken place. A lady came around the corner. Tall, thin. Not really my type, but after heels, a more than adequate set of calves ran out from her tight gray skirt. I followed them up to a fair set of hips, and lost it all somewhere amid an ocean of shirt. Her breasts were missing, her face was terrible, her hair blonde. I forgot about the calves.

"Can I help you?" She asked.

"I don't think so," I said. "I'll let you know though if I change my mind."

"Okay." She disappeared again, apparently deeming us (rightfully) unimportant, sales-wise.

We looked at the shelves, walking slow.

"What do you want to get?" Michael asked.

"I don't know. I don't have much cash, so, whatever's cheap."

"You want wine though?"

"Yeah."

"Red or white?"

"Red."

"Okay. Over here."

We walked a few aisles over, to a wall. Red wines separated by country, and again by vineyard, spread out in front of us by the hundreds. I began looking at the price tags, working my way from right to left. Michael went left to right.

I texted Marie. "What kind of wine do I want? I like dry red." I put my phone back in my pocket and waited a few minutes, pretending I knew what I was looking at. Soon, it buzzed.

"You like a Cabernet Sauvignon. DON'T SPEND TOO MUCH!"

I put the phone away again, and began looking for a Cabernet Sauvignon under ten bucks. You see, I used to drink whiskey, almost exclusively. The issue with that is whiskey is expensive (unless you get a brand that hollows you out in a matter of seconds, sending you screaming for the nearest restroom, arms clenched tight around your mid-section, asshole squeezing, face alternating reds and greens). Wine solves that issue. Besides being generally amazing on the tongue and a little bit classy, it's cheap as fuck and does the trick just as easily as any liquor (save for maybe moonshine).

I found myself holding a bottle with a kangaroo on it.

$9.99.

Sold.

I walked over to the counter. The lady was somewhere else. I looked but there was no bell to ring. Of course there wouldn't be, I thought. This joint is too classy.

I stood there. Michael came over. "Did you pick one?" he asked.

I showed him. He looked it over, and appeared to hold back a frown. "Okay."

Calves first, the lady came around the corner, and ruined herself all over again. "Are you all set?" she asked.

"Yes."

She came around the counter, and sure as shit gave my selection a grimace. Poking angrily at the register, she said; "Twelve seventy three."

I reached in my wallet, dug out my card, and handed it over.

She swiped it, and handed it back to me, the whole time between watching the green LCD screen, presumably waiting for it to read "declined".

"Do you have any rope?" I asked.

She looked up. "Excuse me?"

"Do you have any rope? I want to keep my friend's pants up."

She looked at Michael. He nodded back at her.

"No," she said, and walked out from behind the counter, and back into the labyrinth of wine racks.

We left, out to the sunshine.

"Where can we transfer this into the water bottle?" I asked. I put the bottle into my bag.

"I don't know. We could use the Ben and Jerry's bathroom, I guess."

"Okay."

We made our way through to the Ben and Jerry's parking lot. The smell of American Eagle and Drakkar Noir burned my nostrils. Flashes of watching my number of friends dwindle through school as they all slowly realized the societal importance of finance shot through my brain. I kept my eyes to the ground. Just being near them struck me wrong. We went inside.

The air was cold, and to the left of us, a table of middle aged women dressed like twenty-somethings (and pulling it off fairly well). My hatred for the shit outside began to subside.

"Can I help you?" the girl behind the counter asked. She was tanned. Short. Maybe eighteen. Eyes green, with dark rings around the iris'.

"Bathroom?"

"Right over there," she said, pointing.

"Thanks."

I walked over, my bag, huge and destructive hung from my side, drawing the housewives attention to the suspicious, handsome young man heading to the bathroom for reasons obviously other than the normal use. I liked the idea that they liked the idea.

I closed the door behind me and set my bag on the sink. I opened it, took out the wine and my water bottle. Then, I realized I didn't have a corkscrew.

"Fuck."

Looking around the bathroom, I began to wonder what I could use. There is absolutely nothing of any real use in a public bathroom. My alcoholism would have to be much more desperate for me to take apart the toilet and fashion a corkscrew out of the chain in the tank that operates the flushing mechanism...

I put the wine and water bottle back in my bag and left the bathroom. As I opened the door, one of the women was smiling at me, as if she had been smiling at the door, waiting for me to open it. I smiled back and she arched her back, pushing her tits up. I kept moving.

"All set?" Michael asked.

"No."

"Why?"

"No fucking corkscrew," I said, walking out. Michael followed me as we bore our way through the parking lot of filth.

"What do we do?" Michael asked.

"I don't know. I guess we can see if the wine store sells corkscrews."

"I don't really want to go back in there."

"Me either," I said.

"We could go to one of these bars and see if they'll open it for us."

I thought it over. "That's a fucking great idea."

"Wait, what? No, I was kidding."

"No, it's a good idea. Do you know any of the bartenders? Where do you think we should try?"

Michael stared at me with concern, although whether for what I was thinking, or for what I would drag him into, I couldn't tell. Maybe both. "We should try a foreign restaurant. Like the Japanese place down the road. They don't speak much English. Maybe we can just confuse them enough and they won't know what's going on."

"It shouldn't be that big of a deal, I don't think. We just need our wine opened."

"Yeah, but, I don't know, kind feels a little scummy."

"I don't care. We have a problem, and we figured out a solution. Fuck it. Let's go."

We walked down the road, past crowds of people, trendy restaurants, bar after bar, and seven or eight horse statues. Finally, we came to KOTO, the Japanese bar.

"You coming in?" I asked.

"Are you talking?"

"Sure."

"Okay. I want to see how it goes."

I took the wine bottle out of my bag, and walked in swiftly, hoping to catch the bartender off guard. He was standing behind the bar (of course), and wiping off a glass.

"Excuse me sir," I said. "I need a little help."

"Okay."

"My friend and I were going on a picnic and we bought this bottle of wine, but now we lost our corkscrew and can't open the goddamned thing. I was wondering if you could help us out."

"A pic-nic?"

"Yes sir, and we need a corkscrew. You have one right?"

"Yes." He reached under the bar, and then held one up. A chrome beauty, big as my hand.

I put the wine on the bar. "Can I see it?" I asked him, holding out my hand.

"Okay." He handed it over, and I plunged it into the cork, twisting and pulling. I pulled the cork out, and gave the bartender back his tool.

"Thanks man," I said, and Michael and I left just as swiftly as we came in.

Outside, we moved toward the park.

"I can't believe that worked," Michael said.

"Where can we fill up now?" I asked.

"Ben and Jerry's again?"

"No. I don't want to go there right now. Parking garage?"

"Sure."

We continued down the street toward the parking garage, which was directly across the street from the park, and Seasons, and Ben and Jerry's, all on separate sides. It was a two level garage, and was always full, but rarely were there people there.

I walked up the sidewalk, and down the stairs into it's bottom level. Michael followed. I took the wine and water bottle out of my bag at the bottom of the stairs.

"Right here?" Michael asked.

"Why not?"

"Okay."

I filled the water bottle. It left us half a bottle for later. Some of it spilled down my fingerts, but I licked it off. People walked by above us and didn't notice or care. We had succeeded.

I pulled off of it, and passed it to Michael.

I felt good.