"The Detroit News" by Tosh Berman (Detroit)

I’m living in a house that was built in 1899.  It’s huge.  I don’t know what makes a home a mansion, but I feel that I’m living in one.  A house that old always has secrets within its walls, attic, and basement.   I suspect that this house was built by the Ford company for its executives.  It has two staircases.  One for the family/owner of the residence, and the other for the servants.  The servant's staircase is small, steep, and one can easily hit their head on the ceiling as you go down or up.  The other is grand and very inviting, as the other one seems like a pathway to a dark place.   Every old home has a dark path from one questionable area to another.  Or, more likely a path from lightness to dark. 

Upstairs being the lightness.  Perhaps closer to the sky and its stars.  As you wander down the stairs (especially the servant’s entrance), you then turn a slight left, which will lead one to the basement. It’s here that one evening I found torn and frayed copy of “The Detroit News” from June 29, 1947.   It was near an old bottle of bootleg alcohol that for sure, came from the Canada side.   I never removed it, because I felt it was a grave site.  Perhaps not a human one, but a grave for a life spent, and I still think the spirit is in this house.  

The reason why I drink starting at 7pm every evening is that I feel the basement calling on me, to return to a tradition that stuck its tongue out to the old bitches and bastards who tell us what to do.  I don’t want to be told what to do, except by that old magic that is bottled up and sent over in a boat across the river from Canada to my mouth.  I never wanted to remove the newspaper, maybe because I feel if I touch it, it will turn to dust, or feel it’s not respectful to remove such an item placed in one’s (not mine) basement.   But I did remove the paper due that an article caught my eye.

The headline “Home Thugs Get $164,000; Bind, Gag 11”  got my attention, and as I started reading the article, it struck me the address of the robbery is where I’m living now.  It seems the house once belonging to, or at least he was the tenant, a Lewis Weiner, who had a party to raise money for a synagog building fund. It was a quartet of thieves, and they all wore masks and had revolvers.   None were hurt, thank god, but the funny thing is that I notice the date of this newspaper item is June 24, which was the date that I discovered this newspaper in the basement. 

The Purple Gang pretty much controlled Detroit with an iron fist, and wasn’t shy in bashing someone’s head in, if the need was there.  There was a theory that Weiner was part of the Purple Gang, and an off-shoot gang did the robbery to move into the Purple Gang’s territory.  Still, my mood is wearing a blanket of darkness, and the only bright spot in the day is when I start drinking. 

The Purple Gang used to smuggle booze from Canada to Detroit, and then elsewhere if there was any extra juice after the Detroit citizens finished their supply.  The liquor stores here in the Detroit area are called “Party Stores,” but most close by 9:00 PM. I buy cases of booze and place them in the basement, exactly where I found the old bottles.  I feel it’s a tradition of great importance, both for the house and yours truly.   To the Purple Gang, and all those who failed the American dream in their fashion on this day of despair, July 4th.  - Tosh Berman, Detroit. 

THE SUNDAY SERIES: Sunday No. 1

Sunday No. 1

Quiet Sunday is a loud Sunday for me.  The quietness around the house just opens up the inner sounds of my body, and my thoughts appear to me as a forceful speaker.  I want to shut it off, but I can’t. So today I decided not to have my bottle of wine.  I drink a bottle every night.  Either with my wife or by myself.  I get buzzed, but I never get drunk.  Or is being buzzed being drunk?  The difference is if you were in front of me, you wouldn’t think I was drunk.  I never get too boisterous, or opinionated and really, a bottle of wine for me is a way to pass time.  Time is the enemy that takes so prisoners. 

Sunday is the first day of the week.  I’m often reflective on that day, where I think what happened the previous week, while thinking about the upcoming week.  I keep a calendar for the purpose of not forgetting to pay off bills, or if I have luncheon or dinner appointments.  My life is very quiet, and therefore my thoughts are ringing out proud and loud, as I try to make sense of my existence.   Around 7 PM, is when I open the bottle of wine.  The first sip to the last is an adventure that I travel within.  

The things I like to do when drinking wine is to read, watch TV, or having a meal.  The hard part I think of not drinking wine, is the eating part.  Food is good, but wine makes the food desirable.  I usually drink two glasses of wine with a typical meal.  I also like to have a glass of wine before the meal.  It’s the initial glass that I drink slowly, while I write or listen to music on my laptop.  It’s a meditative moment where I’m focused on the drinking as well as the writing or music on hand.  Drinking wine doesn’t make the conversation better, or makes the music more enticing - but it adds a certain texture to those two distinctive practices. 

If I have the option, I rather drink wine alone.  Which is odd, because wine traditionally is a drink that one shares with another.  The thing is I have so many things to think about, that’s all in my head, I rarely have a need to verbally express myself to another person.  Wine in a way is that other person that’s in my head.  I don’t need wine to be social, in fact, I can amuse or be interesting to someone else without the effects of alcohol as a partner-in-crime.   Wine doesn’t impress me, or anyone else, it is a friend that puts his or hers arm around your shoulders, as you think or notice the passing of time.   As of right now, I’m writing without my bottle of wine, which is uniquely weird!  I don’t feel I need to have it for me to write.  The thoughts come out OK, but I do like wine as an object that is located in front of me.  When I do drink wine with respect to writing, I always prefer white.  White wine (all categories) allows me to think without the thoughts getting muddy.  Red wine usually puts me to sleep or often I feel like I’m moving in slow motion.  Red is for sure good for noticing time and what it’s doing that moment.  I become extra-aware of the moments passing - where with white wine, it is more about speed, and getting lost in whatever is on-hand at the moment you are drinking. 

My favorite day of the week to drink wine is of course, Sunday.  Traditionally it’s 24 hours of reflection.  Many go out to walk around the reservoir, or maybe see an afternoon movie, but I prefer to sit in front of my stereo speakers with a bottle of wine opened in front of me, and just let the intoxication take me to another space or place.  I like playing vinyl albums, because you have to leave your seat, and flip the record on its other side.   If you just think about time, it is usually 20 minutes per side, so I know for at least that amount of time, I can just focus on what I’m hearing and listening to.  The music is often just a soundtrack to my thoughts as if it was a ship passing between two giant icebergs in the far Atlantic. 

It is very odd not to feel the effects of my favorite drink at this time of night.   The truth is I never feel fully sober.  Mostly due to the toxins of the world that I breathe in and out on a daily basis.  My perception when I walk outside is sometimes overwhelming, due to the noise of the traffic and the volume of the crowd in various shopping centers and malls.  I also have a hard time dealing with people directly, especially on the telephone.  The only place where I feel totally comfortable is within my head with the buzz of a bottle of wine.  

I’m very curious to find out what will happen if I don’t drink my bottle of wine tonight.  Will minutes ring loudly in my ears as time passes?   What I do know is - schedule is addictive.  I think it even goes beyond addiction to drugs, drink, or any other vice one can think of.   Writing is very much an addiction as well.  The calendar is addictive. There is nothing more comforting than looking at your calendar and seeing your life being mapped out by the hour.  Drinking at night is also a sense of comfort.  It is a process through which to remark on the passing of that day, and that the schedule will go on at the present and into the future.  In other words, addiction is living.  And right now, I’m living to the fullest.