Week 15: The Boy -- Gray

Whiskey problems on the boy's mind
By Noah Gray
Woodstock Union High School, Grade 10

Whiskey. I hate it. The smell? A sour reek. The color? Like old wet hay. And the terrible effect it has had upon my family.

My name is Willy Nickels, and it was a year and a half ago that my brother, Bill Nickels, left our house to smuggle a load of whiskey down from Canada. The Nickelses have always been serious whiskey runners; my father — Robert — my father’s father and his father before him all smuggled liquor into America. My older brother Bill, he was no different.

Just so I make myself clear, not only does my family smuggle whiskey, my family drinks whiskey. Bottles of it every day. When my father and brother wake up in the morning, they get dressed, eat breakfast and start on a bottle. They follow that routine religiously and once the first sip is taken, another is never more than a few minutes away.

Well, Bill and my father, like I said, smuggled alcohol across the border and into Vermont. Most of my life alcohol’s been illegal. Ironically, the demand for liquor was higher than ever and people paid hefty prices to get it. My family was doing very well; successful whiskey runs were being completed every couple of weeks.

My brother and father would travel through the thick forests of northern Vermont, avoiding all inhabited areas, until they crossed the border and reached the pick-up spot. Then they would take the boxes of moonshine, gin, hooch, and whiskey and load them up into their old pickup truck. They would hide the boxes under tree branches and leaves so that if they were stopped, they could claim to be woodsmen out gathering dead brush.

My father and brother worked well together and were successful every time. They only ran into real trouble once when an inquisitive farmer wished to buy some of their wood for kindling and, when he reached into the back, discovered their secret cargo. They drove off pretty quick after that, but Bill told me the farmer was hollering and yelling so loud that they were soon being chased by several very aggressive “keepers of the peace.” Luckily, my father was able to shake them off in the woods.

However, as time passed, my father began to hug his bottle ever more tightly. Soon he was drunk nearly all of the time and was increasingly unreliable. He could no longer help Bill conduct their business. Father was also getting quite old; he was a good 20 years older than my mother when they got married and his age was beginning to weaken him.

Within a short period of time Bill was making all of the runs by himself. He fared all right at first, completing two runs in two months, but the stress of it was beginning to show. Bill was already a heavy drinker, not as heavy as Father, but definitely no teetotaler. As it became harder for him to take care of the family, he began to succumb even more to liquor’s allure. The signs were rapidly becoming evident. He would sit with a bottle, usually whiskey, and mutter to himself for hours. He would leave the house at night and not return. I would have to go outside and search for him only to discover that he was curled up in the shed surrounded by empty glass flasks. Overall, life was becoming very hard.

My mother, Caroline, and I tried to run the house as best as we could, but with both Father and Bill drunk all of the time, going into town and gambling away the money, it was nearly impossible.
However, one night, when Bill was unusually sober, he announced he had made a deal with two Canadians in town to fetch them 24 cases of whiskey down from near Sherbrook. Normally, Bill wouldn’t have taken a deal for such a long distance, but the Canadians were willing to pay very generously and we needed the money.

He set off two days later, with the hope of restoring our family to prosperity. Just before he left, I saw him grab the last three bottles of whiskey we had in store out of the cupboard. When I confronted him, suggesting that he not bring any alcohol with him at all, he told me to mind my own business and that the drink kept him warm on the road.

As the old truck pulled out of the driveway, I saw Bill open the first bottle and take a swig. The image of him drinking from that bottle is the last memory I have of him. I don’t know why, and perhaps I never will, but Bill did not return home. Something inside me screams that the whiskey did it; that he drove off the road and into a gorge because he was too drunk to steer. Or that he was ambushed by hijackers and killed. Still, I cannot be sure.
Ever since that day, things have gotten worse. My father died three months later, and I was forced to go work on a neighbor’s dairy farm.

Almost every day I stand outside our house and watch the road. Waiting for the return of my brother, who left so long ago.