The Ingenuity of a Boozehound

They’d pulled Terrence over
in his 1978 Lincoln Continental before.

He wore a necklace of old rat bones around his neck
that he falsely claimed were fingers he took in Vietnam.

His car, his jacket, his breath, and his hair
always smelled like donut market bourbon.

And every time, he rolled down the window,
his lips were reliably wet with booze.
A fog of fermented mash
would puff from the cab as
he barked out his defiant protests
of utter gibberish.

But they could never find a bottle on him.
They searched his car every time and dammit,
they never found a bottle.

“Where the hell is the damned bottle?” they’d say.
“It makes no sense,” they’d say.
“This guy is breakin’ the breathalyzer,” they’d say,
“there HAS to be a bottle in there.”

See if you blow on the breathalyzer
immediately after you’ve taken a swig of booze,
it’ll give you inaccurate readings.

So they knew Terrence was drinkin’ in that car.
They just didn’t know how he was doin’ it.

Well, after an obscene trilogy of offenses,
they finally impounded Terrence’s car.

And out of sheer curiosity they turned it
loose to the experts.

Turns out the booze
was in the engine compartment,
inside the windshield wiper reservoir.

Terrence had run a vinyl tube
through the dash and into the cab,
so he could discretely
blast a geyser of bourbon
straight down his gullet
while he cruised the
downtown strip.

Now every time I wash the windshield on my car
I can’t help but feel I’m missing out on
something.