The Vault of Hercules

Chapter 11

Sam Cleave was pissed.

He was piss-drunk and pissed off. Not a second went by that he did not torment himself about his career choices, the path that had ultimately gotten his fiancé killed and separated him from his childhood best friend, Patrick Smith. Two large, gray eyes leered at him with indifference as his leg flopped off the edge of the sofa he was sprawled over. Sam chuckled dryly and took the neck of the green glass bottle to his lips for the umpteenth time.

“What are you looking at?” he slurred, but was met with not even an effort from his cat. The large ginger cat Sam and had Trish aptly named Bruichladdich when he’d been an overweight boy kitten, had seen Sam at his worst and best. But this relapse was louder than the previous he’d suffered, the one that had happened after he’d written his first book about that night Patricia had had her face blown off by the arms ring she and Sam had been investigating. If the cat could contemplate such issues, chances are he would have been concerned. He would’ve come to the conclusion that Paddy was just about as important to Sam as Trish had been. Only once before was he this bad off, and that was when the guilt had ridden him bareback.

Now his oldest pal, his partner in crime throughout high school, his wingman and general tolerator of Sam's crazy personality had elected to part ways with him. It had broken Sam, but he was not the type to lie down and talk to strangers with framed papers on their wall from other idiots who’d proclaimed them sound enough to do so. No, Sam's therapist was one Dr. Glen Flagler1972 and a whole lot of football on television. He liked it that way. It allowed the chaos of countless games, fans, commentators, and sports news to drown his mind in triviality, just like the Single Malt Whisky Purdue had gifted him after the search for the Medusa Stone had concluded.

Initially Sam had vowed to preserve the rare bottle of whiskey from the extinct distillery, to only consume it should he plant his flag with another Pulitzer. But that was when his life had still had some meaning. Now, a bottle of alcohol, however rare and expensive, was just a dose of numbness that could help him lighten the blows to his heart whenever Paddy's words would ricochet between his soul and his brain. Faster and faster he drank to forget, but found that the pain was in a place inside him where his blood could not reach, where the soothing oblivion of alcohol could not be delivered.

“Bruich,” he told his cat, “you’re the only relic from my history still left, you know that?”

Bruich leapt clumsily onto his master's foot — the one that was still on the couch — and after turning once in a circle, he proceeded up Sam's body to lie down on his stomach. The cat's hefty weight felt soothing and the warmth from his fur was welcome to Sam's aching body. He had deliberately not eaten for a whole day to make sure that the whiskey would take quicker effect on an empty stomach, but his head was pounding already; the price of a premature hangover.

“You know what he said? My old chum, Paddy?” he asked the wide-eyed feline. Sam waited for Bruich to respond. How he expected the answer only he knew, but after some low purring qualified as conversation in the ears of the drunken journalist he thought it fit to break it to Bruich.

“He said…!” Sam shouted with wet cheeks. “He-e-e said… please Sam, don't ever come to my house again. I'm sorry, Sam, but please…” Sam's voice cracked, “… please lose my… number.”

The cat yawned, letting out a low groan in the process that Sam construed as some form of vocal empathy. His hand closed roughly around the back of Bruich's neck as he tried to pet the poor animal, while his other hand brought the bottle to his mouth. In the background the overly loud television blared a match, but Sam did not give a shit which clubs were playing. All he heard in the din of the crowd's chants were those damning words spoken by his once best friend, his brother-in-arms from a fallen allegiance.

“All I have left from the good old days, is you, my friend,” Sam moaned through the rising burn of heartbreak and nausea. “My new friends have destroyed my old, happy life. Have you noticed? Now I’m chummy with,” he shrieked in a high voice to imitate some royal snob, “the grand billionaire adventurer and scientist, David Purdue. Ooh, we dr-dri… we drink together and fight over a girl!”

He laughed out the absurdity and acted mad as a hatter to exclaim his malcontent. “But hey, y-you know, that's okay, because she is nice enough to throw a lad a bone every now and then,” he said, calming slightly at the thought of Nina Gould. “Actually, she let's a lad throw her a bone… is… is what I meant to say.”

The feline had had enough. With the onslaught of Sam's breath, his shouting, and incessant hard petting Bruich decided to call it a night. He pulled away from Sam's grip and scampered off the couch, disappearing into the shadows of the hallway. Sam did not even care anymore that even his cat had deserted him. His sorrow gave way to numbness. “It’s time to sever ties, I think. Aye! It’s time I bury Purdue once and for all.”