The Lent Of No Beer

Lent is the six-week period of Catholic fasting from Ash Wednesday to Easter, allowing the faithful the chance to atone for the previous year's sins by mirroring the span of time the Messiah spend in the desert before He succumbed to the temptations not of Satan, but his own mortal flesh.

While I'm a full-blown atheist, this last Ash Wednesday I decided to give up beer for Lent.

"No beer?" Uncle Drunkey asked at the 169. "Why?"

"Just to see if I can do it?" I haven't given up anything in years.

"So you still drink wine and liquor."

"Not to mention cider," added Dakota, the lead singer of Wicked Womb, from behind the bar.

"Then here we go." I drained my last 'Gansett and ordered a Bombay Tonic.

"Gin's nasty." Uncle Drunkey like his Jamison whiskey. "You know why Hitler didn't drink Gin."

"No." I recalled hearing the joke, but not the punchline.

"Because he said it made him mean," jibbed Dakota with wry smile.

"Too soon," said another drinker.

We told him to fuck off, but it was true.

Gin makes you mean and even worse were the hangovers from the old Dutch spirit derived from juniper berries, even though the drink was initially marketed as a remedy for kidney ailments, lumbago, stomach ailments, gallstones, and gout.

"Gin tonic," I ordered from Dakota.

"Nice death wish."

"No death wish at all." I drank several glasses of gin throughout the night without succumbing the the temptation of 'Gansett' beer. I might have arrived home at a decent hour, however the next morning I woke with a hear-death hangover.

I didn't move out of my bed for the day, but remained faithful to my sell-denial.

No beer.

No stout.

No ale.

No lagers.

No exception.

Last night at the 169 Dakota suggested giving up the ghost.

"I can handle the gin," I slurred from my bar stool.

"Yes, but I can't stand the belligerence."

I wasn't in any mood to hear any drift from a long-haired guitarist and said, "What the fuck you talking about, hippie boy?"

"Enough is enough." Jimmy the bouncer had heard my comment and laid a hand on my shoulder.

"Time for you to go home."

Jimmy chucked me gently out of the bar and apologized, "Sorry, man, but you were out of line."

"It wasn't me. It was the gin."

"Then do us all a favor and switch back to beer."

"I can't until the end of Lent."

"And when is that?"

"April 2nd."

"See you then."

"You're banning me?"

"Not you. Monster Gin."

I understood and nodded my head.

I slept in the taxi over the Manhattan Bridge. The driver deposited me at the Fort Greene Observatory. I tiptoed up the stairs and fell into bed in no condition to take off my clothes.

That Sunday was a long novena of suffering.

My only positive act of the day was to change into pajamas.

I watched crappy films on Netflix and ate a hot dog cooked in my toaster oven. It was my one day off of the week.

Monday wasn't much better, although by evening I regained 30% of my power.

I came home without any alcohol in my shopping bag and called an old friend from Boston. Bishop Ray was high up in the church. He heard my confessions every ten years.

"Are you a little early?" he asked from his sacristy on Commonwealth Avenue near my old alma mater.

"This isn't about my sins."

"No?"

"No, I gave up beer for Lent."

"And everything else?"

"No, I've been drinking gin instead."

"At your age?"

Pay was no tee-totaler, but firmly believed in excess in moderation.

"Yes, your eminence, but St Padraic's Day ids coming next month and I was wondering if I broke fast, would that be bad?"

"Aren't you an atheist?"

"Yes." Proudly.

"Then by the power invested me by St. Peter and his Holy Roman Church I waive the abstinence for Lent. Of course I am required by faith to ask, if you are seeking to rejoin the Church."

"No, your eminence."

"Then go back to your heathen ways. I'm watching the last episode of THE WALKING DEAD."

"Thank you."

"and say one Our Father and Three Hail Marys."

I thought___"

"Five Hail Marys and stay away from Mother's Ruin. It's been the end of many a strong man."

Ray was right.

Gin had killed millions in London.

I hung up the phone and put on my pajamas.

I wasn't drinking tonight.

My heart wasn't in it and I had a funny feeling that tomorrow might also belong to sobriety.

It's not such a bad thing.

Especially when beer was waiting for you somewhere in the future.