Jack Haven

"Everclear"

It seemed impossible to me that I would ever become so attached to an alcoholic drink—"Attached" is the wrong word; I mean "tied to." It has been over a year since I've even purchased a bottle of Everclear, and looking at it, my hand softly embracing its side, I remember how close we used to be. I'm about to pour a small amount of Everclear into a large tumbler. Everclear is best served in a clear glass because the transparency of the container allows you to measure the liquor carefully. After the Everclear, I will pour the glass full of Poweraid. It's an old drink I've enjoyed for four years now: Reanimator Fluid. No matter how much Poweraid you pour into the glass, however, the Everclear is always there. Its potency cannot be hidden away. And who would want to? If one wanted a drink that was kinder to one's sensibilities, one would drink something else.

Everclear is a brand of grain alcohol distilled from corn by the David Sherman Corporation. It is a brand name and comes in a familiar bottle with a drawing of a cornhusk under the diamond "Everclear" logo. A strong form of vodka, Everclear's strongest incarnation, illegal in most states, tops at 190 proof, or 95% alcohol by volume. The alcohol, which pours like water but spreads over surfaces like oil, reacts violently with the nose. Though it has no odor nor color, it assaults one's sense of smell like a barrage of burning ash. It is no more merciful to the taste. A swig of Everclear feels like magma oozing down one's throat. The searing flash is quickly replaced by a numbing tingling that weakens the knees, tenderizes the lips, and causes one to drool like a fool in love.

Everclear's fierce rape of the senses is that which resigns one to mix it with fruit juices, Kool-Aid, Jell-O, and other sweet verses in order to savor it less dangerously. Virgin fruits, stripped of their peels, are soaked in Everclear and thus made alcoholic. Small quantities of Everclear are added to Jell-O to create shots that can easily intoxicate the invitees to an informal gathering of friends. Less common is my practice of mixing Everclear with Poweraid to produce the electrolyte-replenishing alcoholic beverage called Reanimator Fluid.

I first tasted Everclear when it lay hidden in Reanimator Fluid. The Fluid is a deceptive drink. Its deep color, bright and merry blueberry, lures one easily into not taking it too seriously. The apparent ferocity of the grain alcohol is—if it is mixed well—all but gone, and one gulps it down greedily. Before long, one is quite far gone, lost in oneself and a world both friendly and numb. A freshman in college, who has never before been this drunk, can at this point suggest many compelling topics for conversation. Among these: "God as a Red Brick: An Ontological Commentary," "A Perfect System of Government by Artificial Intelligence," "The Fall of the Ant Oligarchy and Socioeconomic Reprisals by the Disparaged Grasshopper," "Underground Reptile People and the Irradiative Potential of the Solar Eclipse," "Saint Peter Walks into a Bar: An Anthology of Short Works."

After a year, then two, then four, one forgets what it means to be intoxicated because one becomes accustomed to it. One becomes more fully able to describe sobriety because it is less common and more painful. Despite the unique conversations and events that may take place when one is drunk, drunkenness itself is unmemorable because it is numb. Alcohol is an anesthetic for the soul. The numbness comes first to the nose and lips. It begins as a tickling that advances over the face and diffuses into the brain. The harnesses of one's worries and concerns fall away, and one's passions are unbridled. All that one has kept stabled deep in one's own heart escapes, and the heart is left empty and cold. As to the passions, their wild natures now gallop freely, doing what they will. If one has not tamed them before now, they will tear through field and range, leaving ruin along their track.

Even Reanimator Fluid cannot save one from what follows the return of sobriety and the reining of the passions. Everclear leaves one with many scars. Every heartbeat is the boom of a bass drum felt throughout the chest and head. The muscles rattle and shake. A sheet of fire burns the skin from below as an icy sheen of sweat collects above. If one is unfortunate enough to have to leave one's bed for work or school, then one's body will feel compelled to violently rebel. The stomach juices turn and boil, releasing gases that tear through the bowels and out through either the throat or the rectum. One feels unsatisfied and miserable until the body's insurrection ends with the banishment of the criminal toxins.

All this turmoil notwithstanding, it is not difficult to become attached to Everclear. Everclear never lies. It never makes promises. It reminds you, always, with its odorless poignancy and burning lack-of-taste, that it intends to intoxicate you and leave you the next morning, with an empty heart and an anguished body. There is no pretense, no romanticism, as you spread your lips apart to receive the thing that hurts you. For two months, I did this. Everclear and I sat together, with stale ramen dipped in cold water and a book lit by the dim reflection of a neighbor's porch light, and we abused each other until dawn eased us apart.

And in the afternoon, when I woke for work, Everclear was gone, and I in pain.

Blessed be the hangover
For its pounding praise
Of wild nights not remembered
And life's remaining days.

The hangover is the inevitable result of intoxication. It results from the essential properties of ethanol, the active ingredient in all alcoholic drinks, including Everclear. A 200 proof alcoholic drink does not exist because ethanol draws in water anytime it is exposed to humidity. In the human body, this process leads inexorably to dehydration. As the ethanol is processed within the body, it is converted into the chemical acetaldehyde, which is highly toxic. High levels of exposure to acetaldehyde over long periods of time can increase the risks of contracting cirrhosis of the liver and many forms of cancer. Ethanol is not as hazardous as acetaldehyde, but a blood alcohol level of only 0.4% can be fatal. The effect of the hangover can be mitigated by drinking plenty of fluids as one imbibes the poison of one's choice, but it is never avoided altogether. Even when one's head does not throb and one's stomach does not turn, one feels a subtle whit of a remembrance of what came the night before. The hangover is the price one pays for intoxication. Whether it is small or large, there is always a service charge.

The heartbreak is the inevitable result of commitment. The hangover does not break the heart. Everclear makes no promises. It leaves the heart empty and numb, and an empty heart cannot break because it cannot feel. It is a blessed condition for one whom promise has already crushed. But I would have committed. I would have married her. I was already moving in with her, and engagement was the next step. My promise followed hers. We lay in each other's arms, leaning on a hill over a field of grass, when I laid out my fears. She promised that my foolish worries would not come to pass. She promised that we would be together. The heartbreak is the price one pays for promises.

The first time I wept over this, I had Everclear with me—we had been drinking all night. Tears tickled my face as I cursed her. But my passions were loosed, my heart was empty, and I felt nothing.

Everclear promises what lovers never do: It promises to let go. It insists that our relationship means nothing. But it lies. The body becomes dependent on acetaldehyde, and one begins to need it in order to function. The numbness that one feels every time one is inebriated, when it becomes what one best knows, makes one, while sober, hypersensitive to all things. In due course, the pain of sobriety grows overwhelming. The wind pricks the sober alcoholic. The sun scorches the eyes. The tongue is burned by cold water. The world feels brutal and jagged; every waking moment becomes harrowing. One hides away from any source of light. The lungs fill with phlegm, and it hurts to breathe.

Agony is the inevitable result of sobriety. All the passions have become feral, and the heart buckles and tears as they rush to fill its chambered walls. The passions scratch at one's insides with claw and fang. The heart threatens to explode, and all tears become costly dear. The lungs contract and one gasps and sobs. One gnashes at one's pillow and pitifully begs for death.

Blessed be the poison
That cast me to this place
Of dour excruciation
And grievous thirst for grace.

If you can forgive it for wanting to keep you, it is prepared to forgive you for leaving it.

Everclear is a neutral grain spirit. In order to distill it so as to obtain its high ethanol content, the odor and flavor of its mash must be sacrificed. It is colorless, odorless, and wholly dependent on its drinker for its identity. Because of this, it grows easily attached. Exposed to the air, it traps moisture because it is longing for something to call its own. It is ever-searching, ever-reaching, ever-taking. It longs like a lover. It pines for those it has lost. When I drink it today, I remember what passed between us, and we are saddened that we are no more. Everclear pours slowly for me. It does not splash anymore, nor does it spill. It is courteous, generous, and thankful; I remember it fondly, and it remembers me.

A fifth of Everclear takes a long time to drink. Everclear can be mixed in very small amounts. After five hours, the bottle is only one-quarter empty—three-quarters full. I mix the next glass of Reanimator Fluid, and the Everclear reminds me that it can only hurt me. I tell it not to worry. I will gladly feel the pain in the morning.