MAN ABOUT TOWN
TEXT
JACKSON BIKO
ART
MOVIN WERE
Those who slide into
the bottle, with only
their heads above the
drink, at the brink of
destruction
FRIEND
IN NEED
Jackson Biko, is a lover of whisky and
people watching. He likes to walk the
shadows of the city at dusk, picking
conversations of a people spurred by the
night and by their drink.
Y
ou see it unfold slowly, like
coming rain. It starts with
that need to constantly
have a pint. When you call
him he will be in a bar.
Daily. Even Mondays. Then come
the episodes in the bar; the fights
or aggression, the reluctance to
walk away and leave when time has
come to go home, the blackouts in
the club. There is that point when
work starts to suffer because they
are indoors nursing a hangover. This
comes with missed appointments.
Warning letters. Then those phonecalls that ask for money. Soft loans
that will be paid by end month but
never quite get settled. The physical
manifestations start showing: their
faces sink in at the cheeks, the
dry lips, the clothes that begin to
hang on the body’s shoulders like
a scarecrow. General sloppiness.
Untucked shirt tails. Missed belt
loops. One. Two. Ill fitting pants. Red
eyes. Sloppy talk. Booze breath. Then
one day you will be riding in their car
and they ask you to pop the glove
compartment and casually ask you to
retrieve a bottle of whisky in there.
“Dude,” you will say, “you can’t drink
at this time of the day, man, and
certainly not when you are driving!”
They will call you a wanker and grab
the bottle from your hand and take a
swig straight from the bloody bottle.
Then you will know there is a
problem.
We all love our whisky and a little
debauchery. We all work hard to
afford the fine drink. But not all of us
will know when to draw the line in
the bar, when to say “this is enough”,
“I can only handle this much”, “I
should only take this much.” There
are some of us who get dependent.
Those who slide into the bottle, with
only their heads above the drink, at
the brink of destruction.
And we have to say something,
we have to intervene. We can’t drink
and make merry and then step aside
when a pal is becoming a drunk. It
wouldn’t be cool. It’s not right. It’s
hard, of course. It’s hard to sit him
down and tell him, “Boss, you have
a