Son set the snifter down, then himself next to it. Three days straight, all work, no play, with only three hours of sleep a night. He was beat and needed something to take the edge off the blinding sunlight spilling inside his living room. Son looked at the glass, picked it up, took a sip, and put it back down. The warmth washed though his insides. He stared hard at the glass.
The contents were hard won from a local distiller who, once a year, made just one batch of what the distiller called “Branntwein.” The alcohol was the stuff of local legend among those who cared for such things. There were only two ways you could get a bottle, drop a thousand dollars to someone who knew the distiller or make a sacrifice in exchange for a lifelong supply of one bottle a year. Although Son did little else but work his shifts, the pay would never allow him the luxury of purchasing a bottle, not that Son even knew or cared about liquor. It was just a coincidence that Son had been driving home from work when the pick-up t-boned him going forty-five miles an hour.
Son woke up to find himself in crippling pain, laying in a hospital bed. The doctor told him he would recover, but he would have to suffer a hobbled leg and significant scarring on his left arm where the skin graft was. When Son asked what happened, the doctor told him that a drunk had rammed him, sending Son and his car toppling down the road, ending upside down in a drainage ditch. He was lucky to be alive. Shortly thereafter Son received his first bottle of the Branntwein with a ribbon and a note attached.
The note contained an apology from the distiller. It appears the drunk who’d rammed Son was all jacked up on one of the distiller’s cheaper ryes. Out of some sense of guilt the distiller felt obliged to offer the Branntwein as consolation. The distiller did his best to ease the irony of the gift. He described the Branntwein, not as a cure-all bottle to drown your sorrows, but as a drink that, once consumed, would take you to the place that always soothed your soul. Son was sickened at the thought and asked that the bottle be thrown away.
A year had passed when upon opening the front door of his apartment Son discovered a familiar looking bottle with a familiar looking bow and a familiar looking note. In that year’s time, life had been rough on Son, what with the rehabilitation and his search for work he could do given his handicap. By the time the bottle had arrived on his doorstep, Son had set aside his earlier disgust in favor of the pragmatism of making useful whatever came his way.
The first time Son tried the Branntwein, whatever leftover animosity washed away in seconds. This wasn’t some cheap high meant for professional escape artists. The Branntwein dredged up a memory from deep within, leaving, not a feeling of want or nostalgia, but one of calm and reason, a sense of peace. Sam thought such moments should be reserved for the worst. He would only bring out the bottle in times of dire need.
Three days straight, all work, no play. Son’s arm and leg hurt. He had this day off before another three day round of nose-to-the-grindstone accompanied with the more-than-usual taunts as a result of the mistake he had made the day before. Son picked up the glass again and took another sip. He closed his eyes, leaned his head back, and there it was, the bridge.
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