Confession and Corruption

The arrest of Sam Johnstone’s mentor Press Daniels had Sam feeling restless, irritable, and discontented. He pouted and slouched around the house until he sullenly looked in the refrigerator and found only a jar of jalapeños, a stick of butter, a pitcher of sweet tea, and a rotting onion.

Despite knowing he was only one drink away from disaster, he drove to the Longbranch Saloon—ostensibly to order food to go. Jamey Johnson was playing on the jukebox, and he hummed along, enjoying the bar’s smoky haze. When he ordered a longneck and whiskey back, owner/bartender Gino Smith asked him three times if he was sure.

Three times he assured Gino he was fine. “I’m okay—really.” Two hours later he had downed four or five tall beers and an equal number of shots. He was halfway to feeling all right . . . and he only felt right when he was wrong.

Before he left the bar, he walked to the men’s room and practiced walking heel-to-toe, turning around, and reciting the alphabet backward in an effort to gauge his probable success on the standardized field sobriety tests used by law enforcement—just in case. He was pleasantly surprised that he had remembered the drills so well and headed for the bar to pay his tab. He had no business driving, of course, but risk was part of the kink for an addict/alcoholic.

He paid his tab, tipped big, and purchased two small bottles of vodka “for the road,” assuring a grim-faced Gino he was good to go and that he could make it home safely.