Eddie Caruso broke a bottle over Leo Bonaduce’s head yesterday morning, after a night of imbibing their homemade liquor–sunshine, they call it. Way brighter than the moon, it’ll make you go blind.
The two of them had just been sampling the latest batch from the still in the abandoned barn three miles from civilization, when Leo got it into his head to start shooting at the east-facing broad side, poking holes in the wall that had done a decent job of shielding the still from the harsh country dawns. Eddie, at first, admitted to himself that boys will be boys, and he wasn’t about to go impinging on Leo’s second amendment right. Chamber finally devoid of bullets, Leo tossed the gun across the barn without flinching–as though he were completely done with it–then flopped onto a nearby pile of hay. It defies common sense that they would keep such dry, flammable material inside a desiccated wooden structure housing a still that could blow at any minute, but they haven’t exploded yet. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.
With Leo passed out, Eddie could relax and lower his guard, allowing him to drift off to sleep on his own pile of hay. Before he knew it, seemingly right after he fell asleep, he was rudely awakened by a bullet-facilitated shaft of light piercing through his eyelid. Once he’d put two and two together, he located an empty beer bottle (they enjoy a variety of poisons in that barn) and strolled over to Leo’s resting spot, noticing that the bullet holes didn’t impact his quality of sleep at all. Eddie’s combination of bad mood and still-drunken state, exacerbated by that blissful snoring, culminated in a wave of rage that raised the bottle and brought it crashing down on Leo’s noggin, dragging him away from his vision of chocolate chip pancakes. “You asshole,” Eddie asserted calmly.
“Shit, man! What was that for?!”
“You don’t get to sleep when I can’t on account of your stupidity, Leo. That’s just the way it goes.”
“But a beer bottle? Can’t you just yell at me or shove me, like a normal person?”
“That sunshine’s still got me goin’ from last night, there’s no normal about me right now.” Eddie brushed a couple shards of glass out of Leo’s hair, away from his eyes, in a mockingly tender fashion. “You poor baby, you might want to get that stitched up.”
“God dammit, Eddie.”
WHARVED 