Highway to Hell With the Devil’s Brew in Hand

The night felt young, with so many stars in the sky illuminating the porch where Calhoun Mane sat, surrounded by friends. When his friend’s cousin came from the house with a home phone in hand, news of Calhoun’s beloved grandmother sent him to the bottom of a whiskey bottle. A half-gallon stole his consciousness. Absent-minded and violent, he acted out. He spoke adoringly of a woman who raised him from a child and caused more harm than good. A system of unknowingness captured him in society as an adolescent, and no escape felt possible. Ruin had set in; he followed this moment into a fit of rage.

Calhoun stumbled around the yard, familiar faces blurred in and out of his vision. The bottle remained gripped firmly in his fist. As soon as a friend would corral him, he would slip away. Luckily, no one felt the wrath of a broken adolescent desperate to leave from an Earthly realm to wherever God had planned for his afterlife. Hell felt possible. The sinner in him was most prominent, and his hellish ways had created a reputation around Plaquemines Parish. Calhoun started to weep aloud with this sorrowful moan that caused him to stop breathing, and he would then start again. Anxiety had him by the tail.

After the yard became too small to contain Calhoun, his friends had done what they could to help. He wandered onto Highway 23. The posted speed limit of 70 miles per hour was the minimum speed at which drivers traveled in the late hours. Accidents happened on this stretch of roadway, and he had already tempted fate by barreling through a ditch and bouncing off four mature trees on another occasion. The people of Plaquemines Parish knew he lived recklessly. A drunken Calhoun was a ticking time bomb, and the timer had gone off in an explosive manner on this night.

Car after car zoomed by Calhoun, as he swung for the fences like a slugger at a major ballpark. The only one he came into contact with was a parish highway patrol officer's vehicle. Sheriff's Deputy Rouxel Brivudine was nearing the end of his shift, and he now had to comfort a distraught young adult whose behavior could result in additional paperwork. Brivudine contemplated an arrest, but he knew Calhoun’s mother, Chloe. He stuffed Calhoun, passed out, in the cruiser’s back seat. He drove him to Empire, Louisiana, and knocked on Chloe’s trailer door.

When Brivudine finally hoisted Calhoun from the cruiser, a single swing missed, and a drunken misstep landed Calhoun on his face in the yard. Chloe explained the situation with the death in their family. Brivudine frowned and asked if Chloe needed help getting her son inside.

Chloe responded, “Let him sleep this stupor off out here tonight.”

Calhoun woke the next morning with red ant bites all over his body. He never touched another bottle of whiskey again. He swore, “The devil’s brew is a harsh reality.”

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