Down Where the Drunkards Roll

Instead, the inhabitant sitting somewhat nervously on the teal sofa was a guy named Jim Siegel.

Jim is currently 22 years old, and he has a completely irrational fear of beer. Alcohol is already enough of a problem, but beer, with its endless advertisements on television, the radio, and in print media, is inevitably going to drive him over the edge.

He was always uneasy around alcohol, but Jim's real issue with high octane suds began in high school, about the same time that many of his peers would start going to parties and drinking illegally obtained alcoholic beverages. While a good number of Jim's classmates could drink responsibly, there were just as many who could never control themselves, and they would get plowed on a Friday or Saturday night, and not completely shaking off that hangover until second or third period at school Monday morning.

Jim could not understand the need for his classmates to drink, even if some of them could reign it in after two or three drinks. The more he heard stories about really wild house parties with random people hooking up in bathrooms, closets, or backseats of parked cars, the more uneasy Jim grew. His discomfort would increase tenfold if there had been a major misunderstanding at a party over the weekend that would get settled with a fight between boys (or in one case, two girls) in the hallway or school cafeteria the following Monday.

Still, Jim was relatively "normal", and not totally alienated from his classmates. In junior year, he had a decent nine month relationship with a girl named Jenny. Sadly, Jim's neurosis concerning beer began to grate on Jenny, who did like to cut loose on most weekends and have a few. After realizing that Jim was never going to get over his hangup regarding her drinking (Jenny loved Bud Light), she dumped him. The following New Year's Eve, Jenny got tore up, falling down drunk for the first time in her life, thanks to some of her more generous friends. When news got back to Jim about Jenny's drunken night, it just destroyed him. He spent close to a week battling wild mood swings and constant nausea, wondering why on earth Jenny would ever allow this to happen.

Graduation from high school was a few years ago. Jim gave college an honest try, but the drunken paths that many of his new classmates were leading eventually drove him to leave in summer of 1991. After a series of odd jobs, Jim took up residence in the Staircase Room.

Fred, puzzled at his surroundings...

1. asks Jim what exactly is going on.
2. asks Jim if he'd like to go grab a beer sometime.
3. mentions that he saw Jenny the other day, being carried by two friends out of a downtown bar.
4. starts to wonder if loneliness is really that bad.
5. tries to go back from where he had been sent from.

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