Welcome to the seventh issue of Strange Pulp, an irregular literary magazine that asks its contributors to write whatever they want, so long as it’s weird. Banish misery by wallowing in our archives.

Today we have an exceptional story by Henry Giardina, one of my favorite writers on the whole damn Internet. Editor at INTO and author of the definitive film newsletter Less Art, Henry can be found on Twitter doing Twitter things. If you like this story—and you will!—do him a solid and…

Read Issue 7 in PDF / ePub

Content Warning

Approximate Reading Time: 17 Minutes

September 29

My name is Anton Lafayette LaDoyle, and this is my court-ordered diary. I have a modest 22,456 Twitter followers and 13,009 Instagram followers. I am one of the foremost wine critics in the United States. I am twelve and a half years old.

Yes, this is quite controversial as I am aware. At age five, I was the youngest member selected to serve on the International Board of Wine Professionals. By seven, I was one of the most distinguished critics in the region. Restaurant owners feared me: fine diners worshiped me. By age ten, my name could be seen on the masthead of Sommelier magazine, America’s oldest fine wine publication. I celebrated my eleventh birthday with a vintage Bourdeau and a crisp, dry cider. I have been to rehab twice. 

This morning I was gazing out the window while enjoying my morning cocoa. I am not allowed to have coffee yet, as it may stunt my growth. This worries my mother more than myself: I am by far her most successful child. It depresses me even to think of the others, prim Wesleyan freaks wasting their time on sex and study. Each morning Mother wakes me up by flinging open the large, heavy curtains of my room. I refuse to set an alarm, because I do not respond well to nagging. If I am to wake at a reasonable hour, it will be because light has been thrown, like acid, into my eyes. Also, I must attend school.

“Did you look at Twitter this morning?” asked mother as she brought in my breakfast tray.

“Mother,” I replied, “stop talking.” 

“Jesse Dietz has an article in the Winemaker Times,” she said.

Jesse Dietz: my arch-enemy.

“Mother,” I called out, “bring me my best ascot. Today, we wage war.”

Jesse Dietz, aged fifteen, is the world’s second-youngest wine critic. That is why each and every day, I make it my personal mission to destroy him. Of late this has proved difficult as we have only one class together and there is a limit to the amount of damage one can do in forty-five minutes. It is also true that I seldom attend class: my commitment to my craft requires that I take time off to sample wine in the hall utility closet, which does tend to cut into my studies. Several times I have been discovered and called to the principal’s office, and each time I have explained that, unlike these other juvenile delinquents, I have a vocation, a calling, if you will. At least, I did have a vocation. 

October 7

I had the bad fortune to be born in Salina, Kansas, in the year 2009. A terrible year for wine, but a great one for the country. At three months old, I tasted my first haunting, unforgettable Bourdeaux when my mother neglected to remove her customary glass of breastfeeding wine from my reach. After I was finished with her teat, I started on the dark red liquid, lapping it up greedily from the rug where it had spilled, until the governess startled me with a shout. 

Today, my life is largely a misery. I hate getting up in the morning now, for a day without wine is a day wasted, and it has been months since I’ve been allowed wine. My craft is suffering, my talent forced to—pardon the pun—wither on the vine. I hate it. I hate school and I hate Salina and I hate everything about everything and that’s final.

This is what I told my court-mandated therapist, anyway, but you know all about that. She’s the one who’s making me write this stupid diary in the first place. She says I should be hopeful and try to embrace my other talents. I said what other talents. The only thing I’m good at is describing wine, and I can no longer do that. My therapist tells me this and then talks about teenage alcoholism for twelve minutes, as if that has anything to do with anything. She does not understand me. No one understands me. Mother tries, but she’s so stupid. And Father—don’t make me laugh! As a critic, the existence of evil does not upset me half as much as the existence of stupidity. And to be culled from the selfsame tree as the idiots who gave me life—I can’t bear the thought.

“Anton,” my therapist told me yesterday, “you must take your recovery seriously.”

“I don’t understand why,” I told her for the umpteenth time. “For if it is to be a choice between my life and my vocation, I shall always choose my vocation.”

Therapy is a distraction from the real problem, which is the problem of not drinking. Before recovery, I never remembered my dreams. Now I can’t forget them. I had a dream the other night. I was staring into an empty grave. A falcon cried in the distance. I awoke bathed in sweat. I screamed for my mother, and she came into my room and comforted me. Before my last trip to rehab I kept a hot water bottle full of fruit-forward 1972 Beaujolais for such occasions, but mother found it while I was gone and flushed it down the toilet. For which I should rightly sue, no jury in the world could fail to convict her.

October 12

I told mother I’d had another dream about Andrew. 

It was the same dream as usual. Andrew and I are by a stream, and he sees a glass bottle underneath the water, which is strikingly clear. He puts his hand into the stream and that hand is pulled off as if it’s made of Lego—and him along with it. 

My court-ordered therapist is always trying to get me to talk about Andrew. I know what she wants. I’ve been running intellectual laps around shrinks since I was a kid. They all want one thing: my soul. Well they won’t have it.

“It’s natural to be upset about your brother,” my therapist says.

She does not believe me when I say that I’m not upset. People leave all the time, and sometimes, people happen to be your brother. Andrew has abandoned me for the big city, where he is currently making his fortune as the world’s foremost mattress critic. I have no problem with the facts, and I am not the type to argue with God. 

If Andrew hadn’t gone, after all, I wouldn’t have inherited the master bedroom. True, it is imposingly large for me, but I expect to grow into it any day now. Mother says the nightmares are about the room and how chilly it is. I disagree: when I wake in the night, it is not because I am cold, it is because I am screaming. 

October 20

The truth is, no one understands. Not my shrink, not my mother, not my petty schoolmates. How could they? I am an island, a thing unto itself. Were it not for the promise of destroying Jesse Dietz in the near future, I would have no way to go on. His mere existence taunts me. The fact that our names are sometimes spoken in the same sentence in the disgusting pages of the Salina Herald, that rag. He passes me in the hallway reeking of port, even though he knows I am forced to be sober. It is dastardly. The other day, he even had the audacity to speak to me in class. 

“Did you see my latest piece in the Times?” He asked during third-period French. Dietz has an obnoxious way of referring to the Winemaker Times as “the Times,” as if it were a paper of record.

“Regrettably I did not,” I said icily.

“I’d like your opinion on it,” he said. “You know how much I admire your work.”

The nerve of him. Of course he’d like my opinion, for he knows it is better than his own. Typical Dietz. I shall never give in to his treacly need to be liked. A critic should never hope to be liked, a critic should merely possess truthful opinions. That is my opinion. 

“Also,” he continued, not realizing that I was completely checked out of the conversation, “I’m really sorry to hear about—”

“Oh right, rub it in, Dietz. Yes, I’m in fucking rehab again.”

“No I meant—”

“Sure, Anton the lush is back in the system! You must find it hilarious that—” 

We were briefly shushed by the professor and Dietz reverted to a whisper:

“No,” he said. “I meant about your brother. I’m sorry.”

“Well,” I said, “it’s not as if he won’t be back. For holidays and things.”

Dietz looked at me with pity, his head cocked to the side, as if he knew something I didn’t. 

He only mentioned Andrew to throw me off my game, I’m sure of it. Why else? The duplicity of such people never ceases to astound me. 

November 1

After school, he had the nerve to find me again. Dietz. He complimented me on my ascot as we filed into our respective bus lines. I told him not to waste his flattery. It was then that he touched me on the shoulder, boldly, and said,

“If you ever want to talk, Anton, I’m here.”

I simply didn’t know what to make of that. Certainly he’s here, I can’t forget him! He has even, in the past few days, infiltrated my dreams. Perhaps it is Dietz who is the falcon, crying out over an open grave. And inside the grave is myself.

It is decided. Jesse Dietz must be destroyed before he can wrest away any more of my laurels. 

But how shall I destroy him? That is the question.

November 6, 8:43 pm

My plan is nearly complete. I have chosen that Jesse Dietz’s particular downfall shall be a mirror of my own. Enough evidence will soon be discovered to put Dietz in my old haunt (New Beginnings Rehab) for at least seven weeks, by which time I shall violently assert myself as the premier wine critic in the Salinas area. He won’t see it coming, they never do. He was foolish to think he could destroy me at my own game. 

November 7, 6:15 am

I decided not to waste another fitful night of half-sleep, so taken was I with my newly-hatched plan. Merely thinking about it made me laugh with such devilish delight that I missed the cup during my pee test. 

Soon it will be Jesse Dietz who must pee in a too-small cup for an audience of stern-faced men and his mother. I laid awake all night. I had no chance to dream.

November 8

I couldn’t wait any longer. Last night I crept out of the master bedroom in the old-fashioned style (connecting a number of bedsheets together and looping them around the bedpost and out the window). I knew my move to the master bedroom was fated. Once on the ground, I ran. I considered hot-wiring the Porsche, but I don’t have the code to the garage. I also cannot drive, though that’s certainly never stopped my mother or anyone else in this stupid one-horse town. 

Running was faster, anyway. Before my career as a critic, I was something of a promising runner. I was compared several times to Jesse Owens: once by the critic who covered my 4th-grade competition for the local paper, another time by my brother Andrew. Once my feet touched ground I ran and ran until I reached the house of my enemy. Jesse Dietz and I have the misfortune to live within the same five-block radius, and he is always reminding me of it. Dietz. The idiot. “Ooh I have a new shipment of 1943 vintage in from France, we should compare notes sometime,” what a fucking heel. Like I’d ever deign to sit down at the same table with someone so grossly second-rate. What on Earth could his pathetic notes tell me that I don’t already know. 

I had not intended breaking and entering, but they made it so deliciously easy. There were no cars parked in the garage. Having had only the briefest sketch of a plan in my mind, I decided to play it by ear. Perhaps everyone was gone for the long weekend and I could have the house to myself. What wonderful mischief I could get up to then! But I had to keep my head: it would not do to blow my cover out of indecisiveness. The side door was locked, but the kitchen window was not. It opened out over the sink, where my shoes met with an unpleasant wetness. The sink was full of soaking dishes. I shook off my feet and leaped to the ground.

The house was much smaller from the inside. I hadn’t realized quite how humbly the Dietzs lived, since Jesse is always bragging about having a new shipment of rare Domaine de la Romanee-Conti coming in. It hadn’t occurred to me that he was lying, but that is so like me. I am always taking people at their word.

Quite quickly I saw that I was in over my head. For if I was now firmly inside the Dietz castle, I had no clear way of getting out. I knew that I had to find the wine and stash it in Dietz’s locker, and I reasoned that the wine could not be far away, but a sudden pall of indecision fell over me. I stood paralyzed in the kitchen for what felt like an hour, though of course, it couldn’t have been. Since laying off the booze my sense of time has dramatically altered. Each hour without drinking, or the hope of drinking in sight, passes heavily, like an eternity. 

When I came to, I began taking stock of my surroundings. With my critic’s eye I sized up the state of the kitchen. It was messy. Cabinets were left open. There were bags of opened, single-serve snacks on the counter. I looked in the recycling bin: it was just as I suspected. Endless bottles of Charles Shaw had been swilled within the week, but by whom? Something told me it wasn’t Jesse who was pairing single-serve bags of Cheetos with gas station chardonnay each night. Or was it. Was Jesse’s reality even sadder than I had allowed myself to imagine, his taste in wine even more corrupt?

I was grappling with the great import of this discovery when I saw, out of the corner of my eye, a wispy half-shape pass from the kitchen into the hallway, where it stood by the door and scratched. A cat! A devil. For a moment I wondered if I should follow it, but it scratched still and looked at me, with eyes made of quartz. I came closer. I opened the door. Sure enough, it led to the cellar. Now, I thought, I will see the true extent of it. I shall see Jesse Dietz’s glittering downfall before my eyes in the form of rows, rows upon rows of Charles Shaw, cases, full, as far as the eye can see…

When I awoke, Jesse Dietz was standing over me, in his pajamas. 

“Anthony?” He said. He acted like he had no idea what he was doing there. I will say this for Jesse, he’s got the “what, who, me?” routine locked down. He’s great at playing dumb.

“My name is Anton,” I muttered.

“Are you okay?”

 “Yes, you’ve found me, now drag me off to jail. Celebrate, rejoice in my defeat.”

“To jail?” He looked at me like he had no idea what I was talking about.

“Oh come off it Dietz. Everyone knows you’re out to get me. And this is your perfect chance. You can send me back to that horrible place now and no one will be the wiser. Where did Anton go, they’ll ask, and you’ll laugh and smile knowingly!”

“Anthony, what are you doing here?”

“All the while I’ll be locked up, rotting away, parted from the only thing that brings me joy in this life!”

“I’m not going to call the cops.”

I was taken aback at this.

“You’re not?”

“Why would I?” He offered me his hand and pulled me up by it. He then led me to the couch and offered me a juice box. 

“Is this the strongest stuff you’ve got?” I asked.

“My parents keep the good stuff locked away. Sometimes they’re sloppy and they leave the key where I can find it.”

“Can you find it now?”

He paused for a minute, and looked at me with a kind of devilish expression that put me in mind of Andrew. As kids we would play games like this: who can sneak down to the living room and put one of mother’s figurines out of place, or who could pilfer a beer from the fridge without anyone noticing. Who could take the most sips from the open beer bottles sitting around at a party. We’d share our spoils in bed, under the covers, spilling them all over the place. Our sheets stank of beer. That was when we shared a room.

“Let me see,” he said, and disappeared into the kitchen. I heard a crack and the hissing of the cat, who Dietz shooed out of the way. When he came back, he had two full glasses of something that, from the look and smell of it, came from the Southernmost region of rural France. 

“Finally,” I gasped, almost in spite of myself. I raised the goblet to my lips and took the wine like communion. “What is this?”

“Nothing much,” he said. “Sutter Home.” 

Had I been in my right mind I would have spat it in his face. As it was, I could not afford to be choosy. 

“It’s a little flowery for my taste,” Dietz said, “but it’s good in a crisis.”

“Indeed.”

“Look, Anthony, I really wanted to say earlier that I—”

We both were startled by the sound of a sharp crack—it would easily have been manmade as well as mechanical.

“Don’t worry,” he said, “my parents are out of town. It’s just an old house.”

“I wouldn’t know about that,” I said in between gulps. Wine ran down my chin in a thick stream. I was so excited to get my hands on it that all my composure seemed to have left me. 

“Can I ask you something?” Dietz asked.

“Why not,” I said, my defenses down. 

“Do you miss him?”

“Who?”

“Your brother?”

I looked out the window. Someone’s lights blew in through the window, blinding me. Suddenly a panic came over me: it hadn’t occurred to me that the Dietz household had a Nest. So he’d called the coppers after all, had he? So he’d found a way to…

The lights disappeared: another car, in another driveway. Still, I knew I needed to keep my wits about me. 

“Are you hungry?” Dietz asked.

“No.” I said. “Yes.” At home we were not allowed snacks. 

He came back from the kitchen with a small box of cereal: the kind you get in a pack.

“We only have Apple Jacks.” He said. “It’s the one nobody likes.”

“We have that in common,” I drawled, “myself and Apple Jacks.”

The taste of them was familiar, sickly sweet. I put the box to my lips: nectar from the gods. I was flooded with memory: childhood, laughter. My brother, the tire swing. An autumn walk. The smell of leaves. The taste of life before life was reduced to the bottle and glass. 

November 18, 11:40 a.m.

I knew there was something in those fucking Apple Jacks. 

I awoke on the ninth in a heated cell. My first thought was that I must be in jail, but the familiar sight of the New Beginnings logo met my eyes. Back in hell at last. 

 My memory of the previous night is hazy: My eyeballs feel pickled and my spine feels fuzzy. But nothing is more painful than the knowledge that I have allowed Dietz to beat me at my own game. Always two steps ahead, that utterly average specimen. He used those Apple Jacks to get me in a compromised position, I’m sure of it. This whole thing smacks of Dietz. 

It is as Andrew advised me. Trust no one: not mother, not Dietz, not any of those well-intentioned souls that smile in your face only to twist the knife in your back. I should have heeded your advice, brother. Now I am certain it is too late for me. 

This morning an attendant entered my room. He told me I had a visitor to see me. And on my bed he placed a single item: the latest issue of the Winemaker Times, a photograph of Jesse Dietz on the cover, looking rakish and undefeated in a navy blue suit. He lifts up a glass to the light: the words surround him in gold: Meet Kansas’s Youngest Wine Critic.

November 9, 10:34 a.m.

Notes for Patient File #958—A. LaDoyle

Patient seems stable with a severe case of DTs. Paramedics brought him in last night around 4 a.m. Found him passed out in his neighbor’s basement surrounded by a dozen empty bottles of wine. This is not his first offense—according to his caretaker this is the third time in three months he’s done this kind of thing. Patient won’t discuss it except in delusional terms—believes he’s some kind of important critic. Patient’s mother confirms he’s always been like this, but notes that it’s been worse in the last year since the patient’s twin brother disappeared, presumed dead.

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