The promised story of Tuesday night.
Most often on Tuesdays, I hang out with Shannon (and Ashley). We'll drink too much wine, or too much liquor, but we'll do it in a responsible manner in the privacy of her home.
This past Tues., she had to work at 7 am the next day, so we went out to the bar at eight, had a few drinks and she was gone by 10 o'clock.
Going to the bar early is a mistake I try not to make any more. I know myself just a little to well, I work there, I know much of the clientelle, and I will get my drink on far more than anyone should in any sort of long-term drinking debacle.
Debacle. It certainly became a debacle. I made that terrible error in judgement, but when Shannon left, there were people at the bar I knew. You do need another drink to wet your pallate after good conversation... and after a couple more drinks, why not do a couple of shots, eh?
Fast foward to the end of the night. I'm having a very good night, actually. Not just in the blinders that binge drinking affords one, either. It's a good night. I never once had the wierd nuerosi about myself that I tend to get. I talk to many friends and am telling stories and everyone is relishing in the wonderfulness of Burke in one of the increasingly rare moments where I feel like I'm the Burke I pretend to be.
Around 2 a.m., I decide that I can't let one of these rare nights end, so I go searching for the after hours. A rare thing to happen mid-week, and I knew it, but I wasn't going to let the night Burke-nificence end.
Mistake number one was not remembering that 'Mike' is the kind of spoiled rich kid who doesn't suffer consequences for the things he does. That Mike once totalled a car into a tree while blacked-out, and his parents somehow paid the way for him to not even get so much as a point on his license... that Mike is the archetype of the rich-kid nihilist, not that he could necessarilly define nihilism, that he embodies it. I had forgetten that he's the kid that will get you arrested, but he'll be safely at home by 5 am.
I had asked him where the after-hours was, and realized that it was a mistake shortly after I did so. So I went upstairs and tried to just avoid him until they were kicking us out of the bar. Close to the 2:30, 'get-the-fuck-out-now" mark, I made way downstairs having successfully forgotten about the whole mistake I made by talking to him in the first place.
I exited the bar quickly, and was talking with some of the random drunks milling around outside. It was snowing hard, the streets hadn't been plowed, it was cold as hell, I had no coat and was about to just walk home as quickly as I could before getting frostbite. That's when I felt a tug on my arm.
"C'mon Burke, we're rolling." It was Mike and some others, I shrugged and let the liquor do all the thinking as I followed them back to his car.
We pile into his station wagon, he is in the driver's seat. Next to him is the very cute, but equally dumb little sister of people I was friends with in high school, Sheryl. I'm behind Sheryl, next to me is Nick, whose name I never knew before that night, I always just called him the wierd kid. On his left is one of the regulars from the who I think is named Crystal. Noone at the bar really likes this girl, it probably has something to do with the fact that she never tips, but will always tell the bartender that she will tip them next time. ALWAYS. EVERY BARTENDER. bitch...
Mike starts the car, guns it and we swerve around the corner. Unplowed streets and all. This is when I have my moment of clarity, that perfect moment where I realize I've made a huge mistake. At this second, I hope the worst that happens is that I end up in jail.
I learn on the way that we're going to Nick's house for a minute, he's going to run in to his house, then we'll be on our way to "the party". Acceptable, except for the driver running two different stop lights on the way, swerving in-between the stopped cars on all four lanes of the road... it felt a little like we were en route to blow up the Death Star.
That's when I found out that the buckle to my seat belt doesn't work and briefly debate jumping out of a car doing fifty. I opt for a death-grip on the seat in front of me while toying around with the idea accepting Jesus as my lord and savior.
When we get to the road where we turn off the four-laner, he doesn't slow down. He pulls the car all the way to the left hand lane and eases it to right turn going at least forty, the back end of his station wagon sliding all kinds of direction as we turn.
When we reach the house, we pull in, still flying at more than necessary speed, and stop inches from the garage door. Mike and Nick go in the house and I'm left in the car with Sheryl and Crystal. There's some discussion with Crystal about how it was a mistake to get in the car, and she says something about walking back downtown. Coatless, I told her I was going to wait it out and she agrees to stay for a while. The other girl doesn't say much of anything. After what feels like an eternity, We get out of the car to have a smoke because there was no smoking in the car, only driving fifty while drunk down streets where the speed limit is twenty-five.
We're out there smoking, talking, but being quiet. Mike leans out of the house and screams, "YOU GUYS HAVE TO FUCKING BE QUIET!!!!", before he heads into the neighbors house (where there are people, he didn't break in, surprisingly enough.). That's when I decide that I'm so mad that I absolutelly have to pee on the lawn before I get back in the car. take that.
We get back in the car, and in a few minutes Nick comes back with the keys in hand.
"You're taking us back downtown then," I ask?
"Nope, I'm just moving the car into the street," he says as he backs the car out, parks it on the side of the road, then goes back up into the neighbor's house.
After sitting their for a second, Crystal points out that the keys are still in the ignition and that we should take the car. I'm almost with her at this point, but I tell her we should wait a five more minutes and see what happens.
I don't remember fully the next thing that was said, but Sheryl, the girl in front seat grabs my hand from the back of her seat and pulls it up front. That's when she kisses my hand 3 times, pulls my hand to her chest (not tits, chest), then kisses my hand like five more times before saying softly, "it'll be allright."
Crystal's patience is wearing thin and I'm about to let her just take the car because the night can't get any wierder. Sheryl still has my hand is giving it the occasional peck when nick comes back to the car and gets in the back seat with us.
"Where's Mike"
"He's inside eating a banana, he'll be right out"
"WHAT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"
So, we sit there a few more minutes with my hand being kissed more than my face has been in a couple of months. Mike comes back to the car, opens the hatch and asks me to give him the bottle of Icy Hot that's on the floor. I do, so he starts rubbing it on Crystal and my neck at the same time... also, I think my hand was still getting the kissy-kissy in the front seat.
Mike eventually gets in the drivers seat and turns around, "So what going on, we gonna kick it and party and smoke weed?"
Crystal asks, "I just need to be dropped back off downtown so I get to my car."
I say, "I'm just going to get out when you drop her off."
"What the fuck man! I thought we were hanging out? What the fuck?!"
"I'm just not going to make you drive back downtown more than once"
"Whatever," Mike retorted as he started the and went back to his entirely too fast for these roads cruising speed.
Once we made the left back on to the four lane road, he held on to the wheel with one hand as he turned around to yell at me, "What the fuck, Burke! I thought we were hanging out!"
Staring at road in front of us, since noone else was, I said, "It's just time to go home man, It's cool, It's cool."
He turned down a side street, "OK! We're gonna fucking settle this." Then pulled in to a driveway, coming to a stop a couple of inches from the garage door. He turned around and said, yet again, "What the fuck man, I thought we were gonna kick it."
"Do you know the people who live here."
"No, so what, are gonna fucking kick it?"
That's when Crystal looks over at me, "I'm walking, are you coming?"
"Yes. See you later Mike, we'll walk from here." We got out of the car and started walking.
He jumps out of the car just as I tell her that I wish I would've brought a coat with me tonight. He takes off his pullover and tells me to put it on. I do because I'm freezing, but it's a medium and I'm a fat, so it totally is all stretched out.
Like the drunken broken record he had become, he insists that we need to kick and hang out, etc. We tell him that we're just going to walk back downtown.
That's when he cups hands to his mouth and starts screaming as loud as can once more, "I THOUGHT WE WERE GOING TO FUCKING GO AND SMOKE SOME WEED! FUCK THIS NEIGHBORHOOD, I DON'T CARE WHO HEARS! WE'RE GOING TO SMOKE SOME FEED WEED!!!"
We tell himn we're rolling and just start to walk. We get pretty far before they come back, so I can only assume they were getting high in the driveway of the people they didn't know.
When we see them next, they pull in to a parking lot, still going insanelly fast. He stop while turning, kicks the ass-end of the car all the way around then guns it to where we are. While this is happening I tell Crystal, the girl I can't stand, that she should hold my hand and that will get help get them off our backs.
She asks, "Why?", but it's too late for me to answer, they're already at us with the passenger window open.
"Get in the fucking car Burke, we're gonna go kick it."
I lean in the car window, "Man, I'm just taking off. It's all good."
"C'mon man, get..."
...the argument remains circular for a period of time until I remember that I'm holding the hand of a girl I don't like, "Hey man, just do me a favor, man-to-man."
He gives me a puzzled look.
"Do me that man favor, ok?!"
He finally figures out the innuendo and he's off on his way, doing fifty the whole way.
While we watch him go off in the distance, she asks, "How'd you get him to leave us alone."
"I told him I was going to fuck you."
She gave me a wierd look, so I looked deep into her eyes and said, "Don't worry... I'm NOT."
Then I walked home.
-pg
This past Tues., she had to work at 7 am the next day, so we went out to the bar at eight, had a few drinks and she was gone by 10 o'clock.
Going to the bar early is a mistake I try not to make any more. I know myself just a little to well, I work there, I know much of the clientelle, and I will get my drink on far more than anyone should in any sort of long-term drinking debacle.
Debacle. It certainly became a debacle. I made that terrible error in judgement, but when Shannon left, there were people at the bar I knew. You do need another drink to wet your pallate after good conversation... and after a couple more drinks, why not do a couple of shots, eh?
Fast foward to the end of the night. I'm having a very good night, actually. Not just in the blinders that binge drinking affords one, either. It's a good night. I never once had the wierd nuerosi about myself that I tend to get. I talk to many friends and am telling stories and everyone is relishing in the wonderfulness of Burke in one of the increasingly rare moments where I feel like I'm the Burke I pretend to be.
Around 2 a.m., I decide that I can't let one of these rare nights end, so I go searching for the after hours. A rare thing to happen mid-week, and I knew it, but I wasn't going to let the night Burke-nificence end.
Mistake number one was not remembering that 'Mike' is the kind of spoiled rich kid who doesn't suffer consequences for the things he does. That Mike once totalled a car into a tree while blacked-out, and his parents somehow paid the way for him to not even get so much as a point on his license... that Mike is the archetype of the rich-kid nihilist, not that he could necessarilly define nihilism, that he embodies it. I had forgetten that he's the kid that will get you arrested, but he'll be safely at home by 5 am.
I had asked him where the after-hours was, and realized that it was a mistake shortly after I did so. So I went upstairs and tried to just avoid him until they were kicking us out of the bar. Close to the 2:30, 'get-the-fuck-out-now" mark, I made way downstairs having successfully forgotten about the whole mistake I made by talking to him in the first place.
I exited the bar quickly, and was talking with some of the random drunks milling around outside. It was snowing hard, the streets hadn't been plowed, it was cold as hell, I had no coat and was about to just walk home as quickly as I could before getting frostbite. That's when I felt a tug on my arm.
"C'mon Burke, we're rolling." It was Mike and some others, I shrugged and let the liquor do all the thinking as I followed them back to his car.
We pile into his station wagon, he is in the driver's seat. Next to him is the very cute, but equally dumb little sister of people I was friends with in high school, Sheryl. I'm behind Sheryl, next to me is Nick, whose name I never knew before that night, I always just called him the wierd kid. On his left is one of the regulars from the who I think is named Crystal. Noone at the bar really likes this girl, it probably has something to do with the fact that she never tips, but will always tell the bartender that she will tip them next time. ALWAYS. EVERY BARTENDER. bitch...
Mike starts the car, guns it and we swerve around the corner. Unplowed streets and all. This is when I have my moment of clarity, that perfect moment where I realize I've made a huge mistake. At this second, I hope the worst that happens is that I end up in jail.
I learn on the way that we're going to Nick's house for a minute, he's going to run in to his house, then we'll be on our way to "the party". Acceptable, except for the driver running two different stop lights on the way, swerving in-between the stopped cars on all four lanes of the road... it felt a little like we were en route to blow up the Death Star.
That's when I found out that the buckle to my seat belt doesn't work and briefly debate jumping out of a car doing fifty. I opt for a death-grip on the seat in front of me while toying around with the idea accepting Jesus as my lord and savior.
When we get to the road where we turn off the four-laner, he doesn't slow down. He pulls the car all the way to the left hand lane and eases it to right turn going at least forty, the back end of his station wagon sliding all kinds of direction as we turn.
When we reach the house, we pull in, still flying at more than necessary speed, and stop inches from the garage door. Mike and Nick go in the house and I'm left in the car with Sheryl and Crystal. There's some discussion with Crystal about how it was a mistake to get in the car, and she says something about walking back downtown. Coatless, I told her I was going to wait it out and she agrees to stay for a while. The other girl doesn't say much of anything. After what feels like an eternity, We get out of the car to have a smoke because there was no smoking in the car, only driving fifty while drunk down streets where the speed limit is twenty-five.
We're out there smoking, talking, but being quiet. Mike leans out of the house and screams, "YOU GUYS HAVE TO FUCKING BE QUIET!!!!", before he heads into the neighbors house (where there are people, he didn't break in, surprisingly enough.). That's when I decide that I'm so mad that I absolutelly have to pee on the lawn before I get back in the car. take that.
We get back in the car, and in a few minutes Nick comes back with the keys in hand.
"You're taking us back downtown then," I ask?
"Nope, I'm just moving the car into the street," he says as he backs the car out, parks it on the side of the road, then goes back up into the neighbor's house.
After sitting their for a second, Crystal points out that the keys are still in the ignition and that we should take the car. I'm almost with her at this point, but I tell her we should wait a five more minutes and see what happens.
I don't remember fully the next thing that was said, but Sheryl, the girl in front seat grabs my hand from the back of her seat and pulls it up front. That's when she kisses my hand 3 times, pulls my hand to her chest (not tits, chest), then kisses my hand like five more times before saying softly, "it'll be allright."
Crystal's patience is wearing thin and I'm about to let her just take the car because the night can't get any wierder. Sheryl still has my hand is giving it the occasional peck when nick comes back to the car and gets in the back seat with us.
"Where's Mike"
"He's inside eating a banana, he'll be right out"
"WHAT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"
So, we sit there a few more minutes with my hand being kissed more than my face has been in a couple of months. Mike comes back to the car, opens the hatch and asks me to give him the bottle of Icy Hot that's on the floor. I do, so he starts rubbing it on Crystal and my neck at the same time... also, I think my hand was still getting the kissy-kissy in the front seat.
Mike eventually gets in the drivers seat and turns around, "So what going on, we gonna kick it and party and smoke weed?"
Crystal asks, "I just need to be dropped back off downtown so I get to my car."
I say, "I'm just going to get out when you drop her off."
"What the fuck man! I thought we were hanging out? What the fuck?!"
"I'm just not going to make you drive back downtown more than once"
"Whatever," Mike retorted as he started the and went back to his entirely too fast for these roads cruising speed.
Once we made the left back on to the four lane road, he held on to the wheel with one hand as he turned around to yell at me, "What the fuck, Burke! I thought we were hanging out!"
Staring at road in front of us, since noone else was, I said, "It's just time to go home man, It's cool, It's cool."
He turned down a side street, "OK! We're gonna fucking settle this." Then pulled in to a driveway, coming to a stop a couple of inches from the garage door. He turned around and said, yet again, "What the fuck man, I thought we were gonna kick it."
"Do you know the people who live here."
"No, so what, are gonna fucking kick it?"
That's when Crystal looks over at me, "I'm walking, are you coming?"
"Yes. See you later Mike, we'll walk from here." We got out of the car and started walking.
He jumps out of the car just as I tell her that I wish I would've brought a coat with me tonight. He takes off his pullover and tells me to put it on. I do because I'm freezing, but it's a medium and I'm a fat, so it totally is all stretched out.
Like the drunken broken record he had become, he insists that we need to kick and hang out, etc. We tell him that we're just going to walk back downtown.
That's when he cups hands to his mouth and starts screaming as loud as can once more, "I THOUGHT WE WERE GOING TO FUCKING GO AND SMOKE SOME WEED! FUCK THIS NEIGHBORHOOD, I DON'T CARE WHO HEARS! WE'RE GOING TO SMOKE SOME FEED WEED!!!"
We tell himn we're rolling and just start to walk. We get pretty far before they come back, so I can only assume they were getting high in the driveway of the people they didn't know.
When we see them next, they pull in to a parking lot, still going insanelly fast. He stop while turning, kicks the ass-end of the car all the way around then guns it to where we are. While this is happening I tell Crystal, the girl I can't stand, that she should hold my hand and that will get help get them off our backs.
She asks, "Why?", but it's too late for me to answer, they're already at us with the passenger window open.
"Get in the fucking car Burke, we're gonna go kick it."
I lean in the car window, "Man, I'm just taking off. It's all good."
"C'mon man, get..."
...the argument remains circular for a period of time until I remember that I'm holding the hand of a girl I don't like, "Hey man, just do me a favor, man-to-man."
He gives me a puzzled look.
"Do me that man favor, ok?!"
He finally figures out the innuendo and he's off on his way, doing fifty the whole way.
While we watch him go off in the distance, she asks, "How'd you get him to leave us alone."
"I told him I was going to fuck you."
She gave me a wierd look, so I looked deep into her eyes and said, "Don't worry... I'm NOT."
Then I walked home.
-pg