MIP
Dragging the case from the car, Dyl and I started making our way slowly up the road, stopping every few hundred feet to grab another beer and slam it down as quickly as we can. By the time we’ve reached Colby’s house, we are a couple of drunken hyenas, carrying our disemboweled corpse between us. That’s just how it is: you bring your own beer to someone’s house, you have to drink as much of it as you can before you get there. If you don’t, then some other vultures will.
Colby’s plan was this: get to his house; drink a few beers, then walk up the road where this kid that so-and-so knew was hosting a “kegger.” A free kegger. That’s how it goes when you have a lot of free beer and not a lot of friends; you make a lot of new friends.
Anyway, by the time we showed up at Colby’s, Dylan and I were already half drunk, as were the rest of the party. We immediately took our case downstairs and proceeded to get ourselves more drunk playing beer pong.
Now we’ve been at Colby’s house for about an hour, and, with the exception of a few give-away beers, we’ve had close to thirty beers between us. Show, don‘t tell. Colby’s friend so-and-so, and his friends, have since grown impatient and decided to head on out to the kegger without us, they’d give us instructions when we were ready to head up there.
We decided we were ready to head up there.
We’ve developed a small army of friends: Matt, Kyle, Twan, Tubes, Charnay, Ross etc. All in all, if the cops had driven by our drunken parade moving up the road on our brief walk, the night would have ended a lot sooner than it did.
We finally get to the house after receiving some very cryptic directions, and everyone is anxious to get their shot at some free keg beer. The note on the door went something like this: “Hey guys, it’s Paul’s birthday tonight so we don’t want the cops to get called on us. We’d like it if everyone would be on their best behaviors and if they would ‘be cool, thanks a bunch - Paul’s roommates,” Who the Hell was Paul? So I took it upon myself to have the responsibility of finding out who Paul was. Insert adage of cream rising to the top.
It’s a “white trash” party. We’re the best dressed guys at this party and we‘re ‘ragtag’ to say the least. Very under control. I walk up to the nearest person and inquire as to who Paul might be; all they do is point at a table in the middle of the kitchen and walk away. Paul is dancing on the table with a cup of beer in his hand and screaming.
I walked up and introduced myself to Paul in my best “drunk fashion,” it was pretty clear that Paul and I were going to be good buddies, and everyone in our group began to breathe a bit easier.
A bit later I was outside enjoying a cigarette and talking anything to anyone who may have happened to stroll within arm’s length of me, when I received a tap upon the shoulder. Turning around, I found the beam of a flashlight directed upon my eyes.
“Evenin' son, do you happen to know where we can find the owner of this house?”
The police showed up about the same time as the second keg.
"Um, let me see if I can find him."
I jumped out the back window about the same time that the second keg showed up.
Monday, November 29, 2010
Sunday, November 28, 2010
Wasted Wednesday
Wasted Wednesday
The wail of the bluesy guitar, and the gravely, bellow of the singer die as the door shuts with a soft thuk! The noise of the band is replaced by about twenty shouting people, all having a drunken palaver with one another. Taking a deep breath, I squeeze through the people clustered on the back stoop, trying for my place in the alley. Everybody is friends with everybody, most of them meeting for the first time. I’ll wake up the next morning wondering just who the hell Jack, Joe, Gina, and Steve are, and how their numbers ended up in my phone. It won’t matter.
Untangling myself from the alcohol soaked obstacle course, while trying to keep my drink in its cup is a failure. Cold Smoke dribbling down the front of my shirt rips a string of profanity from my mouth. Finally, making it to “my spot,” I deserve a drink. Left hand, Cold Smoke, right hand, Pabst. The lighter beer to equal out the effects of the darker beer. Drunk Logic.
“Hey man, do you gotta cig’ I could have?” A stranger talking through the dreds hanging over his face like a melting Halloween mask.
Handing him my beer, the Pabst, I pull my pack out of my pocket. It’s crushed on all sides. Wasted; like a crumpled beer can, the cellophane lost somewhere along the way and the paper on the cigarettes is wrinkled. Long white raisins.
“Uh, man…” Starting, I realized that I had just been staring at my pack.
“Sorry ‘bout that!” I replied, fumbling out a cigarette for him, and holding up a light. “Pretty killer band in there huh?” and the chatter commenced.
Ten minutes later I had bid ‘Ted’ a good night and stepped into the alleyway to relieve myself. After looking both directions for cops, I sidled up between two dumpsters and began to do the good Lord’s business.
The wall was covered in graffiti, most of which were political sayings. The best piece of graffito was the simplest. DICK. That was all. No back story. No political agenda. No funny slogan. Just DICK. Who is Dick? Where did he come from? And why is he so important that someone would write his name on the wall?
Done, I grabbed my trusty Pabst - the Cold Smoke just a forgotten puddle in the alleyway now - and went back to the lot.
The crowd had nearly doubled in size. Quite a few people for a Wednesday night, but I guess if it’s only five dollars for all the beer you want, you can attract a drinking crowd. Especially in a beer-saturated town like Missoula. The people out there were pretty unsavory, especially if you were looking for women.
There’s a man wandering around telling everyone that it’s all going to collapse. He’s whispering and terrified. I’m pretty sure that he decided to take some acid. Great idea, frying around a bunch of screaming drunks. It would be more enjoyable to play with a wet cat.
“Oh my God, he’s gonna puke,” some guy pointing across the alley, “check it out, he’s really gonna fuckin’ puke man!” I saw him. Standing behind his car, a Ford Explorer, leaning against the side-view mirror, swaying. By this time everyone was watching him, and no one was helping him. Then, he was vomiting. I don’t mean soft, quiet, vomiting, I mean heavy Exorcist vomiting. During a lull in the fun, he just hangs there, staring intently at the mess that he has created.
“Describe the wrinkly tar of this sidewalk…”
The wail of the bluesy guitar, and the gravely, bellow of the singer die as the door shuts with a soft thuk! The noise of the band is replaced by about twenty shouting people, all having a drunken palaver with one another. Taking a deep breath, I squeeze through the people clustered on the back stoop, trying for my place in the alley. Everybody is friends with everybody, most of them meeting for the first time. I’ll wake up the next morning wondering just who the hell Jack, Joe, Gina, and Steve are, and how their numbers ended up in my phone. It won’t matter.
Untangling myself from the alcohol soaked obstacle course, while trying to keep my drink in its cup is a failure. Cold Smoke dribbling down the front of my shirt rips a string of profanity from my mouth. Finally, making it to “my spot,” I deserve a drink. Left hand, Cold Smoke, right hand, Pabst. The lighter beer to equal out the effects of the darker beer. Drunk Logic.
“Hey man, do you gotta cig’ I could have?” A stranger talking through the dreds hanging over his face like a melting Halloween mask.
Handing him my beer, the Pabst, I pull my pack out of my pocket. It’s crushed on all sides. Wasted; like a crumpled beer can, the cellophane lost somewhere along the way and the paper on the cigarettes is wrinkled. Long white raisins.
“Uh, man…” Starting, I realized that I had just been staring at my pack.
“Sorry ‘bout that!” I replied, fumbling out a cigarette for him, and holding up a light. “Pretty killer band in there huh?” and the chatter commenced.
Ten minutes later I had bid ‘Ted’ a good night and stepped into the alleyway to relieve myself. After looking both directions for cops, I sidled up between two dumpsters and began to do the good Lord’s business.
The wall was covered in graffiti, most of which were political sayings. The best piece of graffito was the simplest. DICK. That was all. No back story. No political agenda. No funny slogan. Just DICK. Who is Dick? Where did he come from? And why is he so important that someone would write his name on the wall?
Done, I grabbed my trusty Pabst - the Cold Smoke just a forgotten puddle in the alleyway now - and went back to the lot.
The crowd had nearly doubled in size. Quite a few people for a Wednesday night, but I guess if it’s only five dollars for all the beer you want, you can attract a drinking crowd. Especially in a beer-saturated town like Missoula. The people out there were pretty unsavory, especially if you were looking for women.
There’s a man wandering around telling everyone that it’s all going to collapse. He’s whispering and terrified. I’m pretty sure that he decided to take some acid. Great idea, frying around a bunch of screaming drunks. It would be more enjoyable to play with a wet cat.
“Oh my God, he’s gonna puke,” some guy pointing across the alley, “check it out, he’s really gonna fuckin’ puke man!” I saw him. Standing behind his car, a Ford Explorer, leaning against the side-view mirror, swaying. By this time everyone was watching him, and no one was helping him. Then, he was vomiting. I don’t mean soft, quiet, vomiting, I mean heavy Exorcist vomiting. During a lull in the fun, he just hangs there, staring intently at the mess that he has created.
“Describe the wrinkly tar of this sidewalk…”
Saturday, November 27, 2010
Dog Park Afternoons
Dog Park Afternoons
My eyes widen and my hand grows slack on the baggie that I have been clutching, dropping the last few uneaten crumbs into the water. The sharp difference between the color of the trees from five minutes ago and the color that I now see is remarkable. It’s as if the contrast button that controls my vision has been cranked to its highest setting.
“Do you see all those colors?” Turning to Katie, I realize that I don’t have the words to reply to her question. I just nod my head and begin to giggle. She does the same. She’s laughing at the dumbfounded look on my face; I’m laughing at her quirky Michigan accent.
We’re down at the very furthest point of the Missoula Dog Park. It’s not much to look at, just two protruding gravel bars, but it’s the perfect place to spend a sweltering summer day. Me, Matt, Katie, Shane, Mike, Lance, Christian, Cristine and Wachner. Everyone of us, save for Lance’s brother Christian, has an apartment rented out in the same complex. Not one of us intended to meet each other, we all just happened to stumble out of our places with a beer in hand at the same time.
This is the third trip that we’ve made to the dog park, but it’s the first time that Wachner and Katie have decided to bring out the mushrooms that they had been storing in their room.
“I was starting to get withdrawals from the mushrooms, it’s been so long,” Katie explained to me as she sat on the inner tube that we had tied to a rock so it wouldn’t drift away, “we couldn’t keep ‘em a secret any longer.”
I just sat listening to her and chuckling. I came to a realization the last time that I was on these hallucinogens: I couldn’t bring myself to speak while on them. It just strikes me as something that is far too odd. I can’t listen to the thoughts that I have as they’re projected out and reverberating through my head again. It’s like a sickening form of recycling and it’s too much for me to bare.
So I just sit next to the chattiest person of the day. We form a strangely cohesive group.
Shane, the muscle-bound, hairy, Italian kid is sprawled out on the beach whilst Cristine slathers tanning oil, man-tan, all over him. Mike is playing Polish horseshoes with Christian. A bummed cigarette parts Christian’s lips, causing him to squint one eye as he attempts to catch the Frisbee.
Each one of our heads bobs in unison as Lance belts out some bluesy riff on the guitar and Wachner sits next to him clapping his hands on the make-shift drums that he’s made from the two spare discs that we brought. Always prepared for the one that will inevitably get swept up in the current of the Clark Fork.
Matt stands up stream from us with his fly-fish rod casting it out in long, graceful sweeps. He’s come up with the theory that if you fish where the osprey are hunting, then you’re bound to catch a fish. Seems like a sound thought to me.
As the sun slowly dips behind Mt. Sentinel, each one of us let’s out a cry at the same time. Half of the group has seen Kathleen coming with a couple of her friends; and the other half can see Matt sprinting back with a rainbow trout.
Life really doesn’t get better.
My eyes widen and my hand grows slack on the baggie that I have been clutching, dropping the last few uneaten crumbs into the water. The sharp difference between the color of the trees from five minutes ago and the color that I now see is remarkable. It’s as if the contrast button that controls my vision has been cranked to its highest setting.
“Do you see all those colors?” Turning to Katie, I realize that I don’t have the words to reply to her question. I just nod my head and begin to giggle. She does the same. She’s laughing at the dumbfounded look on my face; I’m laughing at her quirky Michigan accent.
We’re down at the very furthest point of the Missoula Dog Park. It’s not much to look at, just two protruding gravel bars, but it’s the perfect place to spend a sweltering summer day. Me, Matt, Katie, Shane, Mike, Lance, Christian, Cristine and Wachner. Everyone of us, save for Lance’s brother Christian, has an apartment rented out in the same complex. Not one of us intended to meet each other, we all just happened to stumble out of our places with a beer in hand at the same time.
This is the third trip that we’ve made to the dog park, but it’s the first time that Wachner and Katie have decided to bring out the mushrooms that they had been storing in their room.
“I was starting to get withdrawals from the mushrooms, it’s been so long,” Katie explained to me as she sat on the inner tube that we had tied to a rock so it wouldn’t drift away, “we couldn’t keep ‘em a secret any longer.”
I just sat listening to her and chuckling. I came to a realization the last time that I was on these hallucinogens: I couldn’t bring myself to speak while on them. It just strikes me as something that is far too odd. I can’t listen to the thoughts that I have as they’re projected out and reverberating through my head again. It’s like a sickening form of recycling and it’s too much for me to bare.
So I just sit next to the chattiest person of the day. We form a strangely cohesive group.
Shane, the muscle-bound, hairy, Italian kid is sprawled out on the beach whilst Cristine slathers tanning oil, man-tan, all over him. Mike is playing Polish horseshoes with Christian. A bummed cigarette parts Christian’s lips, causing him to squint one eye as he attempts to catch the Frisbee.
Each one of our heads bobs in unison as Lance belts out some bluesy riff on the guitar and Wachner sits next to him clapping his hands on the make-shift drums that he’s made from the two spare discs that we brought. Always prepared for the one that will inevitably get swept up in the current of the Clark Fork.
Matt stands up stream from us with his fly-fish rod casting it out in long, graceful sweeps. He’s come up with the theory that if you fish where the osprey are hunting, then you’re bound to catch a fish. Seems like a sound thought to me.
As the sun slowly dips behind Mt. Sentinel, each one of us let’s out a cry at the same time. Half of the group has seen Kathleen coming with a couple of her friends; and the other half can see Matt sprinting back with a rainbow trout.
Life really doesn’t get better.
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