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…”