It’s the little things that count, like drunkenly slopping the car into the Jack n’ the Box drive-thru line at three in the morning. Who cares if you can’t even hold your head straight while you count your money. That’s why money’s round, so it looks the same from whatever fucked up angle your drunken ass has jelloed at.
Plus you’re amusing the hell out of the driver, who, thankfully, is a tad less drunk than you. A tad. That bastard.
Still, I was somewhat upright. My torso was, at any rate. Odd. Typically, in this state, I’m horizontal in the back seat laughin’ my ass off at some particularly minute detail from Wednesday that I have all of a sudden found especially hilarious.
Oh, yeah. It’s Friday night.
It didn’t start like this. I’d been bitchy all week. Damned near hermetic, emerging for public abuse only when I felt I could be safely anonymous in the crowd and not really have to talk to anyone. Like at Spy.
I guess that’s where it all started. It has to start somewhere, right? And it may as well have started there.
So, I’m feeling bitchy, damned near hermetic, but itching for a free ticket to KMFDM, so I sneak out to Spy. No cover. I’ve got three bucks – which may or may not buy me two drinks, my youth to squander, and a relatively dark and excessively loud club where you couldn’t sell your soul to the devil if you wanted to. You’d never get past the ‘What’d you say!?!’.
Really it started earlier. I met an old high school friend for drinks at this cool bar, the Front Porch. Nice place. Unassuming (which is a blessing in the world of bars). Big front porch. Waitresses that weren’t too cute, but just cute enough, an eclectic mix of people in the general proximity of my age, and beer.
So, David and I had a couple. David’s my old high school friend. We visited, caught up, talked and talked. Connections you have with people never really disappear even though the people may. That’s comforting. I think that was the comforting, reassuring, life-is-worth-something moment that really began to shed the mental funk off my back.
So, David leaves. Not having eaten all day, I’m a tad drunk. I sit in my car and try making drunk phone calls, an emerging hobby of mine, but really, it was still daylight, and when you’re not yelling at the phone in the half-lit hush of sodium street lights… it’s just not the same. So I sit there.
You have the damnedest logic when you’re drunk. I can’t go to Spy. I’ve already had too much to drink. I shouldn’t even really be driving. So, I should sober up enough to drive to Spy.
I’m sure the little angel on my shoulder, the one who insisted I kind of sit there for a minute or two and sober up a little bit, was a little tipsy himself. Why else would he believe the little devil on my other shoulder reassuring that we wouldn’t have any more to drink at Spy. My shoulder angel is a naieve pussy.
I stumble up to Spy. Yeah, yeah. Pretend to look at my license. Whatever. Why not just wave hello and let me in.
The problem being sober at Spy is that it’s so dark, and the music’s so loud, and there are so many annoying people there. Your entire life, you’ve been conditioned to drink in these circumstances. This Pavlovian slavering for alcohol kicks in as the strobes flicker on and off to cheesy synth music.
I held my ground for a little while. Standing on the edge of the dancefloor wondering why it was 11:30 and no one was there yet. What the fuck? And there’s nothing worse than a club that’s so dark, with music that’s so loud, and with so many annoying people there, but not nearly enough people to lose yourself in.
So I would have a drink. Just one. After all I only had three bucks. How many drinks could I have, honestly?
But I want to dance, and I don’t want to stay long, and I don’t want to waste precious dance time sipping on a vodka seven, so it’s settled. I’ll have a shot. Tequila. Tequila with no salt and no lime.
The bartender is pleased with my order. That’s the way he drinks it. He gave me the premium instead of the house shit you usually get for a dollar.
That’s twice in one day, in a week of bitchy, hermetic funk, that I’ve had one of those life-is-worth-something moments. That’s what I’d been needing.
So, sometime later, several dollars down a tab, and close to closing time, I finally wander out and head home. But that’s not what I wanted to tell you about. I was telling you how it’s all the little things.
So Friday comes around…