Taking the Bait
I'm a firm believer in not taking the bait. I hate the bait. Unless the bait's of age, has been drinking and is nearsighted, I ignore the bait. But when this appeared in my in-box at 11:44:33 AM today, I simply could not stand flat-footed...
"Weak."
-William
Obviously I didn't want to shut down. But between the bender, some personal nonsense and the death of Little Baby Jesus (sorry, Matt, there was nothing I could do), I didn't know what else to do.
Also, I'm not accustomed to writing and find doing so on a daily basis really fucking hard. I found myself trying to force the issue, but instead of giving birth, it was more like squeezing a zit. And who wants to watch that, right?
Anyway, as an expression of gratitude to those who expressed their disappointment at my demise and as a punishment to myself for being a punk-ass half-steppin' assclown, let me share with you this...
My friend and co-worker Steve had been threatening to leave town for months. We would all laugh. Nobody got out of Prague that easily, it took six months minimum after your initial declaration to actually extract yourself. We had an old saying in those days, "Make sure you their ticket out of town." It was lesson you only had to learn once. Trust me on this.
Well one day he showed up for work and announced that he had in fact booked passage. The misses and I decided to a proper feting was in order and asked if he'd be interested in going out for the most expensive brunch in town (about $17 US at the time) and then spending the day tripping.
We got to the restaurant (name long forgotten, you'll soon understand why) around noon, order our first mimosas and began lapping the buffet table again and again.
We toasted Steve by washing down a hit of LSD (the Dutch were doing some really nice work in the early '90s, I certainly hope this tradition is alive and well) with our seventh round and then walked off to the park to lay in the grass and wait for the magic to happen.
Another lesson you only need to learn once is do NOT take acid after you've been eating and drinking large quantities. You body is very busy digesting food and processing alcohol, it has little time for your extraneous shenanigans. Nothing was happening, so we decided take a walk, see if we couldn't jumpstart the old system.
The walk was to no avail. We covered mile after mile and nothing happened. I was angry and declared that if we weren't going to trip, we may as well drink our faces off. This was met with no resistance and so we awayed to Repre, the club where the misses was a bartender.
Steve and I ordered Dewars rocks', the lady a tequila sunrise. The last thing I remember clearly is gulping her drink down while she was in the bathroom. After that, it's all hearsay. Apparently I launched into a race against time, determined to be incoherent. I've been told I terrorized a young German couple with a 45-minute tirade on why baseball is man's greatest invention and soccer is a fool's errand.
The next thing I remember is waking up slumped over in a chair, a white table cloth across my lap. I slowly lifted my head and looked around, the lights were up and the only people left were staff, cleaning after their shift. As I pulled back the tablecloth to reveal that I was covered in my own yuck, Joe walked by, "Hey, so you're what stinks. Nice work."
We laughed. I mean really what else was there to do? Besides gather my things, go home, bathe and try to sleep it off, right? Well the only problem with that plan was that my things were gone. My coat, my backpack, my wallet and keys in them. I was fucked. No money for a cab, not even four crowns (twenty-five cents) for the train.
Hopping the turnstiles on the Czech subway is easy, actually you don't even need to hop, you just walk through and hope an undercover metro cop doesn't check your ticket. A former housemate, Ero, was a 6'2" Nigerian woman. She kinda stuck out in Eastern Europe, and was constantly being accosted by the subway cops. She snapped one day, beat one to the ground and had to skip the country (must be a family thing, her brother pointed a gun at my head once, it's cool though he was laughing). It was too bad, she made a mean quiche. Anyway, I rode black, and made it out to our apartment complex. In the states these would be called "projects," we called them home.
Now remember, I don't have my keys. We lived on third floor and it's 6:30 in the morning. I start throwing rocks at our sliding glass door, but the old ladies been in a drug and booze coma for only about two hours at this point, nothing short of a cinder block crashing through that window will arouse her. I have no choice, I have to go back into the city.
Fortunately it's Sunday morning and I know Billy and Mark will be at the restaurant to prep brunch, so I head to work.
"Jesus Christ! What the fuck happened to you?" Mark asks.
Now, at this point I am seething with rage. My girlfriend has deserted me while I am covered in my own vomit, I haven't really slept, I have no money or keys. And now the acid is starting to tickle the back of my brain stem. I am in desperate straights.
I tell Mark the story, his head shaking in disbelief, and finally I ask if I can go upstairs to his apartment to hose off and crash out. He practically trips over himself handing me his keys. It is still the single greatest act of kindness conferred upon me by an employer.
A few hours later I am awakened by her standing in the door. Our eyes meet, she is clearly, rightly, apprehensive.
"I am really fucking pissed at you right now."
"I know. I'm sorry."
"No. I mean really pissed."
She drops to her knees at my bedside, sobbing, and through the heaves continues her apology and goes on about how she was scared and she couldn't lift me and...
"Please, just take me home."
"Weak."
-William
Obviously I didn't want to shut down. But between the bender, some personal nonsense and the death of Little Baby Jesus (sorry, Matt, there was nothing I could do), I didn't know what else to do.
Also, I'm not accustomed to writing and find doing so on a daily basis really fucking hard. I found myself trying to force the issue, but instead of giving birth, it was more like squeezing a zit. And who wants to watch that, right?
Anyway, as an expression of gratitude to those who expressed their disappointment at my demise and as a punishment to myself for being a punk-ass half-steppin' assclown, let me share with you this...
My friend and co-worker Steve had been threatening to leave town for months. We would all laugh. Nobody got out of Prague that easily, it took six months minimum after your initial declaration to actually extract yourself. We had an old saying in those days, "Make sure you their ticket out of town." It was lesson you only had to learn once. Trust me on this.
Well one day he showed up for work and announced that he had in fact booked passage. The misses and I decided to a proper feting was in order and asked if he'd be interested in going out for the most expensive brunch in town (about $17 US at the time) and then spending the day tripping.
We got to the restaurant (name long forgotten, you'll soon understand why) around noon, order our first mimosas and began lapping the buffet table again and again.
We toasted Steve by washing down a hit of LSD (the Dutch were doing some really nice work in the early '90s, I certainly hope this tradition is alive and well) with our seventh round and then walked off to the park to lay in the grass and wait for the magic to happen.
Another lesson you only need to learn once is do NOT take acid after you've been eating and drinking large quantities. You body is very busy digesting food and processing alcohol, it has little time for your extraneous shenanigans. Nothing was happening, so we decided take a walk, see if we couldn't jumpstart the old system.
The walk was to no avail. We covered mile after mile and nothing happened. I was angry and declared that if we weren't going to trip, we may as well drink our faces off. This was met with no resistance and so we awayed to Repre, the club where the misses was a bartender.
Steve and I ordered Dewars rocks', the lady a tequila sunrise. The last thing I remember clearly is gulping her drink down while she was in the bathroom. After that, it's all hearsay. Apparently I launched into a race against time, determined to be incoherent. I've been told I terrorized a young German couple with a 45-minute tirade on why baseball is man's greatest invention and soccer is a fool's errand.
The next thing I remember is waking up slumped over in a chair, a white table cloth across my lap. I slowly lifted my head and looked around, the lights were up and the only people left were staff, cleaning after their shift. As I pulled back the tablecloth to reveal that I was covered in my own yuck, Joe walked by, "Hey, so you're what stinks. Nice work."
We laughed. I mean really what else was there to do? Besides gather my things, go home, bathe and try to sleep it off, right? Well the only problem with that plan was that my things were gone. My coat, my backpack, my wallet and keys in them. I was fucked. No money for a cab, not even four crowns (twenty-five cents) for the train.
Hopping the turnstiles on the Czech subway is easy, actually you don't even need to hop, you just walk through and hope an undercover metro cop doesn't check your ticket. A former housemate, Ero, was a 6'2" Nigerian woman. She kinda stuck out in Eastern Europe, and was constantly being accosted by the subway cops. She snapped one day, beat one to the ground and had to skip the country (must be a family thing, her brother pointed a gun at my head once, it's cool though he was laughing). It was too bad, she made a mean quiche. Anyway, I rode black, and made it out to our apartment complex. In the states these would be called "projects," we called them home.
Now remember, I don't have my keys. We lived on third floor and it's 6:30 in the morning. I start throwing rocks at our sliding glass door, but the old ladies been in a drug and booze coma for only about two hours at this point, nothing short of a cinder block crashing through that window will arouse her. I have no choice, I have to go back into the city.
Fortunately it's Sunday morning and I know Billy and Mark will be at the restaurant to prep brunch, so I head to work.
"Jesus Christ! What the fuck happened to you?" Mark asks.
Now, at this point I am seething with rage. My girlfriend has deserted me while I am covered in my own vomit, I haven't really slept, I have no money or keys. And now the acid is starting to tickle the back of my brain stem. I am in desperate straights.
I tell Mark the story, his head shaking in disbelief, and finally I ask if I can go upstairs to his apartment to hose off and crash out. He practically trips over himself handing me his keys. It is still the single greatest act of kindness conferred upon me by an employer.
A few hours later I am awakened by her standing in the door. Our eyes meet, she is clearly, rightly, apprehensive.
"I am really fucking pissed at you right now."
"I know. I'm sorry."
"No. I mean really pissed."
She drops to her knees at my bedside, sobbing, and through the heaves continues her apology and goes on about how she was scared and she couldn't lift me and...
"Please, just take me home."
3 Comments:
Now THAT is more like it!!! Good times in land of Czech! Land of absinthe... I certainly hope the little lady made it up to you (abandonment has long-term effects on the relationship psyche).
That was a little better.
welcome back.
i know writing on a daily basis is really fucking hard. i have a hard time doing my blog every day, too. but you write so fucking well. the real inside of the tied up gray banker in his tied up gray suit.
even if it's for my own selfish reasons i like who you are.
lisa gray
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