Complete Failure at Trying to be Responsible
Every once in a while I try to take it easy at the bars. Getting completely shit-face all the time does take a toll and sometimes it’s just too fucking hard pushing my body to dangerous limits three or four consecutive nights a week. That doesn’t mean I still don’t do it regularly, I’m just trying to set up the reasoning behind this mess I’m about to tell you. This is the time I took a genuine shot at not getting savagely drunk and ended up getting, well, savagely drunk.
This was 4 or 5 years ago in the middle of summer. BrownTown and I had gone out Friday night and drank stupid amounts of alcohol for several hours leading to the climax of us rummaging through my fridge at some unholy hour in the morning and passing out on the ground in my room. We woke up in the middle of the afternoon and literally laid on the couch the rest of the afternoon and evening. We might’ve got up to take a piss, but at that point we were so hung-over and out of it, pissing on the floor was always an option.
It was one of my mothers’ friends’ birthday so we joined them for a few Grand Marnier’s in the living room. At this point we were still under the impression that we were staying in and taking it easy. After a few Grand Marnier’s and several beers, we felt good enough to go out. BrownTown drove us to Clyde’s, a barn-like bar in the West Island. It’s a fucking hole but we were dressed like peasants and it was the only venue close to home, so what the hell. I told him I’d lay off the hooch so I could be the guy who drives his car back home.
As you may have figured out this didn’t last long. After about a half-hour at the bar, BrownTown said fuck it, he’d drive so I could drink my face off since I looked like I wanted to die. He’s skilled at driving under the influence, which is terrible, I know, but we were young and naive drunkards with no real understanding of anything except where to find our next drink. So that settled it, we proceeded to get completely mangled.
The bar itself was ok. We bumped into random people throughout the night and around closing time they’d play Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody” and Neil Diamond’s “Sweet Caroline”. Everyone in the bar would sing along and those that didn’t know the words would mumble incoherently to the tune. Anyways, the point is when they play those songs, it’s time to get ready and go home. We were cooked at this point. Walking out to the car was a test of patience and balance. We had a few cigarettes outside to sober up a bit, but at that point, there was little that could be done.
So, we hopped into the car and left Browntown’s secret parking spot. He was in bad shape. He wasn’t driving fast at that point; he was just trying to stay in between the lines on the main streets. This was difficult as he had his chin on the steering wheel with one eye cracked open. Yeah. It was a real bad call by us at the time. And, to make life easier for him, I was hanging out the passenger window yelling at anything we drove past. People, cars, trees, nothing was safe from my drunken tirades.
BrownTown didn’t see the humour in this. He was yelling at me to get back in the car. His anger was making him drive faster and I didn’t realise how pissed off he was getting. Then something happened that almost emptied my insides. In his fury at me acting like a retard, he took his eye off the road for a second as we were turning and he hit the sidewalk. It wasn’t a massive hit at all, more of a bump than anything. The problem was I was hanging with half my body out the window. The little jolt nearly knocked me out of the car.
Suffice to say, I immediately got back in the car to BrownTown telling me what an idiot I was. I agreed and sat quietly in the passenger seat, like a punished infant, until we got back to his place. We finished off the night drinking at his bar in the basement and smoking a little cake in the garage, aka the Red Light District because the light bulb was red, where I woke up the next morning feeling like instant death was the only way of beating that hang-over.
That was the last time I dared to dance with responsibility.