We drank. We put our glasses down and then we drank some more. Everyone drank in merriment and of course for me to say that the evening was not about intoxication would be ridiculous, however the evening was more about spending time with family, friends from far away, friends from around the block, and friends who are so close it hurts. Thanksgiving came and went as quickly as the turkey did and all the while a sense of inevitability lingered. The inevitability that lingered was a sense of Sunday evening disappearing into the Philly skyline and Monday morning rolling back around, hence inevitability forcing me to return to school and work. Be that as it may, that sense of disparity was only creeping in the back corners of my mind.
My roommate vested in me the power to make the evening a great deal more enjoyable for everyone than I would have been able to on my own. I wanted the night to possess memories that everyone could recall and reiterate once they got back to wherever they came from. Trae was in Philly spending the Thanksgiving holiday with my family this year. Andy took a much needed break from his somewhat unsatisfying job in real estate down in Virginia. Wunder separated himself from superfluous amounts of work that have piled on top of him, while finishing his college education at West Chester University. My brother, in from Virginia himself, brought out my sister-in-law to spend some much needed quality time for all of us. Kimmy, from around the block, brought her sister and her friend Brianna. My good friend Jimmy came, once he got out of work. Friends and family, united together, all the while intoxicated, we played games throughout the evening with game cards my bartending roommate gave me.
Yeah, we were planning on only starting the evening at this original location, but enough drinks in us we didn’t ever make it to the club we had intended on frequenting afterwards. But let me explain that the bars in South Philadelphia don’t really close at the hours the Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board says they are supposed to. And really, it doesn’t make sense for them to. When the bartender has money coming in because people want to drink….why close? So we decided to go to this little Irish bar, somewhere in my neighborhood. Let’s just say the evening from this point on is little more than a wafting blur.
Pass out and wake back up the next afternoon. Well, I guess it’s still the same day but, whatever we woke back up at like 3 in the afternoon on Saturday now. Trae and I go out and have dinner at Manny Browns, have a few 22oz. Franzkhaner Dunkel’s, and make our way to Tiki Bob’s. Joke that was so we went next door to McFadden’s after having spent $5 for a cover at Tiki Bob’s which paid our way for the 15 minutes we were there. Whatever, McFadden’s is fucking slammed and we make our way to the back bar which we were politely asked to leave because there was a private party occurring inside the back room. It was “Lauren’s Birthday” whoever the fuck Lauren was. Trae and I killed a shot of Jagermeister and went back out into the madness below. Every time we wanted a beer, myself or Trae had to fight our way through the sea of intoxicated individuals all lowering their inhibitions in order to fuck someone, fuck anyone. I can’t lie I wasn’t any better than the rest of them.
There came a point, and Trae can recognize it, when the glaze comes over my eyes and I’m in no position to drink any longer. I’m no longer exuberant. I’m no longer loud and obnoxious and I just can’t lower my inhibitions any more. My intelligence is at about the level of a moth and its time to go. I’m sorry, I don’t mean to make it sound depressing, it’s not. There just comes a time where I have to go, and when the bass beat just keeps thumping in my brain and heart and soul, I can’t think clearly any more, so I have to go somewhere else. So left we did, and we came back to McKenna’s where Kimmy was DeeJaying for the evening. Steve, from work, showed up along with Patrick, my highly intellectual friend whom I share a great deal of engaging conversations, and his friend Chad. We drank. We put our glasses down and then we drank some more. I made conversation with my ex when I certainly should not have, but you know……you get all wasted and it seems like a good deal at the time. You forget about all the reasons why you ended things to begin with and you make yourself believe that if you can hang out again tonight, on this particular night, you can work things back out. Bad idea, it’s over and done with. Forget about it!
A little more time passed and Steve, Trae, and I returned to my apartment which is ever so conveniently located on top of McKenna’s, the bar we were just at. I grabbed another beer for each of us from my fridge and stepped out onto my patio to smoke a cigarette. I watch this older gentleman step outside of the bar and run into a car. He finishes the last sip of his beer from an elongated Budweiser can and throws it on the ground. He takes a few steps to his left and falls down on the concrete sidewalk. I’m watching this from my patio about 30 feet above him, and as disgraceful as it was, I found humor in it so I called Steve outside. Now, the best part about it was as he fell on the ground I read the word “Security” printed on the back of his yellow parka. Steve and I are cracking up, but I decide that we must help in some way. Not before I took a couple pictures of him, but I come to find out the man’s name is Bob and he tells me where he lives. I run back upstairs and tell Trae that we need to help “Security Bob” get home. We mapquest his address and go back down to help him. I don’t know why I thought it was a good idea, but I wanted to at least drag him into my hallway and get him off the sidewalk. I do drag him over and he shakes me off and faceplants into my stairs. His glasses bent up and falling off the side of his head, he groans in pain.
“Ohhhhhhh….ohhhhhh…..that one hurt guys,” Bob utters. Steve and I are again laughing but very quietly. We decide this is not a good idea and pull him back outside the door and lock it behind us. Trae is an E.M.T. and volunteer firefighter in Pittsburgh, so we run back upstairs and tell him about “Security Bob”. He is rather confused and somewhat indifferent, but he comes out on the patio to see Bob face down on the concrete.
Giggling hesitantly Trae says, “That’s fucked up man”.
Steve says to me, “Man as you closed the door, Bob just told you to fuck off!“ I guess this is the reason for what ensued. We tried to give him help and he disrespected us. I believe it was Steve that started it, but suddenly the words were belted out “Put your hands on your head, Sir!”
Security Bob responds, “I didn’t do anything, I’m sorry!”
Again Steve yells down, “We have you surrounded, Sir! We need to know if your sober, Sir! Put your fucking hands on your head!”
Again Bob says, “I didn’t do anything!”
Trae chimes in, “We don’t want to take you to jail, Sir! Stay on the ground, Sir! Put your fucking hands on your head!” Security Bob does as he’s told and puts his hands on his head. As he does this, his cigarettes fall out of his pocket and the cigarette in his hand is visible.
Smoke wafting over Bob’s head, Steve yells down “Throw away your cigarettes Sir!” and he does so. “Throw your cigarettes up here, SIR!” Bob picks them up and launches them behind himself. Of course they raise about two feet in the air and fall back on top of him, but Steve runs down the stairs, out the door, steals Bob’s cigarettes, and runs back up to my patio.
Trae screams back down at Bob, “Get on your feet, Sir!” With a great deal of effort, bob stands up, swaying a great deal.
Again Trae screams, “Put your back against the wall Sir!” and Bob does so. Let me say now that it might sound like it’s redundant for us to have continually kept yelling down “Sir” but it’s how the dialogue went. All the while, I can’t say anything because I’m laughing so hard and trying to cover up the sound so this extravaganza doesn’t end.
Steve yells down at Bob, “Put your hands to your sides”. Bob instead puts his hands in front of him. “No Sir! Put your hands to your sides!” Again Bob puts them in front of himself. Steve repeats himself and Security bob complies. This is where Steve might have taken it a step to far but it was hilarious nonetheless.
Steve screams down, “Sir! Pick your nose!”
Bob replies, “I will not do that sir!”.
Trae joins in, “We need to know if your sober, Sir! We do not want to shoot you!”
Bob cries out, “Please, don’t shoot! Don’t shoot! I didn’t do anything wrong”.
Steve again reiterates his command about Bob picking his nose, to which Bob replies, “Which one?”
Steve says, “Both”. Bob removes his hands from the wall and picks both of his nostrils. Just a second later he falls back down onto the concrete. As he is laying there on the cold November cement, we begin to see a puddle of urine inch out from him in all directions, starting from his bladder area. The puddle proceeded to extend about a foot and a half away from him, which is to say that he obviously had a lot to drink.
Needless to say, we’re all going to hell but it’s not like I wasn’t going there anyway with the shit I’ve done in my lifetime. The story doesn’t end like that. I eventually called 911 and informed them that a gentleman was passed out on the sidewalk outside of my building. The E.M.T.’s came, as did the police, and soon enough Security Bob was on a gurney in an ambulance headed off to a much better place. He probably slept it off and who knows we might have saved him from alcohol poisoning. Either way it was a funny situation.
To bring this whole thing to a close, the weekend was a very enjoyable one. From my standpoint, I spent a lot of time with one of my best friends whom I never get to spend as much time with as I did this holiday vacation. I had the time to reminisce with my friends from home as they took a break from their families, and I got to share quality time with my brother which is so unfortunately few and far between. You live, you love, and you learn. Hopefully, somewhere along the way you can say it was worth it all, because we spend way too much time putting forth effort toward the things we have to do, that it’s mandatory to spend quality time enjoying the things we want to do.
