Story of a drunk told through a few songs

(A Well Respected Man…The Kinks)

The lights were bright just like in Vegas. He remembered his trip to Las Vegas, it was just great. Vegas was the first time in his life he paid more attention to other things than drinking, even though the drinks were free. Wow, free drinks, and he didn’t use that to his full potential. Anyways the lights, they were bright. For some reason he just laid there, and looked at these lights. His eyelids were heavy so was his body. He was so tired. He closed his eyes.

It was the good old days again. He was waking up on a Sunday morning with a terrible hangover. He felt someone’s presence. It was his old friend from the high school days. The bastard had gone into the navy and since it was the holidays he was home. What the hell is he doing in my room on a Sunday morning?

“Let’s go man.”

“Dude I just went to bed.” Aramis says.

“I don’t give a damn; I’m only here for 2 weeks. C’mon you’re wasting good drinking time.”

“It’s Sunday morning. I usually wait till Sunday afternoon.” Aramis has the intention to cover himself up.

“Lets go to IHOP and have some breakfast, and then we will see where the day will take us.”

Aramis could feel the half bottle of Smirnoff he had drank the night before coming up on him. It was 9 am and he had gone to be at around 5 am. He was not at his best at this moment. Well it was free breakfast, why not.

“Let me get ready.”

“Hurry up I got Ramiro waiting in the car, he is hung over too.”

What a bastard, Aramis thought. Well he is a friend, a good friend at that, so he might as well make the best of his time before he has to go back to the base.

Before he knew it, it was 9pm and 12 hours had gone by. They had gone to have breakfast at IHOP. Then they made their way to where Navy boy had been partying all night. Then they went downtown to Hooters. For a while it was pitcher after pitcher after pitcher of beer. Then at about 5 pm they made their way back to their neighborhood and went to the Hooters there.

Navy boy was driving his brother’s truck which was pretty cool. The problem is that Navy boy lost track of time. This was not good because his brother was a cop. So by 9 pm when they were stumbling out of Hooters close to their home his older brother was about to put out a APB for a stolen ride. It was 9pm when they dropped Aramis off at his mother’s house.

It felt like it was later, he thought it was at least midnight, but it was only 9:40pm. He regretted this type of thing, stumbling in while someone is awake in the house. The worst scenario would be that his mother should happen to have guest over. No, the worst would be that the guest would be from her church. Aramis’ mother was a kind and forgiving woman, but the people at her church were the typical self-righteous ass holes.

Let’s have a smoke while we deliberate. Should we or should we not go in. Well we can’t stay outside all night in the front yard in the cold, swaying back and forth with no wind.

Aramis gets his wit and goes towards the door. On the first try he lands the key in the key hole. He opens the door, no one in the living room, not this one, but he could hear the noise in the other living room. His mother did have some guests in the house. He quickly made his way towards the kitchen to get a glass of water to take with him; he is going to need it tomorrow or later that night. He gets to the refrigerator door and gets a cup fills it with ice. He goes to the valve that dispenses cold water and puts his cup at an angle. No head he thinks as if it was a tap of beer. He giggles to himself. The cup is at a weird angle and as he fills up the cup with water he also gets sprayed with cold water on his crotch, he doesn’t notice it though.

Aramis was about over flow the cup when he felt the presence of someone behind him. Please let it be Navy boy and not one of his mother’s guests. He slightly turns his head backwards and tries to move his eyes more that his neck allows, or at least more than his drunkenness can allow. He suddenly realizes that he has been singing a song; he is softly mumbling “A well respected man”, just like the typical drunk stumbling home.

He turns around and sees a real pretty girl, he has seen her before when he used to go to church, but he couldn’t place her. She on the other hand had placed her sight on the big wet stain on his crotch. Suddenly Aramis feels the cold wet feeling on his crotch. He turns around and starts to stumble back to the hallway leading to his room. He is heading for the door of his room when he suddenly as if he was not in control of his motor skills, he breaks to the right turns on the light lifts up the toilet lid and promptly pukes his guts out.

Aramis didn’t realize how loud he was hurling until he raised his head from the toilet and wiped his lips with toilet paper as if his face and ass had switched places. He flushed the toilet and struggled to get up. He must have been barfing really loud because when he managed to turn around and wipe the tears from his eyes because of the effort of puking; his eyes focused and he had an audience. The pretty girl still looking at his crotch, her parents looking at his crotch and some particles of puke on his face and his mother who was sad with embarrassment, they were all there to have a look at the perfect picture of the drunk.

Aramis tried to make some words form, and all he could get out was:

“Hey brother Venegas, how is church?”

Aramis didn’t wait for a response and he walked towards his room, they opened a path for his drunken stumble. Brother Venegas’ wife put her arm around Aramis’ mother as if to give her condolences. Aramis swung his door shut and in the dark aimed for his bed as he let himself go.

“Another perfect day”, Aramis says on his way to oblivion. On his way down to his bed he passes out.

It felt like a train had marked its rails across Aramis’ head. His stomach was in pain as well as the rest of his body, but stomach and head what he felt the most. He walked into the kitchen. It was Monday so thank God no one was home. He went for a grape juice. He went back to his room with his body lamenting the activities the day before. He is highly dehydrated and slams the grape juice.

It’s only a few minutes before the stomach does the bureaucracy and rejects the juice, so, déjà vu, Aramis runs into the bathroom again. The dark color drink comes up just as he had sent it down. After that distasteful greeting by his body, Aramis stands there and looks at the bathroom. He seems to remember something but it’s too faint. He can’t really remember.

He goes into his room and lies down. He is wondering off to sleep again, he was tired and it had been three days of drinking, when the phone rings. It was Navy boy’s mom. She was less than happy and asked what had happened the night before. She told Aramis that Steve wanted to talk to him later. This was a real drag. Steve was Navy boy’s older brother, owner of the truck that they had been using and also, and more importantly, a cop. Somehow after Navy boy had come over to his house at 9 am; drug him out of bed, drove him all over town, paid for everything, it was now Aramis’ fault. Now that was typical.

If the day before was another perfect one, this one was really going to suck.

Suddenly there were no more lights. It was dark but he felt he was moving. He was in a car of some sort. He was barely aware of the red lights flashing outside. Then the car came to a stop. Two back doors opened and Aramis could see the night sky. He felt so weak; he could not make his chest inflate. His eyes had gone shut for just a second. He saw the medics pull the gurney and felt the wheels hit the ground.

“Another perfect day” Aramis mumbled as he closed his eyes.