12 posts tagged “party”

The other night I got called creepy and I really wish I had had a voice recorder on me.  Because I didn't and have no idea what exactly was said, this is a dramatization.

The other night my friend invites me out.  My link to her group is shaky because I hook up with one of their friends and proceed to hit on, while drunk and via text, another one later on. 

Via Text calls me outright creepy, so I begin following her asking her why I am creepy- my actions a self-replicating definition of the word. 

I talk to her through the bathroom door.

"Why am I creepy?"
"Oh my god, are you seriously outside of the bathroom?"

I follow her outside.

"Why am I creepy?" a hint of hurt in my voice.  Who wants to be creepy?
She turns and scowls, says, "You want to know why you're creepy?"  She gets all close staring at me, then breaks and says to follow her.
"Yeah, let's talk over there," I agree, not wanting to be outed as a creepy person in front of presumably non-creepy people.

We sit next to each other on narrow, warped stairs.  Moonlight and bulbs bear down.  I think, this is creepy.  She says I text her when I'm drunk and ask her to hang out, which never happens.  I figure this is more "unreliable" than anything else but she continues to berate my character. 

I feel this is unfair.  I must now get back at her by actually being creepy to her, openly, in front of everyone.

At one point I have the guy next to me looking all physically uncomfortable or offended at what I'm saying.  He is in the middle of introducing himself(and thusly hitting on her) when I interrupt, telling him this girl is bad news, that she broke my heart, had my abortion.  All of which, except maybe the first one, are untrue.  Out loud I imagine how our relationship ended.  I pass this as truth like a delusional person.  Whatever I say at this moment makes the guy uncomfortable.  Via just stands there and shakes her head. 

The guy trying to hit on her attempts to make fun of me.  This is impossible.  I am so imperviously in creepy character that everything he says turns into another offensive and sketchy joke about my faux-love for this girl.  
 
I start harassing Via about going out for coffee.  She says she leaves in a week for good.  I repeat, "and it won't go anywhere, so just come out for coffee with me.  We can make it reeeeal public."  Someone suggests I should try to play with her hair.
"What's the point?" her eyes ask the same thing.

Some time passes. 

I try to reclaim sunglasses I left at my friend's house months ago.  She says they look better on her.  They do.  I am no longer upset about losing them.  I now feel bad for blaming my roommate for losing/breaking/selling them/whatever.  My friend has awesome hair and jumps on my back for a totally one-sided chicken fight. 

Some time passes and the group turns against me.  I hurry to unlock my bike and leave.  Via says something like Take Your Creeper Ass Somewhere Else or You're Insane or whatever.  I don't remember.  As I am riding away-- and I remember this-- she says, "For the record, I don't really think you're creepy."

I say, "Whatever, you are!" and nearly crash my bike into a trashcan.

    There's this party last night that gets busted three or four doors down.  Clumps of drunk movie and comic book characters, celebrity and political icons, crowd the uneven brick sidewalk.  My roommate comes inside, drunk himself, telling me, "There's good stuff goin' on out here."  He bends down to pick up his inside-beer.  This guy has two possession charges, 50 hours of community service to do in his remaining three weeks on probation, and three tickets for reckless cycling.  Who knew not having reflectors was such a big deal.  Bike cocks cops. 
  
    After hearing about a scuffle between Poison Ivy and Jake(maybe?), Graham convinces me to step outside, sans-beer, to overhear the interrogation.  Some hippie with long golden hair and a viking beard(real), his name is Travis, and he sits crouched on our stoop.  Apparently, with his hands up, hands off, he tells us his friend hit a girl.  It's not his responsibility, he's going home now.  We wish him a good night. 

    Some Ethiopian bike cop explains the situation to Poison Ivy and Fran Drecer from the Nanny.  That irritating laugh, she has it down.  Anyway, Poison Ivy claims her friend got hit in the face by Hippie Travis' friend, Jake or something.  Jake Or Something tells the cops, get this, Poison Ivy swung at him.  Not the other way around.  Now, if this were a Batman comic/movie and not a costume party, and you were stomping blades of grass or cutting up plant life, maybe.  Maybe.  But, really, dude?  Really? 

    It's like when this girl I'm seeing, and we won't name names, constantly puts herself in compromising positions and gets surprised when something bad happens.  Waking up naked with a dude that isn't me.  All I can say is, I'm not your fucking baby sitter, so stop relying on me like a child does a parent.  Also, get tested. 
    It's funny how people can turn it around.  I remember this girl in highschool.  A guy I know dates her.  One day she goes over to this guy's house-- Fish, they call him.  Tag football quickly turns into rape.  Rape quickly turns into, "It never happened, [Boyfriend's Name]."  It Never Happened quickly turns into, "It was just in the butt."  So, who knows what happened but the two of them.  That girl goes on to be a born again virgin. 

    This girl I was seeing, she will undoubtedly continue to binge drink and rely on other people to take care of her hobbled legs, open mouth, and gaping heart.  At least I killed off her character in my story.  Call it foresight.  Call it hopeful thinking.  Once trust is broken like that. . .

    It is unfortunate for me, I have the same stain on my soul. 

    Some douchebag in a polo shirt gets out of his car while I'm on my roof with Leah and Kabelo.  I squint, saying, "I wish I had better vision.  This light," I raise my hand to cover the light, "that distance," I watch the dude stumble up to the curb.  He sees me basically heiling, and turns away. 

    An employee from the Mediterranean Market is handing out menus on my side of the street.  It is ten o'clock at night, and a steady procession of cars glide over the faux-cobblestone.  I love Saturday.
    The employee draws our attention.  He is very dark, with a middle-eastern fro, and he is wearing an apron.  Like a line-cook, dishwasher, or grocery clerk.  I ask him what's up.  He says hold on, and kneels with his stack of menus, folding one.  What's that for?  I ask him, wondering where he's coming from.  I think I know, and he just says wait, you'll see.  He crafts a paper airplane and tosses it.  It loops back around and hits the ground.  Several times.  I talk to him for awhile and tell him the menu is in my head, I've been there enough times.  His name is Mo, and he stocks things. 

    Kabelo shows me a book on zen and I think maybe I'll get my tao book back from Jordan.  So I call him.  This is what I write on his facebook wall the following day:  So, I called you last night and some dude answered the phone angrily. I asked who he was and, being stoned and drunk, I immediately forgot his name. He then proceeds to badger me, "WHO ARE YOU, WHAT DO YOU WANT WITH JORDAN?" Uh, Hunter, my name's Hunter, and I'm trying to get a book back from him. "WELL YOU CALLED AT THE WRONG FUUUUUCKING TIME." Click.   Anyway, you done reading Watercourse Way? Hope you're not dead.

   Maybe he and his boyfriend were having a tiff.  Boyfriends can be so jealous and mean.  I know I was.

    I tell them what happened.  What the fuck.  We sit outside, music blasting through every brick, taking us elsewhere.  Kabelo is almost entirely gone.  Leah has finished only half of her 40.  Kabelo says, stonedly(stOn-ED-lee), "So. . . jaazzz." 
    I tell him we started the night a little late for this concert in Byrd Park.  That was hours ago.  But there's Jake's party.  The seventh installment of showing shit-- Shitshow VII.  And the rest is just another one of those nights where the details cannot exist. 
    My clearest memory is speaking with Windy and Cynthia, two Chinese girls, up against brick.  I was teaching one of them to say "Fuck you" more clearly, and they were teaching me a lot of things that I don't remember.  I kept saying Shi shi ni, which is thank you.  They kept going back and forth about a lot of things I'm sure I thought I knew about at the time.  It's strange to understand so little, to be so provincial, and Cynthia had only been here six months.  I understood her perfectly. 
   
    Inside, Leah is harassed multiple times for looking familiar. 
    "Hey, do I know you..."
    ". . . because you look really familiar."
    "Your name is Leah?  I've only known one other Leah. I LOVE THAT NAME."
     "Are you Mexican?"  This is a good one, considering she is Chinese and Russian.  Which, when combined, looks totally Mexican.

    Here's an example of a sick dream.  This is one of those dreams where music and odor is as vivid as real life. 

    There's this huge party and everyone is wasted, except me, because I am dying from pneumonia.  But apparently I can host it.  It is at my apartment and all of the lights are on.  I get the distinct feeling my apartment is much larger than usual--hundreds are in attendance.  I abandon my apartment for another, better party.  As I leave, some guy asks me if he can have a beer.  There is only one left, I tell him.  We'll decide when I get back.  I don't come back until the end of the dream, hours later in dream-time.  This action has the single biggest impact on the outcome of the dream. 

    I am at a dance party now.  The second hand smoke in my lungs is killing me.  In the background I hear Justice's "D.A.N.C.E," and I follow its instructions and "do the dance" with my friend Brittany.  We are the genesis of dance.  Everyone gathers round to join in.  The floorboards creak and fatigue under our combined weight.  My friend Jeff saunters up to deliver a half smoked joint.  I say, What the hell, and take a puff.  As soon as I do this, everyone is gathering at the door, looking out into this field between buildings.  COPS! someone says.  It spreads from one side of the room to the other like a knife pressing cream cheese into a toasted bagel.  Unless you suck at it, like myself, and have to reapply cream cheese every 30 degrees. Soon everyone is at a door or window, gazing, glazed.
    The foremost onlooker at the front door says, "I don't know what to do, if I leave, they'll get me.  If I stay, they'll get me."  I take charge and open the door.  The field is green, even with the sky blanketed.  This must be somewhere on Grace or Monument, the field reminds me of that field behind Stuart Court Apartments.  It seems legit, like everything else in the dream so far, so I don't question its reality.  For some reason, I don't question the next three scenes either, and it takes the final one to really break the dream.
    I walk through the field as identical old lady tenants snap photos of the crowd with DIY Ascoflex cameras from the 50's.  I cover my face, pretending to yawn.  Whatever they're getting a record of our faces for, I want nothing of it.  I walk past the second old lady, and notice that, now, all of them don nun's outfits.  This is odd, but I resume thinking how, even if they get my face, I'll just instantly grow a huge beard to protect myself from identification.  Yes, and I'll dye my hair and get brown contacts. 

What am I worried about, I haven't been drinking.

    I make my way down the street, where I see a girl unlocking her bike.  She notices the huge crowd behind me and I turn to look.  The crowd is massive, and I notice, yes, that is Stuart Court Apartments.  But we're in front of a house in the woods.  That could make sense one day. 
    The girl mounts a golden bike and asks if it's the VCU crowd.  I say yes, and she rides away.  I yell after her, Where do you go to school?!  I don't remember her response.  She sails across the street and disengages her machine, unwrapping the chain.  I ask, "You rode your bike across the street?"
"I had a long way to go, before."  This answer satisfies me and I leave to go to Gary's apartment, which, sadly, he doesn't own. 

    I get there and wait in a shadowy alleyway watching shadowy figures, when Brittany appears.  We sit and wait, idle and not speaking. Except when a dark figure passes, and I say, "Ready. . ." like I am preparing for something, hand on some mental or imaginary weapon. Eventually Gary opens his door and we enter.  His apartment building is set up to resemble a maze of suspended, carpeted beams.  Everything is white, and between the beams are large gaps which lead to plummet, death.  We hop skippity along them, and I inform Gary that some Mayan Aliens must have constructed this Temple of Doom.  That or Escher.  We get inside and I fall asleep.

    The next thing I know there is pounding on my door.  My father enters my bedroom, the one I am sleeping in during the dream, and says, "Hunter!"  He is yelling at me, angry like I've never seen him.  "HUNTER GET YOUR ASS UP!  WHAT DID YOU DO, WHAT HAPPENED LAST NIGHT?"  I just had a few people over you know.  And abandoned them to their own desires.  "HAVING SEX ON THE FLOOR IS UNSAFE, YOU'LL CATCH A GODDAMN DISEASE!"  What?  Sex on the floor?  Dad, I haven't had sex, what're you talking about.  "You need to clean the kitchen up.  NOW." 
    I struggle with the sheets and fight back the weariness of a party night, and roll out of bed.  I walk down the hall to the kitchen in what seems like one of those never ending flash images.  It takes a couple of runs to see everything, but I only get one.  My dad is at the end of the hall, pointing into the kitchen, "It smells like shit." 
    Imagine a horror scene in which there is something horrible around the corner, and you get that first-person POV, slowly rounding the corner, the music slowly building to crescendo.
    Entering my field of view is what looks like blood smeared all over the refrigerator, then the floor.  Blood splat, tints of orange.  I sniff and am knocked back.  I have never smelled anything like this, in dream or otherwise. 
    Who does my dad think I am, having sex that creates this?  Who does my dad think he is smelling things?  He was born without the sense of scents!  Wait, I say in my dream.  My dad can't smell. 

And I wake up, having broken the dream state game. 

     Nothing is as difficult as the decision to answer or ignore incoming calls.  For me at least, it had been this way my whole life.  Until recently, a new path flattened the hazy overgrowth around me, and I was set in forward motion to an unknown destination.

     It started about three months ago.  I was at a party with some friends, a college somewhere northwest of where I am now.  It is pretty hazy.  All I remember is drinking my fourteenth beer and then blood-- blood everywhere.  Something had broken, some sort of glass structure.  I didn't fully understand what, but I knew it had been my fault.  In earnest, I gathered the splinters with my hands, some piercing my skin.  Blood poured out on tile flooring and two silhouettes told me it was okay, and to stop. 

    I didn't stop.

    Blood kept pouring until my hands were red, and someone grabbed me by the shoulder, picking me up and hustling me to the bathroom.  In my beer-full dream, I wept as someone picked little shards from my palm. 
    "I'm worthless," I told the person, and believed it. 
    The person helping me was my friend, Parson.  He reassured me I wasn't worthless, that I was worth something, but I persisted. 
    "I'm a horrible waste," I kept saying, "A horrible piece of shit, worthless, worthless, worthless."
    No, he would tell me, you are my best friend.  Whether that was true or not was the least of my concerns.  What happened next is most important.  After cleaning out my wounds, Parson left to tend to what I later heard was a broken hookah.  By "tend to," I mean he paid the guy for it.  He was going to sell it to us anyway.  But now it was broken.  A false, empty purchase, like the day I was birthed to my parents, I had in my head. 

    Parson was full of money.  He drove a nice car that he had replaced after totaling his first.  He paid for the damages, but it was ultimately with the backing of his mother, a banker, that pulled him through.  On the other hand, there is me, alone in the bathroom with only a sad, depressed version of myself, filling myself with horrible thoughts. 

    I look down at the ripples in the toilette.  My tears are falling in with the rest of the waste.  I'm Poor, my drunk version told me.  I'm Poor and I'll Never Amount to Anything.  My Girlfriend Won't Love Me.  My Parents Have Abandoned Me.  None of it true, except for right now.  I reach in my pocket to grab my phone.  To talk with God or who knows, but I grab my phone.  It fumbles from my pocket and hand, spins through the air and splashes right into the middle of the toilette.  Water spills up onto my leg, and this is the grain of rice that tips the scale.  I actually begin crying. 

    I bend to fish my phone out and reach for some towels.  Parson comes back and walks me out.  The rest is a blur.  All I remember is crying for what seemed like an hour while some girl desperately tried to study in the far corner.  I must have been in some study hall.  The study desks, four linked desks, looked like swastikas from above, up on the stairs.

    Somehow Parson managed to drive us back-- a two hour drive-- somewhat drunk.  He asked me questions all the way back, wondering how to contact my girlfriend and tell her I was in bad shape.  He called people to message her online since he couldn't get in contact with them. 

    God, she was fucking worried the next day.  She felt waste. 

    Waste is something unneeded.  Like worrying about nothing, she would tell me.  Like wasting your worry, your feelings expecting something much, much worse than just a sad, sad drunk.  But expectations narrow your reality-- which is why dropping my phone in a toilette was a blessing.  My view-screen is permanently fucked up.  I could break my two year contract with those miser-y bastards and get a new one, but this is a sign.  A sign to answer every call.  My view screen is white.  Just white.  A harsh, clinical whiteness.  And I have no fucking clue as to who is calling me.  As to what is coming my way.  So I let it come.  I accept everything. 

Sometimes I let it stay. 

And sometimes I let it go.  

    A couple of weeks ago, my friend Gary has a party at his place, and it's pretty awesome until I downed a Jagerbomb and smoked a spliff.  I had been dry for a whole month before this party, and I took it to my low tolerance's limit.  When I left Gary's, there was no time to peace out.  My girlfriend, Lenora, led me to a bedroom where we sat and slurred our speech for a couple of minutes before I bolted out of the room and marched through the front door. 

    The first wave of puke rises and shoots from my mouth as I step off the stoop into the lawn.  I take several steps and puke on a tree.  Before I hit asphalt, I puke a third time.  I am fertilizing his yard with vomit.  I stagger to Lenora's red Honda and blow chunks right in front of it.  After puking four times, you would think you'd feel better.  I didn't.  This tells me that I am going to throw up more.  After about five minutes, Lenora comes out of the house, no doubt tromping through the fields of my regurgitation.  She steps around the fourth puddle in front of her car and sits next to me on the curb, swaying a little.

    At some point we hop in her car and roll out.  By hop, I kind of mean fall.  I don't remember much of the night, but I remember making Jeff(Horatio of old) promise me something. 
My hand on his shoulder, I look him straight in the eyes, and implore him to, "Promise me.  Promise me you will never drive drunk.  Man, you could die!"
He promises and Lenora adds that I made her make the same promise a long time ago.
I don't remember much of this night, but I remember this.  And I remember, while we are driving back, Lenora saying, "Hunter, I just want you to know," as if it was a good time to tell me, "that I am breaking my promise to you right now.  I just want you to know.  I have to get you home."  I get the impression that we might die.  Concerned with more important matters, like rolling down the window so I can puke again, I dismiss the possibility of death and begin to pass out. 

    Lenora says something, questioningly, either to keep herself awake or check up on me.  She does this intermittently and every time I respond.  Whereas getting to her apartment was, from my perspective, an instantaneous journey, from her perspective things were much more difficult.  She later tells me that, while she was driving, she was forgetting that she was driving, and she had to ask me questions to stay awake.  She had to talk, and she didn't expect me to respond.  But in my puke-addled haze, I always mustered the strength to blurt a half-assed, "Yeah" or "Cool," thinking I was contributing to our safety by doing so.  My other contributions include opening my eyes to see the road, getting car sick, and throwing up on out of the car. 

    When we get back, I fall out of the car, stand up and take a look at her car.  There are three distinct orange streaks trailing from the inside of the car, out, and back from the windows.  I say "Shorry," And tell her I will clean it up later.  We go inside.  I pass out on the bed.  I am awakened minutes later to food being stuffed down my throat. 
You have to eat this, she tells me. 
No, I tell her.  I take the food anyway.  It is an English muffin with cottage cheese on it.  It greatly resembles barf.  I down it as quickly as possible and drink some water out of a blue cup that is being pressed into my face.  I put the cup on the window sill.  I pass out again.

    Feeling victorious for getting us home safely, Lenora goes and fixes herself a plate-sized quesadilla.  She comes back and sits on the bed.  Through the veil of my blackout, I hear the sound of smacking lips.  Her chewing wakes me up.  Though I don't remember being pissed, I am apparently pissed. 
"STOP!"
"What?"
"CHEWING"
"Sorry."
"It's okay, it's just going to make me throw up."  It doesn't and I pass out again. Lenora passes out next to me.

    Imagine this next scene.  Try to visualize it with me.  My eyes open to the ceiling, my body shocked out of deep REM sleep.  My legs and waist are moist.  I look up and there is vomit covering my legs and my waist and stomach.  The smell is vile, and I see little salsa chunks caked in two spots on the bed.  Paralyzed by sheer amazement, I am only able to observe my surroundings.  I look to my right, where there is retch splattered on the wall like blood from a gunshot wound.  Something straight out of Hollywood.  

    To my horror, the story does not end there.  There is a trail of puke leading to the bathroom, where Lenora is now taking a shower.  I take my clothes, which are covered in quesadilla, off and join her.  We clean off and then strip her bed. I clean everything up that I can with my three-AM hangover handicap. I take down the dust ruffle from her window because it is tainted.  Hidden behind the dust ruffle is the crowning achievement of the night.  There, on the windowsill, is a blue cup overflowing with gooey, chunky throw up.   Not thinking, I dump it into the sink and not the toilet.  The next couple of days, the sink is clogged. 

    In the aftermath, Lenora is passed out on her completely stripped bed, with her completely stripped body wrapped in three different towels, one wet, as blankets.   Yellow, pink, blue.  And the memory of orange streaks on white walls, and orange streaks on her red honda.  And the floors, two blankets, the bed covering, the curtains, and dust ruffle. After everything that had happened, she is passed out and I am on the corner of her bed, finishing the last fourth of the humongous quesadilla, stuffed with salsa, beans, an inordinate amount of cheese, sour cream, and a shit load of hot sauce.

Post Script
Awesome party, by the way, Gary.  Sorry I had to leave so early and couldn't help lead the Blackout Brigade. 

The last sane story I will tell begins with four guys walking twelve blocks in the cold to get to a party.  A party that isn't going on that night.  So, four more blocks over, to a party where some girl we'll call "Jill" invited Theft.  "I'm bringing someone" he told her.  Someone(s), it turns out.  When we get inside, Chocolate, Theft, Roman, and myself all mingle at the door before spotting the keg.  I am immediately ahead of everyone, leaving my friends behind.  There is a couch against the wall, next to the keg, and in front of the beer pong table.  People are sitting on the couch like it is a fucking riser for the beer pong game.  Their legs hang over the edge of the couch and form a gauntlet to the keg.  This gets increasingly irritating as I drink more.   

The next thing I know I have five solo-cup sized beers in me and I am out on the porch negotiating with Tony, a kid from my dorm, to give me some of the liquor he brought with him.  He has major OCD and won't let me drink out of his bottle.  I tell him this is probably for the best, since, you know, I have aids from all the buttsex I have.  Apparently I say this very loudly, because a group of people turn to stare at me.  The girl in the group is hot and I decide saying "Yeeah, you heard correctly" is the appropriate response.  I don't say anything else, as I am back to bargaining for liquor, the devine nectar of the gods.  The girl turns around and giggles.  Tony agrees to pour some of his draft into my red cup.  He tells me it is Bacardi 151.  I tell him I love him.  We throw back together.  He wretches and I lick my lips, telling him I am indebted, and that 151 is delicious. 

I head back inside for more beer since I have no more liquor.  I pass Theft on the way inside and shake my empty cup in the air at him.  He takes a second to register this, turns, and asks, "Dude, you're going back already? How many have you had?" 
"Like five," I tell him. 
"Let me catch up!"
I smile and walk away, tripping over the gauntlet of feet stretched casually across the floor.  This pisses me off so as soon as I get my beer I chug it and fill up for a seventh.   With my seventh beer in hand, I head back to the porch outside.  The porch rests on the second floor of an apartment building.  I want to test its integrity, so I give Theft my beer and begin jumping up and down.  Because, testing something with YOURSELF that could lead to your DEATH is an awesome idea.  Theft is saying something to me, but I am too busy testing the strength of the pillars below.  
Theft: "Dude, it's concrete"
Hunter: "That just means we'll fall faster, right?"
Theft: "Uh, what beer are you on?"
Hunter: "Mmmm, like.. like seven... and some 151 that Tony gave me."
Theft: "Jesus man, I'm on like four, give me a chance to catch up with you."
Hunter: "I knew a guy that ate just ketchup.  It was gross."
Seeing that I was 100% capable of sustaining a real conversation, Theft takes this time to introduce me to "Jill," the girl that invited him.  She is cute, with short brown hair, bobbed, and piercing eyes. I shake her hand and she smiles. I am not revolting to her because she is probably more drunk than me.  Distracted, she shambles off into the party.  I ask Theft if he is hooking up with her.  I must have almost yelled it, because he's giving me the buldging eyes, slice-across-the-throat hand movement.  "Oh," I say.  "Nice." 

I head back inside and pass the couch.  This time, I step on everyone's feet.  Someone calls me an asshole, but I tell them they are impeding my intoxication.  I get an eighth beer and Chocolate and Roman say they're headed out.  I am giving them high fives and hugs like they're departing for some long journey that they'll never come back from.  I turn around and some random guy is behind me, so I high five him too.  I am a happy drunk tonight. 

Terror strikes.  The keg is dry.  I almost begin weeping, because I am no where near as drunk as I want to be.  Jill sees that I am distraught and comes up to me.
Jill: "There's another keg in the place behind this one.  Just go around back, outside, and take a left."
Hunter: "You are my hero."
I end up following her to the next apartment where she waits outside to smoke.  You know, on one of those ancient fire escape things, the pitch black metal and what not. Inside, I am packed between two fat dudes that smell like shit.  Luckily a girl entertains me while I wait to get to the alcohol.  She asks me if I'm Hunter.  Hunter Caldwell.  I say yes, and ask her why the hell she knows me.  I am enamored.  I feel famous. "You went to James River, you were in my graduating class. I guess you didn't see me much."  It just got scary.  I have never ever seen this girl in my life.  She tells me her name as she exits and I tell her I'll look her up on Facebook sometime.  I immediately forget her name. 

I finally get to the keg, fill up, and leave.  I go outside and my current entertainment, Jill, is gone.  I decide to drink this beer as fast as possible and go for another.  I do, and a guy from my dorm comes up behind me saying, "Nice."  I turn around to see who it is.  It's some kid that absolutely zero people like.  I've never had a problem with him, but think that fate has given me a means to my own entertainment.  I talk to him for awhile, making sarcastic remarks about his leather outfit.  Before I go for another beer, he asks me what my name is.  Not being very creative in my drunken stupor, I tell him my name is James.  That's my first name, so technically I wasn't lying.  Throughout the rest of the night I would tell him my name was Fred, Jason, Jackson, Jefferson, Earnest, Bunsburry, and Captain Kirk.  I think he finally got it by the last one. 

After several more beers, I am out on the terrifyingly high fire escape.  Jill is sitting on the stairs leading up.  I guess to the roof, there aren't any third floor apartments.  She's smoking a cigarrette, and I ask her for one.  I am not a smoker, but when I drink, I do smoke.  The nicotine-alcohol concoction is nice for a head rush.  We sit out there and smoke, talking.  I am not going to lie to you, I remember nothing of the conversation, and I'm not going to pretend I do.  She asks me to hold on to her cigarrette and heads inside to use the bathroom.  The kid from my dorm comes by and asks my name.  I think this is somewhere around the use of "Jefferson."  "Cool," he says, and I head inside, leaving Jill's and my cigarrette behind on the rail. 

After awhile, I am drinking another beer out on the porch, talking to Theft, when Jill comes up.  She asks me if I have a girlfriend.  I am honest, so I say yes.  I kind of wish I didn't right now, because the question is not subtle at all.  I tell her yes, and am surprised to hear her explain the friend zone. 
She says, "Oh, because you can climb the 'Friend' ladder or the 'Fuck' ladder."  Ooo, girlfriend means "Friendzone"!  I'm not a cheating bastard, but am disappointed to have been put in a less-than-awesome category.

The rest of the night between that and getting back to the dorm is unimportant.  We did go to another party, but it was totally lame.  The last thing I remember before getting back to the dorm is riding on Theft's back down the street. 

So, I get to the dorm, sloppily swipe my card a few times, and rush upstairs.  Yes, stairs.  Even drunk, I have a four-floors-or-less stairs policy.  I live on the third floor and I refuse to be that lazy.   I have to take a hurculean piss, so I go to the bathroom.  I see two shoes sticking out from under a stall door.  Somebody has been partying way harder than me.  It kind of reminds me of the Wizard of Oz, and I wonder if the shoes will curl up and disappear. 

I am willing to ignore the person, take my piss, and be on my way, but then the groaning starts. 
Hunter: "You alright in there, man?"
"OoOOOARH!"
Hunter: "Dude, you don't sound so good, you need some help?"
He starts puking, "BLAAAARRRH!"
I finish up and look under the stall.  There is dark, viscous liquid coating everything.  The toilet, the floor, the wall, his arms and shirt.  It is fucking gross.  I reckognize him.  It is "Somedude2" from my story "Drunk People."  We'll just call him "Toilet" in honor of his submission to the porcelain god. 
Hunter: "I am so getting you some water man... it's like. . . a cure-all"
Toilet: "BLllaaargh"
I go to DasBox, knowing he is the only other person awake at four in the morning.  I ask him to help me.  I don't know for what, maybe moral support.  Or maybe because Toilet is a fucking tank of a person, and immobile to someone like me. 
We keep supplying Toilet with water and he keeps throwing most of it up, or just pouring it on himself.  Toilet has been arrested before on campus and is on the verge of getting kicked out of the dorm, so I can't leave him in good concience.  We decide to move him.  But first we get a trashcan so he can throw away his shirt.  It is literally caked in brown and black throw up.  I don't know about you, but the second I start throwing up black shit, get help for me, please.   We get him to his room.  I walk inside, and try to get Greez off of Toilet's bed.  I tell him he has to move.  And he doesn't listen to me.  This pisses Toilet off and he says something to the effect of "I'll fucking kill you."  I don't really remember, but I recall it being commanding.  And besides, this guy is an ox and could destroy Greez.  Greez hears him and springs into awareness, moving to the floor.  Some random girl is on his bed. 

I mention the last part, about Toilet, because that may very well be me soon.  Heading back out into the drinking world, beyond my limits and what not.  My friend Luke is coming back this summer, and let's just say I can drink a lot, but not like it's my job.  Like, if you're in the military, you kill people for a living.  If you're Luke Koftan, you drink bitches under tables for a living.  This man keeps drinking after he has won drinking contests.  People actually tell him, "You don't have to drink anymore, you know." 

"FUCK YOU," is his response.  So, I have some catching up to do.  With a family history of alcoholism and my Irish heritage, here's to the last sane story I ever tell. 

I wish I could have recorded my experience and the images that went through my head.  I wish I could convey and project my understanding onto you, but all I have are words.  They are insufficient in describing this particular encounter with salvia.  And, I'll start off by saying I've done salvia several times and that I am not inexperienced.  Granted, I have never done 15x, but I knew I could handle it.  Or, at least, thought I could.  This is that story:

The night began when Horatio and Yetti show up.  I know exactly why.  Our friend, PK, his house has been empty for two days, this being the second.  Last night I was over there getting rather drunk on shitty beer(See: Natty Ice).  Tonight is the night of the actual party, in which a lot of people are showing up.  Horatio's nose dons a bandage.  We went to a Children of Bodom show recently, and someone's fist or head met up with Horatio's nose, crushing it a bit to the side.  He went to the doctor to get it fixed.  His bandage says, "I'm on hydrocodone and feel good!"

We head outside to Yetti's vehicle and hop in.  We have to stop by his house to grab a GB cap.  I'm excited, I only expected shitty beer to be at the party.  When we get to the party, though, I am less excited, because no one has pot, just salvia. I notice a bubbler sitting on a table.  I remember John Lee telling me a story of how he acquired a bubbler, and since he's sitting on the couch opposite it, I assume it's his.  I ask him about it and he retells the story to everyone.
John Lee: "Nick Volante just gave it too me.  He was just like, 'John, I never use this unless you're around, here, take it.'" I was like 'Sweet!'"
Horatio: "He was high as shit wasn't he?"
John Lee: "Yeah, Nick was high as shit and I was drunk as shit."
Hunter: "Wait so, you have your bubbler here, that implies that there's pot.  Is there?"
John Lee: "Nah, [PK] and Alex have some salvia, though."

I have done salvia many times, and none of them were particularly interesting: 

The first time I did it, Horatio and I went down to this place in the city, AfricaHouse, and bought some really overpriced shit.  We mixed it with pot and took GBs of the concoction on the rail-road tracks near our house.  The effect was smooth and nice, I saw colors that I wouldn't have normally, you know, purples instead of blues.  And, the trees lining the railroad tracks bent in towards eachother and formed a tunnel of brances. 

The second time I did it, I did it with Yetti and PK on Horatio's back porch while he was gone for the weekend, which is kind of fucked up. It was purely salvia, sans pot.  We packed it tight and took GBs.  I laughed really hard for about 10 seconds before I started choking.  I had to remove myself from the situation and sit on the steps, because I was "Choking on the spheres that we're all made of."  It was a brief trip, and not worth choking for. 

The third time I did it was terrible and made me hate salvia.  My friend Chocolate gets some and we decide to smoke it.  He has a small piece that has a hole too big for salvia's fine, ground up leaves.  Theft, being the boyscout and theif that he is, goes into the bathroom on our dorm floor and whips out his knife.  He pries a faucet guard out from the sink.  He feels accomplished, and fails to inspect the guard.  We go outside and light up.  It hits incredibly hard.  We are all gasping by the end of it, and I fumble the piece.  Something hard and charred falls out of the piece.  We look at it like dogs look at the source of a high pitched noise, our heads all cocked to the side.  I pick it up and go, "Guys, I think we were smoking plastic."  THE GUARD WAS FUCKING PLASTIC, AND WE SMOKED IT.  Knock about 10 years off my life.

Flashbacks aside, I am standing in PK's kitchen playing Drink The Beer.  With myself.  John Lee stands next to me, visibly drunk.  He is standing on a ledge of stairs, and I tell him to be careful.  He only says, "That ledge is my bitch." 
The typical beer vs. liquor argument breaks out.
Horatio: "You know who is the only person on earth to have thrown up on beer alone?" 
He points to me.
Schwemmer: "Haha, really?"
Hunter: "Hey, hey, hey.  Now, that was all under an hour.  We're talking 40 minutes or less."
Horatio: "It was like seven beers dude."
Hunter: "In like 30-40 minutes."
Schwemmer: "Damn, that fast."
Horatio: "Well, yeah, he did throw them back pretty fast."
Hunter: "And beer does terrible things to me.  I am a liquor fan."
Schwemmer: "I can understand that.  I mean, genetically, we respond to things differently, all of us."
I am impressed and agree.  PK is offended that I am knocking beer, because that's all he has.  I reassure him that it's cool and I'm not complaining.  Just defending my pride.

By my third beer, another group of people shows up.  Clay, back from the military, carting two large party packs of Smirnoff bitch drinks.  Lot of good the military did in teaching him to be a man.  Behind him, two girls follow with a small group of gothic characters. Black, red.  Some pink on one of the girls.  She is quiet and reserved, and heads immediately downstairs with her group.  Only one of them is sociable, other than Clay.  It is the other girl, and she seems cool enough, but I notice she has a hollow-point bullet on her necklace.  I slowly back away while Horatio hits it off talking about guns and her shirt, which is of the band Yellowcard. 

I am in the dining room where a piano is.  John Lee is playing it rather drunkenly and I am attempting to communicate good vibes to the other group.  They are angsty and resist.  I give up and start talking to Clay.  He gives me a stern handshake that not many people can muster and I ask him:
Hunter: "So, how is 'it' going?"
Clay: "Have you ever blown up a tank with a rocket launcher?"
Hunter: "Uh, no, have you?"
Clay: "Oh yeah."
Hunter: "Oh, the perks of being in the military."

Basically, because there is no group cohesion, Yetti, Horatio, and myself head outside to smoke some of the Salvia Yetti has been saving.  He snatches John Lee's bubbler on the way out.  I chug my third beer and grab a bitch drink because I am a hypocrite. It is Smirnoff Ice, and it is delicious.  We sit in a circle... triangle really, and Yetti loads it up.  Before we start, he notices my drink and goes to grab one.  He comes back and we light up.  Yetti hits it first, passes it to Horatio, and then to me.  My reality dampens as I exhale.  Salvia hits really fast, by the way.  I put the bubbler down on the concrete.  On its side.  So, now, there is water in a small puddle in the middle of us.  No one notices but me, and I don't actually care at this point.  It's refillable.  No big deal.

Everyone is quiet for a second.  Yetti is staring at the ground when Horatio asks him a question.  I don't understand the question.  Apparently, Yetti understand it less, as his only response is a two-syllable word in what seems like tongues:
Horatio: "[questioning tone]"
A pause ensues.  Yetti looks up.
Yetti: "Barr-haw!"
Another pause ensues as everyone, even Yetti, runs the interaction through their head a second time. 
Hunter: "Did you... did... What the fuck was that?"
I am laughing uncontrollably at this point, which spurs laughter in them.  We errupt and sit for about three minutes just laughing.  We manage to get a few words out inbetween breaths, but they only serve to feed the raging fire of hilarity.  I have never laughed this hard.  Ever in my life.  I am seriously ROLLING on the ground.  Suddenly Yetti is worried:

Yetti: "Guys, oh shit."
Hunter and Horatio in unison: "What?"
Yetti: "We broke the bubbler."
Hunter: "What?"
Yetti: "Yeah, look, it's broken, there's water everywhere."
I explain and talk him down for like ten seconds.  He grabs his now empty Smirnoff, holding it opposite the hand clenching the bubbler and says, "Then what's this?"
Hunter: "That is your empty bottle, it's fine dude."
Yetti inspects it and goes, "Oh, oh yeah."
At some point he calls Horatio a motherfucker which is really out of character for him.  He is joking of course, but it's a sure sign that he's still riding the high.  He explains his experience as Horatio becoming part of the background and me as a laughing enigma.

We go inside, but within minutes are back outside with a larger group of people, drinking more.  Schwemmer, PK, Horatio, Yetti, and myself.  Also, this kid Alex, who is drunk as shit, stumbles all over the place.  I ask him what he would do if I drop-kicked him into oblivion.  He just laughs at me and falls down on his face, unable to get up.  He stays down for a few minutes while the big boys talk.  Then he gets up and decides to go inside.  A few of the others do too, and then there are three: Horatio, Yetti, and myself.  Again, ready to smoke more.  We sit down in our "circle" and begin.

For greens, Horatio and I play Rock, Paper, Scissors.  It is a hard fought battle, us matching eachother 4 or 5 times in a row, but I eventually win.  I take notice of the bowl.  It is packed to legendary standards.  I ignite the patch of green, inhale for several seconds, and hold.  I pause for a few more seconds and exhale.  I cannot emphasize enough how much I took from this one hit.  A heroic sized cloud rolls from my lips, and I say, "Guys, I might die," jokingly, but the next thing I know Yetti and Horatio have evaporated, interwoven into the scenery.  They have, as Yetti said earlier, become a "part of the background."  They become part of the fence, the ridges.  Small, individual slivers that make up a whole.  I am a very visual person, and sometimes it is hard to describe what I experience.  This experience boarders on impossible-to-describe.  For 30 minutes, head time, I am flying around the back yard, which is about 100 times as large as it actually was. The weird part is I see myself doing these things, as I am a plane.  A plane with a face.  And a propellar for a nose. I am swooping by the fences(made up of Horatio, Yetti, and the shed I see in the background).  I am pretty sure that I fly into the sky, and suicide drop to the ground.  I stretch, endlessly against a black backdrop of time and space.  My thirty minutes of head time take about 10 seconds of real time, and I swoop back into the shell of Hunter Caldwell, my body.  My mind has returned, and now I am standing up, facing Horatio.  I run my hand against my forehead and back beyond my hair.  I am sweating, and Horatio is talking to me.  I am pretty sure he is trying to get me to fuck a vehicle.  He might as well be speaking in a foreign language, I can't understand anything he is saying. 

I asked Horatio what he saw from his perspective and he said this: "Yeah we were all sitting down and then you burst out nervous laughing and stood up and just started roaming around babbling incoherently. And you would grab various objects which I termed 'anchors.'  Like, to keep you in this world"

It's true, I do vaguely remember grabbing things, because I felt like my world was being torn apart, like my reality and actual reality were at odds, fighting for their place.  And my strange reality was slipping back to normalcy, and I was coming down.  I stand, staring at Yetti, not truly recognizing him.  I head to the front of the house, bumping into the fence and a van. Yetti somehow makes it to the front door before I can, slips inside, poking his head out and says, "Dude, I am going to find you a pen and some paper.  Just don't wander off."  I tell him I am probably going to.  I have no idea where a portion of my time went, and I am confused and still buzzed off of the beer and bitch drinks I have consumed.  I head inside, say peace to a few good people and leave.  I give John Lee the power fist before I go, because I don't feel up for much more contact than that.

I am speed walking down the street, terrified out of my mind at what just occurred.  Nothing seems real in this blanketed  world of cold air and blaring gas giants.  It is night time and a pick up truck is slowing down in front of me.  Its lights are aimed at me, but I walk past it. 

"HUUUUUUUNTER CAAAAAAALDWELLLLL!!!!"  A voice emanates through the thick shadow.  I am going to die tonight.

"It's NICK, man, what's up!"

My heart pounding, I wave and continue walking.  Things are still too real and this is totally unexpected.  Nick Volante, the guy whose bubbler it was originally. That I smoked out of, was calling my name from an ominous pick up truck.  He was heading to the party, and I was heading home.  Heading home, afraid that I would never be normal again.  Afraid that life was going to turn on me, and all the taking I have done from the universe would reverse itself, and start taking back.  Afraid that my future was doomed.  Afraid. 

But, by the time I had marched home, I was normal again.

My head is still spinning from the weekend.  I went to Farifax to party at my girlfriend's.  There is a terrifying amount of money in Northern Virginia.  I was kind of sketched out at first, you know, a little uncomfortable at the prospect of being the peon of the group, what with my Richmond background and all.  But no, the culture is the same almost everywhere you go.  There is Subway.  Sheetz.  Taco Bell.  Blockbuster.  Everything you'd expect in any suburban area.  The Suburbias of Richmond share all the same aspects, just at a different(see: lower) living standard. 

It was my first time getting hit on by a 0-star girl(out of 5).  According to Tucker Max, a 0-star is that fat girl who, in addition to being obscenely unnattractive, also has a terrible personality.  She is loud, overly foreward, awkward, and all around obnoxious.  He calls them "Wildebeasts" and says that "basic human rights do not apply to them."  And she hit on me. 

I am upstairs toking.  Despite all the money in Nova, we smoke out of a ghettoblaster.  I laugh at this in my head at the time and out loud after I've been smoked out.  I am a bastard. 

I head downstairs tipsy and high and I go to grab a beer.  As I walk into the kitchen I hear, "I really wanna make out with someone."  I glance over and see her--Allison, with her chubby cheeks, thick-rimmed emo glasses, and she looks at me. 

I grab a beer.  What the fuck is she thinking?  No one will make out with her.  She is She is at a party filled mostly with 18-19 year olds.  Most of them girls.  Is she lesbian?

She contorts her hefty body on the couch to see me grabbing a beer.  She goes, "...But you're already taken."  Damn straight, bitch.  And even if I weren't... are you... are you serious?

I am not drunk enough to respond to this situation frankly.  I grab a second beer.  I want to be honest, so I load my proverbial gun of truth.  In other words, I start drinking seriously.

It was a fun weekend, I just thought I'd document that one instance.  Plenty of shit happened, including something absolutely horrifying.  It's a subtle glow, warm and pulsing through your body like an ocean of vicodin.

This is mainly the story of my birthday party, the recognition of a problem, and the end to my alcoholism.  I cannot believe I just wrote that.

The Girlfriend(this part is mostly background)

    The first time I met her we were outside the dorm during a firedrill.  It was a beautiful day outside.  The sky was blue with ethereal plumes of white.  It was beautiful.  Just not as much as what I was in store for.  She was the most attractive thing I had ever seen, her big Italian eyes and cute little Jew nose.   Our eyes locked briefly, but I disengaged, because, hell, I was "dating"(fucking) another girl at the time.  Though I was considering "breaking up" with her because she was a total psychotic bitch, I wasn't about to do her the injustice of cheating on her.  I still find that to be the worst thing you can do to someone's trust.  I would later learn that the girl I was dating was a cheating whore and an all around liar.  I didn't care at the time of learning this as I was completely happy just being AWAY from her.  Seriously, she gave me her family history while we were lying in bed one night and this is what I got out of it--MOTHER: Manic Depressive, OCD.  GRANDMOTHER: BLEW HER HUSBAND'S HEAD OFF WITH A FUCKING TWELVE GUAGE.  JESUS CHRIST.

    So, there I am, separated from this gorgeous girl by nothing more than my unwillingness to even consider but one person at a time when John walks up and starts talking to her.  John and I have hung out recently.  Fuck it, I am in.  I go over and act like my normal boisterous and happy self.  She is sarcastic and very funny.   We are visibly into eachother already.  This is basically the straw that breaks the proverbial camel's back.  I invite both of them to a party I am attending, mostly so I can hang out with this girl some more. Luckily, they both decline.  The reason this is lucky, and the thing I haven't told you is, it was at "Crazy's" apartment-- then my girlfriend.  Yes, them showing up would have ended terribly.  Instead, I go to the party alone, get excessively drunk, am unhappy, and burn myself with a cigarette.  More times than I want to count.   That's the story behind Bloody Knuckles.  Me burning myself.  Crazy makes fun of me the next day and I quickly dump her ass. 

    The first time I actually hung out with Sara, I was already trashed(see: The Things I Remember, same night) when she showed up.  She comes in and I'm throttling a handle of vodka, swaying back and forth, singing Richard Cheese songs.  If you don't know who Richard Cheese is, he is a cover artist who redoes popular songs in a lounge style.  He was instantly my hero after I heard his rendition of "Down With The Sickness" in the Dawn of the Dead remake.  I don't actually remember much about this night, as I have already downed about a third of the handle already, continuing to drink well into the night.  All I remember is having a really intense conversation.  Sara makes fun of me hardcore for singing and liking Richard Cheese.  I make fun of her for liking Dream Theatre, because Alexi Laiho(lead for Children of Bodom)  said they were gay, and if Alexi says it, it is true.  She tells me my music collection blows.  I attempt to argue that it doesn't, but ultimately lose.  She has a huge proclivity for music that I cannot ever hope to match.

    In the weeks that follow, I am awkward.  I have never been more awkward around a person in my life.  This is because I have never been so unsure of where I stand with a person than when I first started seeing her.  Luckily, she is awkward too, and it works out.  We start dating but continue the awkwardness for a short while.  Eventually we loosen up.  At some point she tells me how weird it is to be the witness to self-mutilation, or, rather, the results of it(my scars).  She seems worried, and I jokingly say, "What, you care about me?"  She says she does, and I am totally knocked off my proverbial feet.  A sledgehammer shattering my mental shins, sweeping me to the floor.  For much of my time with her I have been emotionally reticent.  I have seen the damage caused by opening up too soon, too fast.  I know my behavior, I know that I burn up to avoid rusting out.  This is who I am usually.  But I want to change.

    I tell Sara that I'm done hurting myself, because I am happy now.  But just being with someone doesn't make you happy.  I now realize that happiness comes only from within.  It is, to some extent, a choice of contexts.  Only you can put yourself in a position that will either improve or detriment you.  At the time I tell Sara I am done hurting myself, I have not learned this lesson-- the "how to" on happiness.  At the time I tell Sara I am done hurting myself, I am not. 

The Birthday Party

Skip a few weeks later to my birthday party.

    Horatio and I get his brother to hook us up with some beer.  And by some beer, I mean four fucking cases.  We load Horatio's car with the beer.  Inside the car, he tosses me a water bottle full of clear liquid, saying, "Happy Birthday, enjoy."  It is vodka.  Horatio is my best friend.  I take a swig and wince.  It has been awhile.  I figure I'll need some mixer and food in my stomach before we head to the party.  We drive to Sheetz. 

    En route, Horatio goes, "There are beers under your seat from the other night.  Beer me."  I hand him his first Natty swill.  He nearly downs it before we reach Sheetz.  He does down it immediately following Sheetz.  I have a huge burger in my face, and am not worried about regulating his driving. 

    His second beer is done and he begins to "feel it."  I am worried about regulating his driving. I begin the "double-check" method.  He is drinking his third beer with one hand and driving half-heartedly with the other.  I get the idea that I might die tonight.  I got this idea much earlier in the week when I was told how much alcohol would be at my party.  I figured alcohol poisoning would do me in, but now I am worried about becoming a roadside cadaver.  I quickly forget this as I drink more of my Gatorade/Vodka mix. 

    We drive around for awhile trying to find a parking spot.  Richmond parking sucks.  Horatio announces, several times, that he has to urinate.  I begin torturing him, saying "Drip, drip, drip.  Pssssss."  I decide that this is a bad idea since he is driving.  Finally we find a spot to rest the car.  We are in front of a very nice town home with a large street lamp blaring above us.  We are not far from a stoplight, where an audience of drivers no doubt watch us.  Horatio says he is going to pee on his car:
Hunter: "Dude, for real? Right here?  You can't wait?"
Horatio:  "Fuck it, I don't care, man, I have to piss."
Hunter:  "There's a huge lamp above you.  We are completely visible.  And have beer.  And are underage.  We don't want to draw attention to ourselves."
These were all quality reasons not to publicly urinate, but in the most serious voice I've ever heard him deliver anything, he says, with a slight pause:
Horatio: "... Back up, lest you get pissed on."

I don't know why, but I grab three of the cases.  I start walking across the street.  Horatio says, "Wait up," finishes pissing, and downs the last of his third or fourth beer.   A couple of minutes into our five(or so) minute walk(Richmond parking sucks, remember?) to the apartment, having two cases in one arm is a ridiculous waste.  I insist Horatio take one.  He does, and now we both have two.  He says he feels badass just walking around with beer.  I tell him this is how it feels to "bring the party."  He gets pumped and I immediately remember why I only left one case for him to carry.  Holding the handle, he juts his fist outward, pretending the beer case is a boxing glove or something.  The handle remains in his hand while the rest of the case sails through the air and smashes into the sidewalk.  We just stand there for a moment. We start gathering the scattered beer cans.  Some of them are rolling away from us, trying to escape:
Hunter:  "Why was that a good idea."
Horatio:  "I don't know, I'm already drunk, I think." (The "Drunk Defense")
Hunter:  "Good enough."
Horatio:  "No one can know about this."
Hunter:  "Alright. We'll just let them explode on some people."

    We head upstairs and are immediately rushed by everyone inside.  I am bombarded with "Happy Birthday" and such and what not.  This makes me happy.  In my vodka glow, I am already the center of the universe.  Awesome. After awhile though, I find myself having an iteration of the following conversation... throughout the ENTIRE NIGHT:
Rebecca:  "Hunter, your arm looks like fucking hell."

Adrian:  "Yeah, you should put bandaids on them, they'll heal"
Liz:  "What the hell did you do?"
Me:  "Lots of bad stuff."
Rebecca:  "Is this new or is this shit I've seen?"
Me:  "All old stuff"
Adrian(pointing to my cuts): "What did you do? Is that when you woke up bloody?"
Liz: "Yeah, what is that?"
I try to convince them that it was a cougar attack.  I then explain that the burns are from lye, like in Fight Club, and that it was a gang initiation.  Then I concede that I was playing chicken with cigarettes.  With myself.  They say I am crazy, and probably just like Tyler Durdin.

Some people enter and they wish me happy birthday.  I announce that I have no idea who one of them is.

    I go to the bathroom and Calypso(of Pissing in Pools I & II  and Hunter Blacks Out, Goes To Patient First, Blames Free Beer) tells me not to use the one I'm headed to.  I assure her I know what I am doing, and that I know the door jams.  I will leave it open.  I stay in there for like two minutes taking the most titanic piss of my life.  While I'm breaking the seal, I thank the toilet for drinking my piss.  Am I already this drunk?  Seven gargantuan cups of jungle juice in the first hour or so? Yes, yes I am this drunk.

    I come back and Horatio's brother has arrived.  I am enamored at the fact that such a cool motherfucker would grace me with his presence. He holds out his hand:
Hunter:  "Hold on, there were no fuckin' towels in there, give me a second."  I actually count out a full second Mississippi style and shake his hand.  I notice one of the guys accompanying him:
Hunter:  "Annnnd?"
Justin:  "Justin.  You don't remember me?"
Hunter:  "No.  What's your last name?"

    He implies that we once "chilled" together, sounding hurt.  Telling me what was involved with our "chilling" really helped.  Apparently we smoked together once.  I have no recollection of this, and therefore invoke the "High Defense."  He takes off his hat and gives me the "Ehhh, ehhh, anything?" look.  It doesn't help, but I do notice he has red hair, and therefore will fail to hit on any girl at the party.  It is a well documented fact that red headed guys generally do poorly with women.  True story.  He hits on Liz but ultimately comes up short.  She is one of the few girls Richmond produced that isn't a whore at all.  I can't help but respect her for that.

    I totally didn't catch this at the time, but in the background Horatio is lamenting about his ex-girlfriend.  He tells the story of how they were together.  Then how the romance was stifled by a grounding of a month-long duration.  He got grounded as a result of the Friend's Mom Finds Out About Hunter's Livejournal, Missiles Fly incident.  He blames his failed relationship on the grounding, and for mostly good reason.  His girlfriend and him couldn't see eachother, and he became what he refers to as a "Low Status Male," dumping his emotional issues on her. Because of this, he helped her transition to who she truly was.  Upon breaking up with him, she informs him that she is a lesbian.  As he tells this, the three or so girls he is talking to go into shrills and half-muttered explitives.  I hear several "OMIGOD's" in the pity tone.  Yeah, everyone feels bad for the "transition guy."  Seriously, if you are dating someone when they switch sides, that is indicative of you making them change their mind about their sexuality.  Of course, I know the truth.  The girl is a lying seductress of a woman, and Horatio is one of the coolest people I've ever met. 

The Recognition of a Problem and the Resolution to End Alcoholism

Yetti:  "No piggy-back rides tonight."
Apparently, a few nights ago, we were all drinking beer and I drank way too fast, getting myself well into Hyper-Hunter Drunk.  I jumped on Yetti's back and we both went careening into the asphalt.  He is like 6'5" and over 200 pounds.  I am like 6' and 180 pounds.  He is crushed under the inertia of our combined weight, and I, on his shoulders, fall like 10 feet to the ground.  We squirm around in pain for like thirty seconds before realizing we are intoxicated, and pain can't fetter us.

    I tell the story of how Horatio destroyed one of the cases of beer.  Someone overhears this from another room and asks which one is fucked up. 
Hunter:  "You see that one with the gaping hole in it?  Yeah, don't take beer from that one, it will explode all over you."
Liz:  "Who did that?"
Horatio: "Me, I can't feel my face already."
Hunter:  "Slow down there, you have all night."  I find this advice particularly funny because I am already working on being utterly shit-faced.

Calypso saunters over.
Calypso:  "Don't you like the Jungle Juice?"
Hunter:  "It's very good."
Adrian:  "It's very lime-y.  Did you put citrus in there?"
Calypso:  "Yeah."
Hunter:  "It's like, I wanna play some, like, tribal drums.  No, not really.  No,  I have no rythm."

    Rebecca comes along and says she can't feel her face, so I poke her cheek. 
Hunter:  "I can still feel your face, you're fine.  You're still with us."
Rebecca and Liz start talking to me about something, but my phone buzzes and I totally just walk away from them to answer.  I am sorry, girls, I guess I am an asshole.  That or I'm like anyone else when they're drunk, and I just go with whatever.  I have achieved Autopilot Drunk.

    I re-enter the room and Calypso is taking pictures.  I rush to shove my face into every picture taken.  Seriously, if you guys read this and have those pictures, please send them to me, or post them online. 

    I approach Liz:
Hunter:  "I heard you called me an asshole because of my stories online."
She grins and turns her head slightly.
Hunter:  "AH!  You can't deny it! See, that's the 'I can't deny it' face. OH!"
Liz:  "Can't deny it.  No, not going to either."
A small crowd erupts into "OOOH."  I say, "That hurts," jokingly, because there is no emotional pain you can inflict upon Raving Drunk Hunter that he won't embody in physical pain later.
She giggles.  Apparently hurting me is funny.
Horatio:  "Dude, there's nothing wrong with being an asshole!"
I almost contend that I am not an asshole, and someone backs me by saying, "He can't be an asshole, he has a beard."  I'm not sure how this logic works, but I did in fact have a beard.
I fully contend that I am a mix of "nice guy" and "asshole." 
Liz: "So you're half and half? You are fifty percent asshole, that's still pretty bad!"
Adrian: "He's part sex machine, as well."
Hunter: "This is true.  Thank you for reminding me.  But seriously, do you really think I am an asshole?  Like, back in the day?  Other than when I was on aderol.  Because, I would come in happy one day and an evil bastard the next."
Liz:  "That's true.  That applied, I don't necessarily think you.... I don't know, but you're looking at asshole as a bad thing."
This shocks me. 
Yetti:  "Girls like assholes."
It's true, to some extent.  Though, I still believe that some of the qualities of an asshole can be taken away, applied to a nice person, and you get the same results.  Confidence mainly, but, unlike an asshole, not overflowing with hubris.
 
    Across the room, Horatio announces to no one in particular, "Shit, it's not even eleven o'clock and I am already shit-faced."
I rally the forces to go out to eat somewhere, and we head out.  Unfortunately, with everyone's short attention spans, we only make it as far as Seven Eleven.  God damn convenience.  I stand, staring at the Chip and Dip section for about five minutes before grabbing a bag.  I tell Horatio what I'm getting-- chips and salsa.  He says he'll buy the salsa, but, seeing the price, and being the Jew he is, decides he wants to buy the chips.  I tell him I'll buy both, but he hands me the salsa.   "Okay," I say.  I don't even use real money, I just hand them my university debit card.  The next day, Horatio complains that the bag of chips was like four dollars.  I tell him the salsa was like three. 

    We get back and drink more. Everyone engages in eating my tostitos and dip.  I am like, "Didn't you fuckers buy anything for yourself?"  I guess there's a Jew in me too.  I start eating faster than anyone else, so as to get my money's worth.  I am shoveling salsa into my mouth, getting the impression that I might shit blood later as a result.  Alcohol and hot salsa do not mix well.  Deciding that I have an iron stomach, I push the idea of bloody diahrreah to the back of my head and grab another drink.  I am drinking unhappily, and decide to separate myself from the crowd.  I head outside with three cigarettes and a lighter.  I sit outside and smoke them, putting the last one out on my skin.  For awhile, I narrate my surroundings to no one but myself.  Realizing this, I immediately head back upstairs.  To drink more.  To drown out the recognition of a problem. 

    I wake up the next morning with three hours of sleep under my belt.  I am either still drunk or very hung over.  Horatio and I head out and he takes me to my dorm.  On the way, I rediscover my left-over gatorade-vodka concoction.  I don't want to waste it, so I drink it.  I get back to my dorm and never manage to go back to sleep.  The day passes slowly.  I take some sleeping pills at night and pass out. 

    The next day, I see Sara.  She grabs a CD and hands it to me, delivering a happy birthday.  It's Richard Cheese's Lounge Against the Machine.  I am enamored.  We chill for awhile and she notices my newly incinerated flesh.  She wasn't supposed to see that.  I feel bad because I told her I was going to stop.  It wasn't like one of those childish promises someone makes you swear an oath to, but I still broke my word.  And, if I can't trust myself, how can I ever hope to trust anyone else? This was my major realization.  I have to generate everything from within, for myself, before I can be happy with someone else.  Or make someone happy. 

    On that note,  I have decided to stop drinking in excess, at least until I can understand where the line is.  It's okay to cross it, as long as you acknowledge that it has been crossed.  First, I have to find it, to draw it.