Capitol Nights

I feel I owe the loyal readers more. If we have loyal readers. Or readers. I mean, even if we have readers, how am I to know just how loyal they are? When the revolution begins, will our readers stand by our side with a chrome fo-five?

Wait, where was I going with this?

Oh yeah. I owe you—let’s just assume that there is a “you”—more. My bank account may be imposing a booze embargo on me at the moment, but that doesn’t mean I should be letting it affect my blogging. After all, I have an endless catalogue of boozing stories in my archives. Hardly a conversation between my friends and I goes by without at least one tale being referenced or recounted. Sad, maybe. But I prefer “awesome.”

And since I’ve prattled (it’s a word…I swear…look it up) on for a few minutes already, I’ll give you a relatively quick version of the story.

My boy Chief (no, he’s not Native American) lives just outside of Washington, D.C. Last year, I went down to visit on his birthday with two of our friends, Haze and Fox. Haze and Chief grew up together, and to christen his homie’s 28^th year in this world, Haze bought Chief a 1.75L bottle of Grey Goose. We arrived at Chief’s townhouse with the Goose and 4 six packs of Red Bull. Chief’s fiancée, Kim, shuddered as she realized what kind of weekend this was going to be.

Fox, Haze, and I were running late when we got on the road, and got lost along the way. So our planned 10 p.m. arrival occurred at about 11:30 p.m. This meant that we had a limited amount of time to spend at the Alexandria bar that we hit that night, which closed at 1 a.m. A whole handle of Goose, and only about an hour of good drinking time to take care of it? No problem. We stumbled out of the door at about 12:20 a.m., the bottle sitting empty on his kitchen counter. And this, is what we do.

We got to the bar, a suburban pool hall, about 30 seconds before last call, so we each ordered a Long Island Iced Tea to maximize our bar time-to-alcohol ratio. After that, we went back to Chief’s and played poker until about 5:30. I made about $60, which was a theme that weekend. The next day I threw $50 on a college basketball game, and won that, too. That night I found out what a blessing these wins were: they meant that the trip didn’t throw me into bankruptcy.

Drinking on an average Saturday night in Pittsburgh, at that point, ran me about $40. D.C.’s cost of living, however, doubles that figure. Actually, it would’ve tripled it, but Chief had a fantastic hook-up at the restaurant where we ate that night, and my $50 meal (food and a couple of glasses of 12 year old Macallan on the rocks) cost me about $35—after the tip. Make friends with your servers.

Chief took us to some bars in the city, and along the way we smoked some Cuban cigars. It wasn’t my first time smoking a cigar, but you would not have known by watching me. I smoked the whole cigar down in about 3 minutes of walking down a D.C. street on a cold February night. My lungs were not happy with this development.

I couldn’t be bothered with that, though. I had more pressing business to attend to, like adjusting to D.C. prices. We were paying $9 each for drinks that cost $4.50 in Pittsburgh. Welcome to the big city. Haze is a lawyer, and isn’t worried about money (hence the big bottle of Goose), so his “moment of adjustment” came when he tried to hit on a fine little Asian girl walking through the bar. When she quickly dismissed him and walked off, he was caught off guard. Like a true soldier, though, he regained his composure. He immediately turned to the rest of us who were standing nearby and said, “Geez, you believe all the lesbians in this place?”

This is that wondrous point in any good drinking night when things go hazy. I don’t remember leaving the bar, but I remember Chief, Fox, Haze, and I hailing a cab. I remember asking the driver to take us to a good strip club, but I don’t remember why we didn’t go to one. I don’t remember feeling sick, but I remember throwing up all over myself and the cab door. My lungs had exacted their revenge for the Cuban assault. Viva La Revolución.

My birthday present to Chief, it seems, was a story about a load of foul-smelling laundry and an irate cab driver at 3 a.m that he can (and will) forever hang over my head. Who says I’m not a good friend? Anyone can give you a big bottle of Grey Goose. I gave a memory. Take that, Haze.