The Ohio University Halloween (Pt. 2)

[The conclusion of my Ohio U. Halloween story (read Part 1). When we left our fearless explorers from W&J (T.C., Tony, and yours truly), they were at an off-campus house party, sober and in civilian clothing, when they made the executive decision to forge off on their own, to Court Street.]

Court Street is effectively the Ohio U. version of New Orleans’ Bourbon Street. It is a straight, wide street lined with bars, and for Halloween they block it off at either end of a mile-long stretch. Oh yeah.

T.C., Tony, and I waded through the inebriated masses of skin and costumes, and I suddenly remembered that I had come armed with a cameraphone. I decided to get some good use out of it, and snapped a few pictures as we walked up the street. After a block or two, we chose the nearest bar. It was a typical, nondescript college pub, with booths along the right wall, a large bar running the length of the left wall, and TV sets in a few different locations. We sat down at the bar, and ordered six shots of Jaeger. It was business time.

Prominent among the revelers in this bar, was a girl wearing a Hooters girl costume. And she was wearing it convincingly (i.e., she was blessed with large “chesticles,” as Tony likes to call them). She and a friend (who was dressed as a female devil) came over to the bar and sat to the left of me. I felt a tap on my left shoulder, and turned around to find the Devil-Woman smiling at me. “Hey!” she slurred. Pointing to her friend, she said, “Put your face in her cleavage and go ‘bbbrrrbbb!’” I was speechless. This girl, without any provocation, had just asked me to motorboat her friend. I looked at Hooters Girl, who seemed uneasy about her friend’s sudden desire to see a complete stranger stick his face between her breasts in a crowded bar. “Do you want me to do that?” I asked. She said, meekly, “Um…not really.” I really am too nice when I’m sober.

They were fun girls, though, and I continued talking to them. Seeing that I had a cameraphone, they decided to give us a mini performance. Devil-Woman grabbed a cherry from the bartenders’ caddy on the bar, and held it in the air between them. From either side of it, they each leaned forward and shared it in a messy kiss as I snapped a picture. God bless modern technology.

We downed a few more drinks, and then made our way back out into the street. The scene was like nothing I had ever experienced before. An endless river of people flowed past, wearing a never-ending variation of costumes. And there were costume teams everywhere. More cheerleaders. More hookers. A powder puff team of girls wearing football jerseys, short shorts, ankle socks, cleats, and eye black danced in the street. Naughty cops. Naughty witches. Naughty nurses. There was even a group of naughty chefs, who were dressed in chef hats, tight white tops, short skirts, and had aprons around their waists. Why don’t girls dress like this the other 364 days of the year?

We decided to start bouncing around to different bars along the street. We entered one, and found a spectacularly-bosomed girl checking IDs at the door while wearing a low cut fairytale princess dress. I had her pose for my cameraphone; as drunk as I was getting, the picture probably looked clear as day to me then. Looking at it now, though, it’s like looking through pond water. I guess modern technology just wasn’t advanced enough for her rackage.

Being that I was drinking—beers and shots were ordered at just about every place we stopped in—my memory starts to fade in and out around this time. I know I’m forgetting more than I’m remembering, but what I remember is vivid. In one bar, I found myself sitting next to two cute, petite chicks dressed as…naughty sluts? I was unconcerned at that point. I mentioned to them the cherry show that had been performed at the first bar, but they were not impressed. “That’s nothing,” the brunette one said, as she grabbed her blonde friend and engaged her in a lingering kiss for my camera. It’s a small miracle that alcohol dulls the senses. Otherwise I might have shown them just how much I enjoyed that photo-op. It really is the ultimate compliment, ladies.

We were walking through another bar, when a random girl grabbed T.C. Being that he had a girlfriend back at W&J, I began formulating different cover stories in my head. But it turned out that she had gone to high school with him, and was now in her junior year at O.U. “Little A.” (this one is for protecting anonymity) took us downstairs to hang with her friends at the basement bar, which was a laid back scene. Dim lighting (or at least I remember it as dim), music, tables and chairs, as well as a bar with stools around it in the far corner. I vaguely remember there being couches, too, but don’t quote me on that. We drank there until last call, at which point Little A. invited us back to her and her friends’ house. This concludes my recollection of that night (save for one memory which I will get to in a moment), but not the night itself. Hello, darkness—we meet again.

I awoke around 9 the next morning, still drunk. On a floor. In a room. Alone. I looked around, and was quite certain I had no idea where I was. It seemed to be a girl’s room, complete with pink decorations, various pictures of people I didn’t know, and female clothing strewn about. I could hear male voices on the other side of the door. They seemed to be rehashing the events of the night before; I figured it was just T.C. and Tony. I turned my attention to my phone; I didn’t have my phone. “What the f...?” It wasn’t in my pocket; it wasn’t on the floor. It wasn’t on a desk or a chair. “Man,” I thought. “I hope my boys know where it is.”

I opened the door, and found myself face-to-face with two guys I had never seen before in my life. They were sitting on two couches in a living room, and seeing a 6’6” man emerge from the room caught them a little off guard. Thankfully, though, they were relaxed cats, who understood that I was as confused as they were. I found out that neither of them lived there. They were visiting a friend of theirs who lived in the house. Neither had seen a phone lying around, nor did they know my boys. I decided that I was never drinking again. Ever.

I used the house phone and tried dialing my phone, but heard nothing. No ringing anywhere. The two guys were about to hit the road, and couldn’t offer me much help. They could give me a ride, but to where? Pittsburgh? I had no idea where my peoples were, so it would have been a pointless exercise. I thanked them, and continued to try to remember anything I could about the night before. I walked into the kitchen, and looked out into the backyard. Suddenly, I remembered sitting on the back porch by myself in the dark (yeah, I worry about me sometimes, too). I walked outside, and tried calling my phone again. I heard a Nas song faintly playing nearby, and rescinded my earlier pledge of future sobriety. I called again and tracked the sound, until I found my phone sitting in the middle of the yard, on the other side of some lawn furniture. There were 16 missed calls and 10 text messages, all from the night before.

I tried calling T.C. and Tony, but got nothing from either. I walked back to T.C.’s car in the parking lot on the other side of campus, hoping they had slept there. But it was empty. I didn’t have a key, so I sat on the ground next to it for 20 minutes before my phone rang. T.C. said groggily, “Where the f*ck are you?”

As he and Tony trudged back to the parking lot, he filled me in on the end of their night:

• When we got back to Little A.’s, there was a raging party. We were drinking, when I suddenly disappeared. T.C. and Tony had no idea where I was, and tried calling me because they were heading back up to campus with some people. But they called and called, and couldn’t find me. How you miss the 6½ foot tall biracial kid in the backyard is beyond me. But it’s not like they were drinking water while I was throwing back the shots, so I cut them some slack on that point.
• They finally gave up on finding me, and walked up to campus. The people they were with got separated from them, for whatever reason. Tony, being in his “obnoxious drunk” stage of the night, decided to start dropping flying elbows on car hoods. He would run at the car yelling something like, “You think you can destroy me, bitch?” and then leap, slamming down on the hood. I think he said that, at one point, he was even standing on one hood. Fantastic judgment, that one has. He and T.C. then decided to retire to the frat house, where they found two couches in a chapter room and passed out.
  
• Tony woke up without a $50 bill in his pocket that he had begun the night with, and decided that one of the frat brothers had pick-pocketed him in his sleep. T.C. had to drag him out of there before he started shit with anyone. It took years before he finally conceded that he likely had just spent it. Crazy drunken Irishman.
  
• I found out, when I ran into Little A. months later, that it was her bedroom floor that I had slept on. She had ended up somewhere else, and didn’t even know that I had been in there.

That Sunday was a rough one. I drove half the way home, and then slept the second half while Tony drove. T.C., whose car it was, slept for the entire drive. We vowed to return the following year with more people, but never did. The damage from the night was best summed up in a conversation I had with T.C. a couple of weeks later. I had eventually gone through the pictures of the trip that were on my phone, and came to one of a beautiful blonde girl, wearing a 1920s “flapper” outfit; complete with a tight, low cut top that showed off the ample blessings that nature had bestowed upon her chest. I didn’t recognize her, so I asked him if he did.

Me: “I don't know who she is, but I love her.”
T.C.: “Buddy, that’s Little A.”
Me: “Who?”