Welcome to the Grown-Ass Man Club

I turned 30 in March ‘09. And one of these days I may finally make peace with it. In the meanwhile, I’ve found some comfort in watching most of my friends endure the milestone. My standard text message/Facebook-wall-post on these occasions has been, “Welcome to the Grown-Ass Man Club. We meet on Saturdays. Bring scotch.”

This month saw the induction of two new club members: T.C. and Alex. T.C.’s birthday was on the 16th; his family, Hurley, and I did a little dinner in the South Side that night, complete with a cake shaped like a stein of beer. While the night was fun, it was relatively non-alcoholic (Hurley and I indulged in a couple of drinks each, just because we’re us). Everyone deserves to get ass-on-the-floor drunk in celebration of his or her 30th, though, and T.C. wisely formed a plan to do so.

He was assisted in this by the timing of Alex’s Dirty-Thirty party. Her birthday falls eight days after T.C.’s, and her friends would be holding a bash for her at Whim in Station Square the Saturday between the two days (5/19). T.C. decided he’d start that night with Alex’s soiree, and then move onto one of his own in Shadyside. Since The ‘Side is my turf, I was appointed second-in-command. O’Captain, my captain…

With so much fun scheduled for Saturday, I planned to relax on Friday and conserve my energy. What I didn’t plan on, however, was Pakistanimal getting a “hall pass” from his wife that night. He called me shortly after I’d come home from the barbershop, with designs on getting a whole different kind of fade going.

Me: “I’m staying in tonight.”
Pak: “I’ll be at your place at 8:30.”

*sigh*

He brought a bottle of Kraken with him, and was barely inside my apartment door before he was mixing together two cups of Kraken-&-Coke. While I wasn’t thrilled about having my night hijacked, I couldn’t let that delicious spiced rum go to waste. And then, strangely, I found my agitation being slowly washed away with each sip. For my second round, I abandoned the Kraken and made myself an Elder & Wiser (bourbon, St-Germain, and apple juice). And I soon forgot that I had ever considered not partying that night.

We hit up William Penn Tavern, which had a healthy Friday night crowd buzzing inside. Pak ordered himself a Captain-&-Coke, and I told the bartender that I wanted a bourbon-&-Coke. He handed us a Captain-&-Coke and a…?

Pak: “Is that a bourbon-&-Coke?”
Bartender: “No—I thought you said a ‘bourbon-&-soda’!”
Me: *blank stare*

A bourbon-&-soda? The fuck? I was more than a little disturbed by the lack of hesitation he showed in taking what he thought he’d heard and making it a reality. I know Shadyside attracts a slightly more refined crowd than say, the South Side; but are people around here really ordering that concoction? And at such a rate that he doesn’t even raise an eyebrow when he “hears” it?

He offered to take the drink back and get me a bourbon-&-Coke, but once again I wasn’t interested in wasting liquor. Now that Daddy had gotten a taste, I wasn’t letting any of it get away. I drank the misbegotten mixture as Pak and I lost convincingly at darts to two random guys. When it was time for a re-up, I stepped back up to the bar and gave the same order Pak and I had placed earlier. And once again, the bartender came back with one Captain-&-Coke and one bourbon-&-soda.

I was starting to take this shit personally.

A cute girl sitting in front of us at the bar was Johnny-on-the-spot; she noticed the error before even I could. She took the drink from me, called over the bartender, and told him to fix my order. The take-charge attitude, the Lisa Loeb-vibe her eyeglasses gave, and her pretty face had me falling hard. Before I could start contemplating names for our future children, though, another curveball was thrown, this time by Hurley.

Hurley [via text]: “Come to [Diesel] and call my name. I got bottle service.”

Uh oh.

My nerd-hot love would have to wait for destiny’s next entanglement. Pak and I got to the South Side as fast as we could, and found…pretty much what we expected. Hurley was obliterated, as was his boy who co-signed the bottle service. They had a few random people in their VIP room that they’d pulled in from the passing throng; girls mostly—hot ones, when at all possible. Three bottles of Grey Goose stood on the table with cranberry juice, Coke [“Sure,” I thought. “NOW I have unlimited access to Coke…], and orange juice, daring me. I filled up a glass with Goose and cran, and then took a sip and realized I had grabbed the carafe of Coke by mistake in the dim room. Oh, the irony… The mix still went down smooth. “Yup,” I thought, “I’m definitely drunk.”

We drank and charmed ‘til closing time, doing our best to find hot girls to come share in the Grey Goose bounty laid out before us. And, as the lights in the club were coming up, the lights in my blotto mind were going down. Blacked-to-the-out. I awoke with the usual “What-the-fuck-was-just-happening?” startle on Saturday morning, snug in my bed sheets. I drifted back to sleep with the cloudy foreshadowing of a hangover, and the slightly-more-painful understanding that I had an even bigger night still ahead of me.

I arrived at Whim that night as the party began gathering steam. Alex’s friends had reserved a roped-off section of the club, adorned it with special napkins and balloons, and arranged a champagne toast. It was the typical elaborate, thoughtful, but-a-touch-too-ambitiously-austere party that girls tend to naively plan. It was sweet of them, and I’m sure Alex—being that she’s a girl—loved it. As a guy, well…trust me, no man wants a coronation ceremony after losing his twenties. For all the bad that went on during my relationship with The Ex, I’ll always be grateful for the job she did in planning the party for my 30th birthday. It was elaborate, sure, but it never carried that overwrought I’m-a-big-girl-now feel that women usually build into their big parties. In other words, it was fun.

Earlier in the day, Entertainer had made it known that he wanted to join T.C. and I in adjourning to Shadyside for the second half of the night. But now, as Alex’s party got into gear, it was ever-so-obvious that he was already too drunk to make the transition. T.C. and I were taking it easy, and drank only two beers apiece while biding our time until we could escape. Entertainer, on the other hand, was slamming shots and drinking full cups of vodka. Youngins… When T.C. and I kissed the girls goodbye and headed towards the parking lot, we had to leave our comrade to the care of his girlfriend, Shannon, all of us understanding that trying to do the Shadyside portion of the night would likely kill him.

T.C. and I found our way to Shady Grove, where we met up with Tony, Nate, two of Nate’s boys, and our buddy Trip. Beautiful Coors Light girls patrolled the premises, as did a multitude of attractive women who weren’t being paid to flirt with the bachelors among our ranks. T.C. and his wedding band, when not watching on in amusement, did their flirting with shot glasses at the bar. Eventually our friend “Lotus” made her way to the bar, adding a touch of feminine charm to our drunken male banter. Any charm I was adding, however, came straight from the Elder & Wisers I was putting away one after another.

Several drinks and shots had been thrown T.C.’s way by the time she got there, but that wasn’t good enough for Lotus. “You’re not drunk enough,” she protested to T.C. “I’m buying you a shot!” An hour or so later, she looked over at T.C. and said (with a noticeable slur), “He still doesn’t look like he’s drunk!” “Trust me,” I countered, having spotted the telltale signs—talking loudly, eyelids dropped slightly during regular conversation and squeezed completely shut when placing emphasis on a particular point, etc.—that T.C. was feeling it. “He’s crushed.”

We fit in another couple of rounds of shots—and a round of drinks—as 2 a.m. came calling, and then all headed out into the night. Tony, T.C., and I did the gentlemanly thing and walked Lotus home. About halfway there, though, her own drunken “tell” raised its head: stubbornness. Despite being an intoxicated, attractive woman walking along a dark city street, Lotus objected to being escorted. She stopped dead in her tracks and refused to walk any further if we continued to follow her. We negotiated for a minute, and finally she agreed to move on with just me chaperoning her, while Tony and T.C. headed straight back to my place. [Don’t bother asking what kind of sense this makes; I assure you, it makes none.] Once she was safely in her place, I headed home and caught up with the boys as they reached my block. Lotus sent me this the next morning: “Omg what did u guys do to me last night? Haha the path to my room looks like a tornado came thru!!”

T.C.’s night ended with less spinning winds, and more spinning rooms. He hugged my toilet for about 20 minutes, as Tony and I tried to talk over the awful retching sounds coming from behind the bathroom door. When he had finally emptied himself of all that he could force out, he stumbled out to the living room shirtless, and plopped down awkwardly on my loveseat, passing out in mere seconds.

No one said becoming a Grown-Ass Man was pretty.

Grand Opening

I caught the T—Pittsburgh’s light rail system—from Mt. Washington to the North Shore with Jay Swag, Mitch Canada, and a train full of baseball fans at a little after 9 on the morning of the Pirates’ 2012 Home Opener. When a crazy old man pulling a cart loaded with baglady-like possessions sat down by us and started conversing with at Swag about any number of random topics, we all suddenly wished we were a little further along in the day’s drinking. I slid on my sunglasses and looked at the ceiling; in doing so, I snuck a peek at Canada, who had put his head down with his hands over his eyes in the world’s most prolonged and awkward game of peek-a-boo. Swag was left to entertain the ramblings of the vagrant alone. As we passed under the Allegheny River, the man jovially proclaimed that a leak would lead to all of our watery deaths.

In my head: “Why in the hell did I leave my flask at home?”

After leaving the T station on the North Shore, our first stop was at Tilted Kilt to use the ATM. We each decided to have a beer (Bud Light pounders, for the record), and to catch up with our favorite set of booze-hocking boobs, Mary. And Kilt’s employee dress code suited her particular skillset quite well (see right). While we talked, Swag suddenly focused off in the distance and asked, “Why does the girl with the fantastic rump not have to wear a uniform?” Mary explained that the rump belonged to the manager, and stopped it her as it she came walking past.

After being introduced to the three of us, the manager explained how much she loved Mary: “I told her; I want my boyfriend to impregnate her!”

We finally made it to Mudd’s tailgate party, and started hitting the hooch with workman-like precision. As per usual, we were surrounded by a formidable force of familiar faces: TD, Boy Toy, Dupa, TJ, Sloku, Beard, Stef, our boy Garrett, our girls “Cool Boobs” and “Bring It On” (BIO), Chad and his homie, and a sunny concrete sea of other drunken characters. As usual, Mudd had the party hooked up with everything we needed. Tub of iced-down cans of beer? Check. Grill cooking up burgers and hot dogs? Check. Cupcakes, pretzels, chips, pasta salad? Check, check, check, check. Gummy worms that had been soaked in vodka for a week? Yessir...

Unlike in past years, the party was actually a conglomeration of two or three total parties, stretching across two rows of Gold Lot 1, creating a solid territory of six or seven parking spots. The Piss Box was located on the other side of this expanse, between two trucks belonging to affiliates of Mudd that my crew doesn’t know. Mudd assured us, though, that it was there for use by everyone in his party. But when I led TD, Cool Boobs, and BIO over for a quick pit stop (I was going to block bystanders’ view from one side of the “alleyway” between the trucks), the owner of one of the trucks got agitated. “Piss Grinch” bitched about the girls opening the doors to his truck [they planned to use them as an added privacy measure—a practice we had seen others employ] and chased them off. When this was reported to Mudd, he escorted TD over and talked out the situation with Piss Grinch while she took care of business. The whole confrontation had made TD nervous, though; so much so, in fact, that when she felt as though she was taking too long to finish the job, she pulled up her pants abruptly. This resulted in a noticeable wet spot on the back of her jeans. Initially embarrassed, TD—who was already twisted like Janet’s “Poetic Justice” braids when I got to the party—was soon dancing around and telling everyone that she had pissed her pants. *sigh* She’s like the little sister I never had.

The animosity imparted by Piss Grinch had stuck with Cool Boobs and BIO, though, and near the end of our parking lot time the girls were eager to exact some kind of revenge. First, they thought of pouring the contents of the Piss Box onto Grinch’s Escalade. I vehemently advised against that—murder sentences have been lightened for less. As an alternative, the ladies resolved to sit the very full box o’urine on his hood. Again, a bad idea, and I disavowed myself from any involvement. When the two wannabe pranksters ran over to carry out the deed, however, they were shocked to find Grinch relaxed in the Escalade’s driver seat, asleep. They halted their operation and returned to base. “You know what would be great?” I offered. “If someone were to drag the box over to the driver’s side door, so that he’d step in it as he got out of the truck…” The ladies’ faces lit up like watchtower lights, and they ran back to carry out my idea. After they had scurried back, we all decided it was time to head inside. Dupa needed to urinate before doing so, though; a minute later he returned from the Piss Box. “Yeah, he’s definitely awake,” he reported. “I looked over while I was pissing and [Piss Grinch] was staring back at me. I nodded like, ‘What up?’”

We headed into Tilted Kilt. While Swag, Canada, and I ordered ourselves a round of beers from Mary, Dupa ordered a round of shots at the bar. Why walk through the gates of Hell, when you can sprint? As we talked after doing the shots, I quickly learned that not only had Dupa bought shots, but he’d bought a round of Captain & Cokes. Oh…my…gawd. We had polished off four or five cases of beer in the parking lot alone. I could only hope to land softly, wherever and whenever that may be.

A short while later, my Polish homie was standing in front of me with an unknown female friend.

Dupa: “This is [seemingly random girl’s name]. She lives in West Mifflin.”
Me: “Oh really? What part?”
Girl: *pause* “I live next door to your mother.”
Me: “Huh? How so? [‘L.’] lives next door to my mom.”
Girl: “I am ‘[L.]’…”
Me: *pause* “[L.]!”

Did I mention I’d been drinking? Not only have I known L. from being my mother’s neighbor for the past few years, but I’ve actually known her for the majority of my life. When we were kids, I hung out with her brother all of the time. Alcohol’s a hell of a drug.

Also making an appearance at Kilt was my homie B-Rush. B grew up in Pittsburgh, but moved to Vegas in 2004. Family matters had him back in his hometown for the week, and a free afternoon meant I could get him day drunk, as thanks for getting my boys and me hammered during Dupa’s dirty-thirty trip to Vegas. Within seconds of arriving, B had a Captain & Coke in his hand. The poor bastard never saw what hit him.

We moved to Dirty Harry’s, a dive bar in Station Square. Looking back on it now, I remember lots of us hanging out with (lots of) beer, games of darts, and laughter. But I don’t remember one intelligible conversation. In my head, the scene resembles a foreign film with no subtitles. Everyone in it knows what’s going on, but the audience watching at home is completely lost. And there really was no recovering from that point on. The end of the night found B, Swag, Canada, L., some others, and I at Rumshakers, capping the night with still more beer (and a minor case of heartburn for me, most likely from skipping dinner).

The next afternoon, as I nursed from a Gatorade bottle, I got a text from B. “I’m hungover. It’s all ur fault”.

Me: “Haha. It’s what we do.”
B: “Whatever n***a. I’m hungover as shit.”

Open for Business

A wise man once said that the greatest two-word phrase in the English language is “open bar”. And not only is he wise, but handsome. And modest.

Obviously, this wondrous phrase is most commonly associated with weddings, corporate-sponsored private parties, and other very formal (and typically expensive) engagements. But, on that rare occasion when the stars align, this gift from the gods of liberal libation can be found at your local bar or nightclub.

If you’re ever given a shot at it, I tell you now to make the most of the opportunity—it may be once-in-a-lifetime. Of course, for me it’s been at least thrice-in-a-lifetime. I can’t say for certain that there have not been more than three times when I’ve been able to saunter up to a bar and nod towards the higher shelves with nothing more than destiny in my hand, like I was Hugh Hefner at a Playboy Mansion party; but I know there are three distinct occasions that I will now brag about detail for your reading pleasure.


The Matrix Grand Opening

In April 2002 I was less than a year out of college, and still a rookie in the world of professional boozing. Most of my Fridays and Saturdays were spent at bars and nightclubs around the city, making good use of dollar drink specials (yes, young Padawan, such a thing once existed within Pittsburgh’s city limits), drunk girls who couldn’t spell “virtue”, and bartender hookups. One of my favorite hookups—though it was more for the fact that she actually became a close friend, and not just for her bartending generosity—was Steph. She had been working at a bowling alley bar in Monroeville […I mentioned I was just out of college, right? I wasn’t going to be picky—cheap booze was cheap booze!], but soon announced a new job she had just landed: slinging overpriced plastic Dixie Cups of rum & Coke at the newest nightclub in the city, Matrix.

She urged us all to come to opening night at this new megaclub, which boasted no fewer than four separate barrooms, each with a different theme and atmosphere. Butters and I, the only two adventurous enough to take her up on the offer, showed up to the Station Square locale to find a growing line at the doors. Keep in mind that this is Pittsburgh, not New York or L.A.; here, a line actually means something special is going on. The lengthy wait at the door may have just been due to the club being brand new…or maybe everyone else already knew what my friend and I were about to learn.

You see, there had been one slight glitch in Matrix’s owners’ business plan (well, actually, there were a lot more than just one…): They had failed to secure a liquor license in time for opening night. Thankfully, this didn’t mean that they couldn’t serve alcohol; no, it just meant that they couldn’t sell alcohol. And so, faced with this impediment, they did the only sensible thing—once you were inside the doors, everything was free.

My thoughts, upon learning this from the bouncer: “Oh. My. Fuck.”

Of course, it’s been almost 10 years since then, so I’m really just guessing as to what my exact neurological reaction was. But that can’t be very far off. What Butters and I walked into was very likely the closest either of us will ever come to Shangri-La. The first room (and, until the day Matrix closed, my favorite of the four) was the ultra lounge. It had an adult, upscale, European feel, with carpeting, leather couches and chairs, and mellow music—it was the only one of the four to not have a dance floor. It also featured two beautiful girls in revealing cocktail dresses dancing on top of the bar. In my 23-year-old mind, that fact in no way diminished the classiness of the room.

We walked into the second bar. This room, much bigger than the first, carried an “ancient Greece”/“vintage Hollywood” vibe: The bartenders and waitresses wore togas; white, sculpted architecture was everywhere; and black and white portraits of famous actresses covered the walls. A large dance floor sat in the middle, and top-40 music pulsated from all angles. We found Steph in here, toga’d up and offering up her big trademark smile as she greeted us with full cups of booze. We said a few words to her, but quickly moved on to allow her to tend to the mounting crowd of customers.

The third barroom, which had dimmer lighting and wooden décor, was more of an all-out dance party, with house music rumbling through the air. The fourth and final room was dark and trippy, with techno music, black lights, and an oxygen bar (…yes, these existed too). We decided it best to stick to the first two rooms, repeatedly hitting up Steph and her fellow besieged bartenders for cups of Belvedere, Grey Goose, Jack Daniels, etc. In those days, almost any drinking I did at a bar or club was nameless: rum & Cokes, bourbon & Cokes, gin & tonics, etc.—well drinks, in other words. Being able to add a brand name to your drink order was for lawyers, CEOs, doctors… You know, people who had jobs. But now, for just a $5 cover charge, I was big-timing it. The meek had inherited the Earth.

The one clear memory that remains from the latter hours of that night is a telling one. Butters and I found ourselves in the ultra lounge, standing at the bar as one of the formally-attired go-go dancers worked it to a Spanish rhythm a few feet away from our Dixie Cups. I suddenly realized that the various TV screens in the wall behind the bar were showing what appeared to be very old softcore porn. In one scene in particular, a nude young nymph frolicked through a meadow in black and white, basking next to a pond from which a moose was drinking. I pointed out this odd ambience to my friend, who then began shouting, “Moooooosssssssse! Mooooooossssssssssse!”

Me: “You do realize that there’s a naked woman on the screen too, right?”
Butters: “I don’t care! Mooooossssssssse!”


The Buckhead Drinkers’ Delight Night

[Note: I use “Drinkers’ Delight” as a placeholder here. As you would expect of any promoted event at a nightclub, there was an official name for this night…I just haven’t the foggiest idea anymore what it was. That’s what they get for giving me “free” booze (I’ll explain those quotation marks in a moment).]

This is where we hit a gray area; the setup of this Saturday night of bacchanalia in the summer of 2007 can be described as either “open bar” or “all-you-can-drink”, the point of contention being that you had to pay one inflated, upfront fee before enjoying the “free” drinks. I would argue that this fits under the former of the two options for one simple reason: A $25 cover charge pales in comparison to the kind of damage I—or any single one of my friends—will inflict upon a bar if freed of financial restraints for the night (…and it allows me to fit the story neatly into my theme, so…two simple reasons).

And so, on that balmy night, I caught up with Hurley and others at Buckhead, laughingly handing the doorman the measly $25 that I was about to get returned to me twofold. And that probably would have been fourfold if not for each of the bartenders being outnumbered approximately 3290-to-1. Whereas Matrix had four barrooms, six or seven bars, and several beer tubs at which orders could be placed, Buckhead—which, at half the floor space, was packing in nearly as many people that night as Matrix had on its opening night—had only two bars and two beer tubs. Their bartenders and beer girls were the 300 Spartans fighting for blood and country against us, the invading Persians.

With the bar counter looking like the floor of the NYSE, and the bartender only able to take your order about once every 30 minutes, the seven or eight of us in our group quickly fell upon a strategy for survival and intoxication’s victory. Very early on, someone was able to snag a seat at the main bar in the front of the club. With the rest of us crowded around this location, we set up a rotation—one man would order a round for everyone (and usually multiple drinks per person, as well), pass them out, and then quickly hand off the barstool to the man to his left. The new Seat Keeper would then pull out money (for tips, but really more of a bribe at that point) to wave, in a renewed bid to draw a bartender over. This may have been the most efficient and productive bit of process engineering I have ever been a part of while completely blotto.

I think I started the night drinking either Goose or Belve; but I know for certain that, over the course of the night, my orders covered a wide spectrum. Vodka, beer, gin, whiskey…repeat. At one point in the night I was even double-fisting glasses of Dewars. “Looking good Billy Ray!” “Feeling good, Louis!” As last call drew near, it occurred to me that I would need a ride home. I had driven myself down to Station Square that night, but nothing good could possibly come from me trying to make the return trip behind the wheel.

…Enter “Old Friend”. At the time, she was a bit newer of a friend, though it had still been some time since our last session of Bed Sheet Muay Thai. I bumped into her and her homegirls midway through the night,

but didn’t dare stray away from my group’s drink ordering rotation when the girls roamed elsewhere. Now, miraculously, they had reappeared at the end of the night. And, like a guardian angel, Old Friend swooped in like a vulture to take advantage of my weakened mental faculties for the purposes of her own sexual gratification rescued me in my time of need. Thankfully, as twisted as I was, I was still capable of “earning” my lodging for the night.

[*looking around* I put in work, son. *cough*]


The Cain’s New Year’s Eve

When our crew of young thirsty bastards was looking for a place to hang our party hats for New Year’s Eve in 2002, a friend of ours from college kindly offered refuge. The father of one of her close friends (“Sinful”, just because…) owned Cain’s in Dormont at the time. Sinful, as it happened, was hosting a closed-door NYE party at the bar: All-you-can-eat, all-you-can-drink, all-night-long. It’s almost like they were daring us to get recklessly shitfaced. It cost $25 to attend, since this was a private party; but again that’s nothing, as any one of us was more than capable of drinking down $100 worth of alcohol in a night (and that’s not even factoring in the food we were capable of consuming). And, unlike with the Buckhead event four and a half years later, our blackouts weren’t going to get cockblocked by the bartender-to-booze-fiend ratio getting out of hand.

Genoa and two other friends of ours (Theresa and Gina) were renting a house about a mile away from Cain’s. Once she and Finn said they were down to hit Sinful’s party, the rest of the planning wrote itself: 1. Drive to the party. 2. Crawl home to Genoa’s. 3. Figure out in the morning how to get back to our cars. Boom. Easy. We were a lock to achieve a fourfold return on our investment.

There’s not a lot of in-depth tales that I can still recall at will about that night. Some of that’s true now because it took place almost ten years ago, and some of it was true the very next day. I know one thing for certain: The six of us (BlahBlahBlah, Finn, Genoa, Triple A, our boy “Firewater”, and me) did the damn thing. Cain’s is a low-key, neighborhood bar, and has always been one of our favorite places to drink the booze. That NYE simply solidified its place in our hearts. Sinful made sure plenty of food was on hand (Cain’s kitchen has long been one of the best in the business, as far as greasy bar food goes), and the flow of beer and liquor—from taps and bottles to glasses to patrons to throats—was nonstop.

Here’s the most specific anecdote I can remember from the night: Late in the proceedings, I entered the barroom in the front of the building (the back half was the dining room and the location of the pool tables and dart boards) on my way to the bathroom, only to find BBB and Firewater engaged in conversation with two good-looking women. One of these ladies appeared to be older—which, at the time, meant she was between 27 and 34—and was wearing a tight top (that wasn’t at all shy about displaying her ample cleavage for her) and a novelty cowgirl hat. Basically, she was a “woo girl”. In those days, though, “woo girls” had yet to be identified as a social subgroup; so to me she was a cougar (…well, a cougar like you would find in porn, since they’re almost always played by 27-to-34-year-olds and not true “cougars”). I slowed down as I approached them, only long enough to bring a pause to their conversation when their heads turned towards me. Looking directly at Porn Woo Cougar, I exclaimed, “NICE!” Then, never breaking stride, I turned and headed straight into the men’s room.

How we made the mile long hike back to Genoa’s, I may never know. I vaguely remember stumbling through darkness and suburbia with my five friends, hoping each step was the last one necessary before I could fall asleep. Triple A and I crashed in Theresa’s room (both she and Gina were elsewhere for the night), fighting over covers and each of us almost pushing the other completely off the bed at different points in the night and morning. Firewater slept in Gina’s room, where he vomited all over the floor (ironically, she was the neat freak of the house; Genoa may never have had to clean a room as feverishly as she did the morning of 1/1/03).

As for BBB…well, I’m not sure where he slept. But I’m guessing it was on a couch in the living room; there had been no capture of the Porn Woo Cougar that night. The species remains as elusive as the Sexual Gratification Vulture, the Softcore Oasis Moose, and the open bar. The reward of bagging one, though, will always make the hunt worth it.

Full Metal Patrick

Tony and I strode down the street towards Shannon’s Mt. Washington apartment at 9:30 a.m. Armed with a 5 Hour Energy in my pocket, a fifth of Jameson in my hand, and my “Irish I was Drunk” tee on my back, I felt like I was walking into combat. It may have been my last shred of sensibility that kept me from saying to Tony, “On my word, unleash hell.” As we approached we met up with Weatherman, who was also just arriving. He dapped me and nodded towards the large gym bag slung over his shoulder. “Case of Guinness.”

I love the smell of Car Bombs in the morning.

Shannon’s the consummate hostess. A table with cups and pong balls was set up on her deck, and the sliding glass doors that you pass through to get there were turned into a sign-up sheet by washable markers. Two coolers full of beer and ice sat near the steps. Trays of food blanketed the kitchen like a fresh snowfall of pepperoni rolls, cookies, and pretzels. Bottles of hard liquor crowded the counter of the portable bar in the living room, and Celtic music wafted from her stereo. Only one blemish appeared on her party-planning performance: she left Entertainer, her boyfriend, in charge of the beer. That meant that her coolers were stocked with Pabst Blue Ribbon Light. My first instinct upon hearing this was to cast various aspersions upon his pedigree. Then I remembered that he and I not only graduated from the same college, but the same high school, too. *sigh*

If you were going to gather the most rabid pack of alcohol-hungry boozehounds that you could imagine, with the sole intention of sicking them on Saint Patrick himself, I think you’d come up with the following lineup: TJ and Rackt, Jay Swag, Mitch Canada, Dupa, Chappy, Affliction, Belle, Prince of Ligonier, Dr. Kelly, Weatherman, Tony, Shannon, Entertainer, and a humble fella by the internet pseudonym of D.E.F.I. Maybe you’d throw in another 30 lovers of the sauce as well—we certainly did. And every last one of us drank like consumption was going to be outlawed at sunup the following day. If you had 24 hours to live, how would you drink? If you had 24 hours to drink, how would you live?

The steps from Shannon’s living room down to the deck were slick from seasonal rains and a moderate accumulation of moss. We may never have known how much of a hazard these conditions can create if it weren’t for Prince, whose ass made contact with Shannon’s deck long before his feet ever did. Rackt and TJ witnessed the tumble; later, when they were telling me about it in the living room, Rackt said, “I felt so bad for him.” TJ shot a look in my direction. “If you had been down there when [Prince] fell, how would you have reacted?” “Well,” I said, “I would’ve asked if he was okay…as I uploaded pictures to Facebook with tears of laughter coming down my cheek.” When Prince and his fractured dignity made it back inside, he showed us the moss green stains on the sleeves of his thermal undershirt. “At least it’s St. Patty’s Day,” we offered. “Otherwise, those stains would look ridiculous.”

By 1:45, several of us had trickled into Redbeard’s. I crossed paths with a project manager from my program at work, and luckily was still coherent enough to say a few words of greeting before plopping down at a table on the patio with TJ, Rackt, Tony, Dupa, Prince, and Weatherman. But it wasn’t much longer before things grew…foggy. I’d done at least three rounds of Irish Car Bombs at Shannon’s, as well as Jell-O shots and beer pong. And all the while I had been steadily drinking cans of PBR Light and Miller Lite, as well as bottles of Point St. Benedicts Winter Ale. My memory and I were on a conference call, and someone on my side had started playing with the mute button.

We left Redbeard’s, intent on taking our campaign to Station Square. As we walked toward the Incline, I jumped on Weatherman’s back for an unrehearsed piggyback ride. That lasted all of .693 seconds, as the big guy lost his balance—seriously, how does someone who’s been drinking all day lose his balance…psshhh—and his resulting struggle to restore stasis launched me feet-first into the street. Thankfully, the approaching minivan’s brakes were up to par. Having defied (or is that “D.E.F.I.’d”?) Death, I laughed and rejoined the march to Station Square.

Pardon me if I paraphrase, but by now my brownout was only growing stronger. We moved to a bar in Station Square…that I know nothing about. Well, not nothing; it’s across the street from the Hard Rock Café. Beyond that, I’m at a loss. Tony chose it (personally, I think Tony being in charge is a distinct sign of just how irreparably impaired the rest of us were), and not even he knows the name of it. I remember there being girls there—new ones, not the used ones from the party (I kid, ladies). But how well we romanced them, how many times they maced us, how long the restraining orders are in effect…these are all unsolvable mysteries. The only thing I know for certain is we somehow all got to Rumshakers in South Side.

I remember only one moment from my visit to Rumshakers: a still frame of frozen time as I stood at the bar talking to Mary. [You know, the sexy bartender with the huge chest? …From the time last year when I was there and The Ex was in the cut, stalking me? …Wait, I never told you that story. …Damn I’m a lazy-ass writer.] Also, I remember someone handing me a beer. But that’s it; the 8 mm on my St. Patty’s 2011 ends there. When the lights came back up in the theater, I was sitting on the loveseat in my own apartment. In my boxers. Alone. *sigh*

Damage assessment: Total.

The postscript to my memories of the day has been incredible, as nearly every person in my crew who I’ve talked to seems to have had some adventure or two at the close of the night. Wondrous tales abound at every turn:

• When TJ and Rackt decided to call it a night, they walked back towards Station Square and the Incline. Rackt was, by then, in “Angry White Female” mode—a common side effect that can result from a full day of heavy drinking. When she found that a group of guys walking down the street needed to be told that they were acting like idiots, TJ had to do his best to drag her away from the confrontation. As they continued down the sidewalk, he said, “We’ve been with a crew of people bigger than me all day, but you wait ‘til we’re alone to get me into a fight?!”

• As they traveled on, they happened upon Affliction, who we had lost early in the day’s action. He had literally vanished while we were at Redbeard’s. Now, at about 9 pm, here he was in a random part of the South Side, quietly standing at a bus stop.

TJ convinced Aff to come with them; TJ would drop him off at his house on the way home. As they walked, Aff explained where he’d been all day. “I had to take care of something,” he said with a guilty grin. “She was terr—…” He stopped his storytelling as they passed a row house with its front door opened wide. Inside there

was a party going on, with the sounds of people and music spilling out into the street. After they’d passed the house, Aff spoke up again. “I just fucked some fat chick at that party.”

• Jay Swag sent me a text, right around the time I awoke on my loveseat, stating that his face was bleeding and his glasses were smashed. He also sent a picture he’d taken in the mirror; his face looked like he’d gone five rounds before the knockout. I asked him a day later who hit him. “Carson Street packs one hell of a punch.”

• Then you have Tony and Dupa. They left Rumshakers together, and tried to hail a cab. Having no luck, they found Pakistanimal and offered him $20 to drive them up to Mt. Washington. He agreed, and they all started walking towards his car. But when Pak turned back a block or two later to ask them something, both Dupa and Tony were gone. They had spotted Tom’s Diner; getting to Mt. Washington, it seems, would have to wait.

Although they had quit on the day’s boozing—and had eaten, even—the day’s boozing hadn’t quit on them. Their blackouts had rolled on, growing stronger with each passing minute. After they had paid the bill at Tom's, they parted ways as though they had never known each other. Dupa walked straight outside and renewed his search for a cab; Tony walked down the street in the other direction. TK randomly happened upon his roommate, who by this point was standing in the middle of Carson, waving money at passing cars. He pulled Dupa over to the sidewalk and drove him home. Tony, on the phone with K-Man’s wife April, ran into a girl that they both know from work. He handed the phone to Girl-from-Work, who said to April, “You need to come get him. He’s a mess.” April, angel that she is, drove the half-hour-each-way trip into the city and back, dropping Tony off at his house along the way.

• Monday morning I was in the kitchen at work when the project manager from my team walked in and greeted me with a grin. “Just so you know, I saw you almost get killed on Saturday.” I blinked at him in confusion, because I had (and continue to have) absolutely no recollection of almost getting hit by a minivan on the way to the Incline.

In the end, everyone—with the notable exception of Swag—managed to make it home unharmed…sort of. Chappy and Rackt each had to purchase new cell phones due to alcohol-related causes. They may have gotten off cheaply, though. The only way I could begin to sum up my state of mind that Sunday: I felt as though I’d damaged my soul. Dupa expressed similar sentiments, and Tony maintains that we each shaved a good five years off of our lives.

"Only the dead have seen the end of war."

Drunks Say the Darndest Things 3

I may be the only one who loves these quote posts so much—and I don’t care. I’m totally fine with the fact that this is all for me.

Pulling these together is never as easy as it would seem. There’s a wealth of material, sure; but often I neglect to make note of quotes as they happen, and therefore don’t have it at the ready when writing out the story (it may be shocking to read, but sometimes I tend to forget things when I’ve been drinking). Of those I do remember, I try to save some for a DSTDT post, but inevitably a lot of quotes are told as parts of other narratives. Typical of this new age of social media, though, I did manage to collect a couple from my friends’ Facebook status updates (that’s right folks—nothing’s sacred anymore). And, as usual, I have also included one of the many random moments of brilliance from years past that have sat in my crew’s vault, dusty and unpublished—until now.

• During our pre-Brewski, Friday-night-on-the-town in Johnstown last April, Dupa was in rare form. He put on a one-man show, dancing with the girls, wearing Shannon’s earrings, and spitting out zingers left and right. Far more than the alcohol, though, what seemed to inspire his verbal mastery on this night was our favorite doctor’s revealing attire. During one pause in the group’s convo, he turned to Dr. Kelly and—saying, “Let’s pretend I’m an ostrich and your cleavage is a sand pit”—buried his face in her chest.
  
  The best of his best, however, came not much later. The girls and guys had momentarily dissolved into separate conversations, and during a small break in ours Dupa looked over again at Dr. By then he was merely the dummy to the booze’s ventriloquist act, and didn’t seem to realize that his thoughts weren’t being restricted to his head. Barely loud enough for her to hear, he said, “I’m BP, and you’re the Gulf Coast; wanna see my oil spill?”
  
  
• The following night at Seven Springs, after a long day of Brewski pregaming, Brewski Festing, and Brewski after-partying, our cast of characters found themselves pushed to their limits. By the end of the night we were a broken and battered platoon administering battlefield triage throughout the sprawling mountain resort. When he dragged himself over to the bar to get a beer at last call, Entertainer found LRG standing there alone, finishing a drink.
  
  Within seconds they were approached by a bouncer who was visibly unhappy. Pointing at LRG, the bouncer barked, “He’s cut off!” Entertainer, stunned, assured the bouncer that he would keep LRG from causing more trouble. “Look, it’s last call, so he’s not drinking more anyways,” he argued. The bouncer relented, and walked off. Despite the confrontation, LRG had remained decidedly unfazed.
  
  Entertainer: “What did you do?"
  LRG: “I don’t know. Kicked a table? Hit a girl? *shrug*”
  
  
• My manager may be a grandmother, but that doesn’t mean she can’t hang. I’ve seen this firsthand on a few business trips; the years, however, may finally be catching up to her. Last month her daughter got married, and among the dessert items at the reception were cannolis filled with a cream made with three different kinds of liquor. And it seems the baker used a liberal amount of each alcohol in the creation of these On the Rocks-worthy pastries, to the point where my manager told me, “I didn’t drink much at the wedding; but then when I went to bed…the ceiling fan wasn’t on, but it was moving.”
  
  
• Last Memorial Day, TD was out of hand. She bounced around without stoppage at her and Baby Joey’s annual party, dancing, yelling at people randomly, and kissing her girlfriends in true barsexual spirit. Late in the night, she and her friend Leah were the subject of a fantastic picture, in which Leah sat in shock as her friend performed an impromptu lap dance on her. Leah’s facial expression as TD’s sundress is thrust at her in the photo is priceless. After I showed them the picture, TD summed up the moment captured by the digital eye. “Everything Leah does with her face, I do with my crotch.”
  
  
• One weeknight last spring, her girl 2Ls popped up in my Facebook news feed with a quick message to a dear friend. “hangover, I'll meet you in the morning, 8am, give or take... until then, have a good night..”
  
  
• How in the name of Jack Daniels do you ever begin a serious drinking session knowing you haven’t eaten within the last several hours? I just can’t imagine another drinking rule as clear-cut and painfully obvious as “drinking on an empty stomach will destroy you”. And yet, one recent Tuesday morning I had the following conversation with a friend who had been sending me drunk texts at 6 pm the day before.
  
  Me: “So how you feeling today?”
  Him: “All good. A little lightheaded this morning, but I think that's because I haven't eaten in 24 hours. I puked twice, and I should not have driven home last night.”
  Me: “So, explain to me exactly how you say to yourself, ‘I haven't had any food all day. I should ingest some alcohol.’"
  Him: “Silly... I didn't start talking to myself ‘til drink #8 or so.”
  
  
• Pakistanimal’s birthday was last June, and we decided to keep it somewhat reserved. TJ, Dupa, and Pak pregamed at my place, and then we all hit the ‘Side to make the blurry happen. We were soon joined at the William Penn Tavern by a murderer’s row of LRG and a few of his homies, Jay Swag, and Mitch Canada. After several rounds of birthday shots and various drinks, Pak was dazed, and found himself in a moment of defiant truthfulness while staring at a random bar slore nearby. “Yeah, I’m fucked up,” he announced to her, “and I’m looking at your tits.”
  
  
• A few days before St. Patty’s Day 2010, my buddy Weatherman was looking for a pair of smiling Irish eyes on Facebook. “Any Irish girls want to hang out? I'm drunk off Captain, and we could make one hell of an Irish pirate.”
  
  
• A couple of Fridays ago, several of us took part in a bar crawl organized by one of TD’s friends. TJ and his girlfriend, who was in town visiting, were in attendance. Since “Racktacular” (TJ’s own turn of a phrase, not mine) lives in Tampa, it took until that night for her to finally be introduced to TD. It wasn’t long, though, before she and the crazy little blonde girl had become good buddies. At the second stop on the tour, a moment of beer-fueled jubilation took hold of TD, as she said to Rackt, “We just met—let’s bump boobs!”
  
  
• Tony, also taking part in the crawl (by the way: all proceeds were going to charity, so it would’ve been socially irresponsible of us to not get sloppy drunk that night), found himself engaged in conversation with two random guys at one of the bars. After he finally pulled himself away from his new fan club, Tony then had to deal with TJ, Dupa, and I, who of course made many comments and unfounded insinuations about his true sexual orientation and the intentions of the two strangers. His immediate response, though, did little to halt that line of thinking. Waving off our jokes, he countered, “Dudes fucking love me.”
  
  
• One night several years ago, BlahBlahBlah, myself, and a few others met up at Hooters in Station Square (which has since closed) for happy hour drinks and food. The Hooters Girls were running a sports trivia game, wherein each table competed against the others to be the first to correctly answer questions. Midway through the contest, the sexy waitress in charge of it read aloud a question involving Earvin “Magic” Johnson. BBB found himself unable to hold back his mouth, instantly (and quite audibly) shooting back, “I’ll give you a ‘magic’ Johnson.’”

Organized Chaos

I have a lot of friends. And not just in the Facebook sense of “I once shared an elevator with this person, found out that we both play Farmville, and now we’re ‘friends’-slash-‘neighbors’.” No, I actually know a lot of people. And a lot of the people I know also know a lot of people. This means that I meet a lot of the people that they know. And that means I end up knowing a lot more people.

And with all of that, you would think I’d have a much more exciting dating life. But that’s neither here nor…anywhere, frankly.

I say none of this to brag, of course (especially not that last part). Instead, I bring it up as evidence that I’ve been exposed to many types of people. And I think most can be narrowed down into one of two styles of friendship:

1. There are those who refuse to leave a man behind. If they walked into the club with six other people, you better damn well believe they’re leaving with those same six (or they will at least have a reasonable amount of confidence that any buddy left to go his own way is going to end up someplace safe and/or advantageous…and/or disease-free). 
2. On the other side of the coin you have those guys who don’t really give a fizzle where or how anyone gets anywhere at the end of the night. This doesn’t mean that they’re less of friends; if they feel you’re in any real danger, then they’re in the saddle, guns blazing. But short of seeing you blacked out and walking down the middle of a busy freeway, they’re going to leave you to your survival instincts after a long night of boozing—typically because they, themselves, are relying on their own survival instincts.

I’m tempted to say that there’s a third group, one comprised of people who straddle the line dividing the first two. People who, on some days, will fight for the good of the team; and who, on other days, will do for self, and worry about sorting out the details of everyone else’s well-being in the morning. People like…me. But the more I think about it, the harder I find it to put myself anywhere but in that second category above. The truth of the matter is, 95% of the time I’ve got only my survival in mind. I love my real friends, and will fight for them against any adversary. But I’m also what they call a “grown ass man”; all things being equal, if I associate with you on a friendship level, then I expect you to handle yourself as competently as I do. If you’re in true peril I’ll assist; but if you’re just acting a fool, I’ll catch you on the next one.

If you’re wondering where all of this is coming from, let me get to the point: Tank’s bachelor party took place last month.

Ahhhh…all starting to make sense now, isn’t it?

Ladies, you may not quite be up to speed, but I know that the fellas reading this are already with me. [Feel free to skip ahead a couple of paragraphs to get to the action, guys; I’m going to take a moment to assist the women.] I think most of the fairer sex is somewhat misinformed as to what goes on when guys get together for bachelor parties. In telling the tale of GG’s stag party last year, I explained how the party’s traditional involvement with exotic dancers isn’t quite as scandalous as you might have pictured. But with or without ladies of the pole-spinning arts, there’s a fundamental rule about bachelor parties that guys tend to accept as unspoken law: Coordination is a fool’s errand.

Sure, you can expertly lay out plans for the night’s start; but the levels of booze and testosterone are each steadily building in everyone’s bloodstreams throughout the event. Each is strong enough on its own; when mixed together, you have an incredibly powerful hallucinogenic. 15+ deranged guys are not going to stick to an itinerary. No, they’re like a rack of billiard balls. And anything—be it woman, whim, or other distraction—can come rocketing in like a cue ball at any moment.

Tank’s little brother, BAL, was in charge of putting the party together. Around 20 or so of us gathered at Tank’s house in Dormont that afternoon for beer, food, and college football. Tank’s kitchen and dining room were overrun by snacks and hors d'oeuvres, as well as burgers and hot dogs fresh off the grill; his game room was equipped with two large flatscreen TVs and fine Cuban cigars; his laundry room was converted into a beer pong arena and stocked with Irish Car Bomb ingredients; and his patio, where the kegs were located, became a beer garden/smoker’s shelter. A table for beer pong—complete with pong balls, cups, and pitchers—had also been set up on the patio; but with temperatures in the upper 40s, it remained dormant. The man of honor drank from his very own black chalice with the word “PIMP” spelled out in glittering (albeit fake) diamonds. A DD limo would be coming after 8 pm to take people to Station Square. With that, a loose framework was created for the day’s shenanigans.

Breitling arrived in a new, all-black International MXT. As he parked on the street in front of Tank’s house, he blew the horn; the blast that resulted boomed through the quiet neighborhood and rattled windows up and down the street. An elderly woman came out of her house yelling “fucking asshole!”, and was intercepted by Chief.

Chief: “I’m sorry about that, ma’am! He was just having a little fun.”
Woman: “Well tell him he’s an asshole! What is that thing?”
Chief: “I think it’s a train!”

While every guy in my alcoholic family adds a distinctive and pleasing flavor to a gathering, it’s my W&J brothers that always deliver the best return on my drinking investment. This is true down to the smallest of interactions. For instance: As I stood on the patio with Chief and Finn trading all of the familiar insults, degradations, and aspersions that are by now customary and as warm as a brotherly embrace, a pause eventually came to our banter. Chief, never to leave a moment free of mischief, reached over and picked up a pong ball from the table. He then sized up Finn’s cup—sitting on the table less than two feet away—and fired a shot directly into it with a playful chuckle. Finn, unfazed, picked the ball out of his beer, shook it off, and began taking the measure on the cup in Chief’s hand, again less than two feet away. Cocking back his hand, he snapped off a shot with everything he could muster—directly at Chief’s forehead.

That was likely the last time that day that a pong ball was thrown in jest, though. The games inside quickly took on more and more importance, as the competitiveness in the air was ratcheted up by the sudden (but not unexpected) introduction of cash to the table. Ten, twenty, fifty, and even one hundred dollar bills were soon being tossed on the table by gladiators and spectators alike (which for me quickly brought to mind my experience at the W&J frat party several years ago). Being low on funds, I only made one bet, putting $20 on Esq and Baby Joey to beat Chief and our buddy, “Sloku” [for those of you curious about the genesis of that alias: his spiked hair reminds me of the DragonBall Z character, Goku—he even dressed as him one Halloween—and he speaks with a slow, deliberate tone]. When I lost that to Butters, I thought better of risking anything further. At its peak, the day’s wagering featured a battle in which each of the four men on the table put up $100 of his own money—small change for a Vegas craps table, but nearly unheard of in middle class Pittsburgh beer pong. Baby Joey has long maintained a much more modest income than his older brother Esq, a young hotshot lawyer. But having recently found a lucrative new career path, Joey was unexpectedly covering his sibling with the laundry room’s impromptu beer sportsbook. “I’m into Joey for $150,” Esq said incredulously. “The world’s coming to an end.”

Though two limos were supposed to move the party to Station Square at 8, it was after 10 by the time we were ready to be moved. I had intended to only attend the first half of the day’s events, and to therefore go easy on my bank account by skipping the club-hopping. By this point in the night, however, Chief and others were well lubricated by the high of beer pong glories and the…beer…of beer pong defeats (not to mention by a few rounds of Irish Car Bombs done in toast to the groom-to-be), and I was told that I would be insulting them by not staying out at their cost.

So my choices are (1.) go home and fall asleep on my couch watching Chappelle Show reruns, or (2.) smoke cigars in a limo ride to Station Square and party with my boys…for free? Well, I guess I could stay out a little longer—for Tank’s sake.

We hit Steel House a mangled, slow-moving, low-laying cloud of 15 or so drunks, speaking loudly in coarse terms, ordering rounds of shots and apologizing to anyone nearby who wasn’t as inebriated as us—which was everyone. I’m quite certain that by this point I was no longer standing and/or walking, but instead floating; I was being carried along by my own piece of the cloud, a cushy haze that enveloped my comprehension and speech patterns. Soon we had spread into Barroom, onto the dance floor and throughout the surrounding lounge areas. Then there were kielbasa sandwiches from the vendor on Barroom’s deck, and then…well, somehow I was walking through the front doors of Rivers Casino with Butters, our friend Dirty, and Joey.

I really don’t remember how we got there, though I think it was via limo. We found Breitling and another guy from the party at a Pai Gow table. After some further searching we found Esq alone at a blackjack table. And after talking to other various party refugees found strewn around the casino floor, we learned that Tank and BAL were in the poker room. Chief was first said to be somewhere at a craps table, but subsequent reports placed him heading for the doors and—hopefully—a cab to Tank’s house.

Rivers being a PA casino, last call for alcohol comes around 1:30 am. Great; dry and broke in a casino. Now that’s living. The next few hours were spent touring the floor with Butters and Joey, watching our scattered crew play their chosen games of chance.

• Blackjack: Esq was losing badly, but stubbornly kept throwing more money on the table, against our advice. 
• Pai Gow: Breitling spoke in loud, obnoxious streams of profanity and bravado (standard) as he built up a $5000 stack of chips in front of him. While walking past this vivid display of the rich getting richer, Butters paused, looked at me, and said, “I hate him.”
• Poker: On our second stop to the poker room, we found a Tank-less BAL. The groom-to-be had, it was theorized, headed home. The younger of the two brothers was committed to staying on the table for the long haul, having just invested another $200 buy-in. The early end to drink service didn’t seem to have hindered his inebriation much, as he looked as though he could pass out in his chair at any moment. Sometimes you simply leave a man to die the death that his dignity desires.

We found Dirty and, all four of us being sober and exhausted, grabbed a cab back to Tank’s house at 4:30 am. His drained fiancée, Katie (a saint of a woman, really), opened the door for us. She assured us that Tank had, indeed, found his way home, and was sleeping it off in their bedroom.

Just like we’d planned.

A Fond Farewell

If “Cooley High” and Boyz II Men have taught us anything, it’s that it’s so hard to say goodbye. On the other hand, though, alcohol has taught us that if you don’t remember it, it didn’t happen. So if a dear friend is moving on in life, but she throws herself a going away party so sadistically drenched in alcohol that you wake up at 5 am the following morning without the slightest clue how you got in someone’s living room, then you never said goodbye and she hasn’t left, right?

Steph—oh she of the wondrously foul mouth and generous pour, packed neatly within a demure “girly-girl” exterior—recently came to a realization: Like others before her who are high on talent, personality, and ambition, she has finally accepted that Pittsburgh is no place to waste her life away. And so, eager for opportunity and a better life, she has decided to move to New York City. [Note: If anything in the prior two sentences came across as sarcasm, let me assure you that nothing could be further from the truth; the tone is meant to be more of a seething jealousy.] Ever the enabler, last Friday she christened her departure by hosting a party that also broke the proverbial champagne bottle over the bow of my belligerent inebriation.

I started the night by meeting Dupa on Mt. Washington. Each of us parked our car near Jay Swag’s house, with the hopes of falling down either there or somewhere near there when all was said and done. Dupa arrived a good 20 minutes later than me, having had a minor fender-bender while in transit. Some clown with a less-than-agile right foot had not hit his brakes early enough, and as a result slid into the back of Dupa’s car as my friend sat idling at a red light. The two drivers pulled off to the side of the road to inspect their respective bumpers; luckily no real damage had been done.

Dupa: “He said, ‘My bad man, I’m kind of in a hurry.’”
Me: “Did you exchange insurance?”
Dupa: *completely serious* “No, I told him, ‘Go fuck yourself,’ and got back in my car.”

We made our way to Station Square via a rectangular blast furnace on rails that the Port Authority of Allegheny County has the nerve to call the Monongahela Incline. Air conditioning and the Incline have yet to meet, and on Friday it was 92°F with humidity somewhere in the mid-90th percentile—at 7:30 pm. And that was the outside air temperature; inside the small, enclosed rail cars, you could double each of those numbers. If I didn’t know any better, I’d say the Station Square bars pay the Incline operators to pump heat into the funiculars just to ensure that customers go searching for cold beverages when they get to the bottom.

Round 1 of Steph’s party kicked off at Bar Louie Station Square with dinner and drinks in the VIP area, thanks to a friend of mine who hooked us up [astute readers will note that this is the very same VIP area that hosted my 30th birthday celebration last year; Dupa almost looked out of place without a bachelorette party participant perched on his shoulder]. I, of course, made use of the $34 all-you-can-drink-top-shelf special that my friends and I have looked back upon fondly since last year. Chelsea, a wonderful princess of a waitress, made it her duty to have a new Red Bull and Ketel One ready for me as I finished each previous one. And the party’s attendance count grew as quickly as my drink count did. Bill, Shannon, The Entertainer, and even Hurley joined the throng of people bidding adieu to Steph’s life as a Pittsburgher. And my friend “Biff” arrived after pulling together an impromptu—yet well-executed—prank.

It was simplistic in nature and origin: Early in the night, Dupa sent a text to Biff to ask if he was on his way. Biff, feeling saucy, decided to respond with “Who is this?” Dupa showed us the text, and then responded with, “The guy you met in the bathroom at Elixir last week.” While he did that, I quickly shot off a text of my own to Biff: “[Dupa]’s almost buying it. Keep going.” And so began our dance (forgive my paraphrasing, but neither Dupa nor Biff gave me a transcript, and I was a good four or five Red Bull and Vodkas in by this point).

Biff to Dupa: “This is [Biff]’s mother. He has a new phone with a new number, and he gave me his old one.”
[Dupa begins to bite, but is still skeptical. He asks around the party if anyone knows of Biff changing his cell number. All along the way I’m behind him mouthing the words “SAY YES!” to everyone. At Bill’s suggestion, he sends…]
Dupa to Biff: “Prove it—show me your breasts.”
Biff to Dupa: “That’s highly inappropriate. If you want to talk to [Biff], his new number is 814-xxx-xxxx.”
[Dupa is stammering. Steph, Bill, and the rest of us are laughing hysterically. Dupa recognizes the “814” as a Johnstown area code, and suspects it to be the phone number of Biff’s buddy, Pete.]
Me to Biff: “You almost had him, but he figured it out when you used an ‘814’ instead of a ‘412’.”
Dupa to Biff: “That’s a Johnstown area code, so I know that’s not his number.”
Biff to Dupa: “That’s his work number. His personal cell phone is 412-xxx-xxxx.”
Biff to Me: “Don’t worry, I fixed it.”
[Dupa’s really worried now, as the added depth to the story—and the added alcohol he had consumed as time went on—was now convincing him that not only had he just told his friend’s mother that her son had picked him up in a public restroom, he had also asked her to show him her boobs.]
Dupa to Me: “Fuck! *thinks* I should text [Baby Joey] and ask him if [Biff] changed his number.”
Me to Dupa: “Probably worth a shot.”
Me to Biff: “He’s going to text [Baby Joey]!”
Biff to Me: “Don’t worry, I took care of it.”
Dupa to Joey: “Did [Biff] change his cell number?”
Joey to Dupa: “Yeah, the other day.”
[Dupa crumples into a ball, fully expecting an ass kicking in his near future.]

When Biff finally walked into Bar Louie chuckling, Dupa was more relieved than angry. I think it’s safe to say that finding out your friends have been messing with your head is a far better alternative to finding out that you’ve brazenly asked your friend’s mom to sext you.

The party moved to Buckhead at about 10. We had not planned on going there, but given its location (across the street) and the temperature (Bar Louie’s air conditioning was turned off, inexplicably), it just made good sense. Despite the lack of forewarning that Buckhead’s staff was given, Steph was able to negotiate free admission for everyone in her party (good luck pulling that one off in New York).

Things rapidly got hazy, for all of us. Dupa was “iced” by Entertainer, while Shannon and I openly wondered why we even associate with them. Steph pinballed between the four or five clusters of partygoers that had formed around the club’s main bar—and did shots at each stop. Biff held court in one of the huddles, with several of the party’s beautiful women around him; this led him to say to Dupa, “You see this? You see all of these girls? I look like the man right now, right? Nah. None of them want me. I’m deep in the ‘friend zone’.” And Hurley and I, each armed with an open tab of our own, caused me to tweet, “Hurley and I might have the most violent friendship in history. We literally will spend any amount to kill each other with shots.”

Legitimately twisted, he and I followed Steph’s bar crawl to its third location, Whim; Dupa, Entertainer, and Shannon, however, all set off for Jack’s Bar in South Side. This was my first time being inside Whim since its previous life as my beloved Margarita Mama's. It has a very Studio 54-ish feel to it; that’s not necessarily a good thing, but it’s not a deal-breakingly bad thing, either. I’d only recommend it for those times when one finds himself in precisely the same circumstances in which Hurley and I found ourselves that night: part of a group that featured a high percentage of females, in high spirits, and floating towards a blackout, with no real agenda for the rest of the night.

After a beer or two—and possibly more shots (my ability to memorize was seriously hindered by that point, but I certainly wouldn’t rule out our sadistic game of “Last Man Standing” following us to Whim)—my boy and I finally bid adieu to Steph and the remaining partiers, deciding to cab our way over to Jack’s. When we found our three fellow refugees from the party at the back bar, they were engaged in the same activity as before: championship boozing. Some of our friends who hadn’t been a part of Steph’s celebration had also joined up at Jack’s, and they were no less enthusiastic than the rest of us to order more rounds of shots and drinks. I can—and more or less have to—sum up the rest of my bar night with the following two simultaneous conversations that took place the next morning.

Me to Dupa (in person): “Where did you lose me last night?”
Me to Hurley (text message): “Where did I lose you last night?”
Dupa to Me: “I think when you left Jack’s to go to Rumshakers.”
Me to Dupa: “We were at Jack’s?”
Hurley to Me: “Too many shots. I don’t know. Maybe Jack’s?”
Me to Hurley: “No, you were with me at Rumshakers.”
Hurley to Me: “We were at Rumshakers?”

I woke up alone in a living room, sitting upright on a couch. I wasn’t wearing my shirt or my shoes. The TV was on, and with a random infomercial playing on the screen. I looked around some more. I was in Jay Swag and Mitch Canada’s living room. But it had been weeks since I’d seen either of them. At least I thought it had. Had I met up with Swag somewhere last night? How else would I have gotten into their living room? Did I break in? I began looking around the room for my shirt and shoes. Nothing. I carefully made my way up the stairs to the guest room. There were my shoes sitting neatly in the corner, with my wallet and watch stashed in them. And draped over a chair was my shirt. I laid down on the bed, content to sleep for another few hours, when one last thought made me jump up. Opening my phone and using the light from the screen, I checked inside my wallet. Debit card? Check. Credit card? Check. License? Check. I exhaled and fell backwards onto the mattress.

As I drifted off, I thought to myself, “Did I see Steph last night?”