New Year's Resolution
by Smiley Jim Clawson
I've been bored at work so i've been reading more of your stories [the Idiot
Odysseys]. Once again i find one to relate to:
"Lord of the rats." Our main bar, post bar-downtown, is across the
street from joe louis arena. Several years ago the area looked about
as bad as a place could look in detroit, which is pretty bad. Anywho,
in between Christmas and new years there's always a 2 day college hockey
tourney at the Joe. The Detroit Redwings will play the day before &
the day after the tourney, or at least on that year (I think '97 or possibly
'96 too many cells were cleared away during that time period.
With their loss, so goes my perception of time). Unlike most parts
of the country nobody, nobody in Detroit works during those dates, God bless
the auto industry. No better way to celebrate the time than with friends
and an insane amount of beer. We (myself, another prop known as Mugsy,
Goat the fastest flyhalf in the midwest, Phatty the fattest & possibly
slowest center in the midwest, & Willard - the man who looks like a rat)
show up around 2pm to prepare for the hockey game. Nothing special
that night drink
stupid amounts, hit on every chick that we can focus on, help the bar clean
up, eat coneys at 4, then head home.
Day 2: The hockey tourney begins at 2. I figure i could show up
at the bar around 11, get some coffee, and start the drinking part of my
day with a bloody mary at noon or so. I walk in the bar and to my surprise/delight/horror
was Goat dj'ing, Mugsy behind the bar serving drinks to people we don't know,
Phatty stocking the bar cooler, and Willard working the mop. I had
to ask the question, "what'd you guys do with the people who work here?"
The reply I got was, "they didn't want to work today. we get the run
of the place, the people working tonight asked us to fill in." Funny,
I thought we'd actually have to be employees to fill in. We were just
regulars who mostly drank for free. I was told we were not going to
see college hockey live, we could watch it on tv and drink for free.
Ok, what ever. The day got silly. We went through the bars entire
stock of Jaeger. I'm
pretty certain we didn't drink it all ourselves because I'm not dead.
But we had to call one of their other bars for more the following morning.
The question we pondered after we'd been drinking for 13 or 14 hours was,
how were we going to ask them to bring us more when we just finished the
entire months supply of the stuff after the first weekend they got it?
That was around 3 or 4am. We thought we'd be sneaky and leave a voice
mail at the other bar. No such luck, they were drinking
like us. We told them of our dilemma and they seemed to understand.
We lost track of Willard at that point too. We thought he ducked in
a man hole and scurried home. Something we failed to realize:
we don't work at the bar, when we made the phone call, we sent red flags
off everywhere. A half hour later the owners were at the door asking
us all sorts of questions, then made us leave.
Day 3: Michigan doesn't allow people to drink at bars before noon.
We got down to the bar just after noon, still no sign of Willard. I
was still shaking going through withdrawls. After my first bloody I
calmed down quite a bit. I needed a pick me up so I started drinking
coffee with my 2nd bloody. the bar staff found it pretty amusing what
we did the night before. They asked if we would do it again. We
agreed to watch the bar till 8pm when the late night people would come in.
About then someone
was pounding on the back door. The back door doesn't lead to outside
directly. It leads to the abandoned part of the building. sometimes
bums break in and sleep there. When that happens the bar people have
to chase them out. We opened the door to find Willard pretty frazzeled.
Apparently he tried to hide when the owners showed up for fear of getting
into trouble. When they left they locked the back door, trapping Willard
with the rats & bums. He said the bums were actually nice people,
but the rats scared him. Willard's kind of our whipping boy.
Instead of letting him sleep on the couch in the bar's office, we made him
sleep behind the bar on the concrete. Most normal humans would've objected,
told us to get f*****, then gone to the couch. Willard curled up against
his coat at the corner of the bar. Still the same silliness, drinking
running around without our shirts to the song "catwalk" by Right Said Fred.
We made it back to our houses around 6 or so.
Day 4: The wings played that night. We met up at the bar around
4 or 5, thinking we'd drink ourselves mindless again. Somewhere in
the middle of the first period we contracted ebola. None of us
could stop puking/hacking, a few us couldn't control our bowels. I
at least made it to the bathroom, others weren't so lucky. We decided
it would be better if we just went home.
Day 5: I layed on the couch all day. Sickest day of my adult life.
We agreed we'd take the night off but the following day was New Year's Eve
and we had Wings tickets. Not much happened during the hour I
was awake that day.
Day 6: I was struggling. I could barely breathe and was dizzy.
Someone Goat knew decided they wanted to party with us, we made the newbie
pick us all up and drive us that night. We all looked like strung out
crack whores. It was difficult but we badgered each other into
drinking. The sickness seemed to go away. Beer is a cure-all.
We managed to make it through the game although not many of us wanted to
be there. After the game Goat said someone he knew said we could all
come to this party. I made the point of, "it's New Year's Eve, most
people dress up, we're in jeans and tshirts. Willard hasn't even seen
a comb in 3 or 4 days." I was assured it was a casual party, and most
of the people would be dressed the same way. I was in no mood to contest
the idea. They had food, one of those ice luge things for booze, and
lots of beer. As we got close to the party I peered out of the window
and noticed we were in a very upscale area. I question my fearless
leader one more time and was told, "look smiley, it's black tie optional,
we're optional." This came from Goat, fastest man on the field, slowest
mentally off. Me and the 4 or 5 other crack whores stumbled into probably
the most polished house i've ever been to. Maybe it was my imagination,
but i'm sure the music stopped and everyone took notice of all the fine looking
young men walking into the party. At goat's house we usually
just throw the empty pizza boxes into his fireplace and burn them.
just before midnight there seemed to be an abundance of empty pizza boxes
next to the trash outside. all of us took one or two boxes, walked
into the house, and put them into the fireplace. Oh yes, it was a gas
fireplace. With black smoke billowing out and covering the ultra white
walls, we were asked to take our party someplace else. Willard took
two shrimp buckets while Phatty and Mugsy swiped a case of
booze. Goat & I apologized for our actions and headed out to the
van of death to head back to his house to celebrate New Year's Eve.
Not realizing the bounty my comrades had taken I thought the night was over.
We got back to the east side palace (Goat's house) and ate shrimp and drank
Captain Morgans til we passed out. We woke up just in time to realize
we still had ebola and took turns in the bath room the next morning.
Day 7: New Year's day. Football began while we were in bathroom
rotation. After a while we got it all out of our systems. we
vowed we would start a fitness program the following week. With all
the hacking we were doing we filled the room with a haze of mucus. It
was pretty disgusting but we couldn't do anything about it. The day
wrapped up with the Rose Bowl, Michigan vs Someteam that's never been in
my kitchen. Michigan won, I think they were co-national champs that
year, so i guess this all happened in '97. We continued to drink.
Somehow Doritos made in the house. They were all over the floor (white
carpet). We ended the day with a no holds barred wrestling match.
Day 8: I woke up the following day around 6 or 7 and realized i had
to go to work. The party was
over. I got to work fighting the ebola and trying to look professional.
Being the first day back from
holiday, the systems weren't working so I was able to sit in my cube pretty
much undistrubed. There
was a minor interruption when one of the new hires came in & told me
about his crazy night out for new
years. Tthe boy had no idea I had just experienced the Vietnam of
drinking. i threatened his life and
told him not to talk to me for 3 weeks.