“Every outing in public is an opportunity to be sexually harassed, and I embrace it,” she says. She—a new friend named Beth—doesn’t say much after that, and neither do I. She’s a big city lawyer and so I kept my hands to myself, noting her remark instead of testing whether she embraces its litigational prospects or, just the thrill.
Thank god I didn’t meet her the weekend before. The weekend before I lost it, lost control, then lost my memory. Halloween. The Undead. The Thriller Zombie Parade. Drinking started at 4pm. UGA whooped the Gators. High Life, whiskey and gin all day and night. If you thought the Bulldawgs touchdown celebration lacked class…
I literally got so trashed that I don’t remember the last couple of hours. Apparently I was fully functional—not necessarily in a flattering way, just not passed out yet. Hearing the stories doesn’t jog the foggiest memory. The next few days I spent introspectively. It reminded me of two other times in my life: once when I was a good Christian at a good Christian college, and a few months later when I’d gone from bone-dry to doing 19 shots of Jack Daniels in a night.
As the former, a good Christian boy, I honestly believed I’d never ever drink. I feared alcoholism and Hell, turning down opportunities left and right until I got the fool notion that being a little worldly would be alright as long as it impressed this one girl I liked. Regardless, the idea of not drinking isn’t foreign to me so when I say things like “I’m never going to drink again” it doesn’t feel as false as it might sound because I was once stupid enough to think I’d go my entire adult life without that first sip.
As the latter, a backsliding do-right under a half bottle of Jack, I passed out in front of the admissions office at Vanderbilt, sitting upright with a cigar dying between my fingers and a notebook on my lap (I’d wandered away from the party intent on writing the Great American Novel that night). When my friends found me, I freaked out, thinking I’d died. They watched me scream and cry because I thought it was time to meet the maker I’d so shortly before abandoned. But I remembered it all. I still do. Ironically, the girl I was previously trying to impress had just become my girlfriend and her ex walked by during this episode, offering his assistance. So yeah, I didn’t drink again for months, nauseated simply by the thought of any alcohol. Only after hard work and determination did I become a drunk again.
So, the problem isn’t that I got drunk, it is that I didn’t remember enough of it, and what I do remember, I know doesn’t exactly speak to my character. In the aftermath, I decided to quit taking the Chantix because of that story about the musician who was on it, got drunk, lost his mind and got shot in the head trying to break into his neighbor’s house. Everyone said he acted out of character. I don’t want to take any chances. (Though you can still thank me for not smoking.)
Though Magnolia Street raged with its historic first block party, and Cherry Street was blocked off with a stage for the practically unannounced Macon Music Heritage thing, I made last Saturday a Blockbuster night instead. Macon is no worse for the wear without me.
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