January 30th, 2009.
The night was a calamity of lost souls and degradation. Kids all around were whirling through the night; it was uncontrollable. There was a certain desperation in the guys standing too close to the walls, their beers too empty to drink but too full to toss.
We'd all come together, across that bridge. The trek was cold, the wind was foul. I was surrounded by my drunken friends, my own sobriety still very intact. From the first moment out of the door, the ice blasted our faces in some sort of frozen bukkake . Staggering over to the house of debauchery, I felt lost, gone in some sort of transition phase between secure, sleepy, failure in my room and the sense of euphoria and escape that comes along with the consumption of alcohol. I'm sure everyone who drinks has at some point shared this experience, but it remains unnerving.
Inside. No one knew what we were there for, but we'd be damned if we weren't going to enjoy ourselves. The dance floor was a joke, shambling corpses pulling a facade of joy over their own heads. The beer was caustic, the women cold. Strangers' faces leered overhead and behind our eyes. I could barely stand the pressure of the air.
My friends slowly trickled back home, as I stayed behind. One of my better friends gave me some cash to buy some grass later, after he'd gone. So I waited and drank and waited some more. I asked around, saw the kid who I was supposed to talk to, but my friend was still there, so I held off and went to take a leak. The door was closed and four girls stood inside, just talking. Their fitted caps seemed to ill-fit their broken, sad faces. I shoved the door open after knocking a few times and relieved myself in a urinal on the other side of the room. They said something about impoliteness that I tried to ignore, but when they chided me for not washing my hands, I broke down.
"Go fuck yourselves. There's an ice luge in the next room that is currently spreading every single communicable sickness to every kid who sticks a mouth on it. Fuck you, fuck you, and fuck your stupid bathroom antics."
I got another beer. The dealer had left. I had money to return, a beer in my hand, and no friends left in the building. After bidding the house owners a good evening, I walked home, staggering slightly as I kicked through the snow. I finished my beer and threw it in a garbage can or the snow or the ice, I'm not sure which.
Home again. Cold, icy. Sleep seems like a good idea. I pulled my shirt and pants off and curled up in the meager refuge of my covers.
