I awoke in a kiddie pool this morning, fifty-two degrees, the water mixed with martini regurgitation, the children unable to swim in fear of accidental intoxication. Idon't care if I ever see Dora the Explorer again.....I had been dreaming previously of a cold November shower where I was freeezing and hiking quickly to get to shelter. I dream in color. I remember tall naked trees, howling winds and following a girl in a red hoodie to her grandmother's cabin...the rest is pretty much a porno so i won't share it with you. I do have to say that I was just as surprized to have experianced a nocternal emission as I was to have woken up the way I did. We started out at Pangea Lounge last night, drinking wine and laughing at all of the stupid things we've done while intoxicated. Who would've guessed that I was about to top all of my drunkery with in the hours to come..
6:00 P.M. We walked into Kevin's, a restaurant and local watering hole up the street from Pangea Lounge. I had drank a bottle of wine and had moved on to martinis. Bombay Safire Gibson martinis to be exact, complimented by a pickled onion and guaranteed to keep away the ladies. I wasn't out to find love or anything else a woman might be good for, tonight, I was on a mission.
I had left work happy to be done and ready to fully embrace the lack of stress that two days off would bring. The restaurant where I work had been crazy busy for weeks and several of the staff members had been out with illness and injury, we were understaffed and I had been working doubles for fourteen days. The real problem is that I happen to be an alcholic and whenever an alcoholic takes a break, we seem to make up for lost time.
Walking into Kevin's I noticed an old friend outside, Elias Sheldon, whom I had matriculated in college with. I hadn't seen Elias since we graduated five years ago, evidently he was packing parachutes for the government. He was the last guy I'd want packing my chute, that is if you could get me to jump. Elias was the type of guy who would stick you with the shirt off his back if he had been sprayed by a skunk. True story, he actually got sprayed by a skunk in college and had taken his soiled clothing and hid them under the passenger seat of my car, leaving a mysterious stench for about three weeks.
Anyway, Elias invited us to sit at his table and began ordering shots and appitizers. Evidently he had come into some money and wasn't too concerned with his spending. He never elaborated on how he got his wealth, all he said was that from now on things were going to be different and that chance favors the prepared. We were getting pretty shitty pretty fast when three red necks came rushing into the bar and pulled Elias out of his seat and dragged him out of the place kicking and screaming. I ran out side and tried to fight them off, but it was no good, I got puched in the face a few times and kicked in the face. As I looked up from the puddle of blood that was dripping off of my face, they drove away with elias inside thier car. I ran down the hill to where my car was parked in front of Pangea, got in and drove off in the direction that they took him. It had not occured to me that I was hammered until the adrenaline wore off. I was all over the road and feeling the pain of a possible broken nose. What the hell was I going to to when and if I found the kidnappers, I had no idea. I pulled over to look for somthing to use as a weapon in my trunk when a patrol car pulled along side of me.
"A little car trouble son? " the officer asked as he noticed my bloodied head. " What happened to your face?" the officer asked as step out of his car and carefully came arround to meet me standing at the trunk. I was under the gun and under the influence, so I decided to hop back into the car and peel out. I flew down the twisted country backroads kicking up dust and barely avoiding a few close calls with mail boxes and maple trees and didn't stop until I came to a big red barn on the side of the road. It looked as if I might be able to pull behind the barn, so I decided to give it a try, hopefully I wouldn't get stuck in the thick mud that surrounded the building. As I made my way arround the last corner of the building, I saw the tail lights of the cop car going by.
As I sat in the car and tried to sleep to let a couple of hours go by, so I could make a run for it at daylight and get back home, I couldn't help think that my old friend was dead...
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