The Old Gray Mare

My plan for Wednesday was get to work early, bill 10 hours, and head home for a quiet night before Yuki arrived for the weekend. With the holiday and a houseguest, I was bound to be busy. Plus, Monday night had wiped me out and Tuesday night wasn’t particularly restful (more on that later).

But the day started with me sleeping in, and dragging into work at 9:00 am. Billing 10 hours would require staying until at least 8 pm, maybe later, and I just wasn’t up to it. I resolved to work until 6:30 pm and call it quits.

By 2 pm Paul was at CC’s and texting every 5 minutes. He had taken off the afternoon and was there with Evil Mark, hitting on Murch and trying to wipe out CC’s stockpile of vodka. You can imagine my response. I’m weak under the best circumstances; plus I was hung over, and it was the last day before a long holiday break. I was helpless. I fended off the craziness as long as I could, but at 4:30 I shut down the computer and headed out of the office.

It was pouring rain when I got outside, so instead of walking home to get the car, I decided to take a cab. Cabbing it is never easy in Seattle, but at the end of the day downtown, in a rainstorm, it’s impossible. I ran down the block to the Hotel Monaco, huddling under awnings with rainwater streaming off my bald head, and finally got a cab after a couple of cab-hailing duels with the hotel valets (who are all really cute). A $5 cab ride got me to my garage (the amount is important later, because I’m cheap) and then I grabbed the Benz and raced up to CC’s in the downpour. Paul was calling and texting the whole time, becoming decreasingly coherent until he just repeated the text message, “Come” over and over. As I was pulling up he called and threatened to close his tab (that got me going, remember I’m cheap) so I told him to order me a beer and raced inside. The entire odyssey, from office chair to barstool, took 15 minutes. It was 4:45 pm, not quite time for cocktails.

I greeted the boys, and settled into my Mac & Jack’s and the usual chit-chat. My peace and quiet lasted all of 5 minutes. Yes kids, before my beer was even half done, Paul was draining his final vodka-soda and announcing we had to go to Mark’s house. “What’s at Mark’s house,” I asked. “Beer,” came the reply, and apparently Murch’s promise he’d come over after his shift to tend to Paul and Evil Mark’s “bars.” Murch heard this and just gave me a big loopy grin; I couldn’t blame the guy for telling a little white lie to get the drunken doofuses out of his bar. But dammit, I had left the office early and took a $5 cab ride to hang out with my friends at a BAR. Not go to Mark’s house and watch them pass out on the couch while they waited for some bartender to “drop by.” And it was barely 5 pm on the night before a holiday. Carlos had class until 8:30, and the evening had been shaping up to be busy and fun.

Being spineless, I caved. Mark and Paul ran off, and I finished my beer and chatted with Murch. He just flirts because it gets him tips, but tonight it had messed up my evening and I was cranky. I left him a buck (he even flirted with me a little) and headed down to Evil Mark’s.

Of course, Evil Mark didn’t HAVE beer, he had to go GET beer. When he got back we all cracked one open and stood around the computer looking at pics of Mark’s old internet tricks. And about halfway thru the first bottle, things got interesting.

Paul’s packed on the pounds, and the girl can put away drinks with the best of them. But to paraphrase a song from my childhood, the old gray mare’s liver ain’t what it used to be, so many years ago. Paul got half that beer down and lost the power of speech. Lost it. One minute he was babbling, his mouth locked in a grin like the Joker from Batman, and the next minute his jaw was clenched tightly shut and his eyes were pointing two different directions. He was swaying and drooling just a bit, and when I asked him if he was ok he couldn’t answer. He just stood there, swaying a little in his work clothes with a bottle of Rolling Rock locked in his left hand. Finally he nodded, crookedly.

I have to say, I was concerned. I’ve seen Paul so drunk he couldn’t crawl up a flight of stairs (the weekend on the coast), but I’ve never seen him unable to talk. We finally got his knees unlocked and got him to sit down. Mark, always the practical one, said “Well he’s still awake so he’ll be fine. I’ll getcha another beer.” It was 6 pm. On a Wednesday.

Woodsy came over shortly thereafter, and Matty swung by on his way home from work, but my evening was done. I said my goodbyes, extracted a promise that someone would get Paul either home or to the ER, and went home to make dinner. Who thought that finally getting Paul to be quiet would be so disturbing?