6:19 a.m. - 2002-01-28
What A Fucking Unbelievable Night: Part Two
What A Fucking Unbelievable Night: Part Two
Do not read unless you've read Part One (the previous entry)!
Halfway to downtown San Diego, I realized just how drunk I was. It was ridiculous just how drunkenly I was driving. And the rain was picking up. At one point, I realized that I couldn't see anything.....my windshield was covered in rain droplets.....I turned on my windshield wipers, and they restored my vision by sweeping away the water.
"Jesus Christ," I thought to myself, "How long have I been driving with 0% visibility? How long have I been driving with my windshield wipers off?" I was unsure of the answer. It had certainly been 20 miles or so.
Another astonishing thing I realized while I was drunk driving to the Del Taco trash can: I had the radio turned up loud, very loud...to the maximum volume my stereo goes, in fact. I was singing aloud to classic rock songs. My singing was half-assed. It went something like this:
"Come on baby, light my fire
The time to hesitate is through
No da da da da da da fire
Come now we da da da lose.
And our love da da da da funeral fire....
Come on baby, light my fire."
Another one I remember singing aloud to my drunken self went like this:
"And the cat's in the cradle and the silver spoon
Little Boy Blue da da da da da moon
When you coming home
Da da da da when
We'll da da something something then.
Yeah.
You know we'll have a good time then....."
I was singing at the top of my lungs. In addition to that, I was yelling at myself at the top of my lungs, "How could you have fucking lost Bridget's number, you piece of shit? You stupid cocksucking idiot. You motherfucking drunken stupid goddamn cocksucker. You get a girl's number once a year, and you fucking lose it, you piece of shit? You should treat it like the Holy Grail, idiot."
I was drunk. I really yelled this to myself out loud. As loud as I could.
I really remember telling myself that I should have treated Bridget's number like the Holy Grail.
I'm not lying.
My voice is gone right now. So help me god, my voice is gone. I lost my voice from yelling and singing to myself as loud as possible.
I lost my voice!!
In addition to singing aloud, I also was clapping my hands as loud as possible to the music.
I distinctly remember clapping my hands to the beat of the music.
I only have two hands.
Later....after I sobered up....I thought to myself: "If both of my hands were clapping to the music, which hands were steering the vehicle in the rain?"
On afterthought, I'm not sure if the vehicle was being steered.
I arrived in downtown San Diego finally, and parked at the Del Taco. I rummaged through the trash. I found MY Veggie Works burrito. I even found one of MY receipts. It was a store receipt of stuff I had bought earlier that day. The time now was about 3:00 a.m., and I was rummaging through a Del Taco trash can in downtown San Diego, by myself, in the rain, and talking to myself all the while.
When I found my receipt, it was like a great clue. It was proof that I had been there earlier. Apple juice, bananas, milk.....This receipt had everything on it that I had bought at the supermarket that day. This was MY receipt, goddammit, so Bridget's number can't be far from this.
I found napkins, but upon opening them, they revealed nothing but burrito mess and sour cream and ketchup and other taco-related slop.
There was one napkin, in particular, that caught my attention. I swore it was a bar napkin from the Casbah. I opened it up, expecting to find a phone number, and instead I found a glob of phlegm. I walked in the general direction of the Casbah, and realized I had no idea where the Casbah was. But.....by the time I realized this, I was far from Del Taco, and soon realized I had no idea where my car was.
Time passed, as I wandered.
I checked my watch at one point. It was 4:10 a.m. I had been walking around downtown San Diego in the rain, while drunk, while talking to myself, for one hour and 10 minutes now. I knew neither where the Casbah was, nor where my car was parked.
I could feel a sore throat starting. I was catching pneumonia.
If I could find the Casbah, I was going to retrace my steps and try to find that fucking napkin, which by now would surely be rain-drenched.
If I could find my car, I was going to give up my journey, and go home.
I could find neither.
I remember saying aloud to myself at one point, "FUCK THIS!!!! I'm wet, I'm cold, I want to fucking go home, I want Bridget's number. This is wack!!!!!"
And then I punched a light pole.
And then I said this out loud: "If I don't find something soon, I'm either going to kill myself, or kill somebody else." As I said that, I looked up, and there was a homeless man crouching on the sidewalk staring at me with complete fear in his eyes.
4:30 a.m. now....drunk, alone, walking in the rain, rummaging through trash, talking to myself.
I didn't belong there.
Yet, I was no different than the bum crouching on the sidewalk......
I take that back.....there was ONE difference. I was threatening out loud to kill people. He was not.
Ah, but I could go on and on and on and on about my drunken stupidity. About my self-inflicted torture.
But, I'll spare you the details.
I'll wrap things up by saying this: I never found that napkin. I eventually did find my car at 5:10 a.m....More than two hours after I arrived at the Del Taco.
Bridget's phone number is lost forever.
But, Dear Reader, there is hope. For, if you'll remember, we TRADED phone numbers. So.....she still has my number. Whether or not she'll call me is another story, but she DOES have my number.
If she doesn't call, then fuck her.
Lord knows I tried to get her number.
There are people tonight, who saw me, and must've pitied me. They must've thought of me as a poor, street urchin, which in a way I was.
They must've thought, "That poor boy. Where's his family? How did his life get to this point? How does a young man like him end up walking the streets in the middle of the night, talking to himself?"
If any of them are reading this right now, I'll answer their question. I'll tell them how a young boy ends up walking the streets at 4:30 in the morning, in the cold rain, talking to himself.
I'll tell them how a young man ends up walking drunk through the streets of downtown San Diego, punching light poles, and threatening death upon people.
The answer is this: Bridget.
Well, she is blonde, after all.......And she does have a vagina.
Eh, maybe she'll call me.
Hopefully, she'll wait till I have my voice back, at least, before she calls me.
