My life has generally been a series of disasters, one after another, brought about either by my own stupidity or that of my friends. You eventually get used to living in a permanent state of damage control. When you get tired of the effort it takes to constantly repair whatever you’ve done this time, most people start trying to live better lives. Stop drinking, get a career, find a nice girl, settle down, have some kids, get a mortgage, take up drinking again and become an abusive alcoholic. The circle of life. It’s a rational, sane decision for rational, sane people.
When it came time for me to make that choice, I can only assume I was hideously drunk. I probably mistook the fork in the road for a urinal, pausing long enough to relieve myself before enthusiastically stumbling down the much less viable “if it doesn’t repair itself, it’s not worth repairing” school of thought. The result is a retarded trail of devastation, like a bull in a china shop if the bull was epileptic and had Down’s syndrome. Sure, there’s gonna be destruction, but if you bring a camcorder it makes for some fantastic YouTube uploads.
If you travel through life in an inebriated state, wearing your underwear on the outside and hurling abuse at children, you can probably expect to end up as a cautionary tale of some description. That’s where my irrational fear of hobos comes from, at any rate. Still, every trainwreck has that point of no return, somewhere between missing all the warning signals to derailing completely. My story is no different.
To the best of my knowledge, the first link in this disastrous chain of events was a completely innocent misunderstanding, almost a week earlier. When I say innocent, I mostly mean unintentional. Sort of. In any case, I couldn’t have anticipated it ending with as many beatings as it did. Seriously, it was a phenomenal amount of beatings in a short space of time. I’m amazed I came out of it with functioning kidneys.
Like every questionable decision I’ve made in my adult life, this one starts with being drunk. It was a Sunday evening in the Valley, and Vintage, Lex, the Birdman and I had been getting our drink on since ten in the morning. In the interests of preserving what tiny shred of dignity I might still have in your eyes, I should point out that this level of public alcoholism wasn’t a regular occurrence. That’s the sort of thing you would usually do at home, so you don’t have the embarrassment of forgetting how a cab door works in front of hundreds of women.
Lex was getting another round of drinks, while Vintage was on the dance floor, apparently trying to seduce several women at once. The Birdman and I sat at a table overlooking the floor, making jokes at Vintage’s expense. I’m not really the ‘dancing’ type; trying to coordinate my limbs to music has the very real potential for bodily harm to those around me. The Birdman, on the other hand, once had actual paramedics called to the scene after people assumed he was having a seizure.
“See that guy over there?” the Birdman asked, waving vaguely at some peacock looking guy putting his best moves out there. Right out there.
“Yeah?”
“What.. what is he doing? Why is he doing that?”
“I think he’s trying to do the Robot.”
“He looks like he’s trying to build a cabinet inside of himself.”
“That’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever... wow. Wow. He actually does.”
The Birdman nodded, satisfied. “That’s why I don’t dance.”
“No,” I said, raising an eyebrow. “You don’t dance because emergency services threatened to press charges if you ever waste their time again.”
“Hey, what do you reckon? If a robot dances the Robot, is it still called the Robot, or just called dancing?”
“Ah,” said Lex, returning with a fresh round. “Hard at work solving the mysteries of life again, are we?”
I set the glasses down on the table and started pouring from the jug. “That’s us, mate. Taking philosophy by the balls, one mystery at a time.”
“I’ll take your face by the balls!” the Birdman shouted triumphantly.
“Oh my God, I hate you.” I glared at him as long as I could before laughing.
“It’s much more off-putting when it makes no sense,” he shrugged.
“See, this is why we can’t have nice things,” said Lex, shaking his head. “Like girlfriends.”
“Your face is why we can’t have nice things!”
“Much better,” I concurred, becoming distracted by a spectacular set of legs across the room. They were attached to an equally spectacular torso and waist. Also hips. It was a woman is what I’m trying to get at. I don’t want to give the impression that I’m a fan of disembodied limbs or anything.
She was wearing stiletto heels and a bold red mirco-dress, dark hair pulled up in an oriental bun with chopsticks. Standing at the bar, she carried herself with a look of authority and ownership. And... right on cue. Vintage had ditched the girls he was moments ago wooing, making a beeline straight to the mystery woman.
“So Mannon,” Lex began, trying not to let the Birdman gloat. “What’s going on with that guy from work?”
“Hmm?” I hadn’t heard a single word Lex had said.
“Who’s that guy you hate from work?”
“Fuckin’ Jeremy,” I swore. Even mentioning his name made me want to punch the stupid clean off his face. “Fuck that guy!”
“What’s the latest?”
“Oh, only that he’s apparently been writing my phone number in public toilets around the city.”
The Birdman nearly spat his beer. “Seriously?”
“I know, right? What kind of shit is that?”
Lex was laughing with disbelief. “Oh wow, that’s rich!”
“You wouldn’t believe some of the calls I’ve been getting. I’ve heard things that can never be unheard.”
“It’s probably karma,” the Birdman chuckled.
“For what?”
“For the time you anonymously ‘tipped’ the police that Jeremy was making meth out of his basement.”
Lex had tears coming out of his eyes. “You seriously did that? I thought you were joking when you came up with that one!”
“I was with him when he made the call.” The Birdman gestured in my direction. “Not only that, he made sure to warn them that Jeremy always hides a satchel inside his person.”
“Wait, wait... inside his person?”
The Birdman nodded slowly, smirking.
“In my defence,” I responded, “the meth up the arse was the Birdman’s idea.”
We were all in stitches laughing now at the thought of it. I had to admit, the Birdman really did come through with some masterful plans occasionally. Then again, with as much free time as he had on his hands one would hope he was at least doing something productive. There’s only so much pornography a guy can watch in a day.
“So he’s plastering your number all over the public bathrooms eh?” the Birdman asked, bringing his mirth back under control.
“You know,” Lex interrupted, “that reminds me of Sex Man.”
“Well that instantly took a turn for the worse.” The Birdman’s eyes narrowed.
“Story time.” I shrugged at the Birdman, raising an eyebrow at Lex.
Lex adjusted his seat, positioning himself in the traditional ‘Story time’ pose, and cleared himself enough space at the table to allow for an expressive use of his arms.
“Alright,” he began, rubbing his hands. “So, back when me and Jake were in high school, right? Grade ten, maybe, sound about right?”
I nodded, and Lex continued.
“Ok, so we’ve just come out from a movie. Or was it at the beach?”
“I think it was down near the Jetty, actually,” I corrected.
“The Jetty, cool. Anyways, we’re walking along and we go past this public phone. Mannon here decides to look for change or something, and notices a phone number written right next to the phone in permanent marker.”
“Ohtwosixfivesixeightonetwosixnine,” I quoted from memory.
“Holy shit, you still remember it?” the Birdman laughed, amazed. “That might be the most useless thing ever!”
“It gets better,” Lex assured. “You remember with the old public phones, I don’t know if they still do it, but you used to be able to make a call with no money, and when somebody picked up you had about a second of connection before the line dropped out.”
The Birdman nodded.
“So, we’re bored right? Jake decides it might be a bit of fun to call the number, and when the guy picks up Jake just yells into the phone until it cuts out.”
“What did you yell?” asked the Birdman.
“Oh, nothing,” I shrugged. “No words or anything, just noise.”
Lex smirked. “So I think that’s actually pretty funny, and decide I’ll also give it a go. So there we are, standing at this public phone, calling this number and just yelling every time the guy picks up. Thing is, we’ve called like fifteen times in a row now, one after the other, and this guy keeps answering the phone!
“So anyways, we look at each other and we both know what we have to do. We’re gonna keep calling until he stops answering. So we do; we keep dialling the number, we keep yelling into the phone, and this guy... he just keeps answering!”
The Birdman’s mouth was hanging open. “The fuck? How long did it take him to stop answering the phone?”
I laughed. “We were there for something close to an hour and a half.”
“Oh my god! So you’re telling me that because somebody wrote a number in a phone booth, you wasted an hour and a half just to ruin somebody else’s day?”
“That’s not even the best bit,” Lex chuckled. “After an hour and a half of dialling, this phone number is pretty much seared into our memory, right? From then on, any time either of us walks past a public phone we just have to do it. We call the number and yell into the phone. Five, ten, fifteen times in a row, whatever tickles our fancy.”
“Just for a quick laugh,” I agree.
“Then one day we’re with some people and we walk past a phone,” Lex elaborated. “So of course we stop to make a couple of calls. Naturally, everybody’s wondering what the hell we’re doing, so we explain the story to them. Everybody thinks it’s hilarious and they all want to know the number so they can join the fun.”
“It ended up spreading like wildfire,” I nodded.
Lex nodded. “Soon, there’s like twenty or thirty people in on it, calling this guy, just calling him and yelling into the phone. Every time they walk past a public phone.”
“How long did this go on for?” the Birdman asked, incredulous.
I shrugged. “I don’t know about anyone else, but I kept it up for a couple of years at least.”
“Same,” Lex nodded.
“Holy shit.” The Birdman burst into peals of laughter, nearly falling off his seat. “That’s one of the most batshit insane things I’ve ever heard! So just because somebody left a number written in a phone booth, some poor guy you’ve never met has his peace destroyed for years to come? Without ever knowing why? Sweet Jesus, that’s one of the most fucked up, hilarious things that’s ever happened.”
I couldn’t help but laugh at the memory. I don’t know if I should have felt proud or scared that we were getting up to shit like that well before we were getting into booze. I guess growing up in a small town conditions kids for a lifetime of alcoholism; crushing boredom forcing them to amuse themselves in ways that they’ll have mastered by the time they become drunks or mentally ill.
The Birdman was winding down, still with tears in his eyes. “So... Hang on. You called this guy Sex Man?”
I cracked a grin. “Yeah.”
The Birdman spread his hands quizzically. “Why?”
“His phone number. Last two digits were sixty-nine.”
“Well that’s pretty juvenile.”
“Well, yeah. Teenagers, remember?” He had to admit, I had a point.
Lex turned to me and asked, “So anyways, are you going to have to change your number thanks to Jeremy?”
“I don’t really want to,” I sighed. “I got to choose this number, I don’t want to give it up already.”
Things were starting to get a little blurry. We’d drunk a heroic amount of beer already and I was beginning to think my liver was going to protest shortly. I shook my head, trying to clear my vision a little.
“You know what you should do,” said the Birdman, pointing at me.
The Birdman came up with most of his best plans while apocalyptically drunk. This was also the spawning ground of the worst ideas history has ever known. The problem was that good and bad Birdman schemes were generally as batshit mental as each other. This made it difficult to know which you were involved in until you were balls deep in the consequences. Or they were balls deep in you, depending on how badly the plan had misfired.
“What should I do, Birdman?” I asked, inebriation overriding the fight-or-flight response that should have kicked in well before asking the Birdman for advice.
“From now on, every time you get one of those creepy fuckers calling about your toilet advertisements... you should organise to meet them.”
“Oh, good. Gay joke. Should have seen that one coming.”
“No no no, you didn’t let me finish.” The Birdman took a sip of his drink before continuing. “Organise to meet them, right? Then give them Jeremy’s address. Make sure to tell ‘em you’ll leave the back door unlocked.”
I stared at the Birdman in disbelief. It took me a moment to remember how to use my mouth.
“Ricardo Birdman Dondor,” I managed, “you are an absolute fucking genius!”
I'll be getting back to that in a few chapters, Kips. Kinda like in a movie, how it starts with a recent event then flashes back to fill in the shit that led up to the event.
Posted by: Jake Mannon | 10/06/2010 at 01:25 PM
wait....what happened after the end of chapter 1? or was that the point? that you get yourself into situations and don't ever get out of them.........I need closure man.
btw. Awesome writing. I've never heard our group described in such accurate and amusing detail before. You have pulled no punches. This = truth.
Posted by: Mr Kips | 09/28/2010 at 02:48 PM
I'll grab your FASE by the balls!
Posted by: Dirdman | 06/28/2010 at 01:48 AM
Thank you very much! I always get a buzz out of somebody enjoying what I write, especially considering the genre difference of my stuff.
As far as women are concerned, well.. my original comment still stands. If anything, I'm getting more awkward as the years go on. It probably requires a lot of patience on the woman's behalf.
On the matter of Vintage and the red micro-dress, stay tuned! All shall be revealed before long.
Posted by: Jake Mannon | 06/15/2010 at 09:27 PM
This had me absolutely rolling on the floor laughing. What a hysterial group you have. Can wait to read more.
Saw your tweet on the side bar about "not exaggerating your skills with women". I find that hard to believe with the beauty of Moonlight & Razorblades. I would think women would be lined up to spend time with you.
I am curious, though, on how successful Vintage was with the red micro-dress.
Posted by: Coppertop | 06/15/2010 at 01:20 PM