continued from part one
Nine thirty. Nine fucking thirty. I get shitfaced, and I can't sleep past nine fucking thirty. Ugh. I got a phone call at five thirty in the morning from Oakes. I would have picked up, but I was so not in the mood for greasy-spoon bacon and eggs that early. So I pull myself together, shower, and head out. It isn't until I run into Alex that I start to figure out just how screwed up last night really was.
"So, I blacked out last night." "Lucky bastard." "...yeah, I'm not so sure about that."
So, you remember that conversation I had with Alex at two thirty last night? Well on his side, the one where he was blacked out and wandering dorms in his boxers, it looked a little like this.
"...hello?" "Hey, Alex!"
"...hello?" "...Alex? Where the hell are you?"
"I don't... I don't know." "What? Do you know where Oakes is?"
"I gotta go." "Wait, A—" click
"...where am I?"
Ninety minutes later, Alex snapped out of his blackout. I was talking to a man who was not technically conscious.
"I woke up in a chair wedged in a doorway. In the Salz Hall lounge. Heather lives in Salisbury." "Oh my god, Prudence is gonna kill you." "Yeah, no kidding. Ugh, this hangover is killing me, let's grab Oakes and figure this out over pancakes. I think he wanted in."
"How do you figure?" "Well, he called me around five thirty. Didn't hear my phone." "Wait, he called you too? He got me around five thirty too, I wound up just going back to sleep."
As it turns out, Oakes was trying to call us, but not for breakfast. When we try to wake him up, he doesn't answer the door, his phone, or rocks hitting his window, so Alex and I go and get breakfast on our own. Two hours later we come back and try again, only to be greeted by poor little Oakes, his lower lip bloody and swollen to the point of causing a permanent (and to me, hilarious) pout. Alex is shocked, but I'm just trying not to burst out laughing like a jackass.
"Come on in." "Did you get in a fight!?"
He did get in a fight. With the stairwell. And lost. While I was struggling to breathe, and Alex was struggling to make conscious decisions, Oakes had faceplanted the staircase and was now bleeding all over the place. Enter Nick and David, the drunken heroes.
"Hooooly shit." "Crap, dude." "I'm gonna go get Pulley, he can give us a ride to the hospital. You grab Rob and Alex."
After seeing both me and Alex in the middle of our own drunken adventures, they opted to just grab Oakes and lift him into the van. That scare led to another one as Oakes suddenly came to. Sitting up and screaming, attached to a saline drip. The nurse was... not pleased.
"Is there someone you can call to pick you up? Your friends left hours ago." "Yeah, hang on a second."
So Oakes tried to call us, with no result. Luckily, Nick was awake and Oakes got home, face busted open and a dead tooth. We trade stories and head off to the eighteenth birthday of the person who, the night before, spent an hour in a hospital lobby drunkenly discussing M*A*S*H with an on-duty cop. We get to David's party, nothing crazy, just friends hanging out and having a good time.
"Yeah Al, I saw Heather bring you out when we grabbed Oakes. I think she was bringing you to her dorm 'cause you were blacked out."
Turns out, we didn't quite have all the info about last night down. I guess we weren't the only ones with stories.
"No, nothing happened with Alex. Didn't really know how to bring it up, since he spooked and disappeared before I woke up."
But that's alright. I mean, we all got out of it unharmed.
"Yeah, I can't drink tonight. It'll screw with the pile of medication I'm on. That said, I am flying so high right now."
Well, relatively unharmed.
"Rob Desrosiers? Meet Rob Pulley." "No shit, hey how's it going?"
But you know what? I'm looking forward to a dull, fun night. Something to take the edge off, you know?
"Hey, who wants to break into the pool and go skinny dipping?"
On second thought...
It's an experience, all right.
But that night.
That one damn night.
Well that shit'll stick with me. And I'm alright with that.
"Hey guys, wait up!"
the end
