The Party Train, Part Two - "The Morning After"

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

The Party Train, Part One - "The Night Of"

"It takes only one drink to get me drunk.
The trouble is, I can't remember if it's the thirteenth or the fourteenth."

                                                  George Burns

---

     That night.

     That one damn night.

     College is an experience unto itself.  You meet people you'll know for the rest of your life, you'll prepare yourself to finally face the real world, and you'll do things society will undoubtedly frown on four years down the road.  The people are cool, but the parties are what it's all about.  Most of the time, you'll walk out of a party the same way you walked in, but sooner or later you're bound to do something that separates one party from the rest of the pack.

     And that night.

     That one damn night.

     Well, that shit'll stick with ya.

     So I'm sitting on the couch with my two best friends, Alex Mantel and Allan Oakes.  We're already drunk and watching America's Best Dance Crew in Oakes' room in Gamma Chi Sigma.  Alex has been dating this girl Prudence for a few months now.  She's okay.  Haven't really "met her" met her.  But he seems cool with it, so it's cool with me.  Oakes, however, is single, and probably looking to score with the ladies at the party tonight down at Epsilon Tau.

     "Fuck it, let's just kick it here and drink."

     Or not.  Me?  I've been single since the start of the year, and I wouldn't mind getting some action.  Then again, my last two experiences down at Ep Tau weren't exactly nights to remember, so I'm fine hanging out here tonight.  One o'clock.

     "You know what, let's hit up Ep Tau."  "Alright, let's go."

     We stand up, trying hard to steady ourselves.  We're concentrating hard, as if simply standing is a monumental feat.  That should've been our warning sign.  Right there.  But instead, we're down half a bottle of Jack and half a bottle of SoCo apiece, stumbling our stupid asses to Ep Tau.

     And that night.

     That one damn night...

     One fifteen, we get to the party.  Immediately, we lose Oakes.  All was going well until her.  Mae Plantz.  She tried to flirt with Alex, who appeared to be pretending she was invisible.  She was... unattractive.

     "How are you doin' tonight?"

     ...but I was too drunk to give a shit.  "Pretty good, how 'bout you?"  "Better now."

     Okay, what happened next after she brought me into the dark corner, I'm not proud of.  But it happened, and it's important, and two years later it gets me identified by face in this same darkened room, by someone who probably isn't even a student yet when this happens, so...

     "Hey, come here."  One thirty.  Thank god for Heather, she saved me from a girl who was pretty much eating my face and brought me back over to my circle of friends.

     "Hey you."

     Shit.

     The remainder of my time in the dark gets pretty graphic, and Alex and Heather disappeared around that point, so instead I'll just say this.  The only way I could have gotten further with this girl, in a dark corner behind a subwoofer, would have required lying down or a stronger pair of arms.

     One forty-five.  "I should really get back to my friends."  "Nah, you should stay here."

     Two o'clock.  Closing time.  "Seriously though, I should get going, they're finishing up."  "That's okay."

     Two fifteen.  Please black out, please black out, please black out...

     "Hey, do you wanna come back to my place?"  "You know, I gotta get up early tomorrow, for this... this thing..."  "Promise you won't tell anyone anything bad about this later?"

     ...okay, in my defen"ROB!"  "Shit, someone's calling me."  "Oh okay, go ahead then."

     Two thirty.  Freedom.  I have never run so hard or so fast in my life.  I fly up the stairs, grab my coat, and get the fuck outside before she or anyone else can stop me.  The first thought that hits me... where the fuck is everybody?  So I call Oakes.  No answer.  So I call Alex.

     "...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, Alex!"  click  "...what the fuck?"

     So now, drunk, lost, violated and confused, I stumble back to my apartment and resolve to sleep this night away and pretend it never happened.

     But that night.

     That one damn night.

     It wasn't over yet.

continued in part two

The Party Train, Preface - "Art Imitating Life"

     This next one is actually something I wrote in the beginning of 2010 as a stageplay, which was produced as a part of WPI's New Voices 28 festival.  Some minor alterations have been made, but the story itself is unchanged.

     As much as I'd love to take credit for coming up with this series of unfortunate events, this story is actually based on a completely true story of what happened to me and my two best friends one spring night in 2008.  Any bits that aren't true are either misremembered bits (one detail of Alex Mantel's story has been fixed) or tweaked to help the story (Rob Pulley was actually two people: the one at the party, and the one with the same name as Rob Desrosiers).  And actually, as of now (two and a half years later) those were the only two untrue portions of the whole story.

     Punchline?  The person who inspired Mae Plantz has a best friend who was my landlord's daughter and previous tenant two years ago.  Awkward.

     And no I won't say on this blog who is who in real life.  Do the homework if you really wanna know.  Cheers!

d