It's the night before I return to England now (3rd of January). Between reading, seeing old friends, playing with my dog, and the festivities, I just found that I only wanted to rest and relax and couldn’t bring myself to blog. The freedom is intoxicating. Anyhow, I apologize again (what is this, the fourth time I've had to beg forgiveness?) for my laxity.
For the last week of my midterm break, I returned to Chester, a place you may recall from my entry "To Those Who Wait" about Chester "Pride." When I stepped off of the train platform, I had no place to sleep again. I was planning on staying with my friend in three days, but I hadn’t told him that I would be in town that early, knowing that I’d just end up slacking off and messing around in his company instead of finishing my university application. Thus, I wandered to the nearest youth hostel that I had found online and, despite their website posting no vacancies, they had a bed available! I was greeted at the front desk of “The Bunkroom” by a friendly Brazilian woman. After a day of traveling and fearing another sleepless night in a place colder than Venice, I was overjoyed to have shelter! I bought a bottle of wine, some grapes, brie cheese, and crackers then returned to find one of the assistant managers sitting with her siblings in a small courtyard beneath a candlelit cabana. They greeted the gifts with open arms and voracious stomachs as I went upstairs to ask my bunkmates if they wanted to join in. Only one Indian guy assented and we just chatted away for hours, getting to know each other. We all went out for a beer at the pub across the street (a place called “Kash” where they brew their own stuff) where the bartender helped initiate me into beer appreciation. Over the next few days, I finished my application and revealed my presence to my friend who almost immediately started introducing me to his eccentric friends. He then set me up with a military costume, skull mask, and orange hair spray for Halloween week at the various clubs. “I’m going to introduce you to the concept of a five-day bender, my friend.” Boy did he live up to his word.
The first night out, we went with his friend Joel to a club where we drank *ahem* more than was healthy and just had a great time dancing. We then hung around a pub called “The Plumber’s Arms” until four in the morning. The bouncer regaled us with stories about his time in Vegas where he spotted a brewing fight before any of the casino staff did and was rewarded with a VIP tour of the town. While my friend had a ball, I thought that the pub itself was boring to the tenth power. However, there was this irritating woman who was so wasted that she was green and yellow around her eyes and mouth. I didn’t want to deal with the dumb broad, so I remained impassive and emotionless while she kept insisting that I was secretly angry and that I wanted to punch her. She even gave me permission to do so, but when that failed to get a rise out of me, she tried to provoke me with everything from attempting to spill my drink (failed), punching me (blocked), and spitting on me (dodged), at which point she turned to harassing other people and even tore a man’s shirt off of him. He was none too pleased about that. I encountered some other sloshed people who only wanted to talk about how much they hated “Pakies” (Pakistani people) “for taking all of the jobs and being so dirty.” I tried to rationalize with them but, between their intoxication and ingrained racism, I made no headway and called it a night, feeling disgusted.
The next night, I discovered a problem with wearing military garb during Halloween. I was having a drink with my friends on the roof of a club when a man tapped me on the shoulder and saluted me. Thinking it was a joke, I stood at attention and saluted back, keeping a straight face. “Permission to accompany you tonight, sir?”
Smiling a little to myself, I replied with exaggerated arrogance. “Permission denied. Get out of here! I don’t want to see your ugly mug around me again!” The man looked a bit taken aback and saluted again. Worried a little, I laughed and gave him a pat on the shoulder to show him I meant well. About thirty minutes later, he reappeared with two other guys behind him. He and his saluted me and, still thinking it was a joke, I saluted back.
“Permission to remain on the premisses, sir?”
“Permission granted! Now be off with you! Have a good time!”
“Thank you sir!” he said with about as curt a salute as a drunken man can give. Thirty minutes after that, he found me again with his friends and asked “Excuse me, but where were you stationed?” he asked, words just barely slurred.
“Stationed? What do you mean?”
“Where were you posted while you were on military duty?”
Then it hit me. “Oh, no man, I’m not even from England! I’m from the US! I just got this outfit from my friend who had a spare.”
“Really? Well, you probably shouldn’t wear it. Some of us might see it as disrespectful to the armed forces.”
“It’s just a costume. I don’t think anyone’s going to take it too seriously on Halloween.”
His buddies took a step forward. “Yeah, well, just some advice from a soldier, don’t wear it around other soldiers, or else someone like us might be insulted that someone not in the forces is wearing our uniform.”
“Look,” I said, putting down my drink and breathing in some cold air to clear my head, noting the bouncer watching us. I’d had enough of their veiled threats and I doubted that anything would happen with a bouncer standing eight feet away. I just wanted them to lay off. “I spent four years stationed at Camp Cachalot in the US and became Senior Patrol leader for my troop, so I think that I can get away with putting on a slightly different uniform. Besides, you should be flattered that people want to emulate soldiers like you. Now have a good night.”
“Oh. I didn’t realize. You too.” With that he left and I let out a sigh and finished my drink. Little did my gung-ho friend know that Camp Cachalot was just where I’d spent my summers with the Boy Scouts. Sucker.
My friend then walked over. “Hey, I just noticed those guys. They giving you trouble?” Coming from my mate, this was code for “Do you want someone to kick these guys out or beat them up?”
“No, it’s all good. Just a misunderstanding with the uniforms we’re wearing. All’s cool.” We made a return trip to the pub. Before I could get bored, I met the sloshed lighting technician (Dave Beasly, he said his name was) for the group “Iron Maiden.” Between insisting on buying me drinks and my polite refusals, he told me about going on tour in Turkey, where some guys tried to pick a fight with him and the band’s head of security chased them off. He then taught Dave how to fight a bit and one of the pyrotechnics designers taught him how to mix chemicals that would permanently blind someone if they got it in their eyes. He also related their trip to the other side of the Berlin wall during the Cold War where Dave and some of the others gave away pretty much everything they had, clothes included, because they felt such pity for the common people stuck in the Soviet blockade. He also happened to mention that he made a habit of carrying a pistol under his coat “just in case” and I resolved to stay either on his good side or close enough to him that I could stop him from grabbing it. He was a very amiable guy, though, who was just as free with hugs as he was drinks.
On the third day, my friend and I went to Manchester to try snowboarding for the first time on an indoor slope. I was surprised at how fun it was, despite all my years of prejudice against shredders, and how hilarious it was watching my mate tumble down the slope. Poor guy. *snicker* Regarding the night, well, let’s just say that I now have another reason for Halloween being my favorite holiday and I earned the nickname “Alleyway Warrior” with minimal injuries.
I went through day four on about three hours of sleep and had a headache that could have been my one and only hangover ever, but I think it was more to do with sleeping only sixteen hours over the last three days. This was probably the least enjoyable of the five days, as I went to a gig that my friend set up called “Defiance.” He said that there’d be metal and heavy metal, which sounded great to me, but it turned out that it was all screemo and death metal, which I find atrocious (though the heavy metal cover of George Michael's "Faith" was pretty hilarious). To the uninformed, there isn’t even a fine distinction. The first is melodic while the second is loud. When I wasn’t helping with equipment or cleaning, I stood in the corner manning the souvenirs table, wearing my army outfit with a Guy Fawkes mask and some sort of steam-punk top hat with goggles on it that I swiped off of a girl there.
At one point, I volunteered to run back to my friend’s house, jump over the fence (he’d lost the front door key), and retrieve the t-shirts that he’d left in his room. I was thankful to be out and moving again, no less exercising, and I had fun pretending to be Brad Pitt from “Fight Club” as I hauled myself over the seven-foot tall gate. Once the gig finished, I was still exhausted and not sure if I wanted to go clubbing, but we set out again. There I ran into a couple of the people that I’d cruised around Chester with on my last visit, failed to notice a girl hitting on me because I was so tired (also, I’m naturally oblivious, especially when I haven’t had a drink), and then met a girl who took a picture of her kissing “Boston” on my phone.
Day five was fairly uneventful. I didn’t drink too much, except for when we went back to the pub (again). I had a couple of ciders in my system already when the bartender introduced my friend to white rum. Now, my friend is a borderline alcoholic (Don’t worry, he handles himself well and doesn’t have cravings, I don’t think) and ordered a shot. Boy, you should have seen his face as he drank it. His eyes scrunched up as he gritted his teeth, put down the glass, and then started to flail around the room, beating his legs and groaning while Joel, the bartender, and I laughed. “That stuff,” he managed through his fit “is vile!” He then looked at me, looked at the empty glass, and back at me again. “Hey Matt, you like whiskey, right?”
“Yeah, why?”
“I dare you to have a double shot of whiskey with a shot of that mixed in.”
I just looked at him. “Are you insane? No way! Not after watching your little seizure!”
“Man, Joel and I will help pay for it. I just want to see you try it.”
“Nope. Sorry man, not happening.” After about five minutes I tapped him on the shoulder. “Did you say you and Joel would split the cost with me?” What the heck. I’ve only had two drinks anyhow and they were at least an hour ago, I thought.
“Yeah. You gonna do it?” I nodded. “Good lad!”
The bartender had been privy to this exchange and thought the idea rather stupid, but funny. “I can’t legally mix those, but I can give you a double shot of whiskey and a shot of white rum, which you can mix yourself.” Before I even agreed, she had the drinks all set up.
My friend then called in the bouncer and said, pointing to the mixed drink, “Hey, mate. Smell that.”
The bouncer took a whiff and put the glass down like it was filled with nuclear waste. “What is that?” My friend described it and included that I was the guy that was going to drink it. The bouncer turned to me. “I’ll bring you a stool for when you keel over in ten minutes.”
“Thanks.” As for the rest, I did not keel over afterward and even won a couple rounds of Jenga. Ha!
The next day, my friend’s father took me shooting with him. I was either watching or joining the beating line to herd the pheasants toward the line of shotguns. I was not paid, but I got to meet a bunch of dogs while tromping through the woods. Toward the end, though, I tripped on a bramble and sank calf deep into a mud hole. “Um, excuse me!” I shouted to a passing beater after about a minute of struggling to reach something to pull myself out with. “Would you mind giving me a hand? I seem to be rather stuck. Just push that branch over here and… yeah! There we go- Ohhh shit,” I said as I noticed that I’d left one of the wellingtons imbedded in the mud. Soon after, I watched a man shoot a fox and helped myself to a dinner of roast pheasant. How perfectly English.
Aside from celebrating Bonfire Night by hanging out with my mate’s friends in a parking garage and watching fireworks from the roof, very little happened after. School resumed and it was back to the same old drill. Still, I returned with some… “enlightening” experiences.
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