It’s three weeks before Thanksgiving and I want to go visit my mother who has just moved to the lovely state of Texas, a place I really know nothing about. I am from San Diego, which seems to be a very different place. All I do know is that Texas is a red state. For this reason alone, I have no interest in the place and I imagine my family to be of the only Jews who are calling that state home.
I write down my request in letter-form to the boss, which I am told to set in his mailbox because there really isn’t anyone to talk to about this. The odd thing is that I have been there 6 months already and have yet to really meet or see the owner Phil since I got this job. He is like Charlie from “Charlie’s Angels,” only to be known via telephone conversation, through other coworkers or through notes he mysteriously leaves on our time cards. In the note I nicely ask for Thanksgiving off and tell him that I will though be available for other holidays. Then, as I am writing my time off request, there is Aaron a few feet behind me staring at himself through a mirror we have perched above the time clock. He is putting on his usual Spackle routine of eye cream, powder and a sheer gloss. Aaron’s routine of getting ready for work is much like that of a show girl’s in the old movies, powder and a mirror with a lot of lights. He then glances over my shoulder to see what I am writing. I hate when people glance over my shoulder it makes me as uneasy as when you’re driving and notice a cop behind you, and even though your doing nothing wrong, you feel like you’re going to get busted for something. Aaron proceeds to fill me in and explains that“daddy” may not like me taking off on a major holiday. Aaron then explains how I could easily get fired for the request alone because I am inconveniencing him. Another possible outcome apparently is that he could simply make it hard for me later, with bad shifts or no shifts. The way he warns me, it comes off so unreal, as though my life is now destined to be under the thumb and of Phil who will guide my future’s fate. The way people describe Phil is almost as though he is the god father. The amount that my coworkers fear Phil’s wrath is immeasurable and hard to put into words. He has this power over many of us that I just can’t figure out.
A week later, on a Sunday night I had finish working happy hour and decide to then stay out for one drink. One thing about working in a bar is the second you are off the clock, everyone wants to get u loaded. Keeping this in mind, one drink soon turns to shot, after shot, random drink, after random drink. I was about an hour and a half into my night, I am happily trashed when I bumped into a group of my coworkers who are seemingly equally obliterated. Since they find me at our bar, we all decide that it’s Jagger Bomb time. Whoever thought up the idea of Jagger bombs, should be shot. It’s a almost as evil a concoction as a Long Island Iced Tea. It’s at this point when I know I’m going to be sick from this, but decide to keep going because I’m young and stupid. Soon we are off. This is where my night normally ends. Tonight this is where my night just begins. We hop from bar to bar. They all start to blend together and really after a while all the drinks taste the same. The one thing I can remember is that it’s like going out with celebrities. These guys get us the best drinks, set our group in the best locations and always tip like money was toilet paper. I have never seen money used so frivolously. I am someone raised by immigrants who actually came to the U.S. as refugees, spending money so casually like it’s nothing astonishes me.
By the end of the night/the beginning of the morning, our group has thinned out. We end up at someone’s house, I’m not exactly sure who’s, maybe Johnny’s. Whoever’s home it is, he has and entire bar set up in their kitchen. In my drunken stooper I can’t tell how and when we had left the bar and how we are now at someone’s at-home bar. This is the first time I have ever been smashed with these guys. It’s odd to be this fucked up with co-workers around. Is this standard? By this point I am so drunk that I can’t exactly remember how long I have been in this person’s apartment.
I find myself staring at this beautiful, blue tequila bottle and listening to some random dude chatting into my ear who’s name escapes me. Is I am staring at the bottle, I can see my horrid reflection in it. It’s at the point in the night when your own reflection begins to look scary. It’s like I am in a trance, “snap out of it girl, I got some frosted flakes!” He passes me this plate that looks like it’s covered with powdered sugar. I am not known for passing up stuff with powdered sugar. I am not really sure what’s going on so I take my finger to the plate of powder then wipe it on my tongue and gums. This isn’t the kind of sugar I am used to. I pass the plate on. Aaron then says, “look boys touch of the gums, like a pro.” My entire mouth is numb, the sensation is uncomfortable while euphoric at the same time. I feel like a mess inside, yet I for some reason can’t stop smiling. I watch as they pass around this magical hors d'oeuvres. They keep passing around a bowl, while James played bartender and puts on some pop music selections off of his ipod. I can’t tell how long I have been there, although I feel really chipper now. James keeps topping off my glass while calling me stud. As James fills my glass for the millionth time, Paulo in his Latino gay accent says, “I heard that princesss is taking Thankssssgiving off, ha, nice working with you babe.” He then gives me a hug and a playful peck on the cheek.
It’s morning now. I just woke up with the taste of last night in my cotton mouthed-face, on the couch of a living room that I can’t recall, alone in yesterday’s cloths. My shirt is on the ground for some reason and covered in the smell of puke. I think I’m in the apartment from the night before. There is that powdered sugar plate which is now empty on the coffee table in front of me, next to a bullet looking thing that kind of looks like one of those magnifying glasses used to look at jewels. I am hugging my favorite black hoodie like it’s a lover and have some strange cat, who has set up shop on my thigh. I have no recollection of how I came to be here shirtless, alone and on some strange couch. I left shirtless in my hoody with the taste of vomit and moth-balls in my mouth. On my way to the bus, being in San Francisco’s wonderful Lower Haight, I stop by Walgreens to get the usual hangover treatment of pepto, gatoraid and mints. While eclectic, I hear this isn’t always the best part of town. This particular part of the Lower Haight area happens to currently be peppered with cracked out homeless people and recovering hippies that took one too many doses. These people are the hippies who haven’t sold out, end up in corporate America or as Whole Foods junkies.
Once inside, the maze of aisles again, I am reminded of the night’s events with one burp. That burps makes me realize that I am, a still astonishingly drunk chemistry lab, ready to explode everywhere. Once I have the Wallgreens version of Gatorade, in hand, peptobizmuf, mints and random crap that I find near the register, I am ready to get going. As I get to the register the clerk looks me straight in the eyes. It’s as though she is looking into my soul. It’s freaking me out. She looked like she has seen a ghost. She mutters, the amount I owe and then says in a stern tone “Ya’ll best be safe out there. Take care of yourself.” I don’t get what she was talking about, pop open the drink in hand and ran to approaching bus right outside.
Once I walk into my apartment, my mother calls that instant. Being a good boy, I answer because I am like many gay men, a self-admitted momma’s boy. She asks me about the upcoming holiday plans and I then confirmed that I am coming. By the third step into the apartment I can feel a grumbling in my gut. I burp and tell my mom I have to go, hang up on her and run straight to the bathroom. I puke all over the bathtub because that is the first thing I see when entering the bathroom. I turn around the sink and begin to wash my face, brush the sins off and put a clean taste in my mouth. As I looked in the mirror, I realized how fucked up I look. My eyes are met with purplish-bags and my cheeks are pale and flushed at the same time. My skin has this off grayish hew. Within seconds of seeing this horrid vision that I am trying to wash away, I feel the grumble again and end up hugging the toilet bowl as though it’s a long lover and puking.
This morning, being is more brutal than any I have seen since the 9th grade. It’s like I’m fourteen years old all over again. I am more hungover than I was the first time I got drunk enough to puke all over the Denny’s bathroom. Like that faithful New Years eve, last night I drank every alcoholic type of beverage within site to show I could roll. Unlike that New Year’s I did not professing my love to my best friend who would later be my girlfriend and then become my best fag hag and smoke 10 cigarettes in 1 sitting because I could. So much has changed, yet so little. Like then, I am just a small fish in a big pond, learning to be me in just another coming of age story.
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