SIX MONTHS LATER, Time Off

Chapter 13. SIX MONTHS LATER, Time Off

It’s three weeks before Thanksgiving and I want to go visit my mother.   She just just moved to the lovely state of Austin, Texas, a place I really know nothing about.  What I do know is that they call it “the San Francisco of Texas.”  Ironically anyone I have met who says that will later admit that they in fact have never been to San Francisco.  For this reason alone I should like it or at least that’s what my mom tells me.  I am from San Diego, which seems to be a very different place.  All I do know is that Texas is a red state.  Why would I go to a red state?  For this reason alone, I have no interest in the place.  From my mom’s description, the cheese stands alone.  She makes it sounds like they are the only Jews in Texas.   

It’s 6 months into working at the Labarynth.  I have lost some weight and gained a vindictive side.  Now when I put my jeans on I don’t have to exhale to do so.  Shit, I may even cut the sleeves off of my work shirt like all the other whores I mean friends I work with.  I switched to contacts and tossed out those clunky Buddy Holly glasses.  It’s much like when Paul on the “Wonder Years” switches to contacts, he loses his virginity first.  I can only aspire to be that cool, with a smaller nose of course.  I am still in school and working.  That’s my life, school, working, drinking, going out and repeat.  When I say drinking I don’t mean that in the alcoholic way, cause I’m not a quitter (sorry for the hacky joke, I had to).  I just mean it in the college-lets have fun and know when to stop way.  If my mom asks, I’m studying.  I have grown and changed so much.  Can’t wait to see my mom’s new digs.

I write down my request in letter-form to the boss.  I am told to set it in his mailbox because.  At the bar all requests must be hand written or at least that’s what all the signs in the backroom say besides that that customary “use a condom and don’t do meth add” that most gay establishments seem to have.  While I would prefer to talk to Phil, the owner to be assured I can take that time off, there really isn’t anyone to talk to about this.  The odd thing is that I have yet to really meet or see the owner Phil since that odd interview.  I am told he is there every day but maybe he just lives in the shadows?  I don’t know how I haven’t ran into him.  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.  Aaron is the coworker/friend who’s style is David Bowie meets Bette Middler and maybe Gem of the Holograms.  He is 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, even though you’re doing nothing wrong, you feel like you’re going to get busted for something.  Aaron proceeds to fill me in and explains that “daddy” (which is what the staff calls Phil when they think he isn’t listening) may not like me taking off on a major holiday.  Aaron then explains how I can 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 Aaron 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 godfather.  The amount that my coworkers fear Phil’s wrath is immeasurable, constant and hard to put into words.  He has this power over many of us at the bar that I just can’t figure out yet allow to dominate me.

A week later, on a Sunday night I had finished 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 you loaded.  It’s common courtesy.  It’s like having a Potato chip, you can’t have just one.  First it’s a drink, then a shot, after shot, random drink, after random drink.  I am about an hour and a half into my night, I am happily trashed when I bumped into a group of my coworkers who are equally obliterated and have that awful mothball breath that for some reason remind me of my grandmother, random, but true.  Since they find me at our bar, we all decide that it’s Jager-Bomb time.  Whoever thought up the idea of Jager-Bombs, should be shot.  For those who don’t know what that is, you’re lucky.  It’s a pint glass filled with a little red bull, then you drop a shot glass of Jager into the glass and proceed to chug your last memories away.  They call it a bomb cause you blast away all remnants of sobriety.  It’s 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.  I can’t remember much but I’m told 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 and loved it.  This must be what Paris Hilton feels like but without the night-vision.  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 an entire bar set up in their kitchen.  In my drunken stooper I can’t tell how and when we left the bar or 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 coworkers 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 or for that matter what part of town I am in.

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 cause he is obviously so memorable.  As 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 fFakes!”  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 for some reason I can’t stop smiling.  I watch as they pass around this magical hors d'oeuvres. They keep passing around a bowl, while James, the one who previously I had only hung out with on our private Mc Donald’s runs, plays 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 princessss asked Daddy to give him Thanksssgiving off, ha, nice working with you babe.”  He then gives me a hug and a playful peck on the cheek.  The rest of the guys just laugh and go back to being absorbed in themselves.

It’s morning now.  I just woke up with the taste of last night’s regrets in my cotton mouthed-face, on the couch of a living room that I can’t recall, alone in yesterday’s clothes. 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’s 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.  My eyes are probably more red than Joy Beyhar’s head at this point.  It’s as though she is looking into my soul. It’s freaking me out. She looks 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, I catch a glimpse of myself passing by a mirror.  I look I look like Sideshow Bob from the Simpsons if he was in Trainspotting.  After 10 minutes of staring at my freakish mug, my mother calls me. 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 I’m classy and that’s the first thing I see when entering the bathroom. I turn around to the sink and begin to wash my face, brush the signs off and put a clean taste in my mouth. As I looked in the mirror, I realized how fucked up I actually look. My eyes are met with purplish-bags, 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 puking hugging the toilet bowl as though it’s a long lover.  At least I wont have to buy him anything and he’s silent.

This morning, 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 in the ninth grade. Like that faithful New Year’s 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 one 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.

I end up the only guy at the bar who actually gets Thanksgiving off and do get to go to Austin which is unique to itself, weird and that’s how the locals like it.  My mom’s house is actually 30-minutes from anything cool but is close to a Dairy Queen where I discovered my first Austin gay.  I am excited cause I feel like I have found a unicorn.  He is like 18, his voice cracks when he handed me my Blizzard and he winks at me.  Frankly nothing happens besides the exchange of the ice cream.  Honestly that ice cream does more for me anyway.  It’s my first love.  Until going on the trip I worked an average of 5 shifts a week.  After the trip I was down to 3 a week for a month.  There was a new guy who was also hired a few weeks before I left, he is completely whitted off the schedule.  I’m glad I never memorized his name.  It’s as though he never was.