HomeYears, 10.28.2011, day

What a wild night. It was the last autumn eve of the year where you could go out without a coat and still return home with only rosy cheeks. Steam vapor swirled out from under lifted hats and mingled exhaled breaths and cigarette smoke blown out by pedestrians into the street. I had been at the coffeehouse all day, trying to write letters to the girl I've loved like a childhood secret. It was late afternoon, the sky was a violent pink and burgundy and the ghostly silhouette of the moon forebode something ravenous. It was halloween weekend. I knew I felt some lurking rage seething through my blood. The goons from work were starting to exit their offices and pour into the buses and subways. They were going to dress up like sexy goons now. I headed into an italian eatery off of Augusta and sat by the window, ordered a beer and read some Tom Robbins. The language out of this guy! Like tripping mushrooms in South Dakota. Anyway, I sat there, brooding, getting drunk until David Hoyne and Daniel Huron and Chaz St. James got back from work. We were supposed to go out on the town and get silly. The cheap easy dames were roaming the streets tonight, hunting for kisses. I was willing to sell mine, God knows.

By the time the gang called me I was three pints in, wobbling on the checkered table, dizzying vision over the already slippery words of my book. I paid my check and smiled at the waitress on the way out. Though I'm not one much into small talk, some playful banter would have really swooned that buzz right smooth to a Charlie Parker melody, ya dig? She seemed like the quiet type, no matter.

I split down Augusta, straight west into the drowning bloodied sunset. It was marvelous. A scene right out of Kerouac's psyche. I stumbled into Hoyne's place to find them pulling together the usual friday night pleasantries. Enough dope and whiskey on that table to kill a horse, but hey, there was about five us to do the job of one stallion. It was more like conversation. You put on a record and lit a cigarette in between your hand gestures. It's about finding a groove, and finding a groove is like rowing down a river, the stream will carry you if you feel out the rhythm of the water. There was incense and the windows were open. The sun was huddled under the earth now, darkened and snoozing. Night crawled in like a sax player slowly drinking himself mad at the bar. We laughed like hyenas, clinking glasses together in the dim-lit bohemian room hazy with all kinds of smoke. Eventually, the boys had to split for a concert, some slow dance string music made for lonely single women. They knew what they were doing. St. James and I headed out and they promised to meet up with us after their show. We met St. James' dame Miss Whytecliff and our buddy, Lollipop, on the street corner.

Painting the town red, we were all dolled up. Straight-laced and buxom breasted, I was getting thirsty again. We hit a bar off of the 6-corner strip, and grubbed on pizza. People were flooding the streets. The energy had me all riled up. Legs and heels, tight dresses and long hair, bare shoulders and strutting the sidewalk for attention. As much as I loathed the whole scene, I was howling like a wolf. We hit the dance joint down the street and piled into the sweaty club, made a bee-line for the dance floor and passed my flask of whiskey around as we started swinging.

The costumes were impressive, I must admit. Typical pop-cultural imitations with any attempt to expose skin, as close to naked as social customs will allow. I donned my normal threads, though always a bit of a throwback out of the generation, people act like a shirt-tie-vest combo is the sheep's pudding once you start talking fashion. Anyhow, I was full of whiskey and music, my engines were revving like the derby just came into town. I approached of flock of quiet looking chicks sitting down at a half-circular table near the dance floor. To be honest, I had no idea what we talked about, although I do remember throwing around compliments and mysterious invitations to dance. The first girl I made conversation with was a full-bodied vixen, dressed like Natalie Portman from "Black Swan," damn, did she know how to move those hips. She had me pinned up against the wall, pressing her ballet feathers into me like she was trying to grind her leotards to flames. By that time, the gang lost track of me, I was so deep in the pond, no fishing line could have hooked me out. They texted me their goodbyes and left. I was alright. Drunk off my rocker, but there was no way I could go home with Natalie Portman. She started biting her lip and grabbing me. It started to feel like danger. We necked a bit, but I split after a couple dances. There is never any commitment in these kinds of things longer than it takes to knock down a couple shots. I threw away 12 bucks of drinks on her. That kind of upset me.

I busted out of that joint and headed toward Huron's place. We talked on the phone, sounded like he was bedpan drunk, but he insisted I crash on his couch. It wasn't that late, and I was hungry for a burrito after all that calorie burning jiving. I stumbled down the street among the throng of equally inebriated hipsters slurring their speech and all disheveled. It was comforting to see. On my way to that hole in the wall burrito joint Piquante off Division, in my journey I decided to abandon my quest for food and just head to Huron's for sleep. It was about another 6 blocks or so, but I enjoyed the saunter without any rush. When I got to his apartment door, it was locked. I knocked on the door, on the window, rang the bell, shouted his name through the screen window and called him a few times. Out cold. SHould have expected this. Huron pounds brews like he's on the clock. Weekends he gets quick drunk, stone liquored and lead-headed. I saw the tv lights flicker on the wall through the window. I thought I could even hear him snoring.

New plan in order. I was hungry now. I had a few other buddies sharing a duplex apartment on the other edge of the neighborhood with plenty of crash space for the likes of me. I took a cab to the Hollywood Grill diner next to their place and called all four of them while I ordered a grilled chicken deluxe sandwich. None answered except Roger Zaine, but he wasn't coming home 'til after 4am, an X-rave somewhere on the Northside. I contemplated sleeping in the back of the diner on one of the seats at least until the sun came up and I could catch the earliest train out of there.

God makes these things happen in perfect ways. I was trying to befriend some older chicks next to me at the diner bar when my pal Andy Morgan called me. It was almost 3am and he just got out of the library when he caught the message I left him earlier in the night. Savior. He swung by the diner, right as I stuffed the last fry in mouth, I bolted out there with my jacket in arms. I hopped in the car and we sped to his apartment near the south loop, laughing and detailing the night into slurred language. I fell asleep like a rock on his floor, dead weight and drunk. The night swirled like a toilet flush and I woke up like a rare autumn daisy on a brisk, sunny morning. It was a good night, it was bound to be a solid morning.