packed a cooler with 95$ of booze. through the trees, missing street lights, dirt roads. two bags of ice turned to a puddle in the heat.
11:45 pm he knocks on the window with his wedding ring. smiling and barefoot. spilling miller light with every emphatic gesture. setting up our tent in a blur of cellphone light, flash light, and a headlamp he keeps forgetting is on his head.
“i just want this to be done. i could really use a drink.”
“yea well, you’re uninvited, turn around, go home. i’m just kidding you wanna beer?”
spinning sparklers at the sky. cracking beers and wandering through the grass. dogs running after each other. we fell asleep sometime after 3 am and were drinking maple whiskey in our coffees at the picnic table by 8 am. perfectly cooked eggs over the fire pit.
tents in a row. no cell phone service. reminding myself that i’m not forgetting anything. i am powered down, i am okay.
“everyone that needs me, is here.”
solo cups, beer cans. a half empty bottle of brandy between lawn chairs. there are so many bags of bread on the kitchen counter.
they were out on the dock, shirtless, hammering nails into a stump, drinking beers and laughing at each other’s jokes.
“hey you guys wanna do some acid in a little while?”
“i need a little more mental preparation than that.”
drinking tincture from one hand and a grapefruit shandy from the other. we’re wandering around together looking for a good place to sit down. looking for a conversation to be apart of. floating in the hot tub, stoned and enlightened.
“i’ve never owned a two piece bathing suit in my life. i don’t even know what i’d do with it.”
“what do you want out of life?”
“i’m not drunk enough for that conversation.”
in a haze of intoxication i stopped dead in my tracks to watch the fireworks exploding in the dark above my head. as if until now, independence was just another word i read over and over again in all those history textbooks. maybe it was the drugs, but i felt free.
i swam out to the dock and he floated along with me in a blow up raft in the shape of a toilet bowl. “what’s your plan once you get up there?”
“my plan? my plan is to jump off. i swam out here so i could jump off.”
we sat on the dock discussing hangovers, neighbors, dogs. covering bare naked ladies songs and margaritaville all bummed out. Evan played guitar quietly while they smoked cigarettes.
“i can’t believe i drank that whole bottle of whiskey.” we were lying in our tent and he says, “we’re all done. we’re out of alcohol and we’re out of food.” i put my hand up and say, “we did good.” and he gives me a high five. nashville is still asleep even after we sit up. i shake him awake and he just sighs at me.
“i’m just a simple guy, got a license. kinda wanna go to taco bell.”
we said our goodbyes early afternoon and i could feel the hangover start to set in, bumper to bumper traffic on the highway.
