Wow. I never want to drink again. Ever.
Well: Friday afternoon was nice enough. Ceejay and I got very stoned on some dankity-dank sitting in back of Sean’s Jeep on the ride up to Echo Hollow, hunkering below window level to escape cop eyes. Then we practiced at Jerry’s, which seems to be our new home & comes with a two-foot-tall towheaded mascot: Olive, saying “’mown*, Dada! ’mown, Bubba!” (her name for Ceej) as she leads us from the front porch inside. [*c’mon. Jeremiah’s mom has one of those old-school country accents where “on” is pronounced like oan or own, so that’s where she’s getting it from.] Then Sean & I drove to meet Jordan in Spring Hill, an hour away.
Jordan had taken some tequila and rum from his parents’ liquor cabinet. He had his heart set on the tequila; I claimed the rum. This was a party Rachel invited us to, at Isabel’s family’s gigantic estate in Columbia, out on the pike that takes you to Mount Pleasant & Summertown and eventually to Lawrenceburg where I spent a formative chunk of my childhood (pre-K thru 2nd grade). Avery and Heather were both purported to be there as well, so all 3 of us boys had some interest in attending. They were off on a beer run when we arrived. Jordan & I started drinking. The place was really nice & comfortable to get drunk in—lots of space, lots of amenities. (Izzy’s parents were gone for the weekend: Miami? I think.) Once Avery returned it was quickly apparent that nothing would happen, but I had steeld myself for that & didn’t feel too bad about it—it seemed pointless. Jordan was drunker than I for the first part of the night. Sean followed Rachel around; I didn’t see much of them. I spent most of my time hanging out in the mansion’s movie theater with Avery & Izzy and thus the core group of partygoers, altho the lights were up and there was no picture on the screen. Smaller groups congregated in the kitchen & in the greenhouse out back.
After midnight, I almost went to sleep upstairs but then decided instead to finish off that rum. The party in the greenhouse had basically become a bunch of dudes hitting on Heather, who was now in a blue bikini for some groggy reason. Actually, a very clear reason, one that I’d somehow faild to notice before: Heather is stackt. I swigged my rum & invited her to the bunkbed I’d been lying in earlier, in one of the big house’s many guest bedrooms. She brang someone else with her but I didn’t care. They climbed to the top bunk; I lay down below & began to drift away, until suddenly all that alcohol reached a critical mass in my bloodstream & I got very sick. I stumbled into the bathroom & started puking. Heather followed me, held my hair back for me, brang me water & tortilla chips. I was ready to die; I’ve never been that drunk before and I never want to be again. This was roughly around 3 or 4 in the morning. When my BAC finally subsided enough to sit upright, it was light outside: pale dawn shone down thru the frosted glass window. Looking around at the swanky bathroom, assessing my situation from the cold granite tile—I remember vomiting on the floor & toilet seat but I guess it had been mopt up already. Thank God Heather was there, or who knows what might’ve happend. (She was the only one who saw me like that—I hope.) Thru-out the whole ordeal there was only one thought in my mind: get the alcohol out; I want to be sober.
There was something else, tho—another thought, that made itself known only in hindsight, once my subconscious scand every memory & came up with a match—when I first woke & saw it was light outside, for a second I thought I was back at the parsonage in Lawrenceburg. It’s the oldest & biggest we’ve lived in, and definitely haunted. Upstairs were these arcane closets, walk-ins with unexpected depth, odd corners, U-turns. It felt like I was in one of them, altho they didn’t have windows. A smell, an ache, a shiver—something reminded me of that space.
Rachel brang ibuprofen & a blanket in the morning when she, Sean & Jordan found me curld up on the bottom bunk, empty rum bottle on the floor. Avery & Heather had already left. I was still half-drunk, and stayed that way till the afternoon. We drove to Jordan’s house at noon in a stund, hungover state: I couldn’t believe what I had done to myself. Showerd & got the hiccups, fell in & out of sleep on the living-room sofas, but then was told company was coming over and we had to leave immediately. Sean took me back to campus, then went to Malvern to help his mom get ready to move. I continued my hourlong fits of sleep, stomach raw & sore, until finally I ate a sandwich from Jackson’s about 10:30pm. That was the loneliest, saddest Saturday night ever. I left the TV on & slept until noon today. Stayed alone until this evening’s practice; Ceejay’s spending the night here; as we smoke with Tay-Tay & I prepare to tackle Week 6, the most daunting week yet—fucking Donald Trump’s Miss Tennessee USA pageant.