Musings - July 18, 2011

Day broke through the cracks of the white Venetian blinds. The light spilled over the piles of unopened mail, down the dusty amplifier, onto the scratched hardwood floor, and then right through the eyelids of the man of the house. He was not ready for morning.

He moaned into his pillow and rolled toward the middle of the bed. His head spun and throbbed, but he definitely could tell someone else was in his bed. And it wasn’t female.

He lifted up his pulsating head with a strain of his neck and saw that skinny, shaved white dome and forced himself to remember that Tony had led the night of debauchery.

Oh, it wasn’t that horrible. True, he would have to sleep through the afternoon, down four Excedrins, and chug enough water to drown a porpoise; but all-in-all it was a tame evening.

Before Tony had shoved him to the other side of the bed, he and Hank had showed up for some light pre-drinking. Three beers and five cigarettes later, they were ready to roll. So the three hopped into Tony’s black Equinox to hit the downtown bars. As luck would have it, the top-40 rap station was on that night. As the sound of Lil’ Wayne, Pitbull and some old school Jay Z casually ruled the airwaves, Tony popped another drag and casually bobbed his round dome back-and-forth. Boyz Night.

The trio inaugurated the July evening at the Max, taking in some of the video arcade and drink specials among the low-rent hipsters before ditching it for the breezeless patio of Arnie’s. Hank and Tony, ever the domesticated lions, blew past the cute hippie reading for her psych test after she checked their IDs. They talked shop for an hour and a half as the bachelor bought a couple rounds as an excuse to interrupt the hippie. Not yet a company man, he found the lack of a wingman unfortunate; but as he strode back to the patio, Tony got his juice flowing with talk of the next boyz night in October.

The fourth horseman would be headed in from the East Coast for OU-Texas. The conversation picked up speed as they colluded on hotel plans, party scenes, and escape routes. Tony didn’t want to have to bail his boy out again.

It seemed so long ago now even though the bachelor was still in his twenties. His compatriots had fully embraced their strides into the next decade. Each married with a child, steady pay, living for the weekend. Hank had designs on a house in the good part of town. Tony was already there, housing a dog on the outskirts. Yet, Tony, for all the responsibility he had learned the hard way to shoulder, yearned to relive the hard way. So – perhaps out of man love, perhaps because they were boozehounds themselves – the three embraced their inner wild child every time Tony came to town.

The scene shifted to McNellie’s and the men took it upon themselves to close it down. Beer after shot after beer, they reveled in drink and smoke as the memories washed their swimming heads to a place not too far down the road. Maybe it wasn’t Norman, but the man who would never leave the Mecca led the charge into the night.

~ ~ ~

To be continued…