Viva La Loma Rica

I want to express my apologies for forgetting a couple of August birthdays in the small list from the last posting. In August there also lies the day celebrating the birth of the man, the myth, the legend, the initials and punctuation mark of kc! Bradshaw. And also Hulk Hogan, sorry Hulk.

I also want to blame the introspective memories I had on the walk in this morning on the slower songs popping up on my iPod, so I will. I cannot remember which song got the rocks rolling necessarily, but I remembered a cold night during Christmas break back in 1989. As it’s what I got, it’s what you get…

Having thoroughly fucked up things at school my senior year in high school, my parents decided I wasn’t ready for life away from them and moved me from the soul crushing suburbs of Orange County to the evergreen and soul crushing suburbs of Gig Harbor, Washington. While it’s an easy out to blame the drugs and alcohol, I feel that it was more the apathy of a troubled soul being pulled in different directions (which is a prettier way of saying that I was a bored and confused teenager) that nearly cost me my graduation. What have you, I feel I paid for my transgressions.

That Christmas, my partner in crime and future roommate, Captain MIA came up to Washington to visit. As it was the holiday break for universities all over, my childhood friend Chris was back in this side of the state and plans were made to see each other again after 4 years apart. My worlds collided…

Well Chris, Captain MIA and myself got together to go see a movie back in the town where I had spent my childhood. First stop though was at the home of the girl whom I had a crush on in junior high. She and Chris had ended up dating in high school, and so he was quite chummy with her parents. Chris spent an inordinate amount of time speaking with the folks while Captain MIA and myself sat in the living room with this young lady. While she was still the bright and funny woman she was when I left her 4 years prior, she was running down a path of successful GPA and sorority status. I myself felt I was on a vision quest to discover who I was. I still maintain that it was in fact a vision quest, albeit an immature way to go about it. There was an uncomfortable space between us, and Captain MIA – who clammed up tighter than a whale’s anus when he was with someone he didn’t know – said not a word. She and I eventually agreed on a fondness for The Far Side; what a bridge we had crossed…

It turned out that Chris had a fake ID, so many beers were bought for our viewing of Christmas Vacation, or whatever it was we decided to waste our hour and half gaping at. At some point in the night I remember that warm feeling of camaraderie, flowing like beer through my veins, coming on. Chris and I talked about how good it was to see each other again and those drunken promises of friendship that fall so easily.

Chris drove around the town of my childhood, Captain MIA drank many beers in the backseat, and I sat looking at all the houses that I used to pass so often as a kid. Christmas lights painted the air a pastel red color, but did nothing to adjust for the bitter cold. Chris seemed to be taking us on a tour of houses that had contained girls that he had slept with in the last four years. He was telling all of his woman hunting stories and driving around looking for a house where he was likely to score.

I had little to say, this kind of macho womanizing was boring and pathetic. He eventually stopped at a house that looked so much like every other house on the street. He informed me that the girl living here had some sort of bipolar disorder, pulled up to the curb and went to the door. He came back a minute later to let us know that he was going to go inside with her for a little bit. Captain MIA went at the remaining stockpile of beer and I looked up towards Chris’ retreating back with some dismay.

A half an hour later, Captain MIA was passed out in the backseat and I was sitting outside on the curb smoking a cigarette. I sung “Number 13 Baby” by the Pixies to myself, paced around a bit to stay warm and generally wondered how it was that my life had led me there.

Chris eventually came back out to the car with a devil may care grin and drove us back to my car. He told me that I should come out to see him at school while I maneuvered a barely standing future roommate to my trusty Honda, but I could tell that it was a half hearted recommendation. We parted ways for the last time.

I drove out past the elementary school Chris and I had attended, past the house where I learned to tell time. Captain MIA asked in a long slur if I was okay. He meant about the alcohol consumed and the driving I was undertaking. I could have told him that the cold and the time and the disappointing thoughts had sobered me up, but I just said “yes”.

“If you need to pull over, just pull over,” he mumbled just before tumbling onto me in a drunken heap as I turned onto the highway that would take me home.