Solo: The Adventures of the Twenty-One Year Old Alcoholic

Hey y’all! It’s Tara here, coming at you with an exciting tale about—you guessed it—bum wine!

Before I get started, here’s a little about me:

I’m twenty-two years old, I live in Texas, and I just so happen to be a recovering alcoholic. Bob approached me about writing an entry for his blog when he found my story on Kickstarter. I don’t know what he was thinking exactly, but I’m pretty sure it went something along the lines of, “Hey, who better to write about alcohol than a real, live alcoholic!”

Well, he’s right. After spending three years experimenting and five years blacking out every night of the week, I’d say that I’m pretty much a bonafide expert on the subject. So let’s get started!

Today's story covers a drunk-a-logue featuring the one and only Steel Reserve!


Mmm . . . tasty.  Just kidding.
As it happens, my second experience with malt liquor just so happens to be the first night I experience the stealthy wrath of the Dallas P.D. It’s a fond memory I like to cherish. Why, you ask? Because when you throw together police, pot, fences, beer pong, and shrubbery, you end up with a night for the books.

So here I am, playing ten-cup beer pong with my best friend Natasha at a small house party in Dallas. But, we’re not just playing beer pong—we’re dominating beer pong. We’ve been on the table all night long. And by all night long, I mean we’ve won ten plus games of BP in a row. I can’t remember the exact number, being as I was wasted, but I do remember it was more than ten. No one can beat us; not even the boys who claimed to be perpetually “undefeated.” Game after game, I fill up our cups with some exquisite bottom-of-the-barrel beer. But because we’re on a winning streak, I’m not getting as much to drink as I’d like.
It’s boring being at the top of your BP game. We’ve all been there at one point or another. If you haven’t . . . um . . . anyways.

Because I’m not able to drink from my cups because the boys have the aim of a blind two year old, I decide to play Tara-forty-hand with the hand I’m not using to laser-eye-pin-point-missile-shoot the ping-pong ball into the cups opposite me. I open a Steely, pour back, and drink up. Ahh . . . refreshing.

Once I’ve downed multiple bottles of the malt, I’m feeling pretty good. And by pretty good, I mean I’m at a happy, slurry, minutely sloppy drunk. I’m in my zone. After winning another game of beer pong with Natasha, we decide it’s time to reward ourselves with a backyard cigarette break. We take our forty toting selves into the backyard, light up, and chat in a circle with our three friends Jason, Trent, and Rylan, who are slightly disgruntled at how the games have turned out this evening, but who are mostly shocked at the prowess of two dainty little girls. As the five of us enjoy our cigarettes, three of our other friends, Ethan, Matt, and David stay inside the house to roll up and smoke a joint. Natasha finishes her cigarette early to join them back inside.

It’s not extremely late in the evening. It’s probably about midnight, and it’s a weekend. We’re not too concerned with the noise level of the party because there’s only eight of us at this small get together. But, as we slide deeper into inebriation, the clamor goes up. The neighbor whose window faces David’s backyard has had enough of our teenage antics. He calls the cops, and we have no idea. So, I continue to down forty after forty and continue to descend to a level that induces swirly vision and slurred words. The four of us are having a nice time chatting in the backyard—until David bolts out of the back door towards his fence at full speed.

“COPS!” He yells as he passes us.

What happens next occurs within a time period of ten seconds.

The four of us freeze. I look to the house and see that all the lights have been turned off. The only source of illumination comes from the flashlights I’m assuming belong to the police. One, two, three seconds pass. None of us know what to do, until we realize that David has scaled the eight-foot fence behind us. Without even making a conscious decision, I follow his lead. I drop my bottle and make a run for it.

Now that I’m standing in front of the eight-foot fence, I’m feeling pretty discouraged. I tilt my head up to discover that I’m lacking about three crucial feet of height. I’m not able to scale this fence. Half of my brain begins to panic, because I realize that I’m going to have some explaining to do. While one side of my brain starts to freak out, the other side starts to laugh. This is just my luck. Trapped by a fence in a backyard, with nowhere to go but jail. I watch as David, Rylan, and Trent disappear over the fence. In a second, I’m sure Jason will follow. I’ll be stuck here, all alone in the backyard, with no one to keep me company except for the police and the now empty bottles of Steel Reserve that sit just a few feet from me. I’m going to be in trouble, all because I’m too short to climb a fence. Laughter completely takes over because I’m too drunk to come up with a more appropriate reaction.

Suddenly, I feel two hands grab the back of my legs, just under my ass. I’m still laughing as the feeling processes in my mind.
Oh, shit. I’m caught.
Wait.
Why would the cops grab my ass?
That’s not the cops . . .

“GO, GO, GO!” Jason yells in a whisper as his hands find my ass. I grab the top of the fence and start to swing a leg over. I’m moving as fast as I can, but I’m extremely intoxicated. My sense of coordination is non-existent. By this time, Jason has become impatient. He needs me to be over this fence. He needs me to be over this fence yesterday. Jason gives my backside a harsh shove to speed up the escaping process. Promptly, I find myself airborne. And then, I find myself grounded.

I hit the ground as a flailing pile of limbs, but I’m not hurt because my arms and legs have taken the consistency of Jell-O. I scramble to my feet, by which time Jason is by my side. Together, we discover that we’ve jumped the wrong fence. We’re in another backyard, which means we have another eight-foot fence to jump. We hear the David’s back door open, and then we hear the police.

“RUN!” Jason whispers as he takes my hand. He pulls me to the other fence, where he once again shoves me upwards. This time around, I’m able to get my body to the other side of the wood before he shoves me without warning. I land on my feet at the same time Jason does, but because my limbs are Jell-O, I crash through my and find myself in a sitting position. I’m an oversize, drunken Raggedy Ann doll.
He grabs my hand for the second time, rips me from the ground, and we’re off like a shot, sprinting through an unfamiliar Dallas neighborhood.

I have no idea where we’re going. Jason is a much faster runner than me in this moment, so all I’m really aware of is the passing mailboxes as we dart through the streets. We take all kinds of turns on streets leading out of the neighborhood before my smokers lungs start to protest. I know I’m not going to be able to keep it together much longer with all of the Steel Reserve sloshing around in my stomach and lungs that have just been lit on fire.

“Hey!” We hear from a large area of lawn plants as we pass it. Jason halts, as if he’s contemplating whether or not he’s gone crazy. We hear the sound again, but this time, we realize that it’s coming from a very tall and wide bush on the side of a house. Suddenly, Jason runs us directly into the thorny plant were we find David, Rylan, and Trent hiding out.

“They got Natasha, Ethan, and Matt.” David informs us as I try to catch my breath. I look around the half-circle of people and find that this bush is actually quite a spacious place. It’s trunk is tall and very skinny while it’s limbs are tiny and shoot out into a wall, where it’s leaves provide a half barrier from the outside world. The other half of the space is protected by a brick wall of a house.

“How much did they have on them?” Someone asks.
“A few grams, I think.”
“Shit.”
“Yeah. It’s not good.”

I feel terrible. My best friend is probably in handcuffs on the side of the road right now, being read her Miranda Rights. As I’m running through every worse case scenario I can think of, Trent pulls out a forty from behind him. Suddenly, all other thoughts leave my mind. Thank God! Someone has brought snacks to this shindig! If we’re going to be on the run, we might as well make the most of it. I pull out my cigarettes and light one up.

“What should we do?” I ask, reaching for the Steel Reserve. Trent hands it to me, and I down a fair amount of the stuff.
“I don’t know. Maybe—” David is interrupted by my cellphone, which rings loudly from my back pocket.
“SHH!”
“Turn that thing off!”
“Shut up!” I whisper over them, trying to quell the paranoid boys. The last thing we need is for the people in this house we’re hiding out by to call the cops. I look at the screen, and I’m momentarily duped. NATASHA flashes on the screen.
“How is she . . . uh oh.” Jason says.
“Uh oh?” I slur in his direction. I take a sip from the bottle.
“Answer it!” Someone whispers. Without thinking, I follow instructions.
“Natasha?” I ask as I put the phone on speaker for all to hear.
“Tara, It’s Ethan.”
“Are you guys alright?”
“Tara, you need to come back.”
“What?” I say, completely dismayed.
“Tara, the cops need you to come back. Please, don’t worry. It’ll all be okay. You just need to come back.”
My mind begins to race. The cops need me to come back? Why do the cops need me to come back? I’m one thousand percent sure they just got busted with alcohol and pot. Why would they want me to . . . oh.
I’m in trouble.
“Tara?” Ethan says.
“I’m not going back there! Are you kidding me?”
“Tara.” Ethan says softly. He’s not acting like himself at all. His tone is too calm. It’s way too calm. It’s too serene for him. It sounds as if he’s talking to a shy dog he’s trying to get to approach him. He’s trying not to scare me away.
“Tara, listen to me.” He coaxes. “If you don’t come back, we’re all going to jail. Please, Tara. Just come back here.”
“Ethan, I don’t want to go to jail!”
“Tara. Get back here. They have your information. Just come back. It’ll be okay.”
“How can it be okay? Why do I need to come back? I’m not going to get in trouble!”
“Just get back here. We don’t want to go to jail because you wouldn’t come back.”

Fuck.

I tilt up the bottle of Steel Reserve and kill the bottle.

Stay tuned for the second part of the story and check out the project on Kickstarter!


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