Regret Pt. 2

If you haven't read it yet, please start with Pt. 1 of this 3-part post. Now on to Pt. 2...

2:14 a.m.: location: somewhere on West Dayton street

Dave's apartment is your typical student pad, one of five thousand like it in Madison, two story houses split into two apartments and slowly destroyed by thoughtless kids year after year. We're standing outside it now, and we're talking about the 'Clear.

Me: This is crazy. I've never had Everclear before. Is it even legal?
Dave: I dunno, I think it's homemade. It's grain alcohol or something.
Eli: Dudes, I think I'm gonna bail. My apartment is just over there...
(he gestures back towards the Holiday Inn down the block. His apartment isn't at all close to the Holiday Inn.)
Dave: Nah, man. Let's have a couple of drinks.

I make a mental note that Dave is a champ.

Dave lives on the second floor with three roommates, who are all asleep. As we walk upstairs, I find myself wondering if I've been in this apartment before. In five years on campus, I've been to a lot of indistinguishable house parties, and this place definitely seems familiar. Oh yeah, now I remember: I think I was here at a party freshman year, on the ground floor. There was a girl chewing tobacco and I bummed some off her. She was just working that tobacco like a pro. We were all sort of in awe of her.

Eli and I sit down on kitchen chairs that are part of a circle Dave has laid out in the middle of the living room. He leaves the room and returns with the stuff. Everclear. It's in a plain glass bottle and I don't stop for even a second to ask where, how, or why. It looks like death and I want to taste it.

Me: So do you have some...I dunno...fruit juice? Something to mix it with?
Dave: Oh, shit. Yeah, that's a good idea. I never thought I'd ever drink this stuff. It's actually my roommate's. Let me check for some juice.

I try to make small talk with Eli while Dave heads back to the kitchen in search of a mixer. I can tell we're losing Eli. As much as he's already been dead weight for over an hour, I immediately recognize that his continued presence is key to the survival of this night. I walk over to the stereo and put on "Mind Playing Tricks on Me" by the Geto Boys in an attempt to perk Eli up.

It works, at least for a minute. Eli starts halfheartedly bobbing his head. It's also loud enough to stir one of Dave's sleeping roommates, who joins us in the living room. He seems like a nice guy, not pissed to be awakened by people he doesn't even know. He sits in a chair and joins the conversation.

Dave returns emptyhanded. No juice. No soda.

This is a critical moment; all the signs in the universe are pointing towards calling it a night. Everybody looks spent, drunk and spent. But something in me, some fucked up Irish gene, needs more. More fun. More booze. More night.

Me: Fuck it, I'll just run over to Cap Centre Foods (a supermarket about three blocks away) and get us some juice. They're open all night.

The kids are impressed by my commitment to the Everclear and they all nod in agreement, even Eli. Looks like I'm going to Cap Centre Foods.

I jog down the stairs and leave the building, and I notice a car in the driveway getting ready to pull out. It must be the downstairs neighbors. I run up to the window, this stranger's driver-side window, and I ask him where he's headed. He says something but I don't even listen.

Me: Can you drop me at Cap Centre Foods?
Him: Sure, hop in.

I get in, and it's him and another dude in the front seat, both sort of crunchy white guys who are laughing every ten seconds. I'm pretty sure they're drunk and stoned. In the backseat with me is an African-American dude, seems nice, introduces himself as Lee.

Me: Where are you guys going? Another party?
Driver dude: Nah, we're just going over to a friend's house to watch Highlander.
Me: Oh...cool.

Like three times since I've lived in Madison I have found myself in a room full of people watching Highlander. I've never made it through the whole movie myself, but around here people go nuts for it. One time it was a fucking Highlander party with like thirty people.

Lee says he's probably not gonna watch the movie, and asks what I'm up to. I tell him about the Everclear and the juice.

I guess this is as good a time as any to point out that since I have lived in Wisconsin, I have not had an actual black friend. In high school, we had a beautiful ethnic mix and I treasured that shit. I learned that diversity actually means something. Knowing different people from different backgrounds enriches your life and grows your brain. But Madison is an overwhelmingly white campus, and the only black guys I know are dudes I play ball with and against. More than acquaintances, less than friends.

So I am sort of tickled in my pathetic drunk honky mind to be meeting a black guy named Lee at 2:45 in the morning as we ride in a stranger's car towards a supermarket that I could easily have walked to.

2:47 a.m.: Capital Centre Foods, Mifflin and Broom

We get to Cap Centre and I get out. I thank the Crunch Brothers for the ride and I walk through the automatic doors. Lee also gets out and out of the corner of my eye I see him sort of milling around outside the store. As I scan the aisles, looking for snacks to accompany us on our suicide mission, I notice Lee has joined me in the supermarket and is hovering like thirty feet behind me, not quite hiding but not announcing his presence either.

Finally I turn and wave.

Me: What's up, man?
Lee: Nothing, bro. Just looking for something to eat.

At this point, I won't lie to you, I am sort of freaked out. He's not threatening but he's definitely not quite together.

Me:Yo (adopting slight, embarrassing "urban" speech pattern), do you want to come back with us and drink the Everclear?
Lee: Sure, man. That'll work.

This is already like the twelfth "If Woody had gone straight to the police, this would never have happened" moment of the night.

So we shop together, 3am, new buddies with a shared purpose. Like Tony Curtis and Sidney Poitier, chained together by a bottle of grain alcohol. Finally, we settle on two mixers: Schweppes Raspberry Ginger Ale in a 2 liter bottle, and a gallon of truly disgusting IGA brand Grape Drink. I explain to Lee that the grape drink will turn his shit green, and he doesn't believe me.

Me: You check it out tomorrow, you'll have like a phosphorescent green shit, man. It's one of the great unexplained phenomena of science. It's unreal.

I am sobering up a little and I don't like it. We need to get back.

As we walk the five minute walk, Lee opens up a bit and he seems like a nice guy. Tells me he has to work in the morning and that he should probably have gone home already. Looking back now, I wish he had.

3:00 a.m.: Somewhere on West Dayton again

When we get back to Dave's, I introduce Lee to everyone and even though they shake his hand, there are raised eyebrows all around, as if to say who the hell is this. I feel bad for Lee, and embarrassed by my friends.

Dave and his roommate go into the kitchen and come back with five giant plastic cups, each full to the rim. Grape drink and Everclear. Mom would be so proud.

We start drinking, and it burns. Not as bad as I thought it would, but enough to let you know you're consuming something only a short walk from gasoline. The grape drink helps.

We're talking, the tunes are playing, and we're having fun. Inevitably, the conversation turns to race and racism and our experiences with both.

Lee tells a couple of stories about being harrassed for the color of his skin, really sad stuff. I take it from there and tell everyone what a great balanced life I've led, with black friends and Latino friends and Asian friends and so on. I'm tremendously satisfied with myself.

Then Dave takes the floor.

Dave (to Lee): You know, dude, don't take this the wrong way, but in Philly, where I'm from, things were bad. I remember some black kids started attending our high school and we left a big sign on their bus that said "Niggers go home."

I'm drunk on a dozen different types of liquor but the entire room is suddenly in perfect focus. There's silence. Even Bushwick Bill has to shut it down for a second. Lee is staring at Dave. We're all staring at Dave.

Dave: I mean, that's the way it was, you know? I didn't know any black kids 'til I got to college. The ones I did know I hated. They hated us, we hated them.

Lee is understanding. He grants Dave forgiveness. They hug. We all open up. The stories are flowing -- awful, silly, shameful, corny, earnest, offensive stories, all about race. We can't talk about anything else. We're erasing our sins and our fathers' sins over glasses of grape drink and Everclear.

It's 4:00 am and we've cashed the bottle of Everclear. I have about half a cup left, my second, and then I need to go home. My body keeps seizing up on me.

Me: Excuse me, can I go to the can?
Dave: It's right over there.

I go to the bathroom and I can barely stand. My eyes are pointing in like six different directions simultaneously. The light is bright and cruel. I start to piss and I decide a nice fart might clear my senses. Unfortunately, muscle control is lost and I soil my drawers. Depressed but determined, I remove the underwear, throw them out the bathroom window and clean up. I pull my pants on and head back out to the living room, where I find comfort in the fact that nobody else knows what just happened.

I finish my drink quickly and tell everybody I have to leave. Lee says the same. Goodnight, later, this was a blast, good to meet you, peace out, see you at work next week. I sense that we'll all be embarrassed about this but I am too drunk to try to figure out why.

Lee and I walk down the stairs and out into the night. It's foggy out there, a little damp, but it's a mild night and the streetlights are on, guiding me toward my apartment, which is about fifteen minutes away on foot. Lee says he's gotta catch a bus because he lives pretty far off campus, but wouldn't you know it the bus stop is over by my place, he says, so we can walk together. As we head off into the night, I hear a door open behind us. It's one of the crunchy dudes from earlier that night, coming out of the apartment beneath Dave's. Before Lee even fully notices him, Crunchy runs up to me and whispers in my ear:

Dude, you know that guy Lee is gay, right? I'm pretty sure he wants to have sex with you.

I don't know what to make of this, so I just keep walking and Crunchy heads back inside. Lee asks what he said to me, and I say, Nothing, man.

We walk a couple of blocks and I suddenly realize I need to address this point.

Me: Lee, um, well, that guy back there, well, he said you were gay.
Lee (in tough guy voice): Who said I was a faggot?
Me: No, he didn't use that word, he just said you were gay...and I think you need to know that I'm not gay, so you don't get the wrong impression...
Lee: He said I was a faggot? That's bullshit! I ain't a faggot!
Me: Dude, whether you are or not, I just need you to understand that I'm not gay and so nothing's happening tonight...OK?
Lee: Dude, don't worry about it...I'm not a fucking faggot.

We walk in silence for the next few blocks, my balls flopping freely and uncomfortably in my jeans. My apartment is getting closer and try as I might I can't think of any bus stops along the way...

Part 3