When I was 15 I got drunk, REALLY drunk for the first time ever.
Oh, of course I had been SLIGHTLY drunk before. I’m pretty sure that I’d even been FULLY drunk at that point. There were many bodegas that would give kids cheap beer and even Zimas (which were all the rage at the time if i remember correctly but that memory is fairly faulty since all the alcohol damage… but anyway). We could even get hard liquor and wine at a few places.
You have to remember that this is right before Rudy Giuliani sanitized NYC, and even if you couldn’t buy liquor illegally you could always get a hobo or NYU grad student to buy you a bottle of your favorite rotgut for a couple of bucks. My favorite was cheap-assed jug wine, with the screwoff tops and the thumb-handles, so you don’t drop them.
I used to drink those over by City Hall and on the Staten Island Ferry. All the time.
But this isn’t about that. This entry is about the first time I got so drunk that I got sick, and then swore off alcohol. Not that I kept with that swear. Because, let’s face it… Without alcohol I’d probably be in jail for a murder, most stabbity.
It was my friend’s 16th birthday party at his dad’s loft in lower Manhattan. His dad bought and set up a sort of open bar, and ordered a pile of pizzas. I poured myself a giant glass of vodka.. and that’s how it started.
The drinking part isn’t too interesting. We’ve all been there, done that so I’ll skip it and say that I drank way too much, ate a bunch of pizza and then had my first ever joint.
I don’t remember much about that joint. I was drunk. REALLY REALLY drunk at the time and I don’t remember much of the night… But I ABSOLUTELY remember playing Trivial Pursuit and they asked me a question about the Nixon administration and I wound up punctuating my answer by puking up a combination of pizza, vodka and jug wine.
All over the board. And the floor. And myself.
I got sort of cleaned up in the bathroom, they then moved the party to another room, put me on a couch with a bucket and a towel. Which is more than I deserved. I guess.
At some point Chinese Pete was up by my “sick area” with his girlfriend who was breaking up with him. Right there. In front of me. So she could go boink some other dude. And not him, even though she had said she would. I tried to console him, while he was crying and sitting in the spot where I had just … puked. But I was probably a little less than 100% coherent.
After a little while I felt better. I got up, went to the bathroom and saw a Spiderman Bouncy Ball. You know the kind that you sit on and grab the handles and then you bounce about on your butt? Like these here? Yeah. Well I hopped into the other room completely naked, except for a top hat on one of those.
There were shrieks and squeals and laughs. And there I was with a giant grin on my face since I thought that it was high comedy. I got wrapped in a bathrobe, and sent back to the couch to sober up some more.
It was almost as hilarious as when I took a piss off the fire escape. And it “landed” on some passers-by.
When I woke up I felt like shit. Every single hair on my body hurt. I went out, in the hot and bright sunlight and walked from Canal Street to the Staten Island Ferry. The walk of shame. On my way down there I ran into a bum who told me to go into a diner and get some breakfast. It helped. Then fifteen feet out of the diner I puked that up as well. The hobo did a dance, laughing at my misfortune.
Good times.
