I can drink, and in Mexico after hearing some interesting
news from a former lover at a tranquil resort on the beach, I began to really
hit it hard. She wandered off and I sat at the bar alone for a bit, and that’s
all I remember. According to a credit card bill I found in my pocket when I
woke up, I had spent about $100 during my power failure. I’m sure there were
some interesting conversations with the bartenders, or more likely the chairs.
I failed to mention in my last post something that stuck in
my mind for years since that day, but not yesterday. The public bathrooms were
absolutely disgusting in Mexico. One in particular reminds me now of my prison
cell in St. Cloud without bars. Cold, hard concrete from floor to ceiling. A
bare toilet, and a urinal flush with the wall. St Cloud didn’t have urinals,
but Mexico did. St. Cloud also didn’t have creepy little blind kids that would
stand directly behind me when I peed. The boy said nothing but held two tin
buckets. Apparently he could hear when I stopped and asked inquisitively, “Fresh
lime?” I think I said, “huh?” but I felt a mixture of urine and old lime juice
hit my hands and general groin area. He had tossed a half of a lime in the
toilet to freshen it up, probably what he considered cleaning. It was a busy
day, and I wondered why there were only a few limes in there. Did he have to
feel around for the old ones to discard them? There are only a few places in
this world I won’t put my hands, nearly all of them are in the mouths of wild
African predators, and then one is the toilet in a Mexican public restroom. I
turned around to say something but he thrust his other bucket at me which had a
few coins and a dollar in it. I looked into his eyes and I could see how hard
his life had been on him. He could not see, and I could clearly see that now. I
could see his pupils through a thick white haze. They were offset and he
appeared to be staring right through me, as if he was listening for something.
My heartbeat. I was drunk, but I’m a compassionate drunk. I pulled out a $20
and put it in his shirt pocket and told him to make sure nobody else got any of
it. I don’t think he understood me. As I was leaving the bathroom I looked back
one final time to see him reaching toward the toilet. It hit me. He was going
to reuse the limes.
Back to the boat. I don’t even have a clue how I got there.
I’m surprised that I even managed to find the right boat. I woke up on our bed,
my head pounding. I needed a drink. I stumbled out into the hallway, and when I
say I stumbled, I mean that I had lost all sense of direction and every bit of
coordination I had accumulated since childhood. I needed strong drink. I mean I needed strong drink to survive life from
that point on. That was the moment it clicked in my head again that I could
drink to blackout twice in a day. I didn’t think of it as a blackout, but a
buzz. You see, I never once got high or drunk because I knew I would lose all
of my money, self-esteem, or vanity. I didn’t smoke crack because I could blow
a whole paycheck in one night. I didn’t sell drugs because I knew it would lead
me to prison. I did all of that shit because I like the way it makes me feel.
That’s not past tense, I know all of those things will still have the desired consequence.
I loved the way alcohol made me feel while I was using it, and I knew that no
matter how bad my head hurt, or no matter which direction I was facing after
each step I took, I could eventually find my way to a barstool and everything
would be better again.
