Chapter 3: Fist of Fury

A night out with Thaddeus and Young Lad has a distinctive and predictable anatomy consisting of three distinct and important parts, the first of which is the pregame. Depending on the time of year, day of the week, color of the sky, alignment of the planets, and barometric pressure, pregaming can begin as early as noon and technically commences with the first beer, wine, or finely aged, single barrel scotch whisky enjoyed with dinner. But to suggest that festivities on which the success of the remainder of the evening will rest simply happens during a meal or can be as paltry as one beer in the afternoon downplays its importance. Like warming up and stretching before any major sporting event, drinking before drinking simply prevents injury and readies the mind for competition.
The second part, most obviously, is being out. My exposure to bars in at least three cities indicates that this experience is almost universal, varying only in details and how many shots your wingman approaches you bearing Jaeger and how much dancing or live music takes place at the location you chose. Young Lad, Staunton and I tend to avoid what is often referred to as the “club scene” mostly because I have the high dancing threshold owing to multiple generations of Protestantism and the general body sense of an adolescent. After fifteen outright rejections of my increasingly pathetic advances or last call – whichever comes first – I make the push for third part of the evening equation: the postgame.
The postgame, or in some regions, afterparty, is far and away the highlight of the night. It offers the opportunity for hopeful men to bring unsuspecting women back to a location with a bed, counter, couch, or shower within a stone’s throw while continuing to enjoy their company. I particularly relish the opportunity to better apply my linguistics skills to the art of game without having to yell over “raaaaa raaaaaa RA AHHH AHHHH.” Also, as the nature of tort law increasingly ignores personal responsibility in favor of large settlements, bar tenders are less and less likely to serve enough liquor for one to get Mel Gibson drunk before last call. But on a recent Saturday evening, after what were fairly standard parts one and two, part three went tragically wrong. While imbibing at a local bar, The Lad and I ran into a group of female friends and acquaintances led by the fearless Rady Friend.
To even begin to understand what follows, one must first attempt to develop an understanding of what exactly makes Rady Friend worth keeping around. Rady fluctuates between two states of being: blackout and hungover. Of course she spends the occasional hour being neither, but such anomalous occurrences represent outliers and may simply be observational errors rather than conscious decisions to behave like the rest of us. Some portion of Rady’s propensity to reach a state of pure inebriation that most others only dream about can be attributed to her stature as well as her origins. Standing only three apples high in heels, the little partier is currently China’s only representation in the Lollipop Guild. Despite what sounds like the lifestyle of an alcoholic homeless person, Rady is in fact an incredibly well meaning and often generous person who offers sage advice to friends like “you’re too old to only be giving handjobs.” At times, she can even be an outstanding wing woman when she is not trying to find a new stranger to take home for herself.
Hoping to be a good wing woman for me, on this particular Saturday, Rady encouraged two of her good friends to come home with Lad, a good friend from out of town who I will call the Dutch Rudder, and me. While neither girl was outstandingly attractive, they were at least better than many of the Picasso like options that appear inexplicably just before bars close, but regardless of our feelings on their appearance, the two young ladies would have been welcome company had one of them not been an incredibly unlikable person who feels that “you’re a loser, buy me a drink” is an effective pick up line. After tormenting my dog, insulting my beer, panning my choice in music, and making disparaging remarks about how the television is too big, I decided that I had my fill and settled in to slumber.
Just as my dog and I were starting to doze off, I heard a stream profanities coming unmuffled through the paper mache walls separating me from the ongoing postgame activities. Young Lad had reached a sudden breaking point and finally snapped at our bitchy houseguest. With high pitched and aggressive tone, he questioned her upbringing, suggested that she fornicate with herself, repeatedly and with fervor, and then vacate his place of living in the very near future. Shortly after making this harsh but ultimately understandable request, I heard a sound with which I became casually and personally familiar during my time as an active member of a fraternity: the distinct thwunk of hand going through a six panel hollow core door. As it was at least the twenty third time I have heard this sound, I knew that the damage was already done, doors are easy to replace, and that seeing at least some small amount of destruction coming from what is normally an infinite but completely impotent rage would actually have a calming effect. No one was hurt, and the damaged door has become a shrine to grown man temper tantrums everywhere.

Chapter 2: NYE

For many years, I have felt that New Years Eve garners far more attention than it deserves. Though overrated, New Years does offer a fantastic opportunity to have a drink and interact with friends that I love very much but visit very rarely and never combine for what is sometimes later revealed to be very good reason. As is to be expected when consorting with little seen friends, acquaintances, and associates, the usual catching up questions were asked:
“How have you been?”
“How’s the family?”
“Where is whatsername?”
“Whatever happened with that other girl?”
“Are all those drinks for you?”
“Don’t you think you’ve had enough?”
“What do you mean you don’t remember?”
“Are you ok?”
“What happened to your face?”
“Thaddeus, can you hear me?”
“Thaddeus!?”
Etcetera
There is no reason not to enjoy a holiday that encourages drinking too much, but the expected New Years Kiss with which many hope to close out the holiday makes the event a better fit for couples. Not because single people do not enjoy kissing – we do – but rather that our odds are calculably lower than the even one to one for those who arrive with a mildly special or imminently committed romantic interest. Having to consider the odds simply goes against my risk averse nature, as does this entire year. Some attempted to flatter me by saying that I was almost guaranteed to find a suitable suitor for the evening, but despite my dashing good looks, intoxicating charm, and generally agreeable if rugged aroma, I celebrated the conclusion of an odd year with a vigorous fist pump while I waited for my companions to cease attempting to orally evaluate whether or not their dates still had their wisdom teeth. I was grateful for a platonic hug from female followers, Velvet and Teach, and thoroughly enjoyed a more overtly manly and less sympathy inspired high five from Young Lad before the bar hosting our festivities decided to pull the fire alarm and send everyone back from whence they came
But the evening was not marred by my inability to begin a public display of foreplay’s foreplay while watching others mug up, nor was it cut short by the subtle hint from our venue’s proprietor. I took advantage of the confusion to relieve myself between two cars parked outside after finding the wait for traditional bathrooms too long, accidentally startling a young lady walking by who masked her delight by feigning astonishment despite my specific instructions not to be impressed. Feeling that I needed to apologize for accidentally blinding the poor girl with my endangered trouser snake, and also hoping to capitalize on the fact that she had already seen the best of me, I struck up a conversation in the parking lot that seemed fruitful in my inebriated state. Her surprisingly large boyfriend disagreed. To his credit, the Andre-the-Giant-esque boyfriend felt my antics were humorous and harmless enough not to inflict any damage to my face, and even remained patient when I asked him to, please, “don’t screw this up for me. I think she likes me!” The remainder of the evening quickly fades to black soon after I left my new friends to head home.
The next morning is sometimes the best part of nights you cannot remember the conclusion of, if of course you can ignore the throbbing head ache, distinctive taste of rotting flesh, unshakeable and debilitating nausea, and general sense that you are covered in a layer of filth and shame that will not wash off even with dish soap. This particular next morning started off with the pleasant surprise of finding The Drunk and another man I had not seen since high school sprawled out on my couches, which is normally not a problem, except that in this case I did not have enough food in the house to make breakfast for everyone. But I did have enough beer for twenty thirsty men, and so Young Lad, The Drunk, my newly reacquainted acquaintance Rip van Winkle put off our hangovers to another day. The combination of a slight buzz, the enjoyment of reconnecting with Winkle, and observing Winkle leave the absolute worst voicemail I have ever heard another man leave for a woman he is hoping to sleep with inspired me to call up a girl from my own past and wish her a Happy New Year. Since the message I left was not rambling, incoherent, nor embarrassing, Penny Lane called me back, and I spent the remainder of my weekend with her, watching monster trucks, drinking decidedly out of season beers, and generally enjoying each other’s company.
By the time I dropped her off at her parents’ house on Sunday evening, I was reminded of at least one of the reasons we separated in the first place as well as many of the reasons I have at times missed her since then, but more than anything, Penny gave me the belated New Year's kiss I thought I wouldn’t have this year, and demonstrated to me exactly how challenging my year as a bachelor is going to be.