Assholes Finish First (18 page)

But once I left home and surrounded myself with good friends I picked, instead of crazy family I was assigned, I began doing birthday stuff again. I was in my third (and final) year of college when my 21st birthday came along, and my friends offered to throw me a small party.

The planning was led by two friends from my old dorm, Mark and Francis. My college friends don’t have the funny nicknames that my law school friends do, because the University of Chicago was so boring and socially retarded we didn’t do enough crazy shit for cool nicknames to develop organically. Don’t get me wrong, my friends were awesome guys, but there’s a reason my school’s unofficial motto is “Where Fun Goes to Die.”

The plan was to do my birthday shots at a bar and then head out to a party afterward. We got to Woodlawn Tap at about 7pm. Mark bought 2 pitchers for the table and a shot for me and him. Our birthday tradition, as is standard for my generation, is for everyone out with the birthday boy to buy 2 shots, one for themselves and one for the birthday boy. This pattern continues until the birthday boy has done one shot for each year of his life. Normally, the 21 shots are spread out over the course of many hours, beginning early and ending very late, thus hopefully avoiding alcohol poisoning.

Not this time.

My friends had convinced me they were taking me out for my birthday because they loved me. This was a lie. My friends decided that they were going to get me shit-housed, fucked-in-half, retard drunk, and they would do it as quickly as possible because—as I was graduating in just three
years instead of the usual four—they wanted to take advantage of their last opportunity to get back at me for all the shit I’d done to them over the course of our friendship. Like the time I took everything out of Mark’s room and set it up in the courtyard of our dorm, and then invited a bum to sleep in his bed. Or the time I stapled a pork chop to the bottom of Francis’s desk, and it stank so badly he was forced to sleep in the commons area for a week. And so on.

As soon as Mark and I finish our first shot, Francis has the next one waiting for me. Then another friend is right there with the next shot, followed immediately by another. I have not agreed to this plan, or even been informed of its existence, so after the fourth shot, I slam my beer chaser on the table and scream:

Tucker “HEY, GODDAMMIT! There will be a 5 minute wait between shots. And no fucking whiskey. Tequila or vodka only.”

Being such great friends, everyone respects my wishes. For about 5 minutes. Then the shots start coming quickly again. 3 minutes between shots. 2 minutes. 1 minute. Next thing I know, I have 10 shot glasses in front of me, and it’s only 8:15. I beg for a 20 minute break and receive a table full of condescension.

At this stage in my drinking career, I was not experienced enough to realize that the only way for me to salvage the night would be to run into the street and get hit by a car. Ten shots in an hour meant I was already doomed. At the very least I could have tried to force myself to vomit, ridding myself of the 15 ounces of hard liquor now metastasizing in my otherwise empty stomach. Not me. I remained in my chair and held up my part of the conversation by giving inebriated opinions in a volume appropriate for a helipad.

About 10 minutes later, someone places another shot in front of me. Vodka. I do it. Mister Stomach is not amused. Five minutes later, someone else places another vodka in front of me. I slam that one, too.

That’s it. The corner has been turned. I can no longer discern faces from furniture without squinting and concentrating. I blithely wave off the next shot, but the ensuing boom of castigation from the bloodthirsty savages I call “friends” somehow pushes the liquid down my throat.

This shot sends my body into fight or flight. My throat desperately tries to close up and reject it, but I keep my mouth shut and force it down. I try to get up to walk around, but my body does not respond. The environment around me has become a vague, shifting mass of irregular shapes and amorphous forms, accentuated by voices I seem to recognize. My only thoughts involve hurting those around me, but I am too afraid of letting go of the table to take a swing at them. I hear someone say something about a shot.

Tucker “Guys, please, seriously, please, I am begging you with my life, please, please, no more alcohol.”

Everyone has a good laugh at my expense, and another shot is placed in front of me.

Tucker “Guys, I can’t do this. Honestly, guys, my life is on the line here.”

The shot is held up to my face. The tequila smell is too much. I am repulsed and squirm away like I’m being threatened with waterboarding, fall out of my chair and onto the floor, the shot spilling onto my face and clothes. I look up pitifully at my friends.

Here’s the other thing you have to know about me: When I was 21, I was like the Benjamin Button of alcohol consumption. I was a regressive drunk—the more I drank, the younger I acted. A few drinks in and I’d be making poop jokes. When I got really drunk, I’d drool on myself and baby-talk to girls. By the end of the night, I’d be curled up in the fetal position, sucking my thumb, covered in my own piss and shit. I didn’t do this on purpose, but I was a fucking amateur in college, and that was how I dealt with alcohol at the time. Yeah, yeah, laugh it up shitheel. You ain’t better’n me.

The next thing I know my arm is around Francis’s shoulder and he is dragging me to the bathroom. Woodlawn Tap is a very old building and has only one bathroom. It is about four feet square with one sink, one frosted glass window about six feet from the floor, a wall-mounted soap dispenser, a door that doesn’t lock, and one lone toilet, the kind you find in a home bathroom, with the water tank in the rear. He put me in front of the toilet.

Francis “All right, go ahead and vomit.”

Tucker [
sounding like a drunk baby
] “Francis… I haz ta pee-pee.”

Francis “OK, then pee.”

Tucker “Buu… bu I can’t… I can’t… can you undo my shurts fur me?”

Francis “You can’t be serious.”

Tucker “Pleeeze? I havta pee bad.”

Francis “Oh great Holy Jesus.”

Francis holds his torso and face as far away from my midsection as possible while he undoes my belt and the button on my shorts, which immediately fall to the floor.

Francis “OH MAN, you’re not wearing any underwear!”

Tucker “I dun like it… it mates me feel constrict-ted.”

Francis “Jeeesus.”

He turns me to face the toilet. I just stand there.

Francis “Are you going to pee?”

Tucker “Yur makin’ me nerbous.”

A few seconds later the flow begins. I am holding myself up by pushing both hands against the wall behind the toilet, and my penis is caught in the lower lip of my shirt. As a result, my urine first collects in the lower half of my shirt, before overflowing onto the floor. I don’t notice. Francis does.

Francis “OH MAN, what are you doing? Oh, Tucker…”

Tucker [
I turn and smile at Francis
] “It feelz wurm.”

Francis “OHHHH… I’m not picking your shorts up.”

I finish peeing. As I lean down to pick up my shorts, my feet slip in urine and I fall on my ass, landing in the puddle of my piss on the floor. Francis groans as he helps me up. I manage to get my shorts zipped. My stomach is still upset with me.

Tucker “Francis, I doan… I doan… feel good.”

Francis “OK… then throw up. The toilet is right there. Go ahead, get it out.”

I start swaying. I can feel the vomit coming. Even though I know it’s coming, and it knows it’s coming, it seems to just hang there in my throat, teasing me, waiting, letting me contemplate just how stupid I am, my body punishing me just that little bit extra.

Then, as if it were shot out of a cannon, the vomit explodes from my mouth.

BLAHHHH!! BLAAAAAHHHHHHH!!

The force propels my upper body away from the toilet, and I vomit in the sink.

BLAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!

The force of the second diaphragm contraction is so strong it pushes my body and head away from the sink toward the far wall. Lost in agony and bile, I stumble over to the toilet, catch myself on the tank in the rear, pull off the lid, drop it on the floor, and vomit in the tank behind the porcelain bowl.

Francis “What, what… what the HELL are you doing? Vomit in the bowl… IN THE BOWL!”

I can’t hear what he’s saying, so I turn my heads toward Francis. My innocent look of confusion quickly turns to wrenching pain, as the fourth wave of vomit forces its way up my throat. I project this stream of vomit toward Francis, missing him only because he was sober and agile enough to dodge it, letting it splash instead all over the inside of the bathroom door.

Francis “JESUS CHRIST!!! WHAT ARE YOU DOING!?!”

Faint and staggered by such violent heaving, I stumble back toward the sink and grab the soap dispenser for stability. It is not designed to support such weight and promptly rips off the wall, falling to the ground. I catch myself on the sink and then vomit on the soap container on the floor.

By the time I was finished, I had heaved and convulsed too many times to count. The toilet tank had vomit in it. The window, six feet high in the air, had vomit on it. Even the outside of the toilet bowl had vomit sloshed on it. I managed to get vomit in the sink, on all four walls and the door, yet somehow I had spared the actual toilet bowl. Every container and surface in the bathroom had vomit in or on it, EXCEPT the one designed for that purpose.

To this day, I don’t know how I did it. Francis is no help, because he refuses to talk about the incident. It was like that scene in
Pulp Fiction
where the guy busts out of the bathroom and unloads point-blank on Jules and Verne but misses every shot. Divine providence, I guess.

Somehow tolerating both the urine and vomit my body was covered in, Francis pulled me out of the bathroom and managed to walk us to the table where everyone was sitting.

Francis “Guys, weneedtoleaveRIGHTNOW!”

Francis’s urgency was less a result of my condition and more fear of the Woodlawn Tap bartenders. They are old-school hard-ass Chicagoans. These are not the type of men who call the police. Had they discovered my mess while we were still there, they would have most likely made us clean it up, beat us savagely with sawed-off baseball bats, taken all the money in our wallets, thrown us into the street, then eaten some brats while toasting Coach Ditka.

Apparently, the panic in Francis’s voice was enough, and before I really understood what was going on, we were all out in the street.

It was 9:15, barely two hours into the night. And only 15 shots.

Francis and Mark took me back to my apartment. Everyone else headed off to the party. As we were walking, three girls came upon us. Their night was just beginning, and they were in good spirits. I, on the other hand, had my arms draped around the necks of my two friends, barely able to muster the strength to walk, my head hung in defeat, body dripping with exhaustion, drunk sweat, vomit, and piss.

Girl “Hey guys, what’s wrong with him? Is he OK?”

The girl seemed to be genuinely concerned about my welfare.

Mark “He’s fine, he’s just really drunk. It’s his birthday.”

Girl “Oh, hey, happy birthday!”

I slowly raised my head, focused my eyes, and sneered:

Tucker “FUCK YOU, WHORE!!!”

Francis and Mark whisked me away from the traumatized girls. When we reached my apartment, the three of them deposited me in my bathtub and turned on the water to clean off some of the vomit and urine. Then they fucking left me there to decide how to best arrange my room so that I could safely pass out. (This is perhaps the best illustration of what it means to go to the University of Chicago. While being one of the most intellectually rigorous schools in the world, it still took THREE of the best and brightest putting their heads together to figure out how to prevent their friend from aspirating his own vomit. And you wonder why I graduated in three years.)

I was very thirsty. Lying in the bathtub, looking up at the faucet, I thought of a great idea: I could just put my mouth up to the nozzle. It was like drinking from a fire hose. Water was going in, but that doesn’t mean it was staying in. I was too drunk to notice that I was getting completely soaked by water that was shooting out of my nose. Mark noticed.

Mark “Dude! That’s a good way to get brain damage.”

Tucker “Whaaaat?… could you get me sum food, peas. Der’s brownies in da kitchen.”

Mark walked off and Francis moved me over to my bed, laying me on my stomach. I felt snot coming out of my nose.

Tucker “Francis, will you peas bow my nose?”

Francis “Oh, Jesus.”

Francis got a tissue and held it up to my nose as I blew. I felt much better. Then Mark came in my room and placed the phone up to my ear.

Mark “Here Tucker, it’s your mother. She wants to wish you a happy birthday.”

Tucker “WHAT THE FUCK… FUCKIN’ FUCK MOTHERFUCK!”

I grabbed the phone out of Mark’s hand and threw it across the room. The phone shattered against the wall. Mark’s hysterical laughter was my last clear memory.

The next morning I woke up so dehydrated I couldn’t even blink my eyes. Francis and Mark had placed me on my bed, with my head hanging over the side, a trash can below it. The side of my bed below my mouth was streaked with a black paste. Apparently I ate a brownie, then threw up. The trash can was filled with a watery brown paste, about two inches deep, apparently the gallon or so of water I drank at the end of the night, mixed with what remained of the brownie.

I slept all day long, my only waking hours occupied with drinking water and listening to the countless messages my mother left on my machine, wondering why I called her, cursed, and then hung up.

I eventually got much better at drinking, but the first time I did it legally, I failed.

F
UCKED-UP
P
ILLOW
T
ALK
, P
ART
2