Blackouts and Breakdowns (16 page)

And that’s exactly what we did on the first night of Jason’s freedom.
We went to all of our favorite haunts and had an absolute blast.
I wanted Jason to know that being single was just as much fun, if not more so, than having a boyfriend and I proved it by getting him and myself blackout drunk.

The next morning, I woke up severely hung-over. Like wanting to die hung-over.
Except, I was not alone.

“Hey,” the man in my bed said.

I must have had a gimlet or twelve too many the night before.
I had to get this stranger out of room before anyone saw him and pronto.

“Uh, hi,” I said with a half smile.
“What a night last night, huh?”

“You have no idea who I am do you?” the man asked.

“Not a clue.”

“I have the same name as your brother,” he said.

“Tony?”

“No.
Kevin.”
Damn my mother for having that third son.
“Don’t worry.
We didn’t do anything last night.
We got home and you passed out.”

What a refreshing thought.
What a gentleman for not taking advantage of me or killing me in my sleep.
That thought quickly passed as I had apparently drank quicksand the night before and needed some serious libations. I grabbed the jumbo-sized water bottle that was next to my bed and put it to my lips.

“Don’t drink that!”
Kevin shouted, as he grabbed the water bottle from my hand.
“I couldn’t find the bathroom last night so I peed into your water bottle.”

A gentlemen indeed.
At least he was keeping things classy. I felt bad for wanting to kick him out of my apartment so abruptly, so we sat on my bed and chatted for hours.
Apparently, Kevin had the same love for ABC soaps that I did.
This was huge because, as many know, soap operas have been a pivotal part of my life since age five and anyone who loves ABC soaps as much as I do was good people in my book.

“What about
Loving
?” I asked, wondering if he had the same affection for the now defunct soap as I did.

He smiled with glee: “Oh my God, I
loved Loving
!
I was so sad when it was cancelled and they moved to
The City
.
I mean I love Morgan Fairchild as much as the next guy, but things just weren’t the same.
Remember when Jeremy died in the poisonous plaster of Paris?
That was TV at its finest.”

I thought I could have been in love.
We sat in bed for hours talking about soaps, Britney Spears and other important aspects of life. We then decided to grab some lunch at the cafe across the street from my apartment.
I discovered that Kevin and I had a lot more in common than just soap operas.
Pair that with the fact that he was quite a looker; things seemed to be going well for me that day.
Kevin was half Irish and half Cuban, a combination that proved to be a good one.
We ate and chatted and he told me that he had to go to a birthday party that evening and I could join him if I wanted.
I told him I would be happy to go.
He stated that he needed to go back to his apartment to change and we would meet up later at my place. We parted ways and I felt like I was floating on a cloud.
The previous night I had gone out to celebrate being single but maybe being single wasn’t all that great.
Maybe having a boyfriend was the way to go after all.
Besides, it was the boring part of the year between New Year’s and spring and it would keep me busy if nothing else.

I was so excited about my potential boyfriend that I had to call someone.
I picked up my cell and called my best gal pal Evelyn.

“Hey girl.
What’s going on?” I asked.

“Oh, nothing.
Natalie and I just went to see the CHRONICles of Narnia.
Ha, ha, ha,” she replied.

“You dumbass.
Evelyn, I have to tell you, I just met the most wonderful guy!
He just turned up in my bed this morning.”

“I love it when that happens,” she replied.

“I know, right?”
As I opened the door to my apartment, I gasped.
I had not lived there for very long but since we were on the first floor, I figured that we would eventually have mice.
But nothing could prepare me for what I saw in the kitchen.

“Evelyn, I gotta go!” I hung up the phone.

I put my keys down and walked into the kitchen.
It was beginning to get cold outside, so the week before I had put out mice traps because I knew when the weather changed, the mice would naturally want to come in from the cold. But nothing, in my twenty-three years prepared me for this.

I had wisely decided to use glue traps to kill the mice because I thought it would make for a clean death. I didn’t realize how wrong I was.
I peered over the trashcan and found that at least two-dozen mice had fought an all out war where no one emerged the victor.
My kitchen had turned into a virtual battlefield of mice.
Some had lost limbs after trying to escape the glue traps and others had been eaten half to death.
It was the most disgusting sight I had ever seen.
After throwing up in my mouth, I decided I would have to clean the mess up myself.
Both of my roommates were gone for the weekend and God forbid Kevin see the massacre that had taken place in my kitchen.
In order to clean up, I needed some liquid courage.
Besides, alcohol kills germs and that was reason enough for me to start drinking.
I opened the freezer to grab a bottle of vodka and saw that there was a shoebox next to it.
I opened the shoebox and found three more dead mice.
I ran from the kitchen and called my roommate Catlin.
Yes, Catlin.
Not Caitlin.
I told her when I moved in that I thought she had a bullshit name and that I would be referring to her as Jane from then on.

“Jane!” I yelled into the phone.

“Greetings from Cabo!” she answered.

“Why the hell are there three dead mice in our freezer?”
I could tell that she was clearly having a good time and that I was clearly ruining it.

“Oh that,” she said nonchalantly.
“I found three mice in the glue traps and I totally freaked out so I ran upstairs and asked that crazy old lady what I should do.
She told me that if I put them in the freezer they would die peacefully.”

“Well, thanks for the heads up.”

“Yeah, it was like right before I left for Cabo,” she said

“Jane, you left for Cabo a week ago.”

“Well, I meant to tell you, but I guess I forgot.”
She was drifting away from the conversation.
“Oh, Margaritas!
I’ll have one.”

“Thanks Jane, for nothing!”

“Mark, how many times do I have to tell you that my name is not Jane it’s –.”

I hung up on her.
This is what you get for living with girls. I left the kitchen, put on some sweats, a do rag and huge yellow rubber gloves.
I took the bottle of vodka in one hand and got down on my hands and knees and started scrubbing my kitchen floor, which looked liked a crime scene.
I had little time to clean before Kevin got back so when scrubbing was not working, I dumped a bottle of bleach on the floor and began mopping.
After a while, the vodka and fumes of the cleaning products had gotten to me, and I ended up passing out in bed for a while.
I woke up, do rag and sweat pants still in tact to Kevin calling, telling me that he was at my door ringing the buzzer.
Shit!
I looked like crap and my whole apartment smelled like a community swimming pool. I got up and answered the door.
I was so embarrassed.
I told him that
Saving Private Ryan
had taken place in my kitchen except no one had been saved because all of the mice were dead.
After all of the bleach that had been poured on my kitchen floor, there was still a smattering of blood.
I had no choice but to tell him the truth because it looked like someone had delivered a dumpster prom baby in my kitchen.
He laughed, he thought it was funny and told me that if I had waited, he would have helped me clean up.
I told him how nice I thought he was because if I showed up at his apartment and there were thirty dead mice on his kitchen floor, I would have gone to the bar downstairs and told him to call me when he was done cleaning up.

We had a few laughs and he told me that we needed to head over to his friend Kate’s apartment.
I was in no state for a party. I would have to shower for at least forty-five minutes to cleanse myself of the day’s events and I was starting to feel sick from the bleach and the three glasses of straight vodka I had downed that afternoon.
Kevin reached into his bag, pulled out a black can and told me if I drank it I would feel better.
The label on the can read SPARKS, but I had no idea what it was.

“What the hell is this?” I asked.

“You’ve never had Sparks?” he replied, surprised.

“No.”

“It’s like caffeinated beer.”

“So do you drink this in lieu of coffee in the morning or is this just a pick me up?”

“It’s just a pick me up!”

I just wanted to clear that up before I started inadvertently drinking beer for breakfast.
And so a brief love affair with Sparks began.
I drank it while I took an hour-long shower and came out feeling refreshed, nearly forgetting the scene from
Saving Private Ryan
that had taken place in my apartment just hours before.

Kevin and I went to Kate’s party and had a blast.
She lived in an art deco building in the west twenties and all of their friends were super fun.
We all had a blast and drank and laughed all night long.
If we kept this up we were sure to be New York’s favorite party couple by months end. After the party, we went back to my apartment.
As we walked in, I checked the kitchen to make sure that
Saving Private Ryan
II: Ryan’s Revenge
hadn’t taken place in my kitchen.
It hadn’t and we went back to my room and started making out like teenagers. I suddenly realized that in all of the commotion of the day, Kevin and I still hadn’t hooked up.
He was a really good kisser and I could sense that things were moving in the right direction.
After about a half hour of making out, I decided to take things to the next level.
I stuck my hands down his pants and felt around.
At first, I found nothing, but after a few seconds, I wrapped my finger around one of the most offensively small penises I had ever felt.
It was a good thing it was dark or else Kevin would have seen the utter confusion on my face.
He was a good four inches taller than me – surely this must have been some sort of glitch.
I took his pants off and started rubbing it – but nothing happened.
That’s as big as it was going to get.
I had about the same level of excitement going into this hook up as I did when my brother got a big screen TV for Hanukah and I got a poster.
Being resilient, I did the job using the tools I had to the best of my abilities.
It was painstaking, but when someone presents a job that may not be the best offer you’ve ever received, I was always told to take it.

“That was awesome!” he cried out after I finished the job.

“Uh, yeah.” I said.
I lay down next to him.
I figured I could not tell this guy that my six-month old nephew’s penis was potentially bigger than his, after a day that involved an entire bottle of vodka and a rodent genocide in my own home, I was too tired to bring it up.

Hung-over again!
I thought as I woke up the next morning. However, instead of being able to sleep it off, I had to go into the office.
At that point, I was working at a very prestigious advertising agency.
Having rolled in more than once hung-over, I was beginning to think that the higher-ups thought that I had a drinking problem.
I jumped into the shower and put on my suit but still felt like death.

“I feel like shit,” I told Kevin.
“I don’t know how I am going to get through the day.” Kevin reached into his pocket and pulled out a pill.
“What the hell is that?”

“It’s a xanex,” he said. “It’s fabulous for hangovers.”

I hadn’t planned on starting a pill addiction until my mid-40’s, but he said it worked wonders, and at the point I would have taken anything to stop my ears from ringing.

I got to the office and immediately went to my friend Anna’s cube.
Anna and I became fast friends at the agency.
We shared a mutual hatred for just about everyone and she smoked almost as much as I did so it was love at first sight.
I filled her in on the weekend’s events.