Take Five
By George Rose
August 11, 2009
My family and I all arrived at the bar at 11:00 p.m., all 12 of the siblings, cousins, the cousins' friends. We are the dirty dozen Americans and we are related to the bar owner, a bar so beautiful that it makes you wish every nightclub in the US were outdoors and surrounded by straw umbrellas. The breeze keeps you cool and there is an endless clear sky of stars. The sky is breathtaking. It's like you're standing on the stage of life and the entire audience is taking pictures of you. I feel like a rock star and I'm ready to party.
The memories of the night end after the 12th drink and sixth shot. My engine is filled with the gasoline of feeling like a celebrity and the self loathing that comes with reflecting on your first failed love. I'm a bipolar mess and I can't remember a darned thing after all that free liquor. My siblings informed me today that I fell asleep on the beach. They told me to go home but instead I ran off. They stayed an hour longer, half enjoying the party and half fearing that I was drowning somewhere in the ocean. When they returned home, they found me sleeping on the driveway like a bum. My Red Sox hat was feet away from me and my sandals were nowhere in sight. I had a cut on my right foot and a large scrape on my right elbow. I don't remember falling or how I got home. When they shake me to wake me up and ask how I got back, all I can tell them is, "I'm awesome, that's how!" They find it funny to take pictures of me and I struggled to say, "Hey, don't... don't do... I'm awesome!"
I am not awesome. As an aspiring writer, it has become a habit of mine to have a voice recorder handy. This morning, when I woke up, I noticed that it was not in the drawer where I have been keeping it. Instead, it was on top of my signed copy of Dry. I turn it on and see that there is one recording, from the night before, that lasts for ten minutes. I push play. I hear the dialing of a phone. Oh no. It sounds as though I've dialed the wrong number because there is a pause, and then more dialing. This happens twice. Since I believe in signs I decide that this is God's way of telling me NOT TO DRUNK DIAL, but when my mind is set on something, like getting home alone when I'm blackout drunk in a third world country, I do it. Then the conversation begins.
There is drunken laughter from me that sounds like a mix between a bout of hiccups and a donkey fighting off a predator. I'm already mortified. I'm guessing my ex told me I was drunk and to call him another time, because I say "Shut up. SHUT UP! I'm not drunk... it's normal to be drunk here at this time... it's okay... is ooookaaaaaay... SHUT UP!" I turned off the recorder and held my hand over my mouth. There are nine minutes left to the recording and I cannot bear to hear them. But I can't help but wonder, what is on the rest of that recording? I pray to God that it's me crying because my ex hung up the phone, but after all the signs of His that I ignored, I bet He's not listening to my prayers.
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