The Morning After the Morning After II: Friday

     The next day, I was up by 5:30 and hating myself. My head ached, my stomach was sour and even though I had the day off work, I had to log in and get some stuff done on my work computer. It was painfully slow. I pounded some tomato juice and a raw egg, the operative theory being this would rush the electrolytes I needed into my system I needed.

     Either that or I would puke. Either way, my stomach would feel better and I would be able to hit the ibuprofen and coffee.

     I held together and was soon mainlining Nsaids and caffeine. I staggered my way through my work tasks and got my stepson’s off to school so my wife could sleep in. Barry came in somewhere around 6 and helped me drink the pot of coffee. By now it was 8.

     “Breakfast?” Barry asked. He seemed to be doing a lot better than I was.

     “Yeah.”

     We drank so more coffee and thought about this.

     We were headed for a place called EATS. The restaurant had been owned by a relative of mine decades before and it had been through many names in the intervening years, but the sign always said EATS, presumably to avoid the embarrassment of people coming to do their laundry or buy exotic pets and the like.

     Barry and I had eaten there s few years before after a class reunion night at the riverfront that included bonus RAGBRAI riders arriving to dip their tires in the Mississippi. We’d had a dish called “The Mess” in the wee hours of the morning. That wonderful time where everything tastes good provided it’s loaded with carbs and starches and hot sauce. Even in my condition, I was looking forward to this.

     We drove down in my POS, my loose muffler rattling in time with the in town RPMs. Barry called Todd on the way and we had just agreed to meet at EATS. Barry and I arrived to find a small hand printed sign that read “Out of Business Effective August 31^st.”

     I spent a moment in grim rumination on the passing of institutions and the ice sculpture nature of our shared pasts. I decided not to follow this line of thought because I didn’t know how I’d come back from it on this hung-over Friday the 13^th.

     “Missed it by two weeks,” I said in my best Maxwell Smart. “Call Todd and tell him to meet us at the Riverview.”

     This was about a block away so I parked the car and we walked.

     We were smoking out front when Todd approached from the other direction.

     I think I was hanging lowest, but none of us was overly spry. We sat around the table and told stories of our civilian lives while gently ogling the PYW (pretty young waitress).

Todd had some great stories about his time in Africa. I told my stories about Hurricane Katrina. Barry covered a wide gamut and took it with humility when the PYW screwed up his order. We ate and mocked FOX NEWS on the big screen before heading out. Todd showed us his Dad’s excellent loft apartment that allows you to pee while staring out at the river and look down though a skylight into the downstairs bathroom among many fascinating design features.

We shook hands and took off our separate ways for the day.

As I mentioned before, we had apparently formed a plan for the evening, but I had left it in my other pants or something. I didn’t get a nap but spent some quality time with my wife and improved steadily throughout the day.

The days passed peaceably enough. Joby, Stacy and Lettie (perhaps with others) went to Hutch’s Aerie for rehabilitating exotic birds. No I didn’t make that up. It’s a real place. It’s called Iowa Parrot Rescue. You can Google it if I forget to add a hyperlink later.

I’m ashamed to admit it, but I live just a few miles away and have never been out to see the place. This day was no exception.

Anyway, evening rolled around, as it will and after a terrific dinner with my wife over at the local Thai restaurant, I realized that I needed to start adding curry to my tomato juice on mornings like this.

As 7 o’clock rolled closer, I headed over to the Strawberry Farm Bed and Breakfast. Lettie and Stacy were staying there and I knew there was some talk of gathering there. Barry was visiting Sondra in Cedar Rapids and I knew he was planning on hitting Kent’s wedding in Iowa City on his way back. Scott H texted me asking where things were going to happen. I answered as fully as I could while masking the fact that I wasn’t sure of the answer.

When I got to the farm, I found out Stacy and Lettie had gone to the wedding. By the way, one of you all will have to fill in the blanks on what happened there.

So, I got in the car and started driving. I figured I would go downtown and get a beer while I waited for something to happen.

I was saved from this by a call from Jennifer. She had just arrived with her sister Steph at Strawberry Farm and was likewise confused where everybody was. I headed back, figuring we should ride together wherever we were going.

This turned out to be the Pearl in the Hotel Muscatine, which has a nice veranda outside. Nice, in this case, meant you could drink and smoke at the same time. I got the first round of beers and ended up not having to buy another drink. Their cousin Andy joined us and I got some fascinating insights into their family which included a lot of talk about Christmas, Fire, Recovery, Pit Bulls and driving loops around a vomiting person on a four-wheeler. It was hard to keep straight, but very funny. Scott H joined us there and Lettie contacted us when they were on their way back from the wedding.

By this time, I had my sea legs back and was ready for another evening of "reminiscence."

When we got back to Strawberry Farm, Stacy and Lettie were already there along with Mickey, Brenda and Trojan. We gathered at a table on the back porch and started swapping stories over beer, Percocet and THC candies.

Trojan was well on his way to earning the prize for the highest level of chemical alteration.

There were pictures all over the table. Most featured Mark, of course and at least one other person in the room (and countless others, truth be told, many of whom I'd never met.) One absence I conspicuously noticed was myself. Deep down, I was a little butt-hurt at this, but I got over it quickly as I looked over the faces of old friends and strangers in familiar surroundings, all with their bags packed for their journey to that undiscovered county from whose born no traveler returns.

It was sweet pain to look at them. In particular, it dragged me back to a camping trip some of us had taken to Centerville. We set up a beachhead by the lake and drank and fished for three days. There was an epic moment where Zakrezwski was out fishing on his inflatable raft which was promptly sunk when Alice the pit bull swan out and sank it. There was roasted carp on a frog gig. There was that morning after with Mark and I sitting by the remains of the fire, cracking open beers by the noon`s early light.

Stacy, walking by, observed, "You look like Hawkeye and Trapper."

Kids, trust me on this, everybody should get to feel that cool, just once. Thanks Stacy.

When I told this story at the farm, Trojan, who apparently came dressed as a hobo, grumbled about being jealous of how close Mark and I were. I don't think this was especially true, but it was great to hear. Thanks Trojan, for giving me that feeling a second time in a lifetime.

(Incidentally, I apologize for calling you Trojan all the time, but this is really running long and I wanted to avoid too many explanations.)

After a while, Stacy broke out "Cards Against Humanity." This is the greatest card game in the world, but should probably be played with a slightly higher level of sobriety than we attempted.

Pictures were getting taken and laughed over. I was even in some of them, problem solved. Some were on Facebook while we were still drinking.

Barry pulled up while we were playing and joined in with the game and we tormented Nate`s parents (owners of strawberry farm) until the wee wee hours of the morning. I know it was still going when I left about one AM, so I'm making an assumption here.

This was the part where I was going to make a clever analogy between this group and "Cards Against Humanity." You know, how we were all funny people (ie. Cards) and how we all ran contrary to conventional societal norms, but the mechanics of the joke subtly eluded me.

Also, this was the night we discussed the hookups from last chapter. You should all be ashamed of yourselves. Me most of all, for everything I missed.

Peace all, next chapter, things get weird.

The Morning After the Morning After

(Disclaimer: Names will be used according to my judgment and might be changed situationally to protect the guilty.)

Prologue

I need a remedy.

I spent all last weekend in the company of old friends celebrating the life of the one who brought us all together. Along with all of the laughter, silly teen drama and hook-ups¹ that we shared; we used to drink a lot.

As they say, some things never change. There was a lot of laughing, almost no hurt feelings and not a lot of screwing around². But Jesus tap-dancing Christ do we all remember how to drink.

Thursday

We started on Thursday night, the night before we were scheduled. My old friend Barry drove an RV from Chicago that he parked in front of my house. We walked down to the bar which I thought was a reasonable precaution. Though all we were going to do was sort of map out the rest of the weekend with one or two other folks who blew into town early.

There were already six of us there, including our retired high school history teacher Hutch, sharing a few pitchers of Fat Tire. Nice and casual, I thought as I approached the table. There was this young guy sitting there and I remember thinking, Somebody brought their kid to the bar, weird.

The young guy stood up and looked at me with an awkward smile on his face. I smiled and nodded, equally unsure of the greeting protocols and we walked past each other. Something about him was too familiar.

I sat down at the table and poured a glass of beer. Nice, I thought. "Who's the kid?" I think I asked.

"That's Mark's son." Either Lettie or Stacy told me this. They had flown in separately, but were crashing at a local bed and breakfast.

Whoever it was that told me, a geriatric could have pushed me over with her pinky finger.

I bounced back up and approached him. We shook hands.

"My name is Matt."

"Joby," he said. He had a unique smile, easy and nervous at the same time. "I didn't know who to introduce myself to."

"I know how you feel."

His mother Mary is a member of the group who could not free up the time to come down. But, being as this gathering was being held in Mark's honor (Did I mention that? I'll get to it. The circumstances of the weekend may have subtly impaired my storytelling abilities.) Joby wanted to make the trip down (up) to meet his Dad's old friends. His stepdad Jim brought him³.

We all sat down and somebody had ordered a round of Jaeger shots. Not really my speed, but I didn't want to be a bummer and abstain. After I had successfully washed my mouth out with beer, I started telling Joby stories about his dad and all the stupid fun things we had done together. I didn't hold the floor by any means, everybody had something to contribute and the hours passed agreeably, but too quickly and the pitchers rose and fell like the tide.

Also, there was the tequila. This was also not my drink, but it was definitely Mark's. Given that this was true, I couldn't refuse to take one. I was far enough gone that I didn't even get a twinge.

Somewhere around here, my wife called. She later told me my efforts to sound lucid were very amusing.

I sat back down next to Joby and noticed he had a platter with about five shots sitting there. He was shaking his head.

Naturally, I couldn't let him go through that alone.

We ended the night eating at a local Italian restaurant that makes a pretty fine New York style pizza. Jennifer arranged this. It was absolutely the smartest thing that could've been done. Probably saved some lives.

In fact, it would have been a better place to start rather than to finish, but it is what it is. I ate a fair amount, pausing in the middle to help Stacy back to her car for a little nap.

Clearly, we were all out of shape.

If we ever made a plan for the next day, I don't remember what it was.

Barry and I walked back to my house. I had a giant bottle of Mead that Robby had home brewed. I told him I didn't want to drink it that night because my pallet was already polluted by beer, Jaeger and Tequila, but that left me with the need to make it home with this in hand. I imagine my efforts to make it look inconspicuous were pretty amusing.

¹Apparently, just about everybody was getting a little with most everybody else. Except me, of course. I must have been wearing blinders. How could I not know?

²I guess I don't know why I would trust my observational skills now. I mean seriously, if everything you people were saying is true, I should have had hip waders for negotiating your various bodily fluids. Did I have BO?

³A word about Jim. This guy brought his stepson to a gathering of his stepson's old friends and took approximately .7 seconds to fit right in. I'm estimating, it had already happened by the time I arrived. He had a few great stories about Mark from the time Mark was in the military and told them with style. He is a mensch. More about him as the story progresses.