Another Perspective

The Bottle & the Damage Done
(Part 2: Grazed & Contused)

February 10, 1998 -- Judgement Day

Last year I was charged with 'menacing' and 'reckless endangerment of another' for an incident in September '97. I was staying at my beach house in Manzanita, recovering from a three-week West Coast road trip, when I was invited to a party next door. A bunch of twenty-something kids were getting loaded and fornicating, so why not? At some point that night I engaged in a playful, drunken Kung-Fu fight. Taking the charade too far, I whipped out my butterfly knife an offered to cut my opponent. Unfamiliar with my sense of humor, someone called the cops, and I was arrested. I guess there are freaks out there who don't combine binge-drinking with illegal Chinese weaponry.

So I stood trial at Tillamook County Courthouse, for "crimes against the peace and dignity of the State of Oregon," as my summons put it. I took the stand to demonstrate my Kung-Fu antics for the stone-faced cowpoke jury. My testimony bogged down under cross-examination, when I maintained that I had acted under control and with a clear conscience after downing a six-pack of Lucky Lager tallboys and several White Russians.

The jury members didn't flinch as the slimy prosecutor lunged at me with an accusing finger. They had no time for third-rate courtroom theatrics, they just wanted to get home to their dairy farms and ring some teats. After deliberating long enough to piss, they unanimously found me not-guilty on both charges.

Thus ended the final chapter of a perplexing time in my life. How had I gone from being a peaceful college student to a knife-wielding menace? To figure out the underlying causes, we must begin on a gloomy morning in November, 1996...

Dawn of the 12-Step Program

Morning packed its usual cold panic. Within nanoseconds of gaining consciousness, I had a list of urgent concerns. Where am I? What day is it?

Who are all these people in bed with me? Why do I have a bag of frozen stir-fry vegetables duct-taped to my left arm?

I removed the bag, revealing a badly discolored abrasion on my throbbing forearm. I was accustomed to waking with a few minor drinking injuries, but this one was serious.

I found my comrade Austin passed out in the bed with his hand down some chick's pants and a bag of Safeway Select peas and carrots strapped to his swollen right foot. Quite odd indeed. He couldn't explain our condition, so recovering the damned Black Box was imperative.

We had attended a black-tie cocktail party at this Duck Village apartment the night before. Many hours were unaccounted for, so we had some detective work to do. After interrogating several people strewn about the apartment, we loosely pieced together the story:

Shortly after midnight, Austin and I got to rastlin' on the second floor balcony. I picked him up and tripped, sending us asshole-over-tea kettle down the steep concrete staircase amidst raucous applause from the crowd. Laughing and oblivious to pain, we climbed back up the stairs, and continued to party, scoffing as people offered to drive us to the hospital.

Embarrassed by the explanation, we grabbed a full bottle of American blend and dragged our disheveled asses back to my nearby apartment. We then frittered away the day drinking and groaning. After the bottle ran dry, the pain still penetrated our stupor. 18 hours after impact, it finally crossed our minds that we needed medical attention. Ruling out an expensive ambulance ride, we mounted our bikes and pedaled to IHOP for chicken-fried steak before heading over to the Sacred Heart emergency room.

After dawdling for a full day, we had the audacity to exaggerate our pain in an effort to receive urgent care and avoid a long stint in the waiting room. We put on our war faces and really hammed it up. With Austin draped around my shoulders and my arm in a makeshift sling, we stumbled into the ward like a couple of wounded soldiers. We were too drunk to notice the somber mood in the reception area. I noticed drops of blood speckling the floor. Some people were sobbing quietly, their faces ashen from trauma, waiting nervously while the fate of their loved ones was being decided in Code Blue surgery. We burst in, howling with whiskey-rasped laughter between feigned groans, and promptly changed the television to Looney Toons.

The nurses were not amused. "Which one of you needs medical attention?"

"Both of us, by God!"

"Both of you? How much have you had to drink?" More laughter.

X-rays revealed that I had broken my ulna bone, which is in the forearm. Austin had broken his ankle. I was laying on the exam table when I noticed the crucifix on the wall. I remembered that Sacred Heart is a religious hospital, and I had a lecture coming.

Sure enough, the pious nurse returned, shut the door, and turned to me with a scornful face. "In my line of work I see a lot of people come in here in various stages of ruin from alcohol," she preached. "You got off easy with a minor fracture; consider it a warning. It's a shame to see such a healthy young man act so self-destructively." I couldn't think of a witty smart-ass response. All I could do was bow my head in shame.

Our story spread so far throughout campus that it came back to us as ninth generation hearsay:

"Boy, your cast reminds me -- did you hear about the two guys who both broke bones when they fell down a staircase at a party last weekend?"

"Yeah, that was me. That's what I call a 12-step program."

While holed up in my dim apartment in a thick Vicodin haze, Austin and I brought new meaning to the term "dead week." We were stagnant for days, watching bizarre foreign flicks for our film criticism final. We stayed embalmed with booze to nurse the pain of our splintered bones.

Outside, the battering rain caused the Willamette to flood its banks, and our whole world became a soggy quagmire.

During this dreary span we fantasized about better times to come.

Visions of summer sunshine and healed limbs lifted our spirits. Austin mentioned his 21st birthday. We both knew that come August 11 the shit would hit the fan. My own 21st had been rather weak because the bulk of my rowdy friends were not of age yet. I looked forward to having a legitimate drinking buddy; a reliable co-dependent worthy of being my partner in crime. Austin certainly fit the bill.

We agreed that we had to THINK BIG for this momentous occasion.

While brainstorming an epic spectacle, Las Vegas naturally came to mind.

Yes -- perfect: We would go to Vegas. But we needed something more, some gimmick. Austin's eyes lit up as he remembered his dad's cherried 1968 fireapple-red Buick LeSabre convertible. We had access to the ideal land yacht for a summer road trip.

So out of our dismal winter morass, the seed of doom was sown; our brainchild was conceived. For the next nine months in would fester inside us, kicking and screaming to get out.

to be continued...

Michael Atkinson, a senior majoring in Journalism, didn't want to work for the Emerald anyway.