Well, I seem to have fucked things up horribly now. Sitting in The Union, drinking the first of what promises to be many Miller High Life's (the same poison I was drinking the night of my throwdown, uh-oh). Just saw the Giraffes and they were upbeat and optimistic about the show tonight. Especially Aaron, who seems to have recovered almost fully, but still clutched a bottle of Pepto Bismol as we walked down the street. I think we're all expecting and hoping for a reprieve tonight. We need it after The Disaster in Dayton, as it shall henceforth be known. Danny and I were laughing as we pulled in to town tonight about all the Midwestern hotties with big bouncing boobies who all seem to have fallen off the same branch of the Hot Tree, but he stopped and said, "You know, if you fight again tonight, I'm leaving." Which is fair. And he will, too, if there's a repeat of the bullshit that happened in Dayton… When I woke up yesterday from my nap at our incredible campsite in LeRoy, Danny was reading at a picnic table, surrounded by Canada geese. Our site was about ten feet from the water, we've got showers, toilets that 'ush, beautiful weather. Of course, I neglect to get a picture of it. I dig out my vitamins and finally take a well-needed double handful, we organize the cockpit of the Pod which we've been meaning to do since we left, get groceries, and we're off to Dayton. Nithin, a pal whose band I've booked at Luxx a couple of times, has hooked us up with a last minute show there. I feel the best I've felt since we left. The club is right downtown, and all of downtown is deserted. The place is oddly nice, and none of us expect a good turnout or a good show, but the place starts filling up quickly, with cute girls even. The local band we're playing with, Captain of Industry, is super nice; we don't get free beer tonight, so their lead singer runs out to the store to pick me up a forty before we play. I don't eat dinner as I've been snacking on our groceries all day, and I'm thinking that eating less will let me get drunker, cheaper, which turns out to be a fatal 'aw. Aaron and I shoot a really pathetic game of pool, in which I start to tentatively feel him out about touring together in November. He's non-committal, which makes me think he's starting to get sick of me, which depresses me. Without the support of my friends and their bands, this venture will be incredibly tough. Danny and I turn out another strong set, even though my hand is still bothering me, and the crowd responds really well. Giraffes say it's our strongest show to date, which I don't really agree with, but still, it's nice to hear. Aaron's voice is almost totally shot, but the Giraffes turn out an incredible show, and I'm struck again with how great they are. I'm particularly impressed with Jon's performance, and it's clear to me that I could never fill his shoes. I drunkenly conceptualize a love-piece about Aaron, like Nick Cave's ode to Blixa Bargeld. I've never been as close friends with someone whose creative work I esteem so highly. It's really rewarding and exciting, I can't wait to see what the future holds for them and for him. I drunkenly think that I can't wait to be an old man with him, reminiscing about this first, tough tour. After their show, I get really drunk. We sell four or five CDs, a career high, a really nice guy named PJ even buys me a beer. A bunch of people sign the mailing list and want to talk to me. Nithin gives me fifty bucks and I give him a big hug and kiss. I get too drunk and go outside to get some air, end up sitting down next to the van. I realize that I'm really drunk, so I let myself lay down, as the concrete is cold and I know from all the bathroom 'oors that I've slept on that cold 'oors sober me up and make me feel good. A bartender finds me outside and is incredibly nice, she brings me inside, makes me food and brings me a couple glasses of water. I spend most of the night talking with a gutter punk from NY named Jim, really nice guy, really nice night. I drink one more beer and it immediately gets me really drunk again, so I give Jim a hug and go crawl into the bunk in the back of the van. I make up my mind not to skip dinner again, as I'm drunker than I want to be. Lying in the van, fitfully trying to fall asleep, when I hear the Giraffes approach my van, talking quietly. Then I hear Drew say "Yeah, there, get it on the handle," and I know that they're pissing on my van, even though I forced myself not to retaliate after Damien barfed on the front of my van because I didn't want a confrontation. They're taking their sweet fucking time doing it, though, and it gets harder to ignore. I finally open my eyes and look up and see drops of urine on the inside of my door. The angle of the door is such that it would take incredible precision to piss on the inside of the door without pissing on the seats. The Giraffes notoriously lack that kind of precision, especially drunk, which they are. [Though I'm reluctant to include a more oblique disclaimer than I've already put in here, here it is: I WAS DRUNK, AND HAD JUST WOKEN UP. This is how I recall the events of the night. If you recall them significantly differently than I do, well, you may be right. I may be crazy. But it just might be a lunatic you're looking for. If you were there and you're pissed that I got it all wrong, well, write it down and post it on the Net about what a prick I am, asseyes. Better yet, send it here, and I'll post it.] I'm furious, and I come charging out of the van, demanding to know who the fuck was pissing inside of my van. I know Drew was involved, which sucks, because our relationship has the lowest ratio of good feeling to ill feeling and though we've made definite inroads with each other this trip, it would be easy for some bullshit like this to turn into real beef. I just want to know exactly who was involved in pissing inside my van and scream at them so they'll know that they crossed the line and that this macho, uh, pissing contest has to stop. But Aaron gets right in my face, telling me to punch him in the face, (I think, it's hard to recall) even shoving me a couple of times. I don't want to punch him in the face, I know he wasn't involved in the bullshit, I don't want to punch anyone in the face, I just want to yell and scream at Drew and John so that they know not to do it again. But finally, something snaps, I don't know if Aaron pushes me or says something to me that gets under my skin or if it's just that I'm drunk and tired and Aaron and I are screaming at each other in the parking lot of a club in a strange town with a crowd of strangers staring at us, but I take a big fucking swing. I consciously swing for his jaw, as I know I don't want to break his nose or fuck up his eye, and even that I pull at the last second and I hit him in the neck. Hard. You can hear it, and I hear Drew wince. Then Aaron closes in with his fists up and I throw a half-hearted jab at him and he tries to kick me. Then the sweet bartender who helped me out before gets between us and I force myself to let her back me away. Immediately, Nithin is on me, calling me a motherfucker, actually pushing me and asking me what the hell I'm doing coming to his town and starting shit like this. Aaron I punched in the heat of the moment, and felt like killing myself for it before the punch even landed, but it takes every ounce of will-power I can muster from tearing into Nithin with everything I've got. I didn't start this shit, I knew I was getting too drunk and so I took myself out of harm's way, it's not his fucking town, all of this country belongs to me like it belongs to everyone and I'll take responsibility for the hell I cause, and pushing a drunk who's just been in a fight, no matter what the circumstances, is the best way I know to make a bad situation worse. I start crying and Aaron comes and gives me a hug and lets me cry into his shoulder and apologize for a while. Somehow, we decide that everything's okay and that I'll stash my van over at PJ's house, which is close and I'm too drunk to drive far, so I follow PJ to his house then get in the car and drive with him to Nithin's house. Nithin's still been really confrontational since the throwdown, but I tell myself I can just sneak off into some closet and fall asleep. PJ is a really sweet guy, he thinks nothing of what just happened and he calms me right down. We get to Nithin's house and everything seems cool. I take my shoes off (did I mention I tried to fight Aaron in my sock feet? That's class) and go to the bathroom. Damien and Drew follow me in and they're both apologetic, Damien tells me he thinks nothing of piss, and proves it by swooping down in front of me and taking a sip right from the fountain. Drew and I instantly recoil, and I want to barf. Damien, you fucked-up, no-limit motherfucker, God bless your perverted soul. All I want to do is drink one more beer and then get some fucking sleep. I stand over by the pooltable in Nithin's basement, watching Damien and Aaron shoot some weak pool because I feel the need to be close to Aaron as I feel like a real fucking asshole and I want to make sure he's alright and that he forgives me. Nithin comes around the corner with a big wooden walking cane and I see him whack Damien with it, then he cracks Aaron hard in the neck, then out of fucking nowhere he nails me hard in the nuts. I'm stupefied by his attack and by the force of the rage that follows it. I fight my urge to pull one of the Sicilian fighting tricks I know or just knock him out and instead I just grab him and pin him against the pooltable to stop him from hitting me again, with the intention of whispering quietly in his ear (which usually scares the shit out of people) that I can't deal with this shit tonight, but I can tell from his eyes as he reaches for a pool ball that I've already scared him, and probably everybody else. I let go of him right away, I've had enough of this night, but Aaron's already in my face, screaming at me. I tell him, just give me my fucking shoes and I'm out of here. I repeat this about four times, and I think Nithin hears me, because all of a sudden he's behind Aaron telling me I'm kicked out. But see, it doesn't hurt because I dumped you first. I get my shoes and I'm out the door. Nithin says something like "You can't fucking hang, buddy, that's fine, you can sleep on the street, dude," and gets in a swat as I'm leaving. Well, I've been kicked out before, and I've slept outside before. I sat down with my back against the wheel of the Giraffes van and took inventory. I'd punched Aaron, who hadn't deserved it and been forgiven, then barely restrained myself from punching Nithin, who had deserved it, and I would never be forgiven. I didn't know where Danny was, (man, I was looking forward to a fucking day of reckoning with him, if he was still playing drums for me at all) I didn't know where I was, I didn't know where my van (read as: my house) was, I was drunk, it was cold. But I've been down before. I laughed a little bit, because to give in to feeling guilty/sorry for myself spelled doom. I would sleep under the Giraffes' van, and leave a shoe out in front of the driver's side van so they would see it and say something and not drive over me. They could bring me back to my van in the morning, I'd try to find Danny, and we'd try to sort everything out. I wish that's how it had happened. Instead, Aaron came out and started really laying in to me. I'm actually going to leave out as much as I can, because half of it's really painful to recall as he made some pretty deep cuts, and the other half of it just doesn't speak well for me or for him and as we were all drunk, as he'd had a tough night, and as I've incriminated myself enough already, I'm going to cut us all a break and leave it out. I will say that a lot of resentment towards me on his part seemed to come to a head, which was hard to take, because my attack on him was merely the result of ten minutes of resentment towards the as-yet unidentified urine assassin, and the grief that he aired seemed to have been building up for a long fucking time. He went on for a while about how our lot in life was just to take shit and take shit and take shit and never give it back and that because I was like him, I was bound to do it. I disagreed then, and I disagree now. I used to do that, and I never reached transcendence or some kind of moral high ground. I just got fucking walked all over. Now, (and this is how I feel even after a couple of the lowest days of my life that are a direct result of this philosophy) if someone tries to take me down in any way, I'll do everything I can to keep myself up, up to and including bringing them down as far as necessary. Damien was around for most of this, and even got in one of those "fuck you, man, I love you, so shut up and listen" speeches that we've all gotten and we've all given. He said that he'd had a tough life, been through a lot of shit, and had seen a lot of motherfuckers die fighting for what they believed in. I got a different version of the same speech from Aaron. They're both totally right, I agree with them now as I did the other night. And I love and respect both Damien and Aaron and I do believe that they have had tough lives, that they've overcome a lot of bullshit to be where they are, and that they've seen a lot of people die fighting for what they believe in. So have I, which is probably why we're all friends. The difference is that I know without a doubt that the only person who'll look out for me when the chips are down is me, and when someone tries to take me down, I'll die holding court in the street before I'll roll over and bare my belly like a dog. Nithin and PJ eventually came out and PJ offered to drive me back to my van. What an incredibly nice guy. Nithin made some snide comment about me being able to stay at his house if I was done with the bullshit and I could control myself and hang out with the big boys. I think I said "No thanks, man, I'm not interested in any more games." And he said, "Fine, okay, fine, sleep in your fucking van. You know what, fuck you, Mishka." Then he turns on his heel and walks back in to his suburban castle. Damien and Aaron follow pretty closely behind, but not before Aaron gives me a deep, understanding look and shakes my hand. Which either means that he finally understands that Nithin's been fucking with me since shit went down between Aaron and I and that I'm forgiven, or that he doesn't and I'm not. PJ puts me up on his 'oor. The next morning was one of the worst I've endured in a couple of years. I woke up when PJ's alarm went off at nine and spent the next three hours alone with my thoughts. I took a shower, forced myself not to barf, tried to jack off to the Maxim in the bathroom but couldn't do it. I called Allie around noon and ran it all down for her, but didn't let myself stay on the phone long enough to get sympathy. I really love her. Just being able to spill my burden to her made me feel so much better. Then I called PJ at work, got directions from him to Nithin's (by now, I'm ready to bring PJ home to my mom's house for dinner) a trip I was not looking forward to. I ring the front bell and Nithin's parents uncomfortably direct me back to the basement entrance. Their house is fucking huge and opulent, which nearly effaces the sympathy I feel for Nithin knowing that he's home in Ohio because his mom is undergoing chemo. Nearly, but not quite. I know, too, that what Nithin's going through now must color his behavior, but I still know that's no excuse. I have treated plenty of people poorly in my life because I was in pain, and when I came to awareness about why I had treated them so badly, I've done everything I could to make it up to them. I'm not going to go into specifics about this 'pain' that I've endured, as I tried to write it out and it reads like a ploy for sympathy. I awkwardly retrieve Danny from the group of sleeping bodies. I've been dreading this moment since I got out of the van when I heard the Giraffes pissing on it. Danny lets me know off the bat that he witnessed my ill behavior in the parking lot, and that it's going to color his interpretation of my side of the story. He also tells me he's not going to make a judgment, which I definitely appreciate, but it sounds like he's already made a judgment. I've been in enough situations like this to know that I need to apologize for all the things I've done wrong, without giving in to my guilt and shame about those things and apologizing for my entire sorry existence on this earth. Danny is justifiably upset, and I try to walk a fine line between apologizing and defending myself. I don't get far into my story before Danny makes it clear that he wants me to go back and sort things out with Aaron. To my mind, things are pretty clear with me and Aaron: I fucked up with him, he's forgiven me, I fucked up with Nithin and that'll get straightened out or it won't, but either way, Aaron and I are fine. But I'm already surprised with how well Danny is handling the chaos of last night: he doesn't drink, so he's never had this kind of shit happen to him, he knows me best out of everyone here and we don't know each other well at all, he doesn't know that this kind of shit has happened to all of the Giraffes before and that it is probably not as big of a deal to them as it is to me. But I fucked up, I really fucked up and I know it, and if he wants me to go back and hash it out with Aaron right now, that's certainly not too much to ask (the poor fucking kid was adrift in chaos in a strange town last night, chaos at the center of which was his bandmate and traveling partner) so we head back. Outside, Aaron just looks exhausted, which breaks my fucking heart. It takes me a moment to get him alone: Nithin makes a conspicuous display of shooting the empty bottle of bud Danny just discovered in the van with what looks like a .22 pistol while I'm first trying to hash things out with Aaron. After only one more brief interlude with Nithin, I'm able to put it to him. Aaron is at least as big-hearted about the whole sorry affair as I thought he would be (he even claims that he was the ones of the ones pissing on my van, which I somehow still don't believe) and we end with a big hug and solemn vows of continued brotherhood. Which just makes me feel like more of a creep. They're all going to hang out in Dayton today and hit the dollar theatres (which Danny has been wanting to do all tour) but I know I've got to go. It's pretty clear that Nithin's going to be a bug in my ear all day. Danny and I roll out and somehow, we manage to sort everything out. It's clear that he doesn't think the same of me, and that he'll never go on the road with me again. But it's also clear that we're still friends, that he genuinely does give a shit, and that even if he won't go on the road with me again, we will be friends for a long time. Heading out of town, I make some lame joke: "Danny, listen, man, I'm totally sympathetic, man, I feel awful for this shit happening around you and I know how it looks: you go out on the road with a guy who hasn't drank for a year and a half and he appears to go increasingly nuts, in this downward spiral. I know that right now, you know, it's walking like a duck, quacking like a duck, and smelling like a duck, but I'm telling you man, it's not a duck." He cracks up, then I crack up, and we're okay again. We don't have far to drive, and we have tonight off. Thank fucking God.
Posted by Mishka at September 17, 2003 12:52 AM