by Ernest © 2011
John Goodman once said he realized just how fat he was when he needed to lose weight to play Babe Ruth.
I realized just how fat I was when I needed to lose weight to play John Goodman. (Of course, I didn't actually lose any weight. I just needed to.)
The year was 2007, and I was going to Lebowski Fest as Goodman's character, Walter Sobchak. What better place to attend a tribute to The Big Lebowski than in the city that inspired the movie: Los Angeles. Also, I had a couple friends in L.A. who I hadn't seen in a few years. They say it's the city of angels. I didn't find it to be that exactly, but I'm getting ahead of myself. First I had to get there, and that proved to be a little more tricky than I had anticipated.
A friend of mine worked at Jet Blue, and she offered to get me a "buddy pass" from Boston to L.A. for $198 round trip. I jumped at the chance. There was one catch though; I'd have to fly stand-by. Shouldn't be a problem my friend said. Those flights never fill up she said. Never. Even though you'll have the lowest priority behind all other stand-by passengers like Jet Blue employees etc., there will be plenty of seats she said. No worries she assured me. Well, I started to worry when I checked on my fight a week before my departure date to find that there were only 22 seats left. Three days before the flight, that number was down to 12 seats, and the night before, only two seats left. My worry had turned to panic. It was the only Jet Blue flight to L.A. that day, and if I wasn't on it, there was a chance I would end up missing half the Fest. Plus, I had a hotel reservation that it was too late to cancel, and I couldn't really afford to buy a ticket on a different airline at last minute extortion prices. To try and reassure myself I kept saying nothing is fucked, dude, nothing is fucked....
After a sleepless night, I arrived at Logan airport at 7:45am for an 11am flight. I checked in and sat down at the gate for three hours of agony. As 11 o'clock approached, the waiting area was completely packed. Standing room only. My heart was sinking. The money I had saved on the "buddy pass" was moot at this point because I would have gladly handed somebody $300 cash for their seat on that flight. After the agonizingly long boarding calls, there were still 30-40 people standing around the gate eyeing each other like contestants at the elimination ceremony of a particularly cruel reality show. I tried to be positive and stay relaxed. Calmer than they are....calmer than they are......
"Would Jet Blue employee Blah B. Blah please report to the gate," the voice said over the intercom.
One seat left. I breathed slowly and hoped for the best, but prepared for the worst. When I heard my name next over the intercom I stumbled to the gate in an incredulous daze as the other people standing around glared at me like I had just choked a puppy to death in front of them. I had won the travel jackpot by the slimmest of margins and it felt great as I walked down the aisle of the plane. The last remaining seat on the plane was a middle seat with a broken TV of course, but I could care less. I was headed to Lala land, and nothing could bum me out, man!
My friend Noah picked me up at the delightfully small Long Beach Airport and we sped down the 405 with the newly downloaded In Rainbows blaring in the car. I was prepared to dislike L.A. from all the negative shit I had heard, but the first thing that struck me was how beautiful it was. From the sparkling ocean, to the Dr. Seuss-like palm trees, to the not too distant mountains, the scenery was stunning. Sure, it might be chock full of self centered douchebags, but there was no denying the physical beauty of the place. Just then I looked to my right and saw the iconic Capitol Records building in the distance. Far out, man, far out.
The hotel I booked was in....ahh..... let's just say, a lot less nicer neighborhood than the internet had led me to believe. It's amazing how photos taken from a certain angle can be so misleading. We did have a great view of the Hollywood sign, as well as the massage parlor across the street. It must have been a therapeutic massage, because the customers looked furtive and stooped over as they ducked into the door. They looked much more relaxed and happy as they left 20 minutes later. The masseuses must have been very good doctors. And thorough.
The next night we met up with a couple more friends and headed to the House of Blues in Hollywood for the screening party. We checked out the Walk of Fame, Mann's Chinese Theater, and Musso & Frank's where Bukowski used to drink. At the party we met Pete Exeline, who's stolen car was the inspiration for that plot point in the movie, as well as the real life little Larry, who was the chief suspect in the theft of said car. He still hadn't cracked.
The funniest moment of the party came when we watched the harried and over-worked bartender making about a zillion white Russians.
"You must be sick of making those!" my friend Dan said to the bartender.
"Oh my god, you have no idea!" said the sweating bartender, relieved to finally have a sympathetic ear.
"Well, make two more," was Dan's cold response as he slapped a twenty dollar bill on the bar. Very un-dude of him.
Night two was the bowling party and costume contest. Even though those assholes at the league offices scheduled it on the Shabbat, I decided to go anyway. Noah dressed as The Dude with an eerily authentic sweater, and Foster went as a damn Nihilist. I opted for "ransom delivery Walter" since I knew there would be a ton of "white vest Walters." I was right, but it was irrelevant because we showed up late and missed the contest. I was a pretty damn good Walter right down to my dog tags that read "I too dabbled in pacifism. Not in Nam of course," and would have given the winner a run for his money.
We got our picture taken with Liam, the Rug, and even a female Walter. The best costume was an ATM machine with a $1,000 withdrawal on it's screen. After bowling and listening to some CCR karaoke, we capped the evening by wandering the aisles of Ralph's at 1am to buy booze, and then a couple hours of poker at the Hustler Casino in Gardena (still in full costume).
On Sunday we hit the In-and-Out Burger of course, and then spent the rest of the day doin' jays and watching football as well as the comings and goings of the massage parlor. For dinner, we headed to the Fatburger on Santa Monica. The only customers in the place, other than Noah and me, were Dante from Clerks and J.K. Simmons. Only in L.A. would the celebrities almost outnumber the muggles. After dinner we took a sunset cruise on Mulholland Drive and just abided.
The next day I was able to switch to a later, emptier flight so I wouldn't have to repeat the stress of the first leg of the trip. Foster and I hit the Santa Monica Pier, and I got to play Addams Family pinball 30 feet directly above the Pacific. Leaving the pier, I twisted my ankle, and it was getting really sore by the time I made my way across the tarmac at Long Beach Airport. Unbelievably, I had an entire row of seats to myself for the return flight. Exhausted from the weekend and a little woozy from drinking too many Caucasians, I put my ankle up, stretched out, and drifted off, dreaming of flying carpets and Viking women......
Ernest is an achiever.
Showing posts with label Ernest. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Ernest. Show all posts
January 01, 2011
December 01, 2010
NY, NY
By Ernest © 2010
The first time I went to Times Square I was tripping my balls off.
I was visiting my friend who was housesitting his art professor's huge apartment/art studio in Tribeca for the summer. On our first night in town, a group of us went to the last strip club left in Manhattan that didn't charge a cover. You get what you pay for. It was a dingy joint called Satin Dolls. Like a rookie, I bought the first round. Forty bucks for four Buds for four buddies. Yikes. The talent was less than stellar. The anorexic, bruised strippers would actually emerge from a trap door on the stage. I imagined a dirt floor dungeon shooting gallery down there, where feral stripper junkies would prowl around hissing at each other until it was their turn to go above ground like a bunch of dope sick C.H.U.D.S. I'm really surprised that a stripper didn't come up with a needle still hanging out of her arm. There was a back room/pay phone alcove where strippers would occasionally lead fat old men in stained wife beaters to do blow or get blown. It was basically in plain view of the bar. All you had to do was lean back on your stool and you had a clear shot of all the disturbing nefarious activities. My friends were cheap as shit, and only two of us were tipping the strippers. At one point, a particularly strung out stripper with protruding ribs leaned over the bar from the stage and started screaming at us "Tip! Tip! TIP!!!" as little flecks of spittle formed in the corners of her chapped lips.
Sexxxy.
After the screaming incident, the club's gigantic bouncer came over to us at the bar and put his arms around all four of us at once and said in a Barry White-like voice: "You boys will be having another beer."
We believed him. He was wearing more jewelry than Mr T. and his breath smelled like Hennessy and beatings. We shelled out another forty bucks and drank our second beers quickly as Alanis Morrissette blared over the speakers. I shit you not. Alanis fucking Morrissette. As if the place wasn't depressing enough. Whatever happened to Def Leppard or Motley Crue? My friend Bamboo and I decided that the only proper reaction to the scarring experience of Satin Dolls was to drop some of the acid that I had smuggled on the plane to New York in the waistband of my boxers. We went into the men's room that I really, really don't want to talk about, and swallowed the little paper squares. I don't know why we bothered to go into the bathroom, drug use was everywhere out in the open. We washed the acid down with the last of our $10 Budweisers as we walked past Mr. T and out into the muggy New York evening.
The subway ride was mercifully short, and as we walked up the stairs into Times Square, we were really starting to trip. Times Square is already sensory overload when you're sober, and on LSD it was like ground zero of a neon atomic bomb. Everything was flashing color and vertigo as we stumbled down the sidewalk trying to maintain. This was right before the Disney-fication of Times Square. Most of the peep shows and porno theaters were already deserted, so the city had sponsored an art exhibit. The lobbies and display cases of the theaters were filled with crazy sculptures and graffiti pieces, and all the marquees had cool phrases or haikus on them. I was too fucked up to remember any of them, but it was cool Basquiat type shit. Everything was all a blur as we made our way a few blocks down to the Manhattan Center where the Melvins were playing. We got some beers at a bodega and hung out on the steps of the Post Office across from Penn Station before smoking a joint and heading into the show.
The Melvins psychedelic sludge was incredible, although some drunk dude mistook me for the bass player of the opening band, Season to Risk. He kept asking me about "the new album" and "what touring was like." He was relentless, even though I insisted I wasn't the bass player. Later I found out that my friend TB had told him that I really was in Season to Risk, but that I was humble and shy so he would have to be persistent. Thanks TB. Fuck with the guy who is tripping. What are friends for.
By the time we left the show, it had cooled off outside, thank god. We enjoyed a typically insane New York City cab ride as we headed back to the loft. I remember thinking that I felt bad for people who grew up in New York, because all of this would be the norm for them. Every place they went after this would be a let down. We grabbed some beers at the corner store at 3am (was this place heaven or what?) and headed up to the apartment. After we hung out on the fire escape for awhile listening to the sounds of Manhattan at night, I went into the living room and lay down on the couch that would be my bed for the next few nights. As I looked out of the huge floor to ceiling windows, I had a perfect view of the Twin Towers framed by the moon.
A lot has changed since then, but that first whacked out night is how I'll always picture New York.
Ernest is a writer currently living in Maine.
The first time I went to Times Square I was tripping my balls off.
I was visiting my friend who was housesitting his art professor's huge apartment/art studio in Tribeca for the summer. On our first night in town, a group of us went to the last strip club left in Manhattan that didn't charge a cover. You get what you pay for. It was a dingy joint called Satin Dolls. Like a rookie, I bought the first round. Forty bucks for four Buds for four buddies. Yikes. The talent was less than stellar. The anorexic, bruised strippers would actually emerge from a trap door on the stage. I imagined a dirt floor dungeon shooting gallery down there, where feral stripper junkies would prowl around hissing at each other until it was their turn to go above ground like a bunch of dope sick C.H.U.D.S. I'm really surprised that a stripper didn't come up with a needle still hanging out of her arm. There was a back room/pay phone alcove where strippers would occasionally lead fat old men in stained wife beaters to do blow or get blown. It was basically in plain view of the bar. All you had to do was lean back on your stool and you had a clear shot of all the disturbing nefarious activities. My friends were cheap as shit, and only two of us were tipping the strippers. At one point, a particularly strung out stripper with protruding ribs leaned over the bar from the stage and started screaming at us "Tip! Tip! TIP!!!" as little flecks of spittle formed in the corners of her chapped lips.
Sexxxy.
After the screaming incident, the club's gigantic bouncer came over to us at the bar and put his arms around all four of us at once and said in a Barry White-like voice: "You boys will be having another beer."
We believed him. He was wearing more jewelry than Mr T. and his breath smelled like Hennessy and beatings. We shelled out another forty bucks and drank our second beers quickly as Alanis Morrissette blared over the speakers. I shit you not. Alanis fucking Morrissette. As if the place wasn't depressing enough. Whatever happened to Def Leppard or Motley Crue? My friend Bamboo and I decided that the only proper reaction to the scarring experience of Satin Dolls was to drop some of the acid that I had smuggled on the plane to New York in the waistband of my boxers. We went into the men's room that I really, really don't want to talk about, and swallowed the little paper squares. I don't know why we bothered to go into the bathroom, drug use was everywhere out in the open. We washed the acid down with the last of our $10 Budweisers as we walked past Mr. T and out into the muggy New York evening.
The subway ride was mercifully short, and as we walked up the stairs into Times Square, we were really starting to trip. Times Square is already sensory overload when you're sober, and on LSD it was like ground zero of a neon atomic bomb. Everything was flashing color and vertigo as we stumbled down the sidewalk trying to maintain. This was right before the Disney-fication of Times Square. Most of the peep shows and porno theaters were already deserted, so the city had sponsored an art exhibit. The lobbies and display cases of the theaters were filled with crazy sculptures and graffiti pieces, and all the marquees had cool phrases or haikus on them. I was too fucked up to remember any of them, but it was cool Basquiat type shit. Everything was all a blur as we made our way a few blocks down to the Manhattan Center where the Melvins were playing. We got some beers at a bodega and hung out on the steps of the Post Office across from Penn Station before smoking a joint and heading into the show.
The Melvins psychedelic sludge was incredible, although some drunk dude mistook me for the bass player of the opening band, Season to Risk. He kept asking me about "the new album" and "what touring was like." He was relentless, even though I insisted I wasn't the bass player. Later I found out that my friend TB had told him that I really was in Season to Risk, but that I was humble and shy so he would have to be persistent. Thanks TB. Fuck with the guy who is tripping. What are friends for.
By the time we left the show, it had cooled off outside, thank god. We enjoyed a typically insane New York City cab ride as we headed back to the loft. I remember thinking that I felt bad for people who grew up in New York, because all of this would be the norm for them. Every place they went after this would be a let down. We grabbed some beers at the corner store at 3am (was this place heaven or what?) and headed up to the apartment. After we hung out on the fire escape for awhile listening to the sounds of Manhattan at night, I went into the living room and lay down on the couch that would be my bed for the next few nights. As I looked out of the huge floor to ceiling windows, I had a perfect view of the Twin Towers framed by the moon.
A lot has changed since then, but that first whacked out night is how I'll always picture New York.
Ernest is a writer currently living in Maine.
July 21, 2010
The Lonehorseman
By Ernest © 2010
The extremely pregnant woman did a shot of Jagermeister, and then started slowly sliding off her barstool. The bartender ran around the corner of the bar and caught her just before she hit the ground. That’s a sound I was glad I didn't have to hear. The sickening thud of a drunk pregnant woman hitting the floor. What kind of place was this? What alternate dimension had I entered? I looked around the bar from the slightly flickering neon Schlitz sign, to the jukebox blaring Charlie Daniels, and finally to my friends playing darts in the corner. They were either oblivious to the drunk pregnant woman, or they were so used to the sight that it didn’t even register. I was hoping for the former. And to think, two hours earlier I had been comfortably at home in another town.
Few words in the English language can bring more excitement and anticipation to the heart of a twenty year old than “road trip.” Those two fateful words had been shouted in my living room earlier that day after my pal John got off the phone with our mutual friend Carolyn. It was summer break, and we were all college buddies. Carolyn was home in Burlington , Wisconsin , and had called to invite us down for an impromptu party and dorm floor reunion. We were still up in Madison , and decided to make the hour and a half trip south. How could we pass up the opportunity to black out in a different location? We made record time flying down I-39 towards Carolyn's, and decided to stop into a weathered roadside bar at the edge of town to continue drinking (we had started the minute John hung up the phone).
Inside the bar is where we found the scene with the pregnant woman unfolding. This was 1988, and I guess they hadn’t gotten the memo in southern Wisco that alcohol and fetuses are a bad mix. We were doing copious shots of the newly discovered Jagermeister ourselves, and the pregnant woman kept asking us to buy her a shot, but by then she had been cut off by the bartender. Rules are rules, and when you and your unborn baby have had enough to drink, then that’s that. The bartender would serve you until you fell over, but he’d catch you on the way down. A true humanitarian.
I was beginning to think I had passed through a portal to a dark world, but it might have just been the booze and the three joints we smoked on the road. Eventually we left the watering hole from hell, and the battered wooden door slowly closed behind us, muffling the shouts of protest from the pregnant woman inside. I’ve always wondered what might have become of her unborn child. He or she would be around twenty-two by now, probably running the Tilt-o-Whirl at some fair, or mopping the floor of some penitentiary. Kinda tough to start life already behind the eight ball like that. It reminded me of the first chapter of every serial killer’s bio that I’ve ever read.
We headed out into the setting sun, which burned our dark bar adjusted eyes. We drove down a series of dirt roads with the red and dreamsicle colored sunset shining through the endless fields and barbed wire fences. And cows. Lots and lots of cows. The sulfurous stench of ozone destroying methane hung in the air. We pulled into our friend Carolyn’s family’s horse ranch just as the sun finally set. She greeted us on the huge porch with a smile and a beer. People had arrived from all over for the gathering, and it was starting to look like it was going to be a serious party.
After the typical reunion hugs, keg problems solved, and emergency booze runs, everyone was settling into a pleasantly hammered buzz. It was time to explore the ranch a little. We headed down to the stables with some drinks for us, and carrots for the horses. I didn’t have to travel far before I met a new friend. Everyone else headed to the main stable, but I was drawn to an old horse in the side stable who seemed to have a devilishly bemused look on his long face. He greedily accepted my carrot offering, appreciatively bouncing his head up and down quickly the way only a horse can. When the carrots ran out, he decided to try my arm as a snack. This was the first time I had ever been up close and personal with a horse, and I was amazed at the strength of his jaws. I actually panicked a little as he clamped down on my arm and pulled me back and forth with ease. After I retrieved my arm, we came to a peaceable understanding and I stood there petting him, having one of those incredible moments of youthful drunken bliss when everything is optimism and the universe seems to make sense.
Carolyn came by on her way to catch up with everybody else and was surprised at my choice of friends.
“He’s a grouch.” She said. “He doesn’t usually like anybody.”
I took it as a compliment, said my goodbyes to him, and then followed her to the main stable.
Many of the horses had gotten loose in the field behind the stables. It was pitch black by now, and sometimes all you could hear was the muffled thundering of hooves on dirt and large blurry images moving around us in the dark. A mixture of fear and excitement had overcome me. Carolyn was trying to round up the horses when one of her neighbors showed up even drunker than we were. He was a charming fellow who seemed to think “fuck” was simultaneously a noun, verb, adjective, and adverb. I think he managed to utter a couple of long sentences using only that one word. After a few minutes of erudite conversation, he insisted that it was time for him to ride one of the horses bareback. Carolyn, and a majority of the horses, seemed to think that this was a bad idea, but he set down his Coors Light and found a horse that slowed down just enough for him to run and hop on. He was lying on his stomach on the horse’s back, with his legs hanging off the horse sideways. As he whooped and hollered, the horse had second thoughts about this scenario. He bolted towards the dark outline of the only tree in the pasture, and when he got to it, he took a sharp left. We could see the silhouette of the drunken neighbor flying off the horse with his feet extended straight up, and his head a few feet above the ground pointing down. Then we heard the shattering impact of human body meeting tree trunk. Followed by silence. Followed by groans. We ran over to him with a flashlight just as he was getting to his feet. Personally, I was surprised that he was remotely alive. The horse must have been going close to twenty miles an hour just before his passenger went airborne. Somebody shined a flashlight on the neighbor’s face. I had never seen so much blood. He was making a guttural wailing noise, and I couldn’t tell where his nose was, or if it was even still there. Many of his teeth were missing, but I couldn’t remember if he had been like that pre-accident. After all, he was wearing overalls with no shirt, and missing teeth seem to go hand in hand with that look. He appeared to be angry about the way things had turned out, and was blaming the horse and Carolyn. He headed back to his place and we chuckled as his curses slowly faded into the night.
We went back to the house and had our nightcaps. I vaguely remember drinking with people on the porch until everyone started passing out one by one on the living room floor. As I succumbed to sleep I prepared to dream the dreams of purgatory deep in America's heartland.
Ernest was a student at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in the late 1980s. Everything after that is a little blurry. He regrets nothing. You can find his writing in a blog called Throwin' Rocks.
The extremely pregnant woman did a shot of Jagermeister, and then started slowly sliding off her barstool. The bartender ran around the corner of the bar and caught her just before she hit the ground. That’s a sound I was glad I didn't have to hear. The sickening thud of a drunk pregnant woman hitting the floor. What kind of place was this? What alternate dimension had I entered? I looked around the bar from the slightly flickering neon Schlitz sign, to the jukebox blaring Charlie Daniels, and finally to my friends playing darts in the corner. They were either oblivious to the drunk pregnant woman, or they were so used to the sight that it didn’t even register. I was hoping for the former. And to think, two hours earlier I had been comfortably at home in another town.
Few words in the English language can bring more excitement and anticipation to the heart of a twenty year old than “road trip.” Those two fateful words had been shouted in my living room earlier that day after my pal John got off the phone with our mutual friend Carolyn. It was summer break, and we were all college buddies. Carolyn was home in Burlington , Wisconsin , and had called to invite us down for an impromptu party and dorm floor reunion. We were still up in Madison , and decided to make the hour and a half trip south. How could we pass up the opportunity to black out in a different location? We made record time flying down I-39 towards Carolyn's, and decided to stop into a weathered roadside bar at the edge of town to continue drinking (we had started the minute John hung up the phone).
Inside the bar is where we found the scene with the pregnant woman unfolding. This was 1988, and I guess they hadn’t gotten the memo in southern Wisco that alcohol and fetuses are a bad mix. We were doing copious shots of the newly discovered Jagermeister ourselves, and the pregnant woman kept asking us to buy her a shot, but by then she had been cut off by the bartender. Rules are rules, and when you and your unborn baby have had enough to drink, then that’s that. The bartender would serve you until you fell over, but he’d catch you on the way down. A true humanitarian.
I was beginning to think I had passed through a portal to a dark world, but it might have just been the booze and the three joints we smoked on the road. Eventually we left the watering hole from hell, and the battered wooden door slowly closed behind us, muffling the shouts of protest from the pregnant woman inside. I’ve always wondered what might have become of her unborn child. He or she would be around twenty-two by now, probably running the Tilt-o-Whirl at some fair, or mopping the floor of some penitentiary. Kinda tough to start life already behind the eight ball like that. It reminded me of the first chapter of every serial killer’s bio that I’ve ever read.
We headed out into the setting sun, which burned our dark bar adjusted eyes. We drove down a series of dirt roads with the red and dreamsicle colored sunset shining through the endless fields and barbed wire fences. And cows. Lots and lots of cows. The sulfurous stench of ozone destroying methane hung in the air. We pulled into our friend Carolyn’s family’s horse ranch just as the sun finally set. She greeted us on the huge porch with a smile and a beer. People had arrived from all over for the gathering, and it was starting to look like it was going to be a serious party.
After the typical reunion hugs, keg problems solved, and emergency booze runs, everyone was settling into a pleasantly hammered buzz. It was time to explore the ranch a little. We headed down to the stables with some drinks for us, and carrots for the horses. I didn’t have to travel far before I met a new friend. Everyone else headed to the main stable, but I was drawn to an old horse in the side stable who seemed to have a devilishly bemused look on his long face. He greedily accepted my carrot offering, appreciatively bouncing his head up and down quickly the way only a horse can. When the carrots ran out, he decided to try my arm as a snack. This was the first time I had ever been up close and personal with a horse, and I was amazed at the strength of his jaws. I actually panicked a little as he clamped down on my arm and pulled me back and forth with ease. After I retrieved my arm, we came to a peaceable understanding and I stood there petting him, having one of those incredible moments of youthful drunken bliss when everything is optimism and the universe seems to make sense.
Carolyn came by on her way to catch up with everybody else and was surprised at my choice of friends.
“He’s a grouch.” She said. “He doesn’t usually like anybody.”
I took it as a compliment, said my goodbyes to him, and then followed her to the main stable.
Many of the horses had gotten loose in the field behind the stables. It was pitch black by now, and sometimes all you could hear was the muffled thundering of hooves on dirt and large blurry images moving around us in the dark. A mixture of fear and excitement had overcome me. Carolyn was trying to round up the horses when one of her neighbors showed up even drunker than we were. He was a charming fellow who seemed to think “fuck” was simultaneously a noun, verb, adjective, and adverb. I think he managed to utter a couple of long sentences using only that one word. After a few minutes of erudite conversation, he insisted that it was time for him to ride one of the horses bareback. Carolyn, and a majority of the horses, seemed to think that this was a bad idea, but he set down his Coors Light and found a horse that slowed down just enough for him to run and hop on. He was lying on his stomach on the horse’s back, with his legs hanging off the horse sideways. As he whooped and hollered, the horse had second thoughts about this scenario. He bolted towards the dark outline of the only tree in the pasture, and when he got to it, he took a sharp left. We could see the silhouette of the drunken neighbor flying off the horse with his feet extended straight up, and his head a few feet above the ground pointing down. Then we heard the shattering impact of human body meeting tree trunk. Followed by silence. Followed by groans. We ran over to him with a flashlight just as he was getting to his feet. Personally, I was surprised that he was remotely alive. The horse must have been going close to twenty miles an hour just before his passenger went airborne. Somebody shined a flashlight on the neighbor’s face. I had never seen so much blood. He was making a guttural wailing noise, and I couldn’t tell where his nose was, or if it was even still there. Many of his teeth were missing, but I couldn’t remember if he had been like that pre-accident. After all, he was wearing overalls with no shirt, and missing teeth seem to go hand in hand with that look. He appeared to be angry about the way things had turned out, and was blaming the horse and Carolyn. He headed back to his place and we chuckled as his curses slowly faded into the night.
We went back to the house and had our nightcaps. I vaguely remember drinking with people on the porch until everyone started passing out one by one on the living room floor. As I succumbed to sleep I prepared to dream the dreams of purgatory deep in America's heartland.
Ernest was a student at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in the late 1980s. Everything after that is a little blurry. He regrets nothing. You can find his writing in a blog called Throwin' Rocks.
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