Henry Rollins and the Son of God

I left my roommate at the bar, staring at a double Jesus Christ just before midnight.

We had spent the evening so far watching a Henry Rollins spoken word performance, snacking on nachos and drinking Sierra. Rollins had us in stitches through most of the night regaling the audience with tales of an insane Russian woman on the Trans-Siberian express train and the bizarre intrusions into his (mostly) hermetic life. By the end of the night he had instilled a carpe diem attitude in both of us that had brought us out to our new favorite watering hole to continue the escapades.

The show was incredible, and we were both halfway into the wind. Although I loved that bar, there were no girls there. He was friends with the bartender, so the coke in our Jack and Cokes was more of an afterthought. A few other people had joined us, which was nice, but by this point we comprised the total population of the place. I definitely wanted more for my evening. I made a few phone calls, and finally convinced a girl I knew to come over to our apartment, so I was headed out. He could find his own damn way home.

About two hours later, as I lay in bed debating whether the pleasure a cigarette would bring me was worth the effort to go outside, I heard him come stumbling through the front door. From all the noise he was making, I knew that the drink in front of him when I left wasn’t his last. It’s great to know bartenders with lead wrists, but you better not have any plans for the next day or so if you are going to spend an evening with them. I heard him fall about three or four times while I checked the message that someone had left me nearly ten minutes earlier. It was Chris, slurring about how his key no longer seemed to work and if there was any way possible, would I please open the door for him because he really hopes he’s at the right apartment. I started laughing, and explained the girl that it had just taken Chris almost ten minutes to open the front door to the apartment he’s lived in for five years now.

We lay there laughing about it for a minute, while still debating that cigarette. Suddenly, my door flung wide open, slamming against the wall with a bang, Chris fell in backwards; ass over teakettle. He was holding his phone to his ear and groaning from the sudden end to his descent. He looked around, confused, and then looked up and backwards at me. He started to try to speak, but I cut him off.

“Are you on the fucking phone?” I yelled at him and to got out of bed.

“No.”

“Then why the hell is it in your hand, held to your ear?”

“This isn’t my phone,” was all he could manage to say while flailing about in a sad attempt to stand back up. I helped him to his feet, pushed him out of my room, called him an asshole, and went to the bathroom. When I came back out I found him standing in the door to the kitchen, clearly confused by his own existence. I shook my head and went back into my room, once again laughing.

I lay back down and listened to him stumbling around some more, first in the kitchen, then into the bathroom. I could hear thumping and banging for another minute or two, then a toilet flush, then silence. “I had better go check on him; make sure he hasn’t drowned in the toilet or something.” The girl started laughing and I walked to the door. “I really don’t feel like apartment hunting again.”

I found him in the hallway. He was sitting sideways in the hall, halfway slumped over with his back on the wall directly across from my door. What he did in the bathroom I will never know, because he had apparently waited until he reached the hallway to throw up. It wasn’t just an ordinary regurgitation either. This was… Bright. Fucking. Orange. I knew he needed to eat more than just those damn nachos at the show. If they had helped slow the alcohol at all you couldn’t tell before, and they weren’t going to do a damn thing for him now that they were splayed down his pea-coat, his trousers, and across the carpet.

Grumbling, I stood him up and walked him into his room. I helped him get his coat and shirt off, and then pushed him onto his bed, where he toppled quite easily. I pulled his shoes off, and told him that he was on his own for the rest. I threw his clothes into the hamper, knowing that his room was going to smell like shit, and that it wasn’t my problem. Then I grabbed his towel and walked back into the hallway. With a sigh, I used his towel to wipe up the majority of the vomit off the carpet. The good thing about shitty old apartments like ours is that the carpeting is like burlap stretched across old wood. I decided to let him clean the damn stain out. At least I wouldn’t have to smell the nachos and beer in my room. The towel went on top of the hamper. I went to bed.

The next day was Saturday, and I was hanging out at our usual coffee shop with the same friends we had gone to the show with, trading stories about the many and varied times that Chris has pulled shit like that over the years, and taking bets on what time he would get out of bed. We were all betting between four and nine, except his best friend, who bet on Tuesday. He finally showed up around seven, two hours after the sun was down.

“How do you feel today?”
“What time did you actually get up?”
“How much did you drink last night?”
“Bet your room smells great right now, huh?”

Everyone hit him with a barrage of questions and a chorus of stifled laughter as soon as he walked onto the patio, and before he could answer any, I looked at him and said, “How did you get home last night?”

He stopped in mid-thought and looked at me blankly. “I rode home with you. Didn’t I?” We all started laughing. He clearly didn’t remember a damn thing.

“I left you at the bar around midnight staring at a double Jesus Christ. You didn’t come home until a couple hours later. What the hell happened between then?” I couldn’t help but laugh as he winced and tried so hard to remember the night.

“Oh shit.”