The Fight That Never Was

I can thoroughly say that New Year’s Eve ringing in 2016 was one of the best I’ve had in some time. There are two routes you can go for the Amateur of all Amateur Hours. #1: Play it chill, go to the VFW, stay at home with your boo thang, or work and make duckets. Either of these options plays into no part of devil that is New Year’s Eve. However, for me, New Year’s Eve is one of my favorite holidays- and I opt for #2: To betroth the devil for at least a few hours. Now, whether you’re mindful of exactly what you’re getting into, is another story entirely.

The night started out at a jogger’s pace with a stop at the best friend’s house, then to an art gallery turned makeshift bar with balloons tacked to a ceiling for the midnight drop. We promptly left, and hitched a ride to the house of bad decisions and impulse. Having fully committed a week ago, I dressed to the nines and readied the crew for a VIP/Balcony soiree. The risk was it all turning into Bronanza Douchefest 2016 starring us. Alas, it did not. Half past midnight, I could feel the liquor burning through the common sense of the ballroom we stood in. Drinks spilled, potential fights brewed, and I stood to have a better chance of finding our server on the back of a milk carton or TMZ video. We needed to get the hell out of there, and fast. I called our ride, blitzkrieg’d the server to pay our tab, and we vacated the imploding ballroom.

Off to a northeast bar where nearly everyone knows our names (Cheers ref: check), we leaned against the bar, 12 sheets to the wind, and wished “Happy New Year!!!” when the impulse struck us. Unbeknownst, a bar stool away, two men held a conversation at the bar.

The gentlemen furthest from me, sat draped in a black leather jacket, his wispy black hair barely touching his shoulders. His frame sat fragile as a glass menagerie. In my drunken stupor, I recall his shoulders as meatless knobs only badass’ng it by proxy of the leather jacket. The gentlemen closest to me, holding dialogue with the other gentlemen, sat at least 6 inches higher than the other. I couldn’t tell if his back was actual muscle or just proportion to the whole of his giant body. His shoulders, as far as I could tell, were bulging almost too big for his own frame… and sweater.

Our lives are made up of flickering moments- simple flickering moments that somehow line up and make sense because one precedes the other.

I turned to my friend, James, for a moment to talk about something I’ll never remember due to drunkiness and the split seconds that proceeded it. With my back turned to the two gentlemen, I hear “What the fuck did you just say to me?!?!?” Turning to the two, the shout evidently came from the gentlemen closest me… the large gentlemen… the gentlemen now planting his fist repeatedly into the smaller gentlemen’s face.

Sidenote: I’ve been attacked by dogs in my life. When it happens, you have little to no time to react. The flash of fangs are for sheer ceremony before a quick twitch of violence lunges toward you. I have seen this same quick twitch in a few PRIDE FC fights, and one fight in particular at a party, but never in my adult life up-close.

The large gentlemen arose with the urgency of a hurricane, and began to punch the other man’s face faster than a cocaine-addled E. Honda. In my drunken state, it appeared this man had gotten off two dozen straight jabs in less than 10 seconds. Before he could set off another barrage of hits, my mind said, “Toussaint, we should help this poor smaller man, now being publicly executed by this larger gentlemen. Right?” I agreed with my mind, so I drunkenly- yes, I’ve used this word many times in this story, because I don’t want you to forget how drunk I was- stepped toward the punching assassin. On my last step, I crossed my left foot over my right leg to squeak through the crowded barstools and tables, and reached out my hands to effort breaking up the ass-whoopin’. Just as I reach out with off-balance footing, the larger gentlemen reaches his left arm back to deliver another blow. His elbow, at the peak of pulling back to then move forward and propel his fist into this poor man’s skull, grazes my hands reaching out to break up the fight. So off-balance, and so incapacitated with alcohol, my momentum was sharply shifted backward… and now, I’m falling the opposite direction of the fight.

Just the faint touch of the larger gentlemen’s pendulum blows, sent me flying into a gaggle of barstools, a waitress (my good friend, we call “Sharon Stone”) and my best friend James.

Seconds later, the bar staff removed the larger gentlemen off the would-be corpse of the thinner man. I lay on the ground… still. James offered to help me up. I turned away his offer. I just wanted to take in the moment. Although I was proud of myself for stepping up for another human getting assaulted like a newly colonized strip of land, it was all overcast by a knee-jerk reaction to laugh aloud to myself.

I’d like to rewind and tell you that this fall was a perfect fall. I mean, I effing hit those barstools, waitress, and other dude with the precision of a well-timed tackle. It was like one of those falls, where you hit the ground and shit just keeps falling around you. I physically impacted a 10 ft. radius with that folly.

Finally, accepting a hand to rise to my feet again, we laughed, drank more and uber’d back to the crib. To answer your question, “No, I don’t speak in 3^rd person… I write in 3^rd person. And welcome to 2016, Toussaint Morrison. You’re a brilliant idiot with a heart too big for both sleeves”.

Post Script: Sharon Stone, the waitress working that night, reported to me that the thinner man entered the bar the next day with his girlfriend, who demanded an explanation as to what happened to her man. Apparently, he was so black-out drunk that even upon exit and waking to his wounds... he had forgotten how he got them. The bartender relayed last night's events, and as they exited, a patron turned to Sharon and shared the sentiment that if anyone deserved that ass-whoopin' from last night... it was that thin guy. "He had it comin'" she said.

Lesson: The universe speaks. Don't be blackout when it does.

Paul & I Are Going To Arm This Laser Cannon, And Then I'll Tell You "I Love You"

It was the alien invasion one again.

It starts at night- it always starts at night- and it never turns to daylight no matter how much time spans throughout the dream. Daylight is not welcome. Christ, if only once there were sunlight during these things, there’d be the off chance I’d wake up knowing immediately that the pending death resting overhead like a mothership wasn’t actually real. I’d be able to differ the lucid and reality even before I woke up. Alas, the alien invasion dream has never operated on such terms.

It begins at what seems to be an outside bon fire in a cabin district. My family and I sit outside of our home log cabin, where seemingly the dozen of us all live- The damn thing is tiny and barely looks to fit a honeymoon, but apparently dreams make space for the incomprehensible. My friend and old co-worker from the Old Spaghetti Factory, Paul, is there for what seems to be perfectly natural in him joining my family. Ok, first indication this is not reality- Paul joining my extended family for a bon fire in the cabin district. But no, I’m still suspended in belief that this is real.

The aliens never show themselves. It’s never a “boo” or a hop out from behind the bush with a laser cannon- it’s a known. Our dinner round the campfire dissipates under the general understanding that “Oh shit, it’s about that time. The aliens are coming.”

A television lights up in the cabin with news reports of what we already know… because we’re psychic like that. The first to leave are my uncle Dave and his house members. His wife and kids somehow scurry into the bushes like snipers blurring with the background. Myself, Paul and my mother have no such skills. My sister and her husband go ninja vanish into the night air, while Paul and I remember the giant DIY laser cannon, the aliens left behind from the last invasion, is in the cabin.

I should remind you that I’ve only had this dream one other time, and I distinctly remember this device being left behind from the last invasion. Poor suckers, Paul and I were going to set this bitch off and give these bastards a taste of their own medicine.

Dragging the device near the fire, it looks to be an oversized propane tank. The liquid inside is yellow from the tint of the see-through shell, while the bottom half is pure metal with a vent outlying. Of course Paul muscles the thing to what he believes is the this-side-up way of setting it. “No, look at the directions, dammit Paul!” I yell. I look at the device closely. Broken English written backwards appears on the shell of it. One of two things is happening now- I can read alien, or the alien’s written language is that of backwards broken English.

Mind you at our moment of deciding which half is the bottom of the device, motherships are floating 400m overhead. Their lights bursting at the sight of earth’s surface dwellers, ready to colonize our cabin district, I fumble with the alien device and bump the top (or what I believe is the top) nozzle and it turns out of its own volition. It speaks to me where only I can hear it, Paul stands by. “Device now on, get ready for detonation” it murmurs. I hated the device now. We stored the damn thing from the last invasion, held onto it like a gun bestowed from Jesus in case the 2^nd coming were to arrive, and this is how it repays me- in a miscommunicative nozzle nudge that’s now going to take me along with it in its detonation. Born for one thing: to shoot a lazer skyward. For a moment, Paul and I stand next to the device, now pointing up at the motherships hovering above, and feel a sense of union.

Elizabeth Kubler-Ross said patients on their death bed have the profound ability to say “I love you” unfiltered with 100% compassion and presence. Living under the presumption you’ll live another day, confuses the words and intent. If it all went down tomorrow- fuck it, if it were to all go down in a few seconds I’d be able to look a few folks in the eye with undoubted contrition and say “I love you”.

Knowing we were about to go down with an alien laser cannon detonation, Paul and I didn’t say “I love you”, we just stared at the oversized-propane-tank looking device like it were a newly attached limb to our body- a necessary heart or artery soon to explode. We needed it, but it would be our undoing.

A yellow hue glows from the rim of the cannon. “You have 5 minutes” it murmurs in a female robotic tone of synthetic voice. The kumbaya moment shatters, Paul and I make a fucking break for it. He, one way; I, the other with my mother who was apparently somewhere nearby the entire time.

I run alongside my mom, who hobbles in stride with me. She’s keeping up amazingly well for the age of 60-something. Others, from the cabin district, scurry in our direction, passing us up, bumping into my mother.

Long jumping down a staircase, my mother and I are sprinting atop a portion of the cabin district made from wood bridges, pathways and steps. I easily adopted the underground Goblin Village from The Hobbit movie as the backdrop for this in the recess of my mind. Her leg goes through a faulty board while running down a staircase. People are in full sprint, now. The swarm of humans coast around us like flooding waters would a tree trunk. We’re stuck- well my mother is stuck.

It’s at this moment I realize the world is going to end.

Nothing is going to matter.

That damn device is going to fire off and take out at least one of the alien ships… but not enough to stop the rest of them from colonizing our planet.

The interstellar foreigners will whitewash our history from the galaxy, and not a single fucking thing will be remembered of the silly humans that thought they had a grasp on this thing called life and imperialism. We’ll be forgotten.

And that’s ok.

What isn’t ok, is if I leave my mother stuck in a floorboard before it all goes down. We’ll be forgotten, but I won’t forget this moment. I can make a break for it and suffer the world’s end for a few seconds more… alone, or I can suffer it a few seconds less  and help my mom up and try to keep up with the crowd.

I choose the latter. She springs up, almost damn near twice as fast than before, and we find shelter in a cabin on the edge of the district near a body of water.

…

I peer my eyes open to a room. My room. Sunlight bleeds through broken shades onto unopened boxes and comic books. The alien invasion is a dream. Possibly a reoccurring mind-fuck to remind me that nothing is promised, and someday you might have to tell someone you truly love them when the time isn’t called for.

When the apocalypse strikes, bless it, nothing is going to matter after it goes down.

However, for now, a few things matter to me.

The Ride Home With Roger

Reception to my T9-embarrassment phone in this basement bar is non-existent as the Vikings’ Super Bowl ring. It’s just not gonna happen right now. In the company of Mack, Francis, and Daniel, making crude comments to each other betwixt talking 90s baseball greats, out of the corner of my eye a man stumbled into a bar stool in the middle of the floor. I know this man, I’ve known this man, he’s visibly drunk. It wasn’t a pedestrian-passing move where it seemed his brain was cognitively avoiding the stool, it was a sliver of a second that his attention disregarded the presence of the chair. Not acknowledging an animate object in front of you is forgiveable when moving at a fast pace and an fng deer jumps out in front of your car, but this was plain-sight action that couldn’t be regarded as a mistake.

His next movements gather his balance, to which he then directs himself toward the nearest female. Whereas his face is smiling, the female’s is not. For a moment, I imagined the two knew each other and just now ran into each other after searching the bar for minutes on end. In reality, not my imagination, this is not to be. This woman clearly doesn’t know this man, and it is now clear that he’s blacked out.

Ahhhh yes, that region of the brain one has gone to upon over-consumption of booze, perhaps just one shot of tequila, or maybe just too little to eat paired with too much to drink.

What is intangible in this equation of 21+ adults, evening wear, peanut shells cracked about the bar floor, and spilled alcohol, is the bond I share with this blacked out gentlemen directing his solar plexus toward the nearest woman in sight- any woman in sight. Him and I were part of a fraternity in college, and aside from learning the cliché dos and don’ts of joining a house, you develop a connection beyond classmate- beyond brougham- beyond a friend… you bond with them as extended family. We can get into my entrance to a fraternity, later. Tis another story for another time, but nonetheless a good story.

So, as any brother to the house, I have to take care of this man and get him the fuck out of the bar ASAP… rocky. The first thing I make sure of is that he doesn’t get into a fight. If it comes to violence, I will undoubtedly throw down for him, but it’s the last thing anybody in here wants. I’ve seen this guy get brazen and it wouldn’t be pretty. Whereas most men talk until the fight comes to them, this man is the type to throw a hook at your buddy next to you, kick your other friend in the nuts, and then come after you. He’s a fighter, and nobody wants the tiger to get out of the cage in a basement bar.

“Roger, buddy, let’s get you outside.” I say to him, tugging on the underside of his elbow. “Hay hay! Let’s talk to these girls. C’mon, let’s-“ he turns his head to look at another girl, breaking his attention mid-sentence.

Now, racing to the bar’s entrance to exit to my car, where I can drive this man to his house, Roger paused at the sight of girl’s cleavage bursting into public eye. The damn things were calling more attention than a fire truck on the move. Roger places his hand on her back and smiles, she turns and giggles at the sight. Any longer, and the situation wouldn’t be funny. It was a novelty. She read the picture of a friend helping a friend to the door of the bar for reasons of belligerence bordering on the problematic.

“Roger, homestyle, we’re almost there. Keep up” I call to him. He paces away from the girl.

I pray now that every woman on our way to this exit is wearing a turtleneck. Any more cleavage and it’ll take more than me to get Roger out of here.

“Vwooosh” goes the entrance door as we barrel into the sidewalk from the bar. “Hahahahahaaaahahaa! You high yet homie?” Roger says. I can’t even understand the subject matter this man is inferring. We’ve now left the black out and are in the Twilight Zone. Beyond drunk, Roger’s mind is in a floating aquarium of random memory and impulse.

“Hey, how do I get to your house?” I ask Ned on the phone. Ned’s a mutual friend, and was hanging out with Roger earlier in the day before they all split up. Plus, Ned lives near uptown and would be an earshot away to drop off Roger and for me to get the f home. “Yeah, we’re near Hopkins” Ned answers. “Sweet Agatha Fng Christie” I thought to myself. “Ok, just text me the address, and I’ll be dropping Roger off in 15”.

Unable to imagine how far Hopkins was from where we were, I just began driving in the general direction. “Hahahahahaaaaa, man we high! You high yet?” Roger bantered. “Could really go for some food. I’m hungry. Hey… hey… Hahahaaaaaaa!”

The sheer ridiculousness of him made me snicker a bit. How can you not laugh at a grown man broken down to sporadic laughter and obscenity.

“Hey… hey…  remember her?” Roger toned down.

“Her who?” I said.

Roger then said a name that I have not heard for a damn long time.

“Yeah, I remember her.” I said.

“You know what… you know what, man?... She fuckin’ loved you… a lot” Roger said.

And right there, every memory, every story, all the colors of the past came rushing alongside my car as Roger and I steam rolled to Hopkins. The recollection of an ex-girlfriend, or someone speaking for them wrought the past up to speed with us on the highway. Along with the memory, came every reason why you had to part, why you had to move on, and why you love your life the way it is now. I could’ve thanked Roger, but he won’t remember this moment.

We coast to Ned’s. I drop him off to where he’ll wake up and wonder how he got there. They’ll tell him Toussaint brought you, but what they won’t tell him is that even in his state of blitzkrieg drunken madness, he was still able to recall a genuine feeling and share that with a friend… making the ride more than worth it.