And now, the continuation of the drunkest story ever told:
I was working on clearing the old head of cobwebs after only five hours of sleep (it having been a somewhat late night of sweatshop-style Parade Day t-shirt manufacturing) while the sound of beers being cracked open reverberated from downstairs, when the phone rang. I checked the clock again – found only minutes had elapsed – and couldn’t imagine who would call before that lazy ass sun got over the horizon.
“Erm,” I said by way of answering, “hello?”
“Hey.” It was my cousin, the Batman, unmistakably. The sound of that one syllable summed up his whole character. It was brusque, somewhat bitter (perhaps at the hour), and yet with slight cheer in it, as though hopeful that good times may be on the way. That was the Batman all right – looking for fun, but a little bent out of shape at the general process of living.
“How’s it going, Bats?” I asked. “Bit early, isn’t it?”
“What? Are you kidding?” he responded. “We haven’t gone to bed. I’m at the HoJo since last night, and Keith is getting his second wind for the fourth time since midnight. We’re playing quarters soon. What were you doing, sleeping? That’s weak!”
“No, no, Sarah just woke me up.”
“Well you better get your shit together, Chester, and get down here. There’s still some hummus, but it’s been sitting out for ten hours now, so I wouldn’t recommend eating it if you get here after, say, eleven. But that’s not gonna happen, right?” Batman’s question sounded threatening, as though if I didn’t get everyone in the car a.s.a.p. he might reach through the phone and slap my brains out, but I knew to be just a question nonetheless.
“I’ve got all these girls here who need to get ready,” I told him. “We might not even get down there before the parade starts.”
“You are a huge gaylord if you don’t.” The loud ruckus accompanying quarters being slammed off a table erupted on his end, and I could barely hear him tell me to hurry the hell up before the phone clicked and he was gone.
I wasn’t about to go downstairs yet, as I had no idea how many people I might find, and wasn’t really prepared for the kegs and eggs. In truth, we didn’t have any eggs, so it would have been more like kegs and Count Chocula, but still, I wasn’t interested.
Most years, drinking would begin the night before the parade, as a pre-game, tailgating overture to the big show that was the parade itself, despite the unlikelihood any of us would actually see it winding through the streets. The hotel wasn’t on the route, and once you start drinking going to watch the floats drive past at three miles an hour isn’t terribly exciting. You might catch a glimpse of it on the way to a bar or to grab a pretzel from a green festooned vendor, but that was about it.
This year we chose not to drink before Saturday, as I personally had been forced to miss a number of Parade Days over the years by going way overboard on the eve, turning the prologue into the story itself, and killing my day, which I would instead spend vomiting and feeling generally miserable.
Needless to say, I abandoned this idea of teetotalism almost as soon I conceived it.
It’s really tearing along now, isn’t it? Less than ten minutes have elapsed on Parade Day thus far, and there is no plot in sight! Can you possibly stick with it for the presumed Episode Three to follow? Has interest flagged to the point that the next part will need to be fraught with dick jokes? Find out in the onrushing perilous installment of this woefully regarded account of Scranton and Parade Day, likely entitled Get Thee to a Brewery!
