Monthly Archives: June 2004

Not 'til the sun comes up

Saturday morning I woke up, head pounding, stomach churning. “Why do I do this to myself?” I wondered. I looked at my watch–11am. I felt like I could sleep for another 8 hours, and I probably should have, but I had too much stuff to do.

I left my truck at Kellie’s house on Friday night, I was way too drunk to drive. So now I’ve got to ride my mountain bike over to her house to get it. It’s already 90 degrees outside. I hadn’t drank enough water before leaving the house, so I’m really dehydrated. I can smell the booze coming out of my pores. I feel like shit, but starting to feel better due to the exercise.

All right, I’ve got my truck. I stop for lunch at Burger Hut–I love that place. The Silver Fox makes me go every time he’s in town, and I never complain. I think it’s the BBQ sauce, but whatever. It’s always the best burger I’ve ever had.

Scott is home watching the kids this weekend while his wife is in Monterrey. He calls me and begs me to come down for a BBQ. OK fine, I’ll drive down.

As I’m driving down highways 99 and 70 I notice that summer is definitely here. Everything has turned dead and brown. It’s breezy–I can see that from looking at the tops of the trees. A truck full of tomatoes has overturned and traffic has slowed down. A herd of cattle have gathered near the barbed wire fence on the side of the road, chewing their cud and watching the silly people drive by. I can’t resist. I stick my head out the window and yell, “MOOOOOOOOO!!!” as I pass.

Scott lives in Roseville, which is about 10 miles northeast of Sacramento. This is the new Yuppie-ville of Northern California. In the last 10 years I’ve watched all the empty fields and orchards, farmland and cattle land stripped bare and leveled. There is now a sea of identical tract-homes for as far as the eye can see. Where Scott and I used to go hunting is now a planned community. People zip in and out of traffic in their Cadillac Escalades and Jaguars. It feels a lot like SoCal now. I hate the changes to the area.

I finally get to Scott’s house–it’s about 80 miles from where I live in Chico, and takes about 90 minutes to drive down. It sure has been nice living this close to Scott these past two years. When I lived in Long Beach we were 8 hours away from each other. I was lucky to see him once a year. Now I see him all the time.
I walk up to the door and get ready to knock. Scott SWINGS the door open and thrusts an ice cold Coors Light into my hand.

“What’s up dude!? Thanks for coming! Oh, uh… don’t mind the mess.”

His three boys are playing on a mountain of toys in the front room. Tanner will be 9 next month, Carson is 3, and Colby just turned 2. It’s chaos. Scott lets them run wild when mom isn’t home.

“Welcome to Boy’s Town!” Scott says to me. Carson repeats, “BOY’S TOWN!”

Carson takes a toy away from Colby. Scott motions to me to watch them. Colby gets up, makes a running start, and bowls over Carson. The two of them fight over the toy, yelling and screaming and punch each other. Carson soon tires of the fight and walks away. Colby grabs his toy and returns to the front room, triumphant.

“You gotta let them solve their own problems.” Scott tells me.

So we sit around and bullshit and drink beer for the rest of the afternoon. Scott BBQs some London broil and some trout. After dinner we drink margaritas in his back yard.

Around midnight our friend Kurt, another railroader, shows up. He just got off a train from Dunsmuir–a run that usually takes 12 hours. He’s been up for 24 hours straight now. It’s midnight, it’s Saturday night, he’s tired. But he doesn’t feel like going home, so he comes over to hang out with us. The three of us stay up until 5am, drinking margaritas, and telling stories.

“If you wanna be a railroader, you gotta have stamina!” Scott tells me.

Kurt nods. “That’s right, we don’t start to get tired until the sun starts to come up.”

I think they’re both nuts, just like all the other railroaders I’ve met in the last 10 years. I think I’ll fit in nicely, don’t you? Discuss…

At 9am Scott’s kids get up and make way too much noise for me to sleep. I’ve only been asleep for 3 hours. I still feel drunk. Two nights in a row of hard boozing and I’m really feeling it. Scott is sitting in his recliner, arms folded above his head, and moaning. His kids are screaming and fighting and throwing shit around the house and running everywhere. I don’t know how he does it. I start the coffee.

I have a beer with breakfast. It goes down smooth and takes the edge off my hangover. After eating I start to feel pretty good. Scott and I sit around and drink coffee until about 1pm. Then I drive back to Chico.

And now I’m exhausted. All the boozing I did last week has hit me like a ton of bricks. I think I need to dry out for a bit. Hmmm…

Maybe I’ll just cut back a little. Maybe not.

The All-Stars

The All-Stars went out again tonight. We started off with lunch at the Sierra Nevada Brewery. After the best cup of clam chowder I’ve ever had and several pints I was suitably buzzed.

Janden and I spent the rest of the afternoon scouting out new dive bars in Chico. We even stopped by a couple of nice restaurants on the north end of town.

If you you’re ever in Chico, stop by the Basque Norte–they’ll treat you like family. Stewart, the owner and bartender is a very nice, friendly guy. AND he pours a wicked Sapphire and tonic.

Janden and I then met the rest of the All-Stars at Kellie’s house. We had some beers and walked down to the big O. We had a few more shots and pitchers of beer, then made our way over to Joe’s.

Janden flirted with the cocktail waitress, Deb-Deb, quite a bit tonight. This is the gal that The Silver Fox is completely in love with. He can’t stop talking about her. Seriously. She’s a fox, and she’s pretty damn cool. She did a few shots with us. We tipped her phat and she bought us a round.

I convinced Kellie to try Copenhagen. Like a true All-Star she rose to the challenge. She kept it in for a good five minutes. I was so proud of her.

Janden and I had one last round of shots. We finally did it. The REAL pirate shot. Janden has been talking about it for weeks now, and I finally gave in. Here’s what you do.

But a round of shots of the Captain. Drink it, gargle it, swish it around, and spit it back in the shot glass. Now switch glasses with your buddy. Don’t worry, the alcohol will kill any germs. Now you can shoot the rum. Feel your stomach churn. You’ve had way too many shots of rum. One more won’t hurt, will it?

Now it was 2am–we’ve been drinking since noon. Janden can barely walk and I’ve had enough. The All-Stars hit up Tacos de and call it a night.

We were all talking earlier this evening, discussing our boozing habits. Kellie hasn’t missed a day of booze in three weeks. Neither Janden or I can remember the last day we missed.

Do YOU have what it takes to be an All-Star?

The other night

Wednesday night was $1 pint night at the U-bar. So I walked downtown, hit the ATM, and called my boozer friends–Janden and Kellie, the Chico Boozer All-Stars.

“What’s up Janden? Come down to the U-bar and hang out and play pool on the ‘L’ shaped table and do shots with me.”

“Can we get fucked up?”

I laughed. “Sure!”

“I’m picking Kellie up, we’ll be down in a bit.”

I walked down the stairs to the basement of the old brick building where the U-bar was located. It was 90 degrees outside, but once I got downstairs it was nice and cool. I made my way to the bar and took a seat towards the end.

“Hi, can I get 3 pints of Coors Light please?”

The bartendress looked at me funny. “Who are the other two beers for?” I sensed that she wanted to check some ID’s.

“Oh, all three are for me. Observe.”

I slammed the first pint in three gulps, sighed a hearty sigh, and placed the ice cold empty pint on the counter. That was refreshing! The second beer took me a minute or so. Then I settled in with my third pint and waited for the Chico Boozer All-Stars.

My cell phone rings and it’s The Silver Fox. I knew he wasn’t coming up. I bet he’s drunk.

“WHAT’S UP DUDE! I’m sitting in my backyard drinking beer! I’m drunk! I wish I was up in Chico with you! I’ve been depressed all day. I need a trip. I’m coming up next week for sure! I can’t take it anymore, dude. I’m close. I’m close to snappin’!”

The All-Stars show up and we do some shots of Jager. ;alksfasdjf;alskdfja There was a time when Jager was my shot of choice, but now I can’t hardly stomach it. It wasn’t even that cold. It hurt. Janden is out of cash so he goes to the ATM. He comes back and orders us another round.

“Hey dude, did you know tonight is $1 pint night?”

“Yep! That’s why I took out fifty bucks!”

We play a few rounds of pool on the ‘L’ shaped table. I talk to a girl I know for a bit. Janden picks up a girl. Kellie’s friends show up. We all hang out and socialize and play pool. Kellie sneaks out without saying goodbye–she has school in the morning.

Many rounds of shots and beers later I am definitely drunk. I’m leaning up against the bar and trying to get the bartender’s attention. Janden has two girls with him. He makes his way over to me, and all four of us do some silly mixed shot. The girls drag us out of U-bar and we go to Riff Raff.

Inside the new bar Janden and I go straight to the bartender.

“You know what dude? I think I’ve had enough to drink.”

Janden puts his head down on the bar counter top. I order two tall glasses of ice water. Janden reaches out, and promptly knocks both glasses over, spilling ice cold water and ice cubes all over his shorts. Janden is wiping the ice cubes off his lap. I think we’re dangerously close to being kicked out. I suggest we go outside and smoke.

I get into an argument with the bouncer over why I hated the movie “Troy”. Janden sees the girl he was working on for a couple hours–the one that dragged us out of U-bar. She’s sitting in some guy’s lap, kissing and whispering. I feel that Janden is angry and ready to confront her, and I’d like to avoid making a scene, so I suggest that it’s time to go.

It’s only midnight. When I get home my neighbors are partying in our parking lot. They have one of those portable steel campfire thingies. Everybody is sitting in lawn chairs and passing around a bottle of the Captain, while drinking Coronas out of their ice chest. It’s not exactly camp fire weather, but it’s nice. They ask me to stay for a bit. I do.

Then I blacked out. See what the Captain does to you? I woke up this morning to the sounds of my neighbor cutting plywood with his SkilSaw. I’m still wearing all my clothes from last night. It’s 7am.

I jump out of bed and look for my shoes. Whew! Yeah baby! My head is pounding, and I’m giggling. I’m quite pleased with myself for not losing my shoes. I shut all the windows, crank up the AC, pound a gallon of water, and sleep until noon.