I woke up to the valley pulse – thumps of the skull. The standard morning after a Festivus night, here in this town. It’s a city, really, but it always seemed like small town noise, before I knew a lick of shit. After you mature, and life has kicked the hell out of you a bit; this place, in comparison to the other golden sprawls of this state, rides your blistering hangover, quite nicely.
Out the sliding door’s glass window, hung a dismally gray, flatland sky. I could barely see across the river in my hazy, hungover eyes. But I made out the capital building. On the hard-wood floor, my buddy, Shaz-dawg, who I grew up with, and my roommate, back then, on border-line-beaches, snoozed away his mental misery.
Music played rapturously, but not in euphoric motion – it was mechanical, and grinding; the kind you just start smashing to stop. Get drunk & get a grip, I thought. It was all I wanted, staggering to my feet; shoeless on one side like you wear on good nights and bad mornings.
I was ready to stomp the machinery, after cracking a fresh, icy, C-latte (Coors Light). I centered myself in a suit that looked better last night. It was still on, at least, but in pieces, and the tie was twisted around the flesh that encapsulated my skull.
Sips of the blue mountain aluminum, settled my brain. I was the only creature awake. I hated the sound and was about to kick to hell the machine, when Lazer chimed in from the balcony room of his loft, we were apparently in.
“Hey! Fuck dude! Don’t do that; I’ll turn the shit off!” He hollered down, and I didn’t care as long as the nuisance was handled – my version didn’t require a search.
I stared out the window, and admired the ole farm to mouth, government center. I reflected on last night’s Delta King Festivus – that the rest of us, who consumed party powder, couldn’t really remember. I saw a pile of leftover, fun powder on the table, and hit skull splitters till I equalized like Denzel.
Shaz-dawg garbled awake – alright, I’ll be honest, I tried to front load a beer bottle into his mouth, but that was only because Xmas eve was getting away, and we had beers to drink, and family experiences to survive with mind shattering hangovers.
Our buddy, Rugo, built like a slab of granite, and enough forehead to split one in two, emerged from whatever corner cave he claimed; bleary-eyed, buff, and bumbling from the nights previous
atrocities. “Doods…chill night…one for the books…should we start drinking?” he proposed.
“Way ahead of you,” I stated, and he seemed to approve of my actionable solutions.
Shaz-dawg, snarled, garbled, and sprung awake like a mean animal out of its precious slumber. We sipped commercialized frozen cans to numb our swollen mental matter, like icing a twisted ankle – you wrap hard ice for outside aches, and you drink bottle ice for interior aches. Cap-city, slowly buzzed to life. It felt nice in relation to our SoCal, frenzy of big city on the seaside mindsets – always a rush, and never a chance to register.
“Ahhhh, shit. I got to get out of here – and away – especially from you animals,” Shaz-dawg stammered.
“Then let’s get to going – I can only achieve worse, here,” I said, and slugged my beer like Stone Cold and demolished two rippers – I felt like paradise.
We said groggy farewells to Lazer and Rugo – shooting east. We gorged on quick breakfast burritos, talked about aspirations, anything to distract us from the notion that if we couldn’t be happy here, that out there, held no hope, and he dropped me off; on the G-Bay end of things, where foothills rose to mountains.
“Hell of night, bro-migo. I guess, we will black-out again, soon,” I said, behind gold-rimmed, Ric Flair shades, in the cracked passenger door.
“Whatever. Sure. I hate all my decisions, right now,” Shaz-dawg said quick like a shotgun. He sounded like a man with grievances; more of the sort that only he could answer.
“Don’t we all, amigo…don’t we all,” I said, because that was it, and there was nowhere to go with what can only be felt and never explained.
I popped in my parent’s front door. Our little, furious shit of a terrier; black & white spotted hound, Ripsi, greeted me. Her eyes swirled like a galactic nucleus – which was bizarre, her normal eyes were like a hunting shark’s rage.
My buzz dwindled, I needed a shower and a nap to set me right – energetic party drugs require fresh application or everything and the vessel dies like a flower deprived of sunlight, but we ain’t flowers and you suck shit up for the people you love.
I greeted the family. My lovely mother spun into an explanatory torrent; about the dog’s erratic
behavior – they almost put her down, because the dog was loopy with love, and I couldn’t blame them, I’m not used to that, and never quite know how to take it.
“Nico, I tell ya, her eyeballs were as big as saucers, and she was entranced by the ceiling; I figured she at rat poison, or something, and was hallucinating before she died,” momma said, and I chuckled; thinking the pooch was brave, going out like the author of her own world.
She was a strange, mean bitch of creature, most of the time; so, the unnatural description, which was difficult to grasp in my own fuzzy mental faculties, didn’t alarm me. I cracked a kitchen beer – a steady buzz for a person to remain steady, I thought – listening to my mother; she hammered out the details I missed, and the odd events that spiraled into a midnight run to the veterinary E.R.
Ripsi was doomed. They didn’t know what was wrong, and we all pull early cords when frantic. Luckily, the Doc on duty said, “give it a day; see if this diminishes, and she returns to normal.”
The behavior had been going on since 6 p.m., right after I left for the Festivus celebration on the Delta King, and by their accounts, it finally subsided. It was a heavy, wild, and outlandish story. I thought, what weird shit could the pooch have eaten in the backyard? I mean she has the glazy eyed happiness of a whopping hallucinogenic trip, but damn, what’s she munching on, out in that backyard, I’ll scavenge myself, since we are in the farm to melt capital of the state.
Later activities. I was depleted, and smelled of deviance, and I needed hot water and a quick 30-minute power nap. “Well, that’s unusual,” I said, “however, she seems giddy enough, now.” Then, Ripsi attacked my brothers pant-leg with veracity; he tried to fuck with her and she exhibited her normality with a vicious chomp. He screamed, “Oh fuck! I think she’s back to normal!”
I snickered, and we rarely waste time on the past when we instantaneously change in a moment. “Waddayaknow, it’s a regular Festivus miracle – the bitch lives,” mom uttered, and I ejected beer through my nostrils.
We hugged because it’s easier to laugh and love through uncertainty, than to get mad and grieve it. I went to shower, and in my childhood bedroom, I saw the shredded baggie, and crumbs of a pot-brownie; that if cut properly, could wreck three adult men. Ripsi had devoured the whole thing. I began to sweat, and didn’t know who I wanted to be.
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About
Nicholas Viglietti is a writer from Sacramento, CA. He rebuilt houses on the gulf coast, after Katrina, for two years. He’s lived like a bear, out on a trail crew in the rocky mountains. He rode a bicycle from Sac-Town to S.D. He’s partying on his seventh life, and he tries to sling beautiful sentences.
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