There we stood on the sidewalk, helpless, stupefied, as Kev spouted crimson from some kind of badly severed forehead artery. None of us had a cell phone, so we couldn't even call the EMTs. And the formerly meek populace of Minneapolis took its opportunity for revenge, mocking us -- mocking us! -- from their passing SUVs.
One yokel in a Hummer passed on some advice while speeding by. "Apply direct pressure!" he shouted. "In bed!!!"
So Kev died. He bled to death in our arms.
No no no. No, that didn't happen.
Actually, a helpful pedestrian gave Kev some Kleenex® brand tissue paper, which I'm sure made all the difference between slow, painful death and sweet, clinically depressed life.
But here's where the controversial part muscles its brawny controversy into the hotly controverted uhh thing. Although Kev clearly needed medical attention, he refused to go to the emergency room. Did we argue with him? Yes. Did we argue hard enough? That's the disputed issue. At any rate, he didn't go.
While Kev may be descended from royalty (I don't have the consanguinity data handy, but I think he's a shirttail relation of Prince), thankfully he's not a hemophiliac, so after a few minutes his head wound did clot, and he decided he just wanted to go home. So that's what we did. The bulk of the party took care of assisting Kev the rest of the way to the car; I took care of supporting Des, who at that point had just about lost all of his sea legs. I'm not a big guy, and 200-odd lbs. of liquid human ... yeah, I know ... poor STDPM.
Sure, we all suffered. Right. Kev suffered a three-inch gash to the forehead, and I suffered a beer headache and a stifling, mostly sleepless night on a futon, involuntarily bunked next to a snoring, night-terror-babbling ... brrr. Still shudder to remember it. I know it's wrong to be self-centered here, but please give me a break -- I'm a trained advocate, after all, and I'm my own best client.
Then the morning came, as such bastard ass fuckers always do (I'm not a morning person by any means), and Patton-slapped us, but hard. Kev, who's made of a lot stronger stuff than Dirt Moss, had to go to work, and put in, I think, about half a day. The rest of us, after coming to terms with our probable deep need for several twelve-step programs, had a pretty, believe it or not, pleasant day in a cafe near the Mississippi River, catching up on Paul Westerberg's doings in alternative newspapers and idle stuff like that. One of the papers had a review of a foreign movie -- it seemed kind of like a goofy Norwegian "Odd Couple" type picture -- that I made a mental note to try and remember to see if and when it came to Chicago -- or, more likely, to look for the DVD when it came out.
Anyway, after work, Kev decided he'd better see a doc after all. By then, of course, it was too late for stitches, and nothing could be done to prevent the inevitable big scar above his eyebrow. Not that it'll hurt his looks, the handsome devil. If anything, it should add some ruggedness to his boyish charm. "This one? This one I got in a duel with a Calabrese countess whose advances I spurned on a moonless night. Little did I know she had such prowess with a saber. Such beauty, so quick to anger," etc.
After we collected Kev from the hospital, we aimed to salvage some good times out of the rest of the visit, and just have a nice, trouble-free evening. But the visit had other ideas. I guess the visit just hated Kev. Maybe fate itself hates Kev -- he sometimes seems to think so. Do you know what Kev's birthday is? It's September 11. I remember talking to him in 2001, and he was pretty sure that the whole burgoo was specifically intended to wreck his birthday forever.
All right, nothing particularly horrible happened -- which is kind of a shame, from the perspective of this narrative, which depends on the "some horrible stuff happened, which we can all laugh about now" technique of storytelling -- but Kev's Girlfriend's car died, which was unpleasant enough. We'd gone out for pizza, which was decent, and a couple of us even had a Grain Belt or two as a hangover remedy. But after dinner ... that damn car ... rr, rr, rr ... rrrrr ... rr, rrrrr, rrr .... that damn car just wouldn't start. Maybe it didn't even make any rr sounds -- I can't remember. Maybe it just sat there like a useless fucker. At any rate, we were more or less stranded, and whatever plans we had (those I can't recall at all) were ruined.
So we took a walk to a nearby business district to look for something to do while maybe the car decided to fix itself by magic. And on the marquee of an old movie theater, there it was -- "Norwegian Comedy -- Elling." It was the movie I'd read about earlier in the day. And nothing could have been more beautifully Minnesota -- no place else in America are they going to pimp a comedy by touting its Norwegianness.
So we caught the flick, and it was great. And we took the bus back to Kev's place, and we all lived happily ever after. If scarred for life.
FIN
3 comments:
And you end with Elling. Perfeck! I would only, of course, add the parts starring me...my best line of the evening, in fact. As Kev's head gushed blood and Kev's GF started crying, I turned to comfort her with "Don't worry. It's worse than it looks." I'd meant, of course, to say something quite the opposite, about head wounds bleeding a lot, etc., but I only made her cry harder. So perhaps this is an asshole issue after all, and not a gender one.
Except that, while you were tossing and turning next to Des, I was out scouring the Twin Cities with Kev's GF for some Neosporin. And the hangover? Was killer. But no worse than I deserved.
Brilliant stuff, STDPM. What other dumb drunk stuff have we done? Could you write more posts about that?
Seriously, even if I'm not in them this time, I'd love more stories. You are the tale teller. I'm REALLY glad I didn't attempt this one, because it truly was yours to tell. Though other versions would be interesting. I, for one, would like to hear the other five versions. Does Des remember ANYTHING? What about Local Guy Adam--what's HIS take on the evening? How much dark fate can Kev inject into his own scarring? And what about me? Didn't I do something else stupid at some point?
Ahem. I think what I'm really trying to say, is, bravo, and, "this fucking shit takes great!"
"Tastes" I meant. Tastes! Goddamnit.
Well, gee, thanks FM. And thanks very much for adding those details -- there were too few FM lines in the story. I kind of had you cast in my mind as the "reasonable unreasonable" character, but I didn't really come up with any ways to flesh that out. Of course, I was the "reasonable-in-thought, but unreliable-in-action unreasonable" character -- I mean well, but you should probably pinch hit for me in a clutch situation with the game on the line.
Des was the drunken puppet, KG was slandered unforgiveably as the dour shrew. Adam was kind of a prop (and really only in there at all because his getting thrown out too demanded it), and Kev was ... I dunno what. Something something. It's all no fair.
Yeah, I had fun writing it, although hit haint been good for my bad habits. Anyway, shit, I have too many stories. They'll have to rattle out at some point.
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