It had been a long ass time since I had been to a bachelor
party.
But my good friend Angus Jr was getting married. It was a
union that I had been a trifle responsible in the genesis of- let’s just say the
original “meet and greet” involved copious
amounts of alcohol and the type of bar that hung bra’s from the ceiling and
bartendettes pouring shots of cheap crap down patron’s throats.
My kind of place.
Three years later, they’re gonna march down the aisle. Poor
bastards. But good on them, with any luck the world will end before they come
to that “Naked Lunch” moment. My bet is on them to survive and thrive in
matrimonial bliss. They're both really nice people.
Like I said… poor bastards.
So, despite the original plans for a batch-party blow-out,
made in an economy long since passed, of a weekend in Amsterdam or Vegas, the
decision made by the best man (a responsible sort- in other words, not
your humble narrator), decided on a pub crawl in the big city. Nice and
somewhat pedestrian.
The “group” was essentially split up into two factions… the
groom’s college era friends, and us “later” scumbag drunk reprobates. As your
humble narrator is nothing if not the devil on the shoulder of responsibility,
we quickly decided that we must “convince” the “nicer fellers” that certain
venues must be visited before the end of the evening. But, more importantly, I could NOT be the prime mover as I had led the prospective groom (and several other attendee's) into several of Satan's lairs on other occasions.
Luckily, prodigious intake of “ass juice”, Jamesons and bacon martini’s quickly made any potential conflict moot; and cabs were hailed and more lecherous impulses were addressed, both efficiently and expensively. One of my
former bandmates plying me with jagermeister was a generous, if deadly,
exhibition of “forgive and forget past transgressions” and much appreciated and
later regretted as I could barely find the subway.
Getting home after the sun had already rose, devoid of
money, afraid to check the credit card slips in my wallet and staggering, I fell onto my couch for some tortured and
drunken “sleep”.
I knew that we had
done right by the boy. His text to me: “you gave me the bachelor party I always
wanted”.
I was still hungover 2 days later.