Disorderly and Drunk: In the Name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Vomit, Amen.
The day I puked in church as a drunk teenager, and the surreal sleepwalk that followed
The first time I remember drinking beer is like the old story: on a summer day when I was nine and my dad and I were doing yardwork. After he finished mowing the lawn and I finished trimming, we sat on the edge of the porch, and he gave me a sip of his ice-cold beer.
I thought it was disgusting. Why do people drink beer?
When I was 15, I found out for myself that it's not the taste, it's what alcohol does to your biosystem that's the point. That was the night my friend's big brother used his fake ID to buy a 12-pack of Miller High Life bottles, and we drank most of them at midnight on the 14th hole of the Pinehurst Country Club Golf Course.
My first buzz.
I didn't drink enough to make myself sick, and the experience was grand. I laughed a lot.
Since then, the number of times that I have been [drunk, falling down drunk, puking drunk, dancing on the roof drunk, partying drunk—drunk driving; drunk skating; climbing a three-story building drunk—drunk with fireworks—drunk with a .38 Special, taking turns shooting a payphone in a campsite across the highway from Bandimere Speedway] have all blurred into a long, often loud, crazy, dream. Everything listed, I've done more than once, except shooting a phone with a snub-nosed pistol.
Don't worry, Dedicated Readers of Life. And Scoreboards, we'll tackle each one of these "Disorderly and Drunk" stories right here in due time. Today, our story is about the day after: one of my first hangovers. So cute. And it happened on a Sunday morning.
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I try to avoid toilet stories when I write but since this vomiting did not take place in a bathroom, we've authorized the publication of this true story. I'm sorry.
There were just six months remaining before the end of high school for good, and I was out with my regular group of friends, about to rip into another Saturday night across the Southwest Denver Metro Area. There were four of us in the car and the first stop before hitting the first party was, of course, to get beer. The sun has already set behind the mountains and it will be completely dark soon.
I had a grand total of three dollars on me and didn't want to bum money off my friends again. While they were in buying beer, I found a bottle of cherry Amoretto sitting on the top of a newspaper box next to a trash can outside of the Kum and Go convenience store. It resembled a genie bottle. I grabbed it. It was practically new. The seal was broken, but nothing was poured out. Someone opened it, and then just sat it on top of the newspaper box. It was almost as if someone wanted to drink it, but left it there by accident and so, there was nothing wrong with it. At least that's what I told myself so it wouldn't be quite as disgusting when I took it.
"Does this have booze in it?" I asked my friends.
They all shrugged their shoulders. I eventually found the alcohol content on the label and it was over 20% alcohol, a bit of a bump higher than our normal 3.2% beer. I considered the lucky find to be more efficient: I wouldn't have to drink so much to get to party-level drunkenness. It was a sweet, red elixir that sort of made me gag the first time I took a small test swig. It was a full bottle of free booze. Since I was broke, that was a compelling reason to stick with it, no matter how gross it tasted.
Another little swig. Not as much of a gag reflex. I guess I can get used to this.
"JD, do you want a beer?"
"Nah." I hold up the bottle of cherry Amoretto. "This'll work."
We cruised around the 'hood, met up with more friends in the McDonalds parking lot, and got details about a high school party not far away.
I was in the back of the car drinking my genie bottle of red stuff. The memories of the night start to shift out of phase. The party was a blur. I remember us driving fast in the car at one point. Vague memories of doing a toast in the dimly lit stall of a carwash at 2:00 AM. We might have thrown lit firecrackers out the window. Eventually I ended up at home, took a piss, and fell face-first into my bed fully clothed.
One more successful Saturday night in the books.
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Bright and early the next morning, my mom woke me up for church. I was sixteen and she still forced me to go on Sunday mornings. But this would be the last time she did that.
I had the first worst hangover of my life, and I begged her not to make me go.
I remember hearing the words, "Young Man" in her response somewhere, confirming this was a losing battle. So I complied. Besides, I was already dressed.
And you threw up in church?
Actually, they were renovating the ceiling of Notre Dame Catholic Church proper so they were doing all the church services in the gym for a couple months, an added perk of having a Catholic school connected to the church. Dozens of rows of folding chairs, fifty seats wide across the bulk of the giant gymnasium floor.
My dad never went to church, but my mom and my two younger brothers made up my Sunday morning entourage.
We walked in. I had tunnel vision and a fever.
I sit in a folding chair in the middle of a row next to my two little brothers and my mom. We wait.
These hot, bright lights are baking me in my seat.
The alter boy rings the bells. Everyone is supposed to stand up when the bells ring. They do; I can't. But my mom glares at me. So I stand up.
If my night of drinking free cherry Amoretto combined cosmically with my early morning Bataan Church March to create a vomit explosive, standing up was equivalent to lighting the fuse.
It wouldn't be long now.
Everyone is standing, mumbling the same shit in unison all around me as I began to sway back and forth just a little bit. I felt hot all morning, but now a bead of sweat rolls down the side of my head. And then another down my forehead and into my eyes. I reach up and wipe the sweat off my face. The perspiration coming off the back of my head makes my scalp itch. There's a build-up of saliva in my mouth. I don't want to swallow it, but there’s too much and I have to. Now I'm really sweating.
Suddenly, my body heaves forward from the gut. A dry heave. Nothing comes out of me, but I do have to swallow a little bit of something that rose up in the back of my throat.
Davey is standing next to me and looks up at me just as my stomach compresses and I jerk forward again. Nothing comes out. But I fucking know this is a sinking ship, and one from which I cannot escape.
The third time my body lurches forward, I open both hands and press one on top of the other hard against my mouth, but it doesn't suppress the firehose. Vomit bursts out, most of it ricocheting downward. But gravity cannot protect the suit jacket of the guy standing in front of me because my fingers have actually been more of a sprinkler for the vomit than a cork for my mouth-hole. I was so glad he did not notice.
The next thing I see is a handful of Kleenex that my mom draws from her purse like a pistol and holds in front of my face. I grab it and press it on top of my face like another layer of white cotton on a war wound that quickly turns red with blood, only mine is quickly turning green with puke.
I turn to the right and walk past Davey, then my mom, then my youngest brother, Ronnie. I continue down the aisle trying not to step on people's feet. The sea of parishioners part, as if I was Moses instead of a still-drunk 16-year-old. I don't think I dripped much as I slowly navigated down my pew. Still mumbling prayers, everyone does their best to give me space until I reach the end of the row.
The lights are bright and the wooden basketball flooring is shiny. I squint as I walk across it towards the only thing my eyes can focus on, a door that reads EXIT above it.
Still holding the Kleenex to my face, I jam the bar across the door with my other hand, flinging it open.
The exit leads to a stairway that goes down. I follow it down to a door and open it. I am walking down a hallway, admiring children's artwork taped to the walls.
I am in the Notre Dame Catholic School now. It is November and the school children have made turkeys by tracing around their hands on colorful sheets of construction paper. Since it's Sunday, there is no school. The lights are dim as I stroll down the deserted halls critiquing the Thanksgiving Day artwork.
What the hell is wrong with Todd? I wonder. The turkey with his name next to it had a thumb that was twice the size of the other fingers. Somebody was pretty sloppy tracing their hand, Todd.
I find a bathroom and lean into the door. I have to turn on the light, but I am finally in a place where I can get myself together again. At last: I open my mouth and let the remaining vomit out. The toilet beneath me is designed for 1st-graders, only about 12 inches off the floor. I ponder if this is the first time anyone has ever vomited into it. Kids get sick too, but I bet theirs isn't bright green.
Even though the cherry Amoretto was a deep red, the vomit is light green, practically fluorescent green, like Gatorade, only syrupy. I tell myself that I will never tell anyone what it looks like because it is too disgusting.
I use lots of water from the tiny sink on my face and hands and dab my clothes with paper towels until I am less vomity. I leave the children's bathroom, sit on the raised floor under the row of coatracks outside the nearest classroom, and close my eyes for a while. I can't go out to the car because it is locked. My mom has the keys. I don't want to walk back into that goddamn gym again. So I just sat there for a while.
Jesus Christ, Kimberly, what's wrong with your turkey? Both eyes are on the same side of his fucking head. What, you think you're Picasso?
After a half hour, I walked slowly up the stairs, like a mummy, and peered through the small square window in the door that led back out to the gym. It looked like the 8:30 mass was finally wrapping up. When it was over and people were walking out, I went through the doors and blended in with my entourage again.
"Are you okay? Where were you?" my mom asked.
"I was in a bathroom."
On the way home, I told Davey if he ever went out drinking with his friends when he gets older, do not drink cherry Amoretto.
I felt it was my duty as the eldest sibling to relay that valuable information to him, complete with the live performance of why not to.
THE END_