One Saturday Night

          Surely, it was a mistake. Perhaps it was not a big mistake, or even a mediocre one—but a mistake nonetheless. I knew better and so did everyone else at the party that particular Saturday night. But…no…we thought it would be just a typical party. (Yeah, like we were in any condition at all to know that!)

              You know how it is to be young and carefree…or careless, I should say. I had rented my first house and it was out in the boonies. This was fine with us because we could party our asses off and not have some jerk next door call the cops and spoil our “fun”. It was a small, one bedroom house with a porch which ran the length of the entire front of the house. This particular porch was about five feet from ground level, with railings, a roof—everything. Funny to see that kind of porch on such a small house, but there it was painted white and everything.  Not only was that, from the porch steps there a concrete path that led around to the side of the house. There it branched off into a great patio. It was a nice place I kept lawn furniture and such out there because it was a great place to hang out during a summer day, since this area caught the most sun.

         Anyway, like I said before, that Saturday night there was a drunken party at my house. The music was blasting out every window and could be heard for miles.  The music, however, didn’t drown out our shouting, arguing, and gaiety that went with every get together at my house.

         Now I don’t know about you, but every person who has gotten sloppy, falling-down, drunk has at one time or another, fallen off the porch. How this happens is a mystery that only God, in His infinite knowledge, can know. This phenomenon occurs quite frequently when someone is plastered to the point where they don’t even know they have an asshole, much less that they are about to step backwards off a porch.

         On this particular night, the first victim of this injustice was a little jackass named Rory. This bonehead was so skinny he weighed 120lbs wet, and was the cheapest drunk on the planet. Two bottles of beer on the wall and he was wasted. This idiot had danced out to the porch on his toes to the wonderful sounds of his favorite death metal music, when he got just a bit too close to the railing.  He was doing what I like to call the “backward drunk stumble.” He was staring at us with this silly lopsided grin on his face tripping over his own feet while walking—or dancing--backwards! Before he could fall on his on his backside, which is what usually happens in situations such as this, he backed into the railing and flipped over backwards gymnast-style landing flat on his ass in the yard. As a wail of indignity and pain pierced the moist, midnight air, the rest of our plastered party staggered out on the porch to see what had become of the dumbass.

         You will never believe this, but as we were checking on Rory, Jefferson, another idiot, ran to the porch and for some reason did not stop. As a result of this, he made a perfect dive off the porch and landed face first in the azalea bushes. So now there are two drunken geniuses howling for Mommy and mercy from God in my front yard, one flopping about in the azalea bushes and the other one swearing he had broken his ass. Jefferson sat up after doing a few summersaults and looked stunned to be there and amazingly sober. His face was a mass of scratches and he had a mouthful of leaves and flowers, and they were also in his shaggy hair. He was shaking them out of hair as he was trying to spit out the leaves in his mouth.  I am sure he spit out a small rock or two along with some red flowers. He stood up and brushed himself off only to stumble backward and land right back into the bushes.

         “A-ha! Flower Boy!” Hollered Rory, staggering to his feet, the pain in his backside forgotten.

         “I’ll Flower Boy you!” Jefferson shot back. He struggled to his feet; he shook more leaves out of his hair, and then made off after Rory. Rory, staggered toward the patio on the side of the house with Jefferson stumbling hot on his heals—sobriety completely gone again. The rest of us—I don’t remember if there were three or four of us--followed them to see what happened next.

         They reached the patio and were stumbling around in circles, like two boxers who had went two rounds too many. Then Jefferson did what I like to call the “lawn chair stomped.” He somehow stumbled into a plastic lawn chair and his body was falling sideways. He was pushing this lawn chair he went and his legs were running sideways with the rest of his body. He bumped the grass at the end of the patio and did a terrific somersault over the chair and landed flat on his back in the grass.

         Rory went staggering toward him laughing, “Chair Boy! That chair just beat you--” As he was speaking, he stepped into a folding lounge chair and his foot had broken through the flimsy cheap plastic. He was comical as he was trying to walk with a lounge chair stuck around his ankle. He roared in confusion and anger as he reached to steady himself on a lawn chair. His arm plowed through the folding section between the seat and the back. He began doing what I like to call “the patio furniture dance.” He tripped and landed on his face flailing his arm with the chair stuck to it in the air. He is vainly trying to kick away the lounge chair. As he was doing this, he somehow manages to punch his other foot into another cheap lawn chair. Now he was doing the “bug on its back wiggle.”

         Jefferson had recovered and was laughing himself sill. Someone, I forgot who, had found a video camera and was merrily recording the proceedings. Rory was thrashing and screaming for God almighty, and while he did this, he just managed to get himself more and more tangled in the patio furniture. Finally, exhausted and defeated, he stopped fighting and began praying to himself. “Oh Lord, Mommy, Jesus, release me!” he cried—and I mean he cried!

         Jefferson was on his feet and walked toward us. He ultimately tripped over Rory and landed a perfect belly-flop on my patio. The party ended there, as this knocked him out cold. Even in our state, we were worried that he might be hurt, but I think he was more stunned than anything. We never found an injury anywhere on his head. Plus he was fine and dandy two days later. Two day later because every one of us had one hell of a headache the next day.

         As best as we could, we untangled Rory and treated his and Jefferson’s injuries as best as we could in our condition.  Eventually, everyone fell asleep or passed out somewhere on the living room floor.  There was never another party at that house, but we have had a wonderful time watching that video of Rory doing the “patio furniture dance” and Jefferson doing the “lawn chair stomp!”

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