...In Which I Relive A Curative Narrative

The problem started around halfway down the bottle of absinthe.

It was not real absinthe, of course. Regardless of what you might have heard from various cowards about its mind-bending properties, the real stuff is rather pleasant. It is an excellent if expensive drunk when prepared properly. But this muck was the much more common Czech equivalent, alarmingly vivid mouthwash which is not so much a form of anisette as it is gustatory terrorism. After a first-rate bottle of Russian vodka, we were definitely slumming it in this neighbourhood.

But this night, The Russian didn’t care and neither did I. We had pickles, we had fresh olives, they could cut through the taste. We had the hearts and stomachs of men, they could handle the rather ridiculous 140-proof content. And what’s more, we were irritable young idiots with the desire to devolve ourselves with blasts of raw liquor.

Why, I don’t know. It had been a miserable time recently for both of us, we agreed. Terrible weather, general life drudgery, the absence of significant female companionship. I was in no mood for a quiet session. I am tired, pissed off and in general need of frying myself, came the mutual agreement.

But in any case, the problem... It is not an issue specific to The Russian. Many people drink and turn into muppets. But not many of them turn into Animal. One shot over the tipping point, one broken synapse fires and his evil brain says “DESTROY”. It has been other things before. This time it was his own house. He starts to pay particular attention to his chairs which are rapidly introduced to the walls, the floor and each other. It takes about four minutes to go from apartment to Reject Shop.

I find such situations very funny, because I have no idea how to react. Unless so savagely drunk that I barely possess basic motor skills, I can still retain ideas such as “empty bottles should not be thrown at passing police cars”. Previously, I had argued with The Russian that he had no such sense of proportion. He informed me that I was wrong. I informed him that the last time we walked out of a pub we vandalised a steamroller, stole a stack of fire extinguishers, trampled over a cyclone fence and managed to lose our bags in the 500m before I could throw his wretched corpse into a cab and that was a good enough indication.

I was right.

I had never seen an industrial fire hose in use before. They look fairly harmless coiled up, I suppose I had always imagined a fairly austere stream of water for garbage fires and the occasional minor prank.

That is, until The Russian tears one off the outside wall, brings it inside his own house and fires it off in the living room while yelling something about justice.

As it swats me arse over head like a giant fist, I wonder what effect the house being broken and soaked at 3am is having on the local populace. I don’t have to wonder long. As I take my clothes off (and The Russian is spraying cars in the street off his balcony) the phone rings. It’s the friendly local police. They are downstairs and badly desire to come up. They have had a report of “screaming and damage noises” coming from the apartment.

Cops at the door with report of possible domestic violence, in the middle of a government domestic violence campaign, on a long weekend. A visit to the apartment would be disastrous. I am half naked, everything is broken and wet, and The Russian is going grand mal on me destroying the environs. He would probably greet them with a blast of cold water and a long string of fucks. The prize for all of this behaviour begins at eviction and only goes up.

Fuck.

What would Dr. Gonzo do?

Lie convincingly, of course.

The four remaining neurons in my head plan quickly. I explain to the nice constable that coming up would be really quite unnecessary as it was some music that we had turned off hours ago. And he had got me out of bed. My friend likes loud music, horrible heavy metal, I explain.

A lot of intonation went into that one word, “friend”, and it immediately frames the situation. I am not a battered woman, I am a sleepy and confused fag. The horrible noise was music. The euphemism is perfect and everything fits.

But still Constable Care is sceptical and torn. He sounds unsure. Perhaps the radio call has been waiting to come through, he speculates. It is the long weekend, after all. He has had a busy night.

Ahh, an opening. One more fag card and I have lay-down misère. “We have some neighbours who don’t like us. I wish they’d just knock on the door and ask us to turn it down. Instead they wasted your time like this.”

Foregone conclusion, past tense. He doesn’t even realise he’s been dismissed. Off he toddles, happy as a clam, content that we are being victimised by evil gay-haters and goes to fight the good fight elsewhere.

The Russian has a moment of clarity, and his brain runs a search string: “WET APARTMENT”. It only just registers. He stumbles with the hose outside and starts to try and stuff it back in the holder.

I help.

And the door closes behind us.

Clarity hits hard in these situations. I suddenly realise that I am as drunk as Caligula, soaked to the bone and locked in the hallway of a security apartment building in my underwear in the middle of winter with a screaming bastard from the Caucuses who is now battering the keyless door. It was undoubtedly the neighbours, fuck their yuppie guts, who arranged the first visit from John Law and if he comes back a second time and sees inside the apartment he will immediately assume from the wreckage and debris that neither of us live there. He will also see the fact that we are both soaking wet and I am partially naked, and relations will go downhill from there.

So I do what anyone sensible would do – I take a nap. I lie down in the dead center of the corridor and pass out. I am kicked awake several minutes later and hear the door opening. The Russian has found a spare key somehow.

Safely inside once more, he now decides to fight me. I have to put him in a rear naked choke to get him to stop. He damn near passes out, laughs like a drain then announces loudly he is going out to beat up fags. And leaves again.

The world goes grey.

I wake up face down in the carpet. Sunlight streams through the windows for the first time in weeks. The apartment is dry. The chairs can be screwed back together. The Russian doesn’t remember a damn thing. Strangely, the fire hose is perfectly coiled as it once was.

We are alive, and there is one day of the long weekend left.

Beer.