Kindred Spirits by Bananafish308 |
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Warning: The author has noted that this contains the highest level of language. 4th April 1981: 1:15 p.m. Spring Break! I'm finally free! A full week away from all the hassles: school, work -- and especially Mom and Dad. I'm on a bus right now grooving down I95 with seven buddies. Just passed the Washington DC area, on our way to Fort Lauderdale, Florida. It is a trip organized by my college, so we're talking about a busload of college kids just like ourselves, dying to let loose on spring break. We've heard all the stories about how wild Lauderdale gets for spring break -- well the city will never be the same when we're through. Gotta go now, before I miss the drinking games! 4th April 1981: 9:00 p.m. Just got done shotgunning two beers in a row. What a rush. Jimmy's the king when it comes to shotgunning, and no one can beat him, but I can give him a run for his money. To shotgun a beer, you hold a can of beer horizontally, and puncture a hole on the side of the can, near the bottom. You then put your mouth over the hole, turn the can upright, and open the can. The rush of air into the top of the can forces the beer rapidly down your throat. Been on the road now for about twelve hours and the monotony of such a long trip is beginning to set in. You're talking roughly 26 hours by bus from NYC to Lauderdale. When we first boarded the bus, the eight of us staked out a spot at the back of the bus, with our coolers of beer, and Johnny's trusty boombox. Now we realize that was probably a mistake, given the proximity to the bathroom. A few hours ago, the stench became noticeable, and it is getting progressively worse by the hour. At one rest stop, we bought a bunch of air fresheners, but the improvement has been dubious. The aroma of the air fresheners mixing with the odor from the bathroom creates a smell that the senses will not soon forget. It wasn't long before the bus split into factions -- us eight Long Islanders in the back of the bus, drinking beer and blasting rock music -- and a large contingent of Brooklyn boys in the front of the bus, blasting disco from an even larger boombox. The "competition" got a bit contentious at times, but the few times things seemed like they might escalate, cooler heads prevailed. Neil Young was blaring from the back of the bus. Mac and a couple of other guys were singing along with "Sugar Mountain." Man do I love that song, especially the lyrics: "...you can't be twenty, on Sugar Mountain, though you're thinking that you're leaving there too soon, you're leaving there to soon." Neil wrote this song when he was nineteen. Man can I relate. I turn twenty next March. Less than a year left on Sugar Mountain. It's going way too quick. 5th April 1981: 3:00 a.m. I had dozed off, and Cooper woke me. "You gotta hear this, man." Disoriented, I tried to focus on what he wanted me to hear. The rest of the guys had also fallen asleep after over twelve hours of drinking, and Johnny's boombox had fallen silent. The boombox of the disco boys in the front of the bus was still going strong, though. "Listen. A fuckin' disco version of "Have a Cigar," Cooper said, "That's fuckin' sacrilege." In my half-conscious state, I understood Coop's ire. What's the world coming to, when Pink Floyd can be turned into disco music? I looked at my passed out buddies. This was only the beginning, though. Six more days of this to come. I often wonder how eight kindred spirits such as us found each other. Each one of us with the same single-minded imperative to party non-stop. I have never stopped before to wonder what demons might be driving each one of my friends. I have enough of my own demons to contemplate -- both known and unknown. 7th April 1981 We arrived in Fort Lauderdale two days ago, in one piece, and checked into the Fort Lauderdale Hotel. What a dump. No wonder the package deal for the trip was so cheap. No worries, though. We knew we'd only be in the hotel to sleep a few hours each night. Worst thing about it, though, is that the ice machines are broken! In this Florida heat, we would go broke if we had to pay for ice to keep our coolers of beer cold. Things have a way of working themselves out, though. Later that day, we grabbed a cooler of beer and set out down the Fort Lauderdale strip. A few blocks down, we came to a luxurious Holiday Inn. It was beautiful. It had a rocking night club on the ground floor, and a very large outdoor pool and deck on the second floor. It was incredible, but no one paid any attention to who came and went, so we had complete access to the hotel and were able to hang out all we wanted. Best part about it, though, is that we discovered we could go down any hallway and use the ice machines that were meant as a courtesy for the guests. So our routine was established. When we're not actually hanging out at the Holiday Inn, we take turns making frequent trips to the hotel to fill our coolers with ice. We're having a rip, so far. Like every other normal, healthy American male that goes on spring break to Florida, meeting girls is our first priority. Pranking each other, though, is a close second. We have two rooms at our hotel, four of us in each room, and it has become a competition between the two rooms to see who can out-prank the other. Nothing is off limits. Yesterday, the guys from the other room managed to lift one of our room keys. When we were all out, a couple of them snuck back to our room and trashed everything. We returned the favor to them earlier today. They came back when we were in the midst of trashing their room, and a playful brawl ensued. In the process we broke one of the beds. As I said, nothing is off limits. When we are out dancing at the night club, if one of us starts talking to a girl, chances are that one of the others will go over to them and say the most embarrassing thing he can think of, to scare the girl off. 8th April 1981: 11:00 p.m. Today we took a road trip to Disney World. We figured we should at least spend a day doing the respectable, tame tourist thing. Actually, I thought it was pretty damn boring. Space Mountain was cool, though, and we went on it twice. To liven up an otherwise dull day, I asked the guys if they dared me to hit on Minnie Mouse. Of course, they did, so I ambled over to Minnie, exchanged a few words with her and returned to the guys. They asked me almost in unison what she said, and I said, "She said, 'no fucking way!'" That line, "She said, 'no fucking way,'" became a running joke the rest of the trip. 11th April, 1981: We're on the bus, on our way home. We are all out of money, and we ran out of beer, food and ice. All we have left are the remnants of a bottle of Seagrams rye, and a half-warm container of milk. We're in the home stretch, about an hour from the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge. We needed to have one final toast to put a cap on our week-long escapades, so we filled our cups with the remaining Seagrams and the warm milk, and it was bottoms up. Agh, back to school on Monday at 8:00 a.m. Economics class, of all things. At least I can tell Dr. St. James that we gave new meaning to "finding the equilibrium point." We discovered that it is the point at which you can keep the coolers fully stocked with beer and not run out of food.
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