St. Patty's

Tonight I had to stay at work until 7:45, the worst part about it is that I had hardly anything to do all day until 4:00pm. Surprisingly, I’m not as pissed about it as I expect myself to be. It happened, it’s over, whatever. The worse part about staying late is that asking for overtime is such a procedure and I’m never staying for my real boss, so I feel like I can’t ask for it. I’ve decided that on Monday I’m going to ask for a raise instead. I’m long overdue for one anyway.

Tonight is a quiet night. I’ve decided that it’s better to go out Thursday, Saturday, and Sunday than to go out Friday.

St. Patrick’s Day was a bit of a bust. All the Brooklyn kids stayed home. Too scared of the snow I guess. No drink specials to be found. Should have gone to the Irish Bar near here. They’ve got a fat black dog that lies under the pool table and nude photo hunt. If you’re really lucky you’ll meet a leprechaun-ish crazy woman who calls herself Sparkle.

St. Patrck’s day is a strange holiday anyway, this year it somehow seemed more noticeable that the whole holiday revolves around getting sloshed. It didn’t make me all that proud to be Irish.

I met an alcoholic Irshman once. We were in Amsterdam, staying in the same room at a hostel. He was traveling as a means to cure his alcoholism. He said he wanted to find a place where drinking wasn’t culture’s only means of socializing, but in every city he went to he always hunted out the Irish pub. In Amsterdam it wasn’t even a real Irish pub, some awful Hard Rock Café type place that happened to serve Irish breakfast. He said the breakfast was the reason he went, but then he’d always end up staying on to watch the soccer game, he’d have a pint and then another and pretty soon he’d been drinking all day.

He had caught a parasite in Budapest that fucked up his stomach and had him laid up for weeks. He’d been all gross and lost tons of weight. When I met him he wasn’t totally better yet, but he was still cute.

He invited me out one night and we got drunk together. That’s when he told me about his problem. It seemed like the worst thing about it was knowing. Knowing, and not wanting to drink all the time, but doing it anyway. I’d never met anyone so stuck.

Sitting at the bar with him, I was conflicted. By the time he told me he was an alcoholic we were already drunk. It was too late to go back, so we kept on drinking. I kept thinking, this is his problem, this very thing is what he shouldn’t be doing, but we were having the best time. It seemed so impossible any way, the problem was so much bigger than that one moment. I guess that’s how problems are, all those little moments added up.

He told me about some Native American girl he’d met who had a vision of him being hit by a car. It spooked him, the Irish really are superstitious—he was certain of his impending doom.

That night, after he drank me under the table, we walked back to the hostel. The streets were completely empty as we crossed back over the canals. All smooth cobblestones and black puddles. Such a quiet city. We lurched past the shadowy ally ways, burnt out neon signs. Just the two of us. I wanted him to kiss me. In the entranceway of the hostel he stopped to pet the cat and I waited, nervous and hopeful. But he didn’t do it. We climbed the stairs to the room and tip-toed in, so as not to disturb the gang of Germans or the bassoon player in the other bunks. I went to use the bathroom and when I came back he started joking with me, teasing me about something. He was sitting up halfway in his bed and I wanted to climb in with him, but I couldn’t do it. The way he was talking and leaning up out of bed, it was like he wanted an excuse to keep the conversation going, trying to draw me back again. I giggled at his teasing as I climbed into the top bunk, but really I didn’t get it. Why didn’t he kiss me when he had the chance? I settled into bed and passed out. Alone.

That was how it was meant to be. We were loners, me and all the boys I met in the hostel--the Irishman, the bassoon player, the artist, and the Canadian. We all moped around and drifted together, stoned and bored, after a few days I left Amsterdam and never saw any of them again.