The Perfect Night

By D.S Wills

There was a hacksaw on my floor when I woke up this morning. There was no blood on it, but I was never worried about that. I don’t think I would ever kill someone, at least not with a hacksaw. I’d use a knife or a gun. But to wake up hungover with little or no memory of the night before, and a hacksaw that you can’t remember acquiring, is pretty worrying. Where the hell would I get a hacksaw from? And why would I take a hacksaw? What the hell purpose is there for me to steal a hacksaw and take it home with me in a drunken stupor? Goddamn, I’m an idiot drunk.

I do stupid things when I’m drunk. I don’t get in fights or fall out with friends or fuck real ugly chicks. Well, actually I do fuck ugly chicks when I get the chance. But that’s not stupid. I never really regret that. No, when I’m drunk I steal doorbells and letterboxes; and I wander through car parks and gardens. Then I come home and lie about what I did. I exaggerate my adventures to whoever will listen. The next day I often remember what happened and tell the truth, but that bothers no one because we all talk shit when we’re drunk, don’t we? My door frame is plastered with doorbells or various shapes and sizes. I’ve woken up with them in my pockets many times. I think there is about twenty or thirty of them now. One day I’m going to get caught, but I can’t stop. When I’m drunk I guess I want to impress people or something, because it never occurs to me not to steal. One day I woke up with six doorbells, two wooden letter boxes, two signs and one glove. How the hell did I carry all this shit home with me? Everyone laughs about it and that’s cool. I guess that’s the reason I take these things, although the next day I don’t care. It’s really just a pain in the ass to get rid of my newly acquired possessions.

Sometimes I think about what I do. I mean, imagine waking up to find you have no doorbell. How pissed would you be? It’s not like stealing a car or anything, but there’s no doorbell insurance or a special police department dedicated to tracking down stolen doorbells. You have to go out and buy a new one, which is an unnecessary hassle and expense. I wouldn’t know where to buy a doorbell, never mind how much it costs. But then again, I’ve always had a thing about minor costs and inconveniences. Every since I was really young I’ve found it very upsetting when someone suffers a minor loss. I think it was when I accidentally burst someone’s pack of crisps and they couldn’t afford a new one. That tears me apart inside just thinking about it. It really does. But I’m a very different person when drunk, and a doorbell is just an achievement.

I imagine that the hacksaw I found by my bed was some sort of trophy of my night out. I probably stumbled across it and decided to carry it with me. I often find something when drunk and hold on to it until I get bored and lose it. Once I found a flower and carried it with me until I was rugby tackled over a wall and lost it, and then the inevitable revenge for my loss overtook my concerns with the loss in question. This hacksaw had probably been paraded around the city as I went on my usual journey. And this worries me.

No matter where I drink, I always follow a similar route home, as every drinking place is situated within a few miles of my flat, and one major road connects them all. I would have walked along this road with my hacksaw, passing drunks, and possibly police, every few minutes. But perhaps I had taken a slight detour through a quieter street running parallel to the usual one. Even so, someone must have seen me walking or running with a potentially lethal weapon, drunk off my face (as the saying goes) and probably shouting nonsense. I don’t mind that I might have scared a few people; I don’t care that I probably offended a few drunks; what I am bothered about is that many different people, in many different places, saw me and my hacksaw. I would have certainly been caught on CCTV as well. And if anyone claims that I threatened them with a lethal weapon, then dozens of witnesses could cause me much grief. I’m sure running with a hacksaw when drunk is a crime.

But it is never worth worrying about what you did when drunk. If I returned home with a hacksaw, then I must have made quite a surprising impression on my flatmates, and that is always good. They will probably tell this tale for years. My flatmates are all drunks as well and we never really judge a person on what they do when drunk, no matter how often they drink. Just last week a friend of ours broke a massive hole in our wall, then punched one of us in the face. But no one cares. Being drunk is like being in a movie or something. It’s not real. What happens when drunk, stays in the realm of drunkenness. You can’t get too offended by someone who is not fully in control of what they’re doing, and they will probably apologise when sober anyway, not that they need to. On maybe twenty different occasions I have trashed one of my flatmates’ rooms. And I mean really fucked the place up. But I just say “Sorry, I was wasted!” and all is forgiven and forgotten. The only catch is that this is a two-way street, and what goes around comes around. You can’t hold a drunken action against someone and expect them to forgive you. But if everyone is cool with the situation, then you’ll be alright. I just hope the police feel the same way.

But of course they don’t. I have only had to deal with the police on a few occasions when drunk. I find the best policy is to tell them what they want, even if that is a lie. They know you’re drunk and not the most reliable source, and if anything you say comes back to haunt you in sobriety, then just tell the police you lie when drunk and then apologise. On my birthday this year, I got really drunk, then went home and got stoned. One of our neighbours called the police, and I went to answer the door. “Who the fuck is doing drugs?” one office screamed at me. “I don’t know,” I replied. I then proceeded to explain, while propping myself up against the door as my legs no longer worked, that it was my birthday and I was wasted, so he should let me off. “If you’re going to smoke weed, cover the smell with fucking candles!” the same officer warned me after the other one took my name. Ignorance is better than lies or anger when dealing with the police. Remember that.

As I examined the hacksaw, which had no trace of blood, I could find no indication of origin. So I hid it amongst my socks. I figured that if the police came round to arrest me, perhaps they would overlook my sock drawer or something. I don’t know, I guess I was still drunk. One thing I did notice was the state of my jeans as they lay beside the saw, on the floor. Tar, mud and blood coated them thoroughly. After a brief moment of panic I remembered the blood was fake, and from my zombie fancy dress party outfit a week earlier. The tar and mud were innocent enough. I rarely wake up without some such stain on my clothes. The mud coated the bottom of my jeans and the tar at the top. I could work out that I had probably walked through a muddy puddle and sat on wet tar, though how these things happened on a dry night is one of those unexplainable drunken achievements. My wet shoes confirmed at least part of my theory.

I could find no other evidence in my room that would lead my to unravelling the mystery of the previous night. I considered myself lucky that I wake up in my own room everyday, as one of my flatmates, Drunky, rarely ever wakes up in his. My tendency is to walk home after a night’s drinking, unless of course I have a better offer, and regardless of detours and obstacles, I always return to my own bed. Drunky usually wakes up in someone else’s living room, or if he’s lucky, the floor of our own living room. I felt secure in waking up in my own bed, alone. Had I woken up in some strange place, with the hacksaw in my hand, I would have been pretty freaked. And while I’m drawing comparisons with Drunky, which is never a good thing, I should consider myself lucky that the morning in question was a rare event. I usually remember something about the night before. I usually remember a lot about the night before. Drunky, however, always has to ask. It is an almost daily occurrence to see Drunky stagger into the living room at three in the afternoon, hair a mess, kebab stained t-shirt, confused look on his face, and asking what the hell happened last night. I don’t drink as of ten as him, and when I do drink, I certainly don’t drink as much. Everyday Drunky appears and asks what happened. He spends half his day phoning people, asking them what happened. But he maintains he enjoys himself, even if he can’t remember doing so. Surprisingly often he will appear with massive bruises or cuts, and strange substances on his clothes. But he’s not the violent type. And neither am I. But that’s part of the problem. I keep my anger and rage caged up inside me, and sometimes when I’m drunk I feel that rage creeping up, trying to burst free, and one of these times it will. Will I be able to stop myself killing someone? Will I even remember doing so? The things I do when I’m drunk are so out of character for my sober self that I don’t know what I’m capable of. Drunky may get wasted and have adventures, but to be honest, he is incapable of doing anything extraordinary in the state he gets into.

So I stuck on my pair of crusty, blood-stained jeans and wandered downstairs. The hallway was covered with leaves and branches and mud. I was wearing my slippers as always, otherwise my feet would have been pierced by sticks and stuff. I was pretty sure a tree had been here last night, or at least part of a tree. However, as messy as the hall was, there was no actual tree there, and I could only hazard a guess at what happened. One or more of us must have brought a large part of a tree home with the intention of sticking it in Drunky’s room. That means Drunky will probably be pissed off when he wakes, as I remember yesterday he actually cleaned his room. The first in months, probably. I guess my hacksaw had something to do with this tree. I’d probably cut the bastard down last night. So many questions…

I wandered into the empty living room. It would be late afternoon before I’d see anyone most likely. The place was fucked. I mean it was a real shithole. Aside from the countless beer bottles, discarded pieces of food, dirty plates and glasses, the inevitable kebab boxes and general clutter, I noticed one thing: some cunt had written on our coffee table. It said ‘Scouse was here 20/11/05’. What a bastard. There was a football beside the table that had the same damn thing written on it over and over. Two things crept into my head. One, Scouse had been here, and given my memory extending to at least leaving the flat the previous night, he must have been here in the aftermath, post-drinking period. Two, it is really annoying when you are the victim of minor vandalism. I destroy things when drunk and think nothing of it, but when I wake up and my fucking coffee table is fucked… that sucks.

Another thing I noticed, and how I noticed this after the penned table is beyond me, was the unusual number of small coloured balls lying around. There were perhaps two hundred ball-pit style plastic balls littering the room. I was certain these had never been here before, therefore they were a product of the mysterious night. More questions entered my head. Where could someone have drunkenly acquired two hundred ball-pit balls in the middle of the night? Why would someone want two hundred ball-pit balls in the middle of the night? Ok, that’s a poor question. Everyone wants ball-pit balls when they’re drunk, but seriously, where could they possibly have come from? Man, this was way weirder than most drunken activities. Violence, stupidity and vandalism go hand-in-hand with alcohol, adventures and shenanigans too, but this was so strange. I could imagine being drunk and in this room. I wish could remember it for real, because that would have been sweet. I often think alcohol reduces us to children, the simple joys of life being more important than anything, greed and immaturity take hold of us, and stupidity sets in, there is a certain innocence to even the maddest drunk. Being wasted and surrounded by playthings would be bliss only on a par with sex and acid, or perhaps the first snow of winter when you were a child.

I gulped down some aspirins with water. The water exaggerated the taste of stale beer that plagues my mouth the morning after any amount of drink. Even one beer makes me feel sick upon waking up. Even if I only drink vodka, I can still taste beer in my mouth the next morning. Only water combines with the taste to form something like vomit and the pills I swallowed began to threaten me. ‘We’re coming back up, dude!’ So I grabbed a biscuit and that filled my mouth with a welcome chocolate taste, before the sick came back. Of course by this time I’d poured the water away and sat down amongst the balls, waiting for the numbing of painkillers to hug me back to health, or something like it.

I was up a little earlier than I usually wake. I often get up around one or two, and everyone else tends to rise around three or four. That means unless someone gets up earlier than usual, it will be ages before I unravel the mysteries of the previous night. Usually I remember the night before better than anyone, so I was relying my flatmates to tell me about the night for once. The position was surprisingly worrying for me. Normally I sit here waiting to discuss the night with someone, relishing the look on their face when I tell them the embarrassing things they did. But instead I had to wait until someone hopefully put me out of my misery. What if they came through and said, “Oh, so the police let you go, did they?” or “When are you due back at the police station?” Fuck, now I realise why I’m that bit more sensible than everyone else.

Then I remembered something. I never usually wake up with the memories of the night before even if I am to later remember them. Usually it is a few minutes after I wake, or a few hours later if I need something to remind me. I don’t know what made me remember, the memory just shot into my head like a bolt of lightning, quick and clear. I remembered standing at the bar waiting to buy a drink. Then I remembered I was waiting to buy two drinks. Why? My flatmate had bought me a drink earlier and I promised to buy him one back. “I’m wasted,” said a voice next to me. I turned and saw a very hot girl. I remembered the joy of hearing those words from that mouth, and even the next morning, sitting and looking back on the incident, I was excited. What happened next? One of my friends, I don’t remember which, saw the girl talking to me and gave me a nod, and I turned and tried to talk to this sexy, sexy girl. The previous night was really starting to improve in my mind. “I’m wasted,” I’m pretty sure she said once again. I cannot recall what I said to her, but I think I pretended to be more drunk than I really was, in some sort of half-assed attempt to make me more like her. She was clearly drunker than me, and had I been thinking properly I needn’t have done anything to impress her. I remembered her rubbing her breasts against my back and thinking it was fucking nice. She had big boobs. Then I watched her feebly trying to open her purse and look for money. At this stage I must have already ordered my two vodka-and-cokes, but my memory doesn’t allow that sort of thought process so I’m not sure exactly what was going on. Anyway, about the time I paid for my drinks, or got them, or something, the girl thrust her purse into my hands. I was aware that I was at a crowded bar with an obviously drunk woman, so I was reluctant to do anything. Had I been drunker I probably would have helped the girl rummage through her purse for money. “Credit cards!” she cried. “Get my credit cards! Take them!” Instead, I pressed her purse back into her hands and said, “I’ll get you a drink.” I gave her my friend’s drink and she took it. Such is the drunken mind that she instantly asked me to buy her friend a drink. “Fuck off!” I said, and walked away.

Sitting in my living room I suddenly had a feeling about the previous night. So far, this little tale of buying a girl a drink was my only memory, but I feel I understood more. I would never buy a girl a drink and walk away, as that is quite a privileged position for me. The girl is obliged to talk to you for a short time after you buy her a drink, and I sure as hell can’t afford to pass up time with a girl. However, I didn’t regret telling her to fuck off. Some part of me knew that last night went well. Some hidden memories within me tried to break into my conscious mind and scream out the wonderful truth about the night. But I was sure this truth did not involve this girl. Maybe some other girl was involved, but I doubt it. The previous night was about my flatmates and I going out together and having fun for the first time in ages. I was convinced we’d all enjoy a guys’ night out, and something told me that there were no girls involved beyond what I just explained. I just wished my memory extended a little further.

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