Issue 7: Drinking ’Er Away

Drinking 'Er Away

by Trevor D.

Last summer, after a rough break-up, I decided to do the right thing. No sitting at home and feeling sad. No calling friends to bitch about my misfortune. No. It was straight to a Tenderloin dive bar not thirty minutes after she pulled away. My plan was to drown my heartache with beer and hard liquor in the company of strangers. I picked a dark place with nothing but the basics: a bar, a pool table, and a jukebox. In short: The Nite Cap on O'Farrell Street.

"My girlfriend just moved out and I'm going to drink tonight until I don't remember anymore," I announced as I sat down at a barstool. The bartender, Steve, was the friendly type, meaning he spoke to me and poured me a drink instead of just scowling. Steve was more than happy to help me by selling me three dollar beers and whiskey sours for four-fity. The cheaper the better for these purposes. Bottoms up, yo!

A couple sitting down the way were definitive hipsters. I could tell by their bright mismatched thrift clothes and asymmetrical haircuts. Busy critiquing the world in the wish-we-were-cool manner, I could tell they spent most of their time at hipster bars in in the Mission. Not a huge crowd in the place: two TVs, a handful of Vietnam veterans, Steve the bartender, and these two bicycle culture love birds. It was a weeknight, and this was a neighborhood pub.

After a couple of beers and a shot, inner city inner dialog started taking over the ol' brain. Bitter thoughts of having to face single life again after a nice steady gig came at me like the tourettes you hear on every street corner in my neighborhood. "Gotta shut this bastard of a mind up with endless alcohol," my more sensible side kept interjecting. Talking loudly about random bullshit, I began to lull the other patrons into a sense of trust. One good thing was understood - the unspoken truth that these locals believed in tonight's goal of over-drinking and would be fully supportive.

"If a guy doesn't make me cum after the third time I sleep with him, it's over," I eavesdropped from the couple next to me. It was time to start engaging these urban art school gurus. "I mean the first time is cool, second time, ok... third time no thanks." Most of the conversation didn't matter, because it was pointless. The kind of thing where everyone acts sarcastic and uberpost- modern-street-graffiti-scholarly while not listening to each other. I kept overhearing, "I'm so over our scene" and stuff like that.

That being said, the girl looked like just a buddy of the guy, and she was especially cute with all the drinks in me. By the way she was looking at him, I could tell this dude obviously had not sealed a deal of his own with this lady yet. Time to start talking loudly to her. Besides a guy gets three strikes, right? Why not? Since I was recently single and because she was "looking for a new scene", she offered her digits. She wrote "Marie" and a 415 number down on one of the bar's badly designed Match.com coasters. It was meant to be for sho'.

Basking in the triumph of gaining a possible hook-up's number, I shared a joint among strangers smoking cigarettes outside the bar. In the Tenderloin, cigarette smokers often throw a form of meds into the mix. This IS California and the best shit REALLY IS everywhere. When the Police appeared a half block away, everyone simply ducked inside for more drinks.

From then on I don't remember clearly. Most likely, I started to black-out, and my keen survival instinct (or a quick shove) lead me back out to the sidewalk. It doesn't matter to me cuz I don't remember. I probably knocked over some newspaper vending machines along the way as well-a noisy way to non-violently relieve stress.¹

I woke up sitting on the couch the next morning with the door to my apartment wide open. Yes, I had found my way home; then I fell asleep sitting up on my couch. Mi Gato Blanco (My Mexican White Cat) was hanging out in the hallway on a different floor. I had come home totally trashed and the hang-over felt dry--like dying of thirst but with a strangely Zen-like quiet brain! That's why we drink ourselves stupid after the ex walks out. The temporary healing forgetfulness worked as well as expected.

In my pockets that morning, I found the romantic coaster, a lighter, a business card for the O'Farrell Theater, and a $15-20 bag of dark brown sort of sticky hash. The hash baggy must have come from the guys smoking in front of the bar, although I don't remember completing a purchase while coherent. I smoked it, of course, but a word to the wise: Don't ever take any drug you buy on the sidewalk in the T.L. Trust me it will be three parts dirty and only one part magical. Picking up the coaster, I dialed little Miss hot for drunk lonely me, Marie. "Hi. This is Ryan," said the masculine voice that picked up. "Please leave a message."

¹ EDITOR'S NOTE: Trevor doesn't remember this, but he called me in his drunken stupor and convinced me to come join him. Initially, I wasn't going to go because I was boycotting the Nite Cap at the time. (My friend Jedi Jenny used to work there as you can read all about in the next few pages.) But then Steve grabbed Trevor's phone and bribed me with a free drink, so I'm like what the hell, right? Far be it from me to refuse a free cocktail! When I got there Steve made me some weird apple martini type thing in a pint glass (still not sure what it was), and Trevor pretty much crawled home at that point. I stuck around and got hammered, and if I remember correctly not much else happened except that Steve told me I had a great ass. (Thanks, Steve!)

Anyway, the next day I was ranting and raving to my friend, Raj, about what a cool bartender Steve was, and he told me that Steve is apparently the infamous "guy who bit his dog." I made him repeat that a couple of times. What does that even mean, right? To make a long story short, I looked it up online, and it turns out he was arrested one time for literally biting his dog. I guess they were trying to get him for animal cruelty or something like that, but I ran into him at Edinburgh Castle a couple months ago and he said, "The dog bit me first," so there you have it.

As it turns out, supposedly Steve is also the guy who once called the SWAT team to show up at the Nite Cap on Xmas Eve. I know this sounds crazy, but Raj saw the whole thing from his apartment across the street. Our friend, Mike, lived upstairs at the time, so he was hanging out in the bar around closing time in his boxer shorts and a flashing Santa hat, and apparently, Steve called the police and told them there was someone with a gun in the bar. Then he left, of course. The way Mike tells it, they were hanging out drinking beer, and they hear the police outside on their megaphones shouting, "Come out with your hands up!" But why the hell would they think the police were talking to them, right? It's the Tenderloin. They figured it was a crackhead or a gang bust or something, and they turned off the lights and went back to drinking. They didn't figure out the police were talking to them until laser beams started flashing through the windows. It makes me wonder what the police thought was going on. Did they think it was a hostage situation? Who knows... The whole thing culminated in everyone coming out with their hands up and Mike laying face first on the sidewalk on O'Farrell Street in his boxer shorts and flashing Santa hat. How fucking ridiculous is that? (NO JOKE.)