Wednesday Night, Continued...

When we last left our heroes, the bouncers up the block were pointing us out as ne'er-do-wells. One of our foursome had dropped to his knees at the altar of alcohol. I was ready to throw in his towel, but his good friend, my roommate, was not. The problem being, after [A] got out of the cab, he took two sideways steps, bonked his head on wall, dropped to his knees, and ignoring our discussion about the future of our night, quite promptly puked. Strangely, this only seemed to intensify the interest of bouncers up the block. What to do?

Not to worry, [B], my roommate had a plan. Since we had been dropped off a block away, which put us in front of another pub (duh), we'll go in said pub via the back door, have a beer, come out the front door, and no one would be the wiser! Smashing!

First, he grabbed [A] by the shoulders and shouted at him: "steady yourself, man! I have a plan!" Amazingly, this seemed to work. [A] got up and stumbled with us towards the back door of the pub.

"Patrick, I'm feeling much better, but wouldya do me a favor and get me water instead of beer?" [A] said to me.

"Sure thing buddy." Apparently we were fast friends. As if I would let him drink more!

So, with more than minimal effort, we dragged [A] into the pub on the corner, called Sally Long's. Even this can't be done without incident, as some weird sensitive pony-tail man tried to give [A] a hard time about being plastered. I turn to tell "sensitive" to [something I would only write knowing my mom would never read it], but I stop myself short, knowing that I am a stranger in a strange land. Instead I feel quite impotent just giving him a harsh look. Not to worry though, as [C] filled in everything I was thinking and more. [C], like myself, is slight but also a bit wiry, and we stood shoulder to shoulder against this fool, which is a bit silly because said fool probably only weighed 125 pounds, but that's not the point. In that moment, we bonded, man. Truly. Especially when that little fruit turned tail and ran. Which he really did. It's the truth.

So we then turned our attention to Sally Long's. I found it a strange joint, inasmuch as it seemed to be a traditional Irish pub except for the fact that there was death metal playing. I am not making this up. On one hand was your regular clean-cut, short-haired Irish guys and gals tending bar, and your regular young American dudes and gals drinking. Then juxtapose them with ripping-fast guitar chords over guttural chanting lyrics. I will admit I sort of fancied it, and not just because it seemed to make [A]'s recovery tougher.

I excused myself to the toilets (back home we say "bathroom," but who are we kidding, we're using the toilet, not the bath). At Sally Long's they're labeled "Sallys" and "Longs." Even still, I used "Longs." What are they gonna do, measure?

When I got done reeling it in, the lads were ready to put our plan into action.

To be continued...