The first time I ever got really drunk I saw the guts of a baby horse.\u00a0 It was at a county fair and something had gone horribly wrong.\u00a0 I was twelve, with my father.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s a horse inside that mess,\u201d my father said, pointing to a pile of goo and legs.\u00a0 He was drunk too, my father, and I knew from my mother that when he was drunk I should not believe anything he said.<\/p>\n
This though, this, I wholeheartedly believed.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
A few years later I ended up in detox and I told this story about the baby horse to my friend, Bandaid.\u00a0 Earlier in the night, Bandaid had slammed letter opener through his palm and now his blood tributaried down the sloped floor before disappearing into the drain in the middle of the room.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t want to sound hyperbolic,\u201d Bandaid said, pointing at his river of blood, \u201cbut that\u2019s a pretty good synopsis of our troubles right there, isn\u2019t it?\u201d<\/p>\n
The next time I ran into Bandaid, he was with an older lady.\u00a0 She was around seventy but had her gray hair up in pigtails.<\/p>\n
\u201cHorse meet Pigtails,\u201d Bandaid said.\u00a0 \u201cPigtails meet Horse.”<\/p>\n
At that point, Bandaid\u2019s car was still up on blocks in that parking lot across from the bar.\u00a0 The car\u2019s engine still worked, but the tires had gone missing. \u00a0After the bar closed, Bandaid and Pigtails and I went over there to warm up and I told my story about that baby horse again.\u00a0 Pigtails wanted to hear it, but Bandaid did not.\u00a0\u00a0 Every time I opened my mouth he revved the engine so I could not be heard.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou better stop that,\u201d I told him.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat happens if I don\u2019t?\u201d he asked.<\/p>\n
I\u2019d fought Bandaid a couple of times before, but this time I really messed him up. I ended up on top of him and even though I felt Pigtails trying to hold my arms back, my fists just kept going.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou broke his nose,\u201d Pigtails yelled when I finally stopped. \u201cAnd his ear is just hanging there.\u201d<\/p>\n
The next time I saw Bandaid was a couple of months later. His face was mostly healed, but his ear hung floppy, like an elephant\u2019s.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhy don\u2019t you hit me in the face a few times and we\u2019ll call it even,\u201d I told him.<\/p>\n
Bandaid\u2019s first punch nailed me in my jaw. The next one nailed me in the left eye. After I stood up and brushed myself off, Bandaid gave me a big hug.<\/p>\n
\u201cNow we can let those bygones be the way that bygones be,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
I remember that night as a particularly good one. It was the night that Boot Mouth slipped a mickey into Chet the Bartender\u2019s drink. After Chet passed out, Boot Mouth went around behind the bar and poured free drinks for everyone. We stomped our feet and threw our heads back and chanted Boot Mouth\u2019s name over and over, loud enough for the heavens to take note.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
“At that point, Bandaid\u2019s car was still up on blocks in that parking lot across from the bar.\u00a0 The car\u2019s engine still worked, but the tires had gone missing<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":10547,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8868","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-fiction","writer-john-jodzio"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8868","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8868"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8868\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17514,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8868\/revisions\/17514"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10547"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8868"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8868"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8868"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}