11.24.09
5:18pm
I spent last weekend in Lexington, MA at Drew's house celebrating Will's upcoming nuptials along with six of Will's fellow Harvardians.
It was exhausting.
Friday afternoon, I headed up to the Upper West Side to meet up with Chhay, ninja poet, who was to drive me and some others to Lexington that evening. After a bit, we were joined by Lorenzo, a passionate man, to say the least. We then set off in Chhay's car to retrieve one Steven Aponte, who knows girls who do NOT do anal. Once we had him, Chhay's stern, British road marm directed us, unfailingly, to Lexington.
The ride was enjoyable from start to finish; although I had only met Chhay once, maybe, and Lorenzo never, we bonded over such things are rap music, strippers and the lack thereof and 2 Girls, 1 Cup.
We arrived at Drew's home around 10:30 or so to find that Chema (a Chicago policeman) had already arrived.
Soon after we arrived, Matt (who was, for some reason, referred to as Satan) joined the party.
Between 11:00pm and 6:30am, we enjoyed some exquisite barbequed meat products procured by Drew, more than a case of beer, a modicum of tequila, most of a bottle of vodka, most of a bottle of grape juice, two huge cup cakes, dozens of gummy multi vitamins, a can of whipped cream and a hell of a lot of reminiscing and general insanity.
Some highlights involved sneaking into the basement where Steven snuck off to get a whopping four hours of sleep and covering him in whipped cream...twice (and photo documenting the whole operation), Lorenzo getting shot a staggering five times, twice in a row at one point, by Chhay, Chema and Chhay discussing morality and the ability to kill anyone legally at any time as long as you feel threatened by them and Lorenzo's AMAZING love, respect and alcohol fueled rants regarding Will. At one point, we sat and listened for a solid twenty minutes while Lorenzo pondered, out loud, why he didn't hate Will. Not only was he white, but apparently (although Will has no memory of this) Will would constantly bring home hideously ugly women, or "minotaurs" as Lorenzo categorized them. He understood that he liked Matt because he was a Jew (not actually sure he was), and me because I was some giant from Middle Earth but not why he liked Will. He then decided that, whatever the reason, he did not just like Will, he LOVED him, and wanted to groom him with his tongue, straightening Will's copious amounts of back hair into ordered lines.
He concluded this beautiful, insane rant with the sentence "I love him so much, I would suck all the come out of him and spit it on his face".
That, my friends, is love.
Soon after that, Lorenzo offered Will $20 to let him set his leg hair on fire. The deal was, if the fire consumed Will utterly, Lorenzo owed him $20. He then amended the deal to offering him $5 for just the arm hair. Will politely refused and we decided it was time to get to bed right after Chema asked Lorenzo if he really thought he hadn't brought his gun with him.
About two hours later, we woke up to ready ourselves for six hours of paintball.
Yes.
Steve and Drew were clocking in at about five or so hours of sleep, Chhay and Matt three, Will and I (who shared a room) about two and Lorenzo and Chema, maybe, an hour, if that. We ate some breakfast (and gummy multi vitamins), donned our layers and headed to the field.
I have never been paintballing before (something about having no depth perception, getting hurt and paying for it, you know?), but, after I applied fogger to my glasses and the visor of my mask, at least I was only limited by my non-existent skills.
As an aside, video game skills do NOT translate into real life skills.
Surprisingly, I didn't get hit that much, mostly thanks to my armor rather than my stealth ability. I took down two people, Chema on the knuckle (sorry Chema, if you knew me better you'd know that was the definition of dumb, blind luck) and Will, in several places. He and I were facing a Mexican standoff, both pinned down by each others' fire. With about a minute left in one particular round, the firing stopped and I heard the rapid rattling of paintballs in Will's ammo tube and knew that he was making a run for me. He rounded the corner of my tiny hideout firing and I met him in fashion. No one's genitals were maimed, but it was a close one.
After a few rounds of just the eight of us (Will's friend John had joined us for the paintballing), another, much larger bachelor party jumped in. I believe the correct term for them was"Massholes". Once they left, we ate pizza and then squared off against some serious paintballers (read: teenagers with no jobs or future in the real world) who, even outnumbered by us, handed us our asses.
In the last round against them, I suggested we charge them while our unarmed man whose goal is was to touch the enemy's cone ran around way on the right. The idea was accepted and carried out. The round lasted about forty five seconds.
We then returned to Drew's to shower and, in my case, sleep for forty minutes, before heading out for dinner, a comedy club and bar hopping.
I woke up, took some more vitamins and dressed. Soon after that, Selby Chen arrived and Will was presented with fulfillment of a years-old dream: an a cappella rendition of Dr. Dre's "Forgot About Dre" with Drew fielding Eminem's chorus. It was a thing of beauty. Every lull from this point on would be filled with some snippet of this performance. Then we walked to the bus station and took a pleasant bus then train ride to dinner. We enjoyed machos, buffalo strips and some pretty solid burgers. Then came the "comedy club". Sadly, it was improv. Bad improv. Clean improv. And that was my fault for not doing more research. At one point, they were asking for a wacky thing that one of the hilariously skilled and underappreciated actors could have as a character trait. In the clearest thespians voice I could muster I said "irritable bowel syndrome". Mr. Improv looked me right in the eye and, at that moment, made a conscious decision to stop talking to our half of the audience. I did what I could.
After that on stage abortion, we needed alcohol. We arrived at John Harvard's Bar and sat for a bit, drinking and cogitating and then made our way to Grendel's Den, which was surprisingly and pleasantly well lit, even for my stumbly ass. Halfway through my first cider (they had cider at the bars in Boston!!!), Lorenzo brings over a glass of amber liquid and says, "Fucking drink this now! Do it! put something special in it." Now, I've never been raped and, something told me that drinking this glass, handed to me by this man would be a great way to get it done. After a moment, a woman named Flannery came over and told me this was a drink that she had created last night. It consisted of Original Sin cider and Bushmill's whiskey. She had named it a Poor Life Decision. I took a few sips and understood why. Flannery stood at our table for a bit, flirting with Selby who flirted back by informing her that he could remove her skull (he's a neurosurgeon) and whatnot and then it was time for us to catch the last bus home. Since I wasn't going to finish my Poor Life Decision, Chhay helped me out by chugging it in about three seconds. Ninja poet. There may have been more shenanigans, if any of us had gotten more than five hours sleep last night, but we hadn't, so there weren't.
While waiting for the bus, I paid a Harvard graduate $50 to urinate in public.
And he did.
Without hesitation.
While he did, some woman with a kid blew a rape whistle.
We were on the bus for a while where I was told that Scorpio was behind Chhay's dick, astronomically speaking, and eventually ended up at the stop, a quarter mile or so from Drew's. We got off and someone began urinating into a nearby bush. Up to this point, Drew had taken all this debauchery with a smile (the ratio of forced to genuine fluctuated depending on circumstances, but it was always present), but, at this point, he raised his voice for the first and only time all weekend, yelling: "This is the suburbs, you can't just pee on the side of a building!" We returned to Drew's and, since there had been no tits, female, anyway, all weekend, we ordered a porn on Drew's 62 inch HDTV. It was called "10 Breasts #3" and featured NO money shots. After two and a half of the vignettes and a few vitamins, we all pretty much went to sleep for an amazing eight hours.
We woke, ate cereal and vitamins and set out to play some touch football before Will and Drew left for the Pats game and the rest of us headed home. I felt composed mostly of broken glass and was planning on just reffing the game but then realized that I know nothing of football, so I became the swing QB for both teams. I did very well, disregarding who was on which team and just throwing really great passes. I was sort of a freelance QB. Yeah. Eventually, John showed back up and then a kid who had been reffing, Noah, joined the game. No one was covering the kid so I passed him the ball twice in a row and gained major yards. He knew the game better than I ever would...and he was ten. After an hour or so with the pigskin (people call the football that, right?) we headed to Anna Tacqueria and enjoyed super burritos and excellent guacamole before finally saying our goodbyes and heading home.
I am still sore, but it's a good sore.
I haven't been this manly in years or maybe ever, and it was interesting to see what normal guys do on the weekend.
I might even go paintballing some time.
Sadly, the only thing missing from this event was Phil.
There were some things that I could only bear witness to and not participate in, but it was all worth it.
The most important thing to remember is that I paid a Harvard graduate $50 to urinate in public.
And he did it.
Without hesitation.
*"10,000 Men Of Harvard" begins to play,softly, in the background, as the lights slowly fade*
