Holiday reporting by Terrance Doyle

“How much?”

"85 bucks.”

“To go to a bar?”

“Yea.”

“Do you get free drinks?”

“No…but it’s a really cool bar.”

“Yea, fuck that man. You can count me out.”

Eighty-five dollars happened to be the most inexpensive of all of my potential city-based New Year celebratory options. Eighty-five dollars? Are you serious? For what? No live music. No free booze. Nothing. So I’d get to hangout with the pretty girls that wouldn’t talk to me while I was in high school and still wouldn’t talk to me now. An expensive rejection, I thought.

So instead of dishing out a near c-note to get in, another c-note for what must be the best Budweiser in the world, and my dignity on the dance floor, I opted to go home.

Ah, yes. Home. What could be better than spending the New Year in a townie bar with a bunch of townies?

Okay, that, on the most basic level, sounds depressing. But it wasn’t, I assure you all. Because after a few gins and a couple cigarettes, we (I was with two other friends jaded by the would be city New Year) were loose and ready to roll.

We saw Jenny. And we saw Tommy. And we saw Phil. And we saw Carl. And we saw Julio. And we saw Betsy.

We saw everyone.

And everyone saw us.

It was a feast of visibility.

And it was in no way depressing.

I saw Ms. (insert generic high school teacher’s name), and it was fantastic. She looked as good on New Year’s eve as she ever did in the classroom while I was a barely-post-pubescent boy praying that her skirt was too short or the cut of her jeans was too liberal.

“Hello, Ms. (insert generic high school teacher’s name). How have you been?” I asked.

“Terrence!” She seemed genuinely excited.

We hugged. She let go before I did.

“How have you been? Did you finish school?”

“Yes. I got an English degree.”

“I always knew you’d go to school for writing.”

By this point I’d had enough gin to pretend that she never taught me, and that I’d never sat behind a desk in her classroom.

“Well I always knew too. You know, you played a big part in that decision.”

“Which decision?”

“Me going to school for writing. I loved you—your class. I loved your class”

She was blushing. By god, it was fucking working!

“Oh, come on. You didn’t need me.”

“Yes I do, uh, did. Yes I did. Do you want to go have a cigarette?”

She hesitated, but then smiled the coyest smile ever smiled by a 45-year-old single mother of two.

“Sure.”

We disappeared into the cold and the dark and when we returned my friends were staring at me and saying things just loud enough to potentially embarrass me. I didn’t care.

It turned out that she had to get home though and I couldn’t come because her children were not accustomed to black Jeeps. It didn’t matter.

We went to another bar, at which there was a massive amount of free champagne that apparently no one else had seen. We drank most of it, our heads spun and we walked to someone’s house. I ran outside, puked in the snow and walked home.

The door to my house was locked, so I had to break in with my college ID. At least it still had a use. I got in, threw up in the bathroom again, got a call from a buddy, waited for him on the porch and went to another kid’s house.

“Fuckin’ ay!” screamed my friend!

“Yea man, fuckin’ ay.”

When we got to the last house I vomited on a white rug in the living room and pretended that I had discovered it.

“Hey man, someone puked on your rug.”

“Fuckin’ ay! I’m gonna kill the bastard!”

“Yea man, not cool.”

I went outside, smoked from a bong that was lying on the hood of a strange automobile, and walked home. I had to break in with my college ID. Still good for something. I passed out on the couch and when I woke up my cat was sitting on my head and I thought my dream was true because it felt like my head was gone. But I woke up and had my first cup of coffee in 2008.