Winter in Chicago is brutal and unrelenting and this winter was no different. But new years was coming on, so it gave us a chance to drink away the cold and try to forget the wind. There was a pre-new year's party going on downtown at Tommy Boredom's apartment. My friend Derrick was going to drive Mike and I down because he doesn't drink. Mike and Derrick swung by my place around 8 o'clock and I busted out the half bottle of Jameson that was leftover from before Christmas. I poured out two healthy doses of whisky and coke for Mike and myself and we sat around drinking and Derrick was showing off his new tattoo. "Yeah I saw the awesomest tattoo when I was getting this done," Derrick said, pointing at the heart with four arrows coming out of it that was concealed by his shirt sleeve. "There was this picture of two fists breaking barbed wire and bleeding ‘thug life' across the knuckles." "Dude, if you get that, I'll get my nipples pierced," said Mike. "Haha, you were going to do that anyways," I said. "So? It'd be funny to have pierced nipples, cause I could sit there in class and no one would know and it'd be funny." "But seriously, that tattoo was bad-ass. If you guys paid for it, I'd totally get it." Which of course was a lie, but it was still funny to think about Derrick having thug-life emblazoned across his stomach forever. "What was that tattoo that Tommy said he'd pay for if someone got?" I asked. "Oh, yeah. If you get shark pussy tattooed across your stomach in olde English, he said, he'd pay for it." "What-the-fuck?" said Mike. "That's craziness." The conversation kept going on about random joke tattoos that none of us would ever really get and the whisky kept flowing, and soon the bottle was dry. So we decided to hit the road and go rock that party. Mike and I both had about a quarter bottle of whisky in us, and I was feeling nice. The great thing about Mike, is that he falls into that category of people who are hilarious when they're fucked up. Most people are pretty blah drunks or a bit belligerent or whatever, but the more Mike drinks the funnier and funnier he gets. Which is why everyone always tries to get him drunk or high. We piled in Derrick's car and of course I was sitting in the back seat because I'm short and since it was Derrick's car, there was stuff all over the back seat. Thankfully Derrick is a vegetarian, so there was no month old fast food decaying back there, but there was pretty much everything else: cd's and cd cases, a couple of hooded sweatshirts, five or six empty Sprite bottles, a basketball I'd left in his car a few months before, some jumper cables, some school books, and just random papers. I cleared off as much as I could and burrowed into the back seat. It was snowing slightly, as we drove to get on the Eisenhower expressway. Derrick was continuing our long standing task of trying to convince Mike that Dillinger Four was an amazing band, so that's what we were listening to. They sat up front talking about various hardcore and metal bands that I really didn't care about, and I sat in the back looking out the window, while Dillinger Four was singing: Praise God, and pass the bottle of Beam/ Cause tonight I can't seem to say what I mean. The corporate offices and light industries on 25th avenue were passing us by. As the snow slowly fell the buildings sat there like the empty derelicts of a ghost town, a lost age. Don't know if I would even if I could, Amen./ Somehow this seems like borrowed time. The no parking signs and buildings and parked cars sped by and I picked up the basketball and rolled down the window. Pay it no mind everything is fine/ But sometimes I'd rather hear laughter/ While this whole place died. With a belligerent laugh, I climbed halfway out the window, basket ball in hand and threw it at a no parking sign. I missed horribly and the ball bounced off into the night. "Why the fuck did you do that?" came from Derrick. And Mike said, "Nice," in a drunken show of solidarity. "It's my basketball anyways, so who cares?" I rolled up the window to keep out the freezing Chicago night and we soon merged onto the Eisenhower, and were on our way downtown. Soon we arrived at Tommy's new apartment in Lincoln Park. We found parking only a block away or so, and Derrick parallel parked like a pro. I got up and looked at the sky. It was still snowing slightly and the sky was an orangish hue from the city lights reflecting off of the clouds and there were purple splotches from where the cloud cover broke. The reflected light kept everything partially lit in a very surreal way. Tommy's place was on the second floor so we climbed up a flight of stairs to get to his place. When we arrived at his door, two people we didn't know opened it and left, and I heard something about getting more beer. A heat wave hit us from the open door, which was a nice change from the cold outside. We walked in and saw a pile of coats on the bunk beds by the door. The place was packed and the one couch was full. We threw our coats on one of the bunk beds and looked around to see who we knew. The place was packed with various punk rock kids from around Chicago. Derrick and Mike are in a band, so they knew a good number of the people there. I on the other hand knew the guys they were in the band with, Tommy, and maybe five of the other thirty or forty people that were there. We squeezed our way through the crowd in the main room, noting that there was only one bathroom, and made our way to the kitchen in hopes that there was beer to be had, and perhaps some people I knew. We still hadn't seen Tommy, but we did find the fridge and inside were a few cases of the golden goodness called Pabst Blue Ribbon. I grabbed a beer and rejoiced, but Mike doesn't drink beer and was going to try and find Tommy and see if he had some whisky, when we both noticed this girl Katie, whom Derrick had been telling us about. We also saw that Derrick was on his way to talk to her because he didn't care about the PBR. About this time Tommy came out with his perfectly dyed black hair and tight faded jeans, saw Mike, and before Mike could ask about some whisky or say hi, Tommy said, "You and me are doing a shot of Fighting Cock." Now Fighting Cock's name alone would be enough reason to drink it, but it also happens to be pretty damn good stuff. It's spiced whisky, if you can imagine what that tastes like. Tommy pulled the Fighting Cock out of the freezer and a few shot glasses out of the cupboard. He poured himself, Mike, and me a shot. On the sight of shots two more people clamored to have some Fighting Cock. Ian staggered over forty ounce in hand and the singer from Mike's band, Dave, came on over. With shots in hand, we raised them to the toast of "Staying single, seeing double, and sleeping triple," and put them back. Things were going good. I downed my beer, grabbed another one, watched Mike do more shots, did a few more shots with him. Derrick left his girl to go mingle and this other guy who was like thirty started hitting on her. So Derrick got back and told Mike and I that we should run interference for him. So of course we said yes, and in our drunken and benevolent state we went into action. We discussed our plan of attack and the conversation went like this: "Dude, I'm drunk. This'll be funny," said Mike. "Hehe, yeah. Hey who is that guy?" "That's Scott Harmless." "Cool. Ok, here's what we should do. You go talk to Scott ‘cause you know him and I'll get Katie to do shots with me." What can I say, I'm a genius, not only we were going to run interference, we were going to get Derrick's lady friend drunk for him. So Mike and I ambled over. "What's up Scott?" "Hey Katie, you've got to do a shot with me." Keep in mind that I'd only met Katie once for about five minutes, but hey I must have been persuasive because off we went to go do some shots. Sadly the Fighting Cock was gone by that point but there was some rum that was pretty close to paint thinner, so we poured out a few shots of that. Mike upon seeing the shots decided that drinking more was far more important than talking to Scott and came over to join us. We put the shots back and Derrick came over, so I "had to go to the bathroom." Operation interference was a stellar success. Of course the next morning we would find out that the whole thing was more for Derrick's malicious, sober pleasure and was wholly unnecessary, but still Mike and I can take pride in our skills. After I returned from the bathroom to the kitchen, where I was stationed almost all night, everyone I was drinking with had dispersed, except for Derrick and Katie who were talking in a corner. The kitchen was my private roaming ground, where I missed some of the more entertaining events of the night, including the couch getting broken because someone leapt off the bunk beds onto it. But there was beer in the kitchen and I was content. It was time for me to mingle with random people. My friend Colin's younger brother came in from the main room for some more beer. It'd been about a year since I'd last seen him and he'd changed a lot. His hair was a bit shaggy and dyed black, he'd also gotten a few tattoos. I didn't recognize him at first, but he recognized me, so we got to talking. Todd had just broken up with his girlfriend, who also happened to be one of my other friend's little sisters. So we talked about random things like girls and if he was still rapping. Last time I'd seen him was at a concert that Mike and Derrick's band had played. They'd broken a string, so Todd got on stage to rap while they changed strings. Sadly, Todd's days as MC White Dick were over. I kept meeting random kids from Chicago which was cool. It was like I was part of the punk scene again, which is something that I hadn't felt like in years. I met these two kids who were brown bagging some crappy wine. We started talking punk rock and Chicago and passing the bottle of wine. A couple of swigs out of the bottle and I was feeling good. Here I was in Chicago, chilling out with good people, drinking, and generally having a good time. We started talking about drinking and the night in general and I started to chug the wine to show off because it was pretty bad wine and they were done with it (there was still PBR in the fridge that they could drink, after all). Everything slipped into place, and as the bad wine sped its way through my system, I felt like I owned the microcosm of the kitchen. The wine was done and I wandered off to go look for Mike. Mike was chilling out on Craig's bed with this kid Jason. The shots were catching up with Mike. I hadn't seen Jason in a while and I was getting there myself, so I laid down next to them on the bed. We all had our feet on the floor and our heads by the wall. "So what's up? How've you been?" "Not too bad. Just the usual, working and stuff. But I'm trying to build a studio in my basement," Jason said. "How about you?" "Not too much, just finishing up school. I'm almost done. It'll be nice to be done and back here, I think." "Nothing happens here. It's all the same," said Mike." "Yeah, but at least interesting shit happens here." "Blah. It's all work and drinking and I dunno…" "Yeah, but Mike, you at least have the city. I'm in the middle of cornfields…" "Actually, some crazy shit happened to me the other day," Jason said. "Right. So Mike, you remember that Christy girl I dated like three years ago?" Mike nods his head yes. "Yeah, so I ran into her the other day and we decided to go out to dinner just to catch up and stuff. It's not like we were going to get back together or anything though, just sort of for old time's sake and all that. So I got this gift certificate for any Lettuce Entertain You restaurant for Christmas, so we went to a pretty nice place. We had a bottle of wine and a couple of extra glasses. So about twenty minutes before we leave she goes to the bathroom. And this was the only time we were apart the whole night, which is important…" These two girls that I didn't know came into the room and interrupted Jason's story by asking him if he had any pot on him to sell. Jason told them that he quit dealing. They seemed pretty disappointed but they stayed and started talking to Jason. I'm drunk and staring off at the ceiling for a bit. Then before I knew it they're on Mike and Jason practically dry humping them. Mike says, "Ahhh. What are you doing? I'm drunk, get off me." Then as if on cue, she got up off Mike, and Mike stood up and started heaving into the garbage can in Tommy's room. Jason suddenly took more interest in Mike than the girl that was dry humping him and goes over to check out the situation. The girls were both pretty grossed out and annoyed by this point, so they left. Jason went to get Mike some water and I stayed to take care of him. Once Jason got back, I decided to leave. As I left Tommy's room I saw Derrick and Katie making out in the same corner they'd been in for the past few hours. I decided to go out to the porch and cool off a bit. Once on the porch, I broke down and had my first cigarette of the night. There were only a few other people on the tiny porch which overlooked an alley, another apartment building, and a few houses. Things were winding down at the party and the combination of wine, beer, and whisky wasn't doing me any favors. I was still managing to hold it together, but just barely and I was ready to go. I knew that wasn't going to happen for a bit though, because Mike was too ill for the drive back and Derrick was otherwise occupied. Luckily the alcohol and the heat of the party kept out the cold a bit, but I still started to shiver. It was maybe a fifteen foot drop onto the gravel and litter below. The other people on the porch went in and I overheard them saying something about it being time to go. And it was. There really wasn't anywhere left to go though, except home to sleep it off, but while this party was done, it didn't seem like enough. The night still needed more. The cold was finally getting to me and the Chicago winter wind picked up and screamed down the alley in a grotesque salute. I went back inside and looked out at the emptied kingdom of my kitchen with hollow eyes. No one was left. Derrick and Katie had gone off somewhere, so I was all alone. I sat down in the corner wishing someone was around, wishing that there was something else to do besides grab another PBR from the fridge. There wasn't so I slowly got up and opened the fridge. There were only three PBR's left, so I grabbed one and went back to my corner. I sat back down in the corner and choked down the PBR, waiting for something to change. Sometimes things actually happen when you wait because time keeps crunching on. As I was getting to the dregs, Derrick had found Mike and they were ready to go. So it was back to the Chicago night and back on the Eisenhower. Before I fell asleep on the way back, I remember Mike telling Derrick to put on Dillinger Four. We'd finally gotten to him after weeks of trying. I woke up as Derrick dropped Mike off. Derrick and I only live a few blocks away from each other so I told him, "Just take me to your house, I'll walk back from there." "You sure? It's freaking cold out." "Yeah, the walk'll do me good." We got to his house and it was off to the frozen streets. The cold wind whipped me on the short walk back, but it was okay, I wasn't that far away from a warm bed and a fitful drunken slumber. I pulled out another cigarette as my house approached and looked out at the sleeping street. The purplish-orange hue of the city sky started to fade to softer colors as the sun threatened to come up. When I arrived at my house I sat down on the front steps to smoke. The sun started to come up, the hangover started to kick in, and I became another day older.