In The Tower

In the Tower

We were walking towards downtown with no direction. The three of us are looking for something to do. Some excitement to get into. Misguided youths in the bodies of men, we were unstoppable. Bobby was big, 6 foot 6 inches and a slim 190 lbs. and had a mean right hook. Lorenzo was the opposite, 5'7" and built like a brick shit house with a cinder block for ahead. At 230 lbs, Lorenzo was tough to move. I was in between, 6 feet tall and about 200 lbs. and just along for the ride. Quite frankly, I was able to be a voice of reason on many occasions when the other two were about to get into something stupid.

This night we were on a mission. How do we party without any money or booze or weed? Walking down the main drag Bobby straightens up. He was attempting to see something over the Saturday night hustle and bustle of the street.

"Yo, C.J.!" Bobby shouts out down the block.

I stick my neck up and see that our buddy C.J. is stepping out of the 24 hr. pharmacy on the corner.

"Sup, my man?" I can hear as he only acknowledges Bobby's head looming over everybody else's. He really has no clue that Lorenzo and I are in the crowd.

As we get closer, the crowd opens a straight path to C.J.

"Whazzzzzzzzup Lorenzo?" Whazzzzzup Homes? Emulating the characters from the Budweiser commercials of the mid-2000s.

"All is good, my man. What you got going on tonight?" I respond as Lorenzo lifts his chin in C.J.'s direction.

C.J. was the guy that always had something going. Always some semblance of a plan, hustle, or scheme, whether it was Daddy's credit card or selling bootleg CD's, C.J. was forever on a mission to get money or get High. Tonight was our lucky night. C.J., short for Christopher-Joseph, was already flush and had scored. Moreso, he was willing to share.

"Come over here." C.J. steps around the corner. "check these out." he says. From his pocket, he produces an old silver cigarette case that was ornately detailed. He opens the lid. Inside is one white, square piece of paper in a plastic bag. The paper square was perforated into nine smaller, equally sized squares. Each of the nine smaller squares was emblazoned with an elephant's head and trunk silhouette in purple.

"You guys want some of these?" he says

"What are those?" Bobby stretches out his fingers to touch the cigarette case, making C.J. retract.

"Acid man," Lorenzo says under his breath as he glances over his shoulders to make sure no one is listening. "like the kind that makes you see purple elephants. Where's you get those?"

"Never mind where I got them. You guys interested?"

"Oh yeah, we're interested," I immediately chime in.

C.J. had done well for himself that day playing middle man to a deal he did not get into the particulars of. We borrowed one hundred dollars from him. We promptly let the white paper purple elephant tabs dissolve under our tongues, and we got 2 cases of beer and three packages of cigarettes from the liquor store. We were walking towards downtown again. Destinationless with anticipation. Waiting for the festivities to commence.

"You feel anything?" Bobby says.

"I think I feel something," I state as I look upwards by only moving my eyes. As if it would make me feel something I wasn't previously feeling. Searching for a feeling.

Lorenzo chuckles a little like an old veteran would and says, " will you two shut up and wait,"

Lorenzo was a little older than us. He had experienced his first ride of the purple elephant a few years earlier.

We had managed to find our way to the top of the south tower of a 30 story Hotel and Convention Center. We had been here before. Drinking and smoking. Looking over the city as it shone its electric shine on the night sky. We were feeling something. Thirty-Six beers were now empty. Time seemed to trickle by. Everything was funny. We laughed so hard I puked. We laughed so hard we cried. The conversations were endless, seamless, and everchanging, a river of words riddled with hysterics.

We decided to leave our perch. Hotel Security was no longer a concern as we wandered the floors loudly and carelessly. Hotel guests looked at us first with concern for their safety and then relief as they realized we were not concerned with them.

An elevator door opens, festive party-goers disembark. Shiny plastic Tiaras, colorful boas, and paper horns adorned with streamers send my mind for a whirl, " Hey! Where's the party?" I muster to say between waves of color emanating from the party attire.

"Bottom floor in the convention center, it looks like you could use it," comes through the mob of elevator riders in a wave of pink and yellow.

Her cryptic message was way beyond comprehension at this time. Far beyond speculation and forgotten by the time we hit the convention center button on the elevator panel.

"Gooooooiiiing Dooooown," Bobby says in his best impression of a mid-century bell-hop. The elevator erupts with laughter. If anyone were listening at that moment, they would not understand why we laughed so hard. It wasn't funny. To listen to our laughter, you would think Eddy Murphy just finished a set.

The elevator doors open into a dimly lit foyer. There are several doors on all sides leading to large conference rooms. There is music playing loudly. People are mingling, engaging, talking, and dancing. Hundreds and hundreds of people are all having the time of their lives.

We converge in a huddle. We come out of the huddle with a plan. Finding the bar is the plan. The 40 dollars remaining from the hundred C.J loaned us will be good for at least two pitchers of beer. We embark and roam the dimly lit halls. There are tables with food laid out and bottles of water on every one of them. We search high and low. We find the coat-check room. We find the washrooms. We even came across the entrance to the kitchen for the whole hotel. When we opened it, the men and women in white coats just scowled, and we laughed and closed the door. I finally came up with the bright idea of asking a fellow party-goer where the bar is. I search out the first person of appropriate age that might Identify with me and connect with me enough to make sense of what they are saying through the waves of light in my mind and vibrating sound in my body. I spot her and walk swiftly over to her but not swift enough to make it awkward or stalker-like,

"Excuse me?" I say while trying to gain control of myself and try not to look as disheveled as I feel. "Can you tell me where the bar is?"

She laughs in response. Not as if I was comical or cute, but the kind of laugh you would associate with pity and concern. I look at her inquisitively while my mind zooms around the room on wavelengths and strands of music and light.

"Don't you know where you are?" She inquires.

I stare at her blankly.

"Oh honey, this is the annual assembly for the city's alcoholics anonymous groups."

My mind goes blank. I turn away and return to my two brethren defeated.

Unable to explain until later, I usher them out of the hotel.

My mind is absorbed with the sheer audacity of karma and how she would put a staunch reminder of my negative lifestyle choices in my face so fervently while I was mid-high and feeling fly with my two best friends.