The Last Time

The Last Time
It was a Saturday night, a good night for anything. Asheville was kind of warm, muggy, and breezy. It felt
the way it does out on the coast in the Spring when warm days give way to late-night hell storms. After
spending the previous night sleeping upright in the old Isuzu Trooper, I had slept most of the day. The
night before was full of plenty of sex, drugs and rock and roll. And drugs. There had been a party billed a
as “the Ridgecrest Revival; Molly’s Home! “. This meant, in a nutshell, that somewhere around a dozen
kegs of PBR, plenty of good weed, uppers and downers, a suitcase full of ecstasy, and a bunch of
fireworks were ours for the abusing. I personally entered the night with a great and diverse stash of
illegality. If I recall, I had a quarter ounce of really good pot and a new glass bowl to break in, six or
seven codeine derivatives, a scant handful of xanax, and a couple adderall. I was good, and oh yeah, a
half gallon of the area’s best home-made liquor.

As the night progressed some of us got high, and some of us got low. There were a few bands present
for the festivities. One of my favorites, Drug Money, was playing as I arrived, extremely poorly. This
came as a shock to me, as Fisher, the only guitarist, singer, and one half of the band intentionally played
in some strange D9 or 10 tuning so that “he could still play, no matter how shit-faced he got”, his words.
Once I had seen two minutes of his set I knew he was cooked on something, I figured barbiturates. As it
turns out, the kids had been slipping him the moonshine, and Fisher only drank beer, for good reason. I
was now watching that reason. Sometime after he finished his set I found him lying on the ground
underneath a pickup truck. I asked if I could help but he just wanted to ride it out, he would get a
second wind later. I even tried to play drums with another friend’s group, but that was a mess. I
distinctly remember the point at which I realized that my hands and feet were doing something other than what I wanted them to do, so I just got up, and stumbled towards the bonfire.

The night finished the next morning with a sun-up run to Denny’s followed by a vehicle to vehicle bottle
rocket fight through the streets of Black Mountain. After sleeping most of the regular day away, it was
time to rise and shine and crawl down to the bar to drink it off, and swap stories from the night before.
They had a great special at the bar. Bavaria or shots of John Power’s for two bucks. I think between the
booze, the billiards, and the juke box, I spent around sixty. By closing time the world felt alright again. I
was drunk, but I couldn’t help think that there was more out there for me that night. I stumbled up a
long and winding hill to The Interstate Motel, best $29- room in town. Rumor has it that Elvis once shot
out a TV in there, but I can’t see him ever having stayed in a dump like this one. The rooms, once yellow,
were now beige due to all the nicotine staining. The bathrooms were always a wreck, no soap, dead
roaches in the tub, no TV. None of this mattered though, there was always a great freak show right
outside. There were hustlers and hookers, other hapless drunks and homeless veterans cursing the
moon, and I was right in the middle of it, little red notebook in hand to record my night’s observations.
Generally speaking you should never open the door at a place like this unless you want trouble, it is far
wiser to just lay quietly and hope it goes away. Tonight however, I had a different spirit about it. I
wanted to be part of the freak show, or at least cop a little dope or cocaine with the last twenty I had in
pocket. Soon came a knock at the door. I opened it with the chain lock still in place and outside was a
very large man who said he had something for me. Seemed harmless enough, and again, I just wanted
more. Anything. Without going into detail, I was soon face down on a bed with a gun to my head. My
new friend had advantaged me. He wanted my ID, which I gave him. He said that his sister, a prostitute
(his words), had just been raped and I looked like the guy. He kept calling me David, said the guy’s name
was David. I showed him my ID to prove that I wasn’t him, but it wasn’t enough. The guy just kept
pacing with the steel, repeating over and over again “somebody’s getting’ blasted tonight! I mean, she
said you looked like him, and that’s my SISTER, and somebody gotta get blasted fuh dat!” I laid there,
face down on the stinking, beaten, bedspread, not thinking of much really. I thought of my mother
hearing the news, and how horrible her thoughts would be of me not only going, but going out like that,
in the filth of a $29- motel room, and probably looking drug related. This, and the fact that my youngest
brother was to be married in a couple of weeks. Damn. As I laid and thought a little more, and my would
be assailant seemed to be calming a bit, I thought of the only thing I could say. Rising drunkenly, slowly,
so as not to make any sudden moves I said it. “Smell my dick man, ain’t no pussy on me, I ain’t raped
nobody”. As he showed no interest in this, I began to feel like this was more of a shakedown than
anything. He did search me, and take my last twenty. He looked at my portable CD player as well, and I
said “come on man, not that too”, and he left it. Somewhere along the lines I offered my sympathies to
him for his sister’s misfortune, and a genuine hope that he would get the guy that did it, as I hate a
rapist, even of prostitutes. Soon thereafter cops began patrolling the area and he made his exit, hugging
me on the way out, like he had made a new friend. I just returned to my notebook and started
scribbling, glad to be alive.

A few nights later in a bar across town I sat and gulped whiskey and ate cigarettes amid a herd of cows
at another bar. They were having a discussion about the last time any of them had really been scared. I
had nothing to offer, just the obligatory responses to the kiddie pool and frat boy tales they spun. No
matter, I wasn’t going back to that motel on this night, or any other for a long while. It’s funny. When
you get robbed, threatened, knifed, you tend to look at the world a little differently, slightly more
distrusting, but not me. Not this time. I had just crammed two weeks worth of debauchery into two
nights, and I loved it, every bit. Sure, for a moment or two there I thought it would be the death of me,
but I came through okay. I would continue on that drunkard’s path for years to come. These days I
follow the straight and narrow, just celebrating illegally on rare occasions, but I know that someday,
when all has been said and done, the excess that I have loved my whole life will put me in my
grave.