Once again, Halloween rolls around and David and his buddies from the UK descend on NYC to partake in the spectacle this time of year. Because the subway really isn't a big enough showcase for the freaks during the rest of the year. When I woke up Sunday morning I seriously considered just staying in bed. It's been awhile since I had any sort of hangover, and I'm kind of a wimp. I finally cranked myself out of bed and hopped on the LIRR to meet the guys near ground zero. There was some general misunderstanding about the meeting time due to the fall time change and my train tardiness. The guys managed to find a bar in which to pass the afternoon until I arrived. They had been playing pool for about an hour and a half when I arrived.
Greetings were exchanged, and I figured we'd all head up towards SoHo and wander a bit until the parade started. I was wrong. Sean and Rob (David's friends) were playing a heated pool game against some random guy who was in the bar. At this point, we're dealing with a happy-shouty-patriotic drunk.
More pool is played. We learn that random drunk guy's name is Richard. We also learn (in between when he's shouting "we saved your asses in WWII" and "we kicked your asses in the Revolutionary War") that Richard is quite Richie, after winning $30,000 at Harrah's in Atlantic City a week or so ago. ALLEGEDLY! We also learn that Richie has been up since Friday. And he's been drunk the entire time.
This is the point where I realize we are now part of someone else's bender.
Richie really likes to talk. He's talking about Chicago, New York, his time on a farm, detassling, the south, how when he was in high school 15% of his class were African-Americans and how he could never beat them in sports, and how "rag-heads" all need to die. He's spouting off a load of bullshit at this point, and he becomes bigoted-barking drunk. We hadn't had our daily dose of hate speech, so with that out of the way the conversation switched to Richie's time in the marine corps. This is also a good time to tell you that he insisted on paying for all our drinks.
Richie had an interesting military career. He was in Virginia, Germany, Moscow, Lebanon, and somewhere I forget in Asia. ALLEGEDLY! He regailed us with stories of him jogging down a big street in Moscow in February in his gore-tex gear and the crowds parted to let him by. He told us about his time at the embassy and how his buddies got arrested one night because they decided it would be fun to steal a bunch of communist flags. Except for the part when they got arrested and sat in a Russian jail and missed roll call and then got sent back to their old unit. That unit was coincidentally the same unit that was in Beiruit, Lebanon when the Marine Corps barracks were bombed. And his friends died. Then Richie turned into weeping-sentimental-remorseful drunk. Seriously, he was crying and none of us could really relate on a personal level. He takes it one step further. Apparently the guys in his unit used to name each of the toilets and urinals after guys who died in combat. They all joked and told each other how much they wanted to have a urinal named after themselves. One day he walked into a bathroom and found his buddy's name on a plaque above the urinal he was using. Weeping progressed into crying, and at one point poor Richie almost punched a wall.
I'm wondering how the hell we are going to get ourselves out of this guy's reality warp. Miraculously, Sean and Rob steer the conversation toward the time when Richie got out of the military. Almost instantly, he was off on a story about how he convinced some girl to let him hit it doggy style in the bushes outside the Capitol. "So I'm fuckin' this chick, and lookin' at the dome of the Capitol and screamin' out 'Hell yeah, I love this country!'" ALLEGEDLY! And now we're back to happy-shouty-patriotic drunk.
At this point, we really do need to be heading to the parade if we're going to see anything. Sean convinces Richie to join us. The night promises to be more interesting that I expected.
We head toward the parade route, and Richie is way too drunk to walk the 15 blocks, so we decide the subway makes sense. When we near the subway station, a limo driver shouts out "I'll take you all to parade, $5 each". Richie orders us into the limo. I felt like we should be going to a wedding, this was a tackiest limo ever. And we're off uptown. First, we've got to pick up a six-pack. Next, we need an ATM. Then we need a toilet. Apparently, we're not getting to the parade on time.
I don't know what kind of convoluted route the limo driver used to get us to Sixth Ave. We finally got close and decided to walk. Richie, Rob and Sean watched about 5 minutes of parade and decided to find another bar. Whatever, we already missed the giant puppets. David and I watched the parade for about an hour and then met the other guys at the bar. Rich had now transformed into every-strangers-best-friend drunk. He also had plans to go to the Red Lion to see some "Rock and Roll MAN!".
Two blocks later, Richie is paying our cover charge to get into the Red Lion. On stage were two guys. The singer was dressed as an angel, and the guitarist was the devil. There was no drummer. We grab a table right in front. The band immediately seized on the fact that Rich was dressed in matching brown sweater, pants, and shoes. They dubbed him "Mr. Fall" and he appeased them by pretending to be a runway model. Now he's dancing-alone-crazy drunk for a while. He's also tipping the 2 guys on stage with $20s and requesting songs. He's requesting songs that they don't know. He doesn't care. We get some decent rock music for a while. He tips them another $20 and requests a Neil Young song which they don't know, so they substitute a semi-sad Neil Young song (the exact name of the song escapes me... maybe The One). Richie starts to cry again. Thankfully the band decides to not mention it, and changes gears to making fun of the evil bitch who stole the chairs they were using to hold their drinks. ALLEGEDLY!
A different drunken British guy named Pete decides to request a song which the band didn't know, and then refuses to get off stage, so the band mocks him openly. He comes back during the next song and flails about wildly to everyone's delight. Not to be outdone, Richie gets up and shakes it again. It's sad to say, but by now things really are starting to settle down. The band (which we didn't realize were just the opening act) plays Radiohead's Creep as the closer and I decide that I better head back home. Goodbyes, etc, and I literally jog to the subway station and manage to catch my train with 3 whole minutes to spare.