Saturday morning I woke up, head pounding, stomach churning. “Why do I do this to myself?” I wondered. I looked at my watch–11am. I felt like I could sleep for another 8 hours, and I probably should have, but I had too much stuff to do.
I left my truck at Kellie’s house on Friday night, I was way too drunk to drive. So now I’ve got to ride my mountain bike over to her house to get it. It’s already 90 degrees outside. I hadn’t drank enough water before leaving the house, so I’m really dehydrated. I can smell the booze coming out of my pores. I feel like shit, but starting to feel better due to the exercise.
All right, I’ve got my truck. I stop for lunch at Burger Hut–I love that place. The Silver Fox makes me go every time he’s in town, and I never complain. I think it’s the BBQ sauce, but whatever. It’s always the best burger I’ve ever had.
Scott is home watching the kids this weekend while his wife is in Monterrey. He calls me and begs me to come down for a BBQ. OK fine, I’ll drive down.
As I’m driving down highways 99 and 70 I notice that summer is definitely here. Everything has turned dead and brown. It’s breezy–I can see that from looking at the tops of the trees. A truck full of tomatoes has overturned and traffic has slowed down. A herd of cattle have gathered near the barbed wire fence on the side of the road, chewing their cud and watching the silly people drive by. I can’t resist. I stick my head out the window and yell, “MOOOOOOOOO!!!” as I pass.
Scott lives in Roseville, which is about 10 miles northeast of Sacramento. This is the new Yuppie-ville of Northern California. In the last 10 years I’ve watched all the empty fields and orchards, farmland and cattle land stripped bare and leveled. There is now a sea of identical tract-homes for as far as the eye can see. Where Scott and I used to go hunting is now a planned community. People zip in and out of traffic in their Cadillac Escalades and Jaguars. It feels a lot like SoCal now. I hate the changes to the area.
I finally get to Scott’s house–it’s about 80 miles from where I live in Chico, and takes about 90 minutes to drive down. It sure has been nice living this close to Scott these past two years. When I lived in Long Beach we were 8 hours away from each other. I was lucky to see him once a year. Now I see him all the time.
I walk up to the door and get ready to knock. Scott SWINGS the door open and thrusts an ice cold Coors Light into my hand.
“What’s up dude!? Thanks for coming! Oh, uh… don’t mind the mess.”
His three boys are playing on a mountain of toys in the front room. Tanner will be 9 next month, Carson is 3, and Colby just turned 2. It’s chaos. Scott lets them run wild when mom isn’t home.
“Welcome to Boy’s Town!” Scott says to me. Carson repeats, “BOY’S TOWN!”
Carson takes a toy away from Colby. Scott motions to me to watch them. Colby gets up, makes a running start, and bowls over Carson. The two of them fight over the toy, yelling and screaming and punch each other. Carson soon tires of the fight and walks away. Colby grabs his toy and returns to the front room, triumphant.
“You gotta let them solve their own problems.” Scott tells me.
So we sit around and bullshit and drink beer for the rest of the afternoon. Scott BBQs some London broil and some trout. After dinner we drink margaritas in his back yard.
Around midnight our friend Kurt, another railroader, shows up. He just got off a train from Dunsmuir–a run that usually takes 12 hours. He’s been up for 24 hours straight now. It’s midnight, it’s Saturday night, he’s tired. But he doesn’t feel like going home, so he comes over to hang out with us. The three of us stay up until 5am, drinking margaritas, and telling stories.
“If you wanna be a railroader, you gotta have stamina!” Scott tells me.
Kurt nods. “That’s right, we don’t start to get tired until the sun starts to come up.”
I think they’re both nuts, just like all the other railroaders I’ve met in the last 10 years. I think I’ll fit in nicely, don’t you? Discuss…
At 9am Scott’s kids get up and make way too much noise for me to sleep. I’ve only been asleep for 3 hours. I still feel drunk. Two nights in a row of hard boozing and I’m really feeling it. Scott is sitting in his recliner, arms folded above his head, and moaning. His kids are screaming and fighting and throwing shit around the house and running everywhere. I don’t know how he does it. I start the coffee.
I have a beer with breakfast. It goes down smooth and takes the edge off my hangover. After eating I start to feel pretty good. Scott and I sit around and drink coffee until about 1pm. Then I drive back to Chico.
And now I’m exhausted. All the boozing I did last week has hit me like a ton of bricks. I think I need to dry out for a bit. Hmmm…
Maybe I’ll just cut back a little. Maybe not.