Drifting

Saturday night. Like most nights during our mid-twenties, it was a drinking night. We sat outside our favorite bar, an Indian restaurant called Electric Lotus, enjoying the warm summer evening as we sipped our cold drinks.

Joining me was my good friend Sergey. We had a routine of sorts, get drunk at the Lotus, get sober at the adjacent 7-11, buy a Hot Pocket and drive to his apartment, split it in his driveway as we complained about women, before heading home to do it all over again the next day.

This particular day I was in a bad mood. The day had been hot and awful, with Pasadena, where I worked, generally being about ten degrees hotter than the rest of Los Angeles on any given day. The sun was excessive, and my job often included long drives to pick up hard to get car parts, leaving a beautiful red burn on my forearm which had been hanging out the window.

Additionally, there was a birthday party. I did not want to go to this party. In fact it was the last thing I wanted to do. The party was at Hop Louie, a restaurant and bar we frequented with regularity in Chinatown, which is why Sergey and I were drinking in Los Feliz.

Sergey took a sip of his vodka gimlet then asked, “Should we go to Chinatown?”

I had neither the desire nor the inclination to go and said as much. About an hour later a phone call came. Sergey answered, then passed it to me.

The voice on the other end yelling “Where are you?”

“We’re drinking at the Lotus,” I replied.

“Are you coming?”

“I don’t think so.”

What followed was a stream of curses, a demand to come, and a very abrupt end to the call. So we got into my car, an early 90’s Toyota Tercel, and made our way toward Chinatown.

The drive took about fifteen minutes. Parking, surprisingly, was easy, with a spot on Hill street open right in front of the plaza where the bar was.

Sergey and I stepped into the crowd of people filling the tiny bar space. The music from the jukebox was blasting, making conversation difficult, but not impossible.

Squeezing between some party goers, we ordered our drinks and drank them quickly, with a follow up order following. The second was finished just as quickly. With the third set of drinks in hand, we made our way to the main table.

There she was.

Amanda. The birthday girl. Surrounded by her friends. Laughing. She saw me and gave me a hug, then hit me for being late. I shrugged and wished her a happy birthday.

I had had a crush on Amanda for years but had never said anything. I had realized at about the same time that there was no reciprocity in that affection beyond those of friendship. I had resigned myself to this situation. I valued our friendship and managed to push down those feelings.

I had recently learned that Amanda had slept with my close friend Shen. This occurred some years back, a night between two consenting adults. Not that the knowledge did not hurt. Shen had been quite familiar with my feelings toward her, and his confession felt like a punch to the stomach.

I felt betrayed.

I knew Amanda only saw me as a friend. Both she and Shen were free to do whatever they wanted. But feelings are irrational. I was unable to rationalize the pain away. There was no emotional way out either; no one to yell at, nothing to hit. It was just unnecessary, hurtful, knowledge.

So I wanted to avoid it. To avoid her. To be elsewhere and to be drunk

Getting drunk was easy, over the course of an hour Sergey and I finished five drinks each. We had sat apart from the rest, sitting in silence, watching but not participating. The last drink done, Sergey looked at me, then at the front door, and made a smoking gesture with his fingers.

We stepped outside, I pulled a pack of Parliaments from my pocket, handed one to Sergey, pulled another for myself, then lit them in turn.

Sergey took a drag of his cigarette, exhaled, then said “Let’s go.”

“Okay,” I agreed.

We drunkenly walked by to my car, conveniently nearby and pointed directly toward the freeway on-ramp at the end of Hill street.

I pressed on the gas and accelerated as much as a weighed down Toyota Tercel could, which was not a lot, and got onto the freeway. Part way through my eyes began to close and the car began to drift toward the left lane, cutting off three cars driving much faster than I was.

The cacophony of horns woke up Sergey who had fallen asleep in the passenger’s seat.

“What was that?” he asked.

“That,” I responded, “was us almost dying in a three car collision.”

Sergey looked back through the rear window, then positioned himself back in his sleep position.

“Fuck it,” he said, “who gives a shit?”

Sergey and I burst into laughter.