A rude awakening
The phone rang.
I quickly checked the number; not international, not important – I ignored it. It stopped, and rudely resumed its barrage of noise. I considered putting it in another room, but then realized that the obnoxious device also served as my alarm clock; relief by relocation was not a viable option. Nothing good could possibly come of answering this call, but the caller was persistent.. begrudgingly, I answered.
Me: Hello?
Caller (broken English): Hey, this is Dunfield’s girlfriend.
Me: What the fuck.
Caller: 你下來，現在只有我一個人和Eva在一起。她喝多了，自己走不了。
Me: What the fuck.
Caller: Come on, I know you are a gentleman, 來幫忙
Me: 嗯，但是我不算她是lady..
Caller: 那我就這樣讓她睡在路上。。
Me: 好。
Caller: 怎麽可能，快點下來
Me: 好啦好啦，等一下。。。
You see, I’d specifically avoided going out with these people to clubs. I’m busy with work and with my own projects these days, certainly no time for such buffoonery as this. Being naked, I prudently decided to don underwear and a hat before descending down to aid the drunkards.
Eva and I, despite our names being so similar, haven’t exactly been chummy chum as of late, and I must admit that I was rather unenthusiastic about helping out. There she was, lying on the sidewalk puking what ever was left in her stomach into the gutter. Dunfield apologized to me for the sleep disturbance, to which I replied that all would be fine if he had a cigarette, alas, he did not.
After several attempts at helping her stand, we were forced to adopt the “Sonderkommando” approach. I grabbed the arms, and Dunfield grabbed the legs. In this way, we carried her about thirty meters to the bench close to the door of my apartment. Here, we rested, and discussed the possibilities of ascending six flights of stairs (my apartment unfortunately has no elevator). Eventually, I decided to carry her up on my back. Heroically, I carried her up, only pausing once on the fifth floor so as to catch my breath.
I propped her up against the wall just inside the door to my apartment, and found her some water, which she proceeded to spill all over the floor. After watching her vomit some more, and a bit of towel-foot mopping, Dunfield and I helped her to a bed and gave her some water. I chilled out with Dunfield and his girlfriend for a few minutes and sent them on their way. It was now close to five and I couldn’t sleep; my precious sleep had been disturbed by post-midnight tomfoolery, worse yet, I didn’t have a cigarette.
Despite this, I felt that perhaps at least something had been accomplished. Perhaps Eva realized that the blame for the result of being a drama queen, rested solely with her. Perhaps she realized that even without my being involved in her nightlife activities, things were still messed up and dramatic (as I’d heard from Dunfield and his girlfriend); the problem rested with her, and not with me or anyone else. Yet perhaps more, she would stop trying to put the blame for things that went wrong on others instead of accepting personal responsibility.
Well – probably not, but there’s a chance, right?
