A Messy story about football, mad dogs, and the power of peer pressure
[Introduction by Pacco: This is a story written by Big Texas, a great friend of mine a fellow hot air balloon operator. Big Texas is a wild guy who always shoots from the hip and rarely misses the target. He just struts hard. Always. A frequent couchsurfer, (couchsurfing.com, check it out) he always pushes the envelope. We went ice skating for the first time the other day and after about ten minutes he pulled a 360. I couldn’t wait to watch him eat shit, but was completely flabbergasted when he stuck the landing. Afterwards we went to the hockey bar and he attempted the “Hot Box Challenge”. Fire-eating Big Tex mowed all 10 habanera wings in four minutes, earning him the top spot on the “wall of flames”. A wall of only seven successes out of over 200 have attempts. Tex is just a baller. This story is partly about me, but the poetry is all Big Tex.]
First, let me introduce the major players: Craig (Hometown Seattle, Northwestern undergrad), Perry (Connecticut native, Duke undergrad) and me, Big Texas (hometown Texas, Bolder undergrad). Oh, and of course Pacco (Boston born, Tufts undergrad).
Pacco talked Craig, Perry, and me into buying $40 redskin tickets for a game against the New England Patriots on a rainy Friday afternoon. I was the only person that had been to an NFL football game before so it was more of a treat for them. Nevertheless, I had nothing better to do after work that day so I went.
We left work a little early that friday – a not-so-terribly-rare occurrence – and hustled over to a dilapidated, small, corner liquor store a block north Hank’s [that’s our balloon service]. We were en route to the Eastern Market metro station situated on the blue line whose last station is Largo Town Center – a 20 minute walk from FedEx Field where the Redskins play.
“Yo before we get on the metro, do you guys wanna stop by Five Guys and grab some burgers?” I asked, “I’m jonesin’ for a bacon cheese burger.”
Bacon Cheeseburger = Instant Gratification
“Yeah, sounds good” Perry replied.
“Food should be cheaper here than at the game” Craig added. Always the sensible comment from Craig. Anything that eludes most people is easily caught by Craig.
“No . . .” Pacco shouted.
Often times, Pacco throws me off with his interruptions, a manifestation of his ideas, which are not only creative, but they grasp the very essence of excitement and spontaneity. Two vital elements that whisk away the predictable nature of human affairs and embrace the ever-fleeting opportunity to experience the carefree jollies of life.
“Wait!” he continued, “lets just buy a ton of beer and trade beer for burgers at the tailgating parties!”
Being recent college graduates, the associations we had with alcohol were all too loving and familiar. The rain had no chance of dampening our spirits after a freshly purchased assortment of sensation-skewing, balance-shifting Mad Dog 20-20’s – 4 hefty bottles – and 4 12-packs of Bud Light.
The moment our soggy feet squeaked into the parking lot of the stadium, we initiated a Redskins cheer.
“Lets!” screamed the first.
“Go!” yelled the second.
“Skins!” bellowed the third.
That was the rhythm to our booze cruise through the parking lot. Bouncing from tent to
tent, from party to party, from instant kinship to instant kinship. DJ alcohol turned the volume up and DJ discernment turned the volume down. Pacco, Craig and I chugged our Mad Dog’s and since Perry was impervious to peer pressure and refused to consume his Mad Dog, Pacco stepped up and bonged 90% of Perry’s bottle so quickly that gravity couldn’t keep up.
A fog, that has yet to lift, hazes my recollection of the events that transpired until we tried to enter the stadium. I remember shotgunning at least 6 beers and laughing when a football bounced off my face because I couldn’t feel it. Moments later, I couldn’t find Craig or Perry and Pacco seemed to be everywhere. Noticing that the tailgaters were walking towards the stadium, I put my arm around Pacco.
“Hey” I mumbled.
“. . . . . . . . . . . . .” Pacco replied.
He stared deeply into my eyes as if he was looking into my very soul in an attempt to find something beyond himself that would ground his physical nature in a world that had suddenly become obscure.
“HEY!” I yelled, “Heyo! Pacco! We gotta go to the game.” I insisted.
He inquisitively pushed his open mouth close to my face. I knew he wanted to say something, I guess he just wanted to breath on me. His rancid, deep breaths continued while I dragged him towards the stadium.
“Did ya . . . did ya see that? Did ya?” he muttered.
There was nothing to see at the moment. An event that probably occurred an hour ago had been kicking around in his head until it was brought into existence.
“Yeah. Awesome. Lets go!” I shouted.
Eventually, we began to close the distance between the stadium and ourselves. I could barely hold myself up. We moved much like flies around a pile of crap, but somehow we pressed on towards the Friday Night Lights. On the way, we danced like showgirls in front of the other fans. Pacco grabbed a married women’s hand and triumphantly walked with her for a few feet; I snatched a stranger’s beer hat off his head and ran away screaming like a little girl; Pacco repetitively tried to get a piggy back ride from a pretty woman wearing heals and I kept her boyfriend from beating his dwindling brain cells out. Once we reached the stadium, I saw cops and I immediately sobered up to the point where I was still very dizzy but could compose myself in a manner unlike my companion who couldn’t make it past the first line of stadium security. Apparently Pacco’s ticket wouldn’t scan. After his cryptic babbles and multiple attempts to walk around the scanner, she refused to let him in. Despite my earnest pleas, the situation was out of my hands when two security guards violently grabbed Pacco. He vehemently fought at first and then intermittently struggled and yelled something about being a pilot – it was obvious that he was uncontrollable. Still, there’s no way I could stand there and watch my friend get arrested so again I tried to intercede. They threatened to arrest me too. I could help my colleague more if I wasn’t in jail too so, half-heartedly, I handed over my ticket and I walked through into the stadium alone. They had Pacco pinned up against the fence and I walked to the other side of it. He looked up at me, handed me his cell phone (without a battery) and uttered something about Cara, his girlfriend. Soon after, he passed out and slid down the fence and collapsed at my feet.
With Pacco’s batteryless cell phone in hand, I managed to find Perry and Craig in the upper section of the stadium. Perry was intently watching the game and Craig was furiously bombarding the ground with his last 5 meals. His blood-shot eyes partially cloaked by heavy eyelids looked up at me. He cracked an ephemeral smile with a quickly ensuing look of imminent disaster and continued the intestinal holocaust.
“Guys . . .” I said, “. . . Pacco got arrested.”
“Holy shit! Really?” Perry exclaimed.
Craig’s eyebrows shot up like middle school boners at the eighth grade dance as he was wiping his mouth.
“Oh my God” he muttered.
We laughed. We shouldn’t have, but the shock temporarily outweighed the understanding of the matter. After the game, we pin-balled from person to person trying to locate where he was. First, it was jail then it was a hospital. Nobody knew. It was painfully frustrating; there was nothing we could do. We all went home, begrudgingly. I felt responsible.
The next morning, I woke up and immediately called Craig. He informed me that Pacco was in the hospital for alcohol poisoning. A few hours passed by and Craig called to tell me that Pacco had just walked in the door. Pacco didn’t remember much. He woke up in a hospital bed, apologized and went home with a looming court date. I felt really bad for Pacco. He was a barrel of monkeys that night. I should have stopped him from chugging a second Mad Dog or maybe I should have prepped him before we tried to get in the stadium. Either way, we all learned a valuable lesson that night: when you mess with booze, you always loose… and so do the Redskins… and Tom Brady hits Moss for two touchdowns. It just sucks that Pacco had to go to court.
[Pacco’s Update: everything seemed to work out. If you had a sinking feeling at the end of the story, don’t feel too bad. Life always finds a way, and time always seems to wash our misdeeds away. If you can just keep a positive attitude, and let life take the reins, then providence takes care of the rest, no matter how impossible the odds may seem. Stay classless, w2fy].
No related posts.
Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.
