The One About The Stairs

“Who scared who! Drink lah!”

There are few verbal cues in my dictionary that is capable of heralding an eventful night. And when this comes regurgitated from LB, you know that it’s a polarizing effect of either things turning out decent or usually, a dismal spiral to the worst night ever.

And I have empirical evidences to purport my stance. The last time he said that, I ended up walking around St James with a torn shirt and the other time, he tore down the ceiling panels. I don’t remember any of the times that things turned out good.

There wasn’t a planned destruction of our liver despite it being a Friday night. I wanted to check out Lunar and Shanghai Dolly and we capped the tour of Clarke Quay with a decent round of Jagerbombs only because we bumped into Xin at one of the bars and we convinced her that buying us a round was a courtesy tribute to us for winning our money in mahjong.

Then we ended in Zouk, or if you are taking blood alcohol readings then, more rightfully, we started at Zouk with a bottle of whiskey and Red Bull. Then it came a bottle of vodka and somewhere along the way it got out of hand.

Poca joined us briefly before surrendering to a charge of alcohol concoctions that she had re-toxified herself with at another club. Along the way, Felice popped by with an emotionally burdened heart. And somewhere into the second vodka, I lost track of sobriety.

It was one of those nights that we were making cheers out of nothing and celebrating insignificance. We could have made a toast to cockles and starfishes and drank to that like it was a wedding party and none of us cared if any of it made sense. It was the very scene that would have won us an Oscar if we were making film about binge drinking.

Danny pours a glass and hands it to me. I take it respectfully despite a blurring vision and an ailing strength soon to be surrendered to vodka and hand it to LB, who rejects the drink. I yell to LB,

Me: “If you are not going to drink it, no one can!”

In response to this vile sacrilegious snub of alcohol, I spill the entire contents of the drink onto the floor next to me – and on to some girl’s foot.

She starts yelling at me, that much I remember, but I am not responding well to anything even if Megan Fox is requesting an emergency tit fuck. I do what all men do when women are yelling at them, I pretend to search for my imaginary TV remote controller.

I don’t know if someone dragged her away, or she choked on her saliva, but the yelling ceased, or maybe she finally realized that yelling gets you nowhere when it comes to men, because we only respond well to crying, lap-dances and stripteases. We don’t even need you to say ‘please’.

By the time we got out of Zouk, my memory was already in patches. I remembered having a lot of difficulty just standing still on a spot and accusing stepping on pavements as a test of sobriety. I didn’t give a shit what time it was or that RotiPrata was missing. I just needed to get home.

As soon as I got in the cab with LB, I knew two things for sure; I was never going to make it home without spewing in the cab and I was probably never going to remember how I got back. I was right about one, which makes me half a psychic. I started spewing just as we turned in to my place.

UUuuuuuuuaaaAaaarrrrrrrgggghhhhhhh!!!

A torrent flood right out my mouth and had it not been for a seasoned cabbie who read all the facial symptoms of frowns, rolling eyes and furious contractions of the neck muscles and intervened with a paper bag, I would have filled it with so much puke, it would make the Three Gorges Dam look like a puddle.

I remembered throwing the bag out the window and laughing about it. I remembered staggering to my gate and constantly reminding myself to lock up. I remembered struggling with the locks, but that was no where near the Everest feat of scaling the flight of stairs to my room, because I was going to attempt it without an oxygen tank, a Sherpa and with a lot more alcohol in my system.

It was almost an impossible task, like a colour-blind kid trying to solve the Rubic''s Cube. I was barely even capable of standing and no where near making progress of conquering the first step, despite having a wall as support.

I was swaying so much, I started having motion sickness myself and having grave difficulty just standing, let alone comprehend why the steps always seemed to be 2 inches too far for me to reach. Then a streak of brilliance hit me. The only way I was going make it up the stairs, was if I kept my centre of gravity low to prevent myself from falling over.

So I did what every intelligent drunk man would have done; I started crawling. It wasn’t much easier than walking would have been, but what mattered was that I was making progress on the stairs.

Then somewhere after the forth step, I must have either passed out entirely, or decided that taking a nap on the stairs was a brilliant idea. I know so because I woke up abruptly probably half an hour later with alcohol amnesia and freaked myself out.

For one, when I woke up, I had no recollection of where I was, or more importantly, what I was trying to achieve just moments before I surrendered to alcohol and fatigue. But, waking up in pitch darkness and on a stairway that resembles an alley is urine inducing. I sat there frozen, half wondering if I had made a bet about climbing stairs or if I had given the cabbie a wrong address.

A million impulses exploded in my head. Should I scream? Should I trying to get up or just pretend to be sleeping? Did I just puke on my shirt? Am I still in Singapore? Do I still have my kidneys available?

I looked up at the 15 remaining steps and calculated my rate of ascent, to which I vaguely remembered to be time drive. So, if I took 15 minutes to clear the 4 steps, then I was probably going to reach the top by the next season of American Idol, and I needed to puke babdly.

And this was the only clear message I go all night long.

I am fucked.