Growin’ up blues

My friends and I used to paint the town red every weekend. As early as Thursday evening, at least six members of the clan would be calling me about what new bar we can wreck havoc in. It would be the traditional "two-day drink and flirt-fest," they would yell to my ear. And being young, carefree and dense, I would always smile and ask "Uh, sino naman kaya sa atin ngayon ang susuka ng alak?"

Friday night would roll in and the eight of us would meet at around 9 p.m. at the designated place – usually a nightspot where alcohol-drenched people frequent. I am chronically late and when I arrive, half of the idiots are already drunk. And after again being taunted as pa-VIP, my buddies, reeking of a mixture of brandy and vodka, would shove several bottles of beer to my face.

Consuming four Millers in an hour was no problem for me then and before you know it, I’d be joining them gulping down shots of tequila while singing along to Sugar Ray’s Runaway. And after an hour or so of hard drinking, the gang would temporarily break up. At least two of my cohorts would then be flirting with the pretty waitresses at the bar. Some (including yours truly) would light up cigarettes right by the fake Monet painting. And my female buddies, who always looked so prim and proper in front of their college professors, would then hurl expletives at anyone they fancied while doing a poor dance step that looked like a combination of the Mashed Potato and the Macarena. (Remember that shitty beat?)

By 1 a.m., our snooty group would shuffle back one-by-one to the table like gluttons back for more. Another round of drinks are ordered, plates of food replenished, and cigarettes are re-stocked. And that’s where the real fun begins.

An exchange of the latest gossip about classmates, teachers, and crushes would ramble around. Who likes whom, what they did about it, where they did it – you know, stuff like that. And before long, the popular and unhealthy "pass-the-smoke" game would be played much to the chagrin of "older people" in the next table.

Ugh! It’s like a Roman orgy (to a lesser extent) where each of us would be seated next to the opposite sex. Some guy would take a puff from a Marlboro and kiss the girl seated next to him and pass the smoke from his mouth. It would go around the table and the last one kissed must still have enough smoke left in his lips to make the letter O. Disgusting. Talk about "eighth-hand smoke," I often wondered what doctors had to say about that one.

At 3 a.m., after each of us had been intoxicated enough (and someone finally threw up), it was time to pay the bill and sleep over to whose house was nearest in the area. If there’s one good thing to say about our gang, paying the check was never a problem. We would all offer to pick up the overpriced amount (probably out of drunkenness than kindness) and there were very few times when we settled to split the bill eight ways.

We always couldn’t wait for next week.

But that was four years ago. For some reason, we just stopped. Blame it on the end of college, the start of work, the meeting of new friends, or whatever, but our weekly tradition faded away. We all seemed destined to spend the rest of our lives "closely-knitted" to one another. You know, friends forever. Painting the town red on Fridays or whatever color was available. The last of those wild nights took place in late 2001.

I’m not saying we didn’t meet and drink again, but whenever we saw each other it was no longer the complete group. It went from the eight of us down to five. Then it was three. Last I heard it was only my friend Harold drinking the night away on his own. And the funny thing about all this was that nobody seemed to care.

On the rare occasions I would meet one of my former drinking buds in the mall or the carwash, we would chat for a bit and catch up on each other’s work and girlfriends (I always didn’t have much to say on the latter). But that was that. Although we always had some funny comments about our "drink- and flirt-fest," nothing significant was ever said about it (not that there really could have been, mind you). It was level-minded reminiscing.

It wasn’t until last April that the eight of us met again. Call it a reunion if you like, and I’m pretty sure all of us really looked forward to that night. To make it more special, Therese organized the event – securing a hard-to-get table at one of the first bars we used to visit. It was supposed to be a blast. On a night where we all had our own money (we have jobs now), I couldn’t help but think if this was going to be another weekly thing. I shouldn’t have.

We did get drunk. We had some laughs, but alas, the craziness of youth was gone. Nobody attempted to flirt with a single waitress and the girls no longer shouted obscenities. But most of all, the customary "pass-the-smoke game" was not played. It was replaced by friendly hugs and nods. Before midnight, the drinking spree was done and this time, no one offered to pick up the bill. Each of us had to plunk down our share of the cost.

In the end, we left the table one by one – saying goodbyes and making promises to "do this again sometime." I heard it was Harold who was the last to leave. It’s sad.

One week after that night, Therese called me up and announced she was leaving for Canada. I bade her safe trip and to still be SARS-free when she came back. And as I put the phone down I came to realize that it really wasn’t school, work, or the new people in our lives that broke up that old gang of mine. It was time.

We all went through that phase of wildness and now we were ready to move on. It’s as simple as that, I guess. We grew up – and the party was over.

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I’m going to post a new e-mail address next week. But for the meantime, you can still write me at reuben_matthew@hotmail.com.