The Story of
Michelle’s 25th Birthday and the Broken Face
Occurred: June, 2013
Written: August, 2013
This is the point in the story where I will begin, because
apparently Michelle has no recollection of the events that transpired. I was playing Jenga at a corner table with
the Carrboro Ladies and a couple members of their entourage. Every few minutes I would glance at the bar
where Michelle was standing, trying to remember that it was likely that she
would shortly become a danger to herself and everyone around her. Half drunk and half distracted, I botched the
Jenga game almost immediately.
Unapologetically, I skipped away from the table where the others were already
constructing the tower for another game, and found a place at the bar next to
Michelle, who had gotten dramatically more belligerent in the last five
minutes. She was smiling and swaying and
slurring. She let her head drop forward,
arms out, swaying to the music with a glass of Maker’s in her right hand. I checked my phone (almost 1:30 a.m.),
weighed my can of PRB, about a third full, ordered a shot of Fireball Cinnamon Whiskey
and asked for my tab.
Enter Taryn: a spunky young bartender, bisexual, and a
confirmed mouth rapist. She started
dancing provocatively against Michelle, who continued to smile and sway and
slur and endured the impromptu bumping and grinding, if with apparent discomfort. Spinning around, Taryn wrapped her arms
around Michelle’s neck, softly said something I couldn’t hear (and was probably
incoherent anyway), and pulled Michelle in for a kiss. More accurately, she DOVE in to eat
Michelle’s entire head. Hammered,
Michelle just rolled with it. The people
at the bar standing around us whooped and hollered. Chris was laughing and pointing
hysterically. I was applauding and
grinning from ear to ear. Finally Taryn
ran out of air, released Michelle and wiggled off to in search of other
victims.
Michelle just leaned against the bar swaying and smiling,
temporarily oblivious to anything going on around her. I caught Chris's eye and we silently agreed
that it was time to go. I put a hand on
Michelle’s shoulder. “Ready to go
Chicklet?” I won’t embarrass Michelle
further by writing any incoherent things that Michelle said the rest of that
evening. She was obviously off center,
leaning back too far on her heels, and completely wasted. We started walking towards the back
door. I walked slowly to Michelle’s
left, a couple of feet behind her. As we
turned the corner of the bar, where we should have made a left toward the back
door, Michelle crumpled to the right. I
had been prepared to catch her if she fell left or backward, but I wasn’t quick
enough to prevent her from collapsing face first, forward and to the
right. With a surprised grunt, I turned
to look at Chris and say, “Are you fucking serious?” But before I could get a word out, Chris
pointed and said, “Blood!” The volume in
the bar dropped dramatically for a split second before exploding again.
We roughly turned Michelle over onto her back. Blood was gushing from her nose. It was everywhere: her chin, her clothes, on
the floor of the Cellar, on her legs, her arms and hands. With the help of about ten Cellar patrons, we
hauled Michelle up on a bench along the wall and propped her up. Someone put together a pack of ice and pushed
it to Michelle’s swollen nose. I took
Chris’s phone and went outside to call Tony.
“Chris, what’s up?” Tony’s jovial voice said through the phone.
“Hey man, this is Seth.
Chris and Michelle and I are at The Cellar. Michelle just fell and crushed her nose. Are you busy, can you give us a ride?”
About a minute and half later, Tony’s cab arrived at the
back door to the Cellar. This time, we
carried Michelle between the two of us.
Tony eased Michelle into the front passenger seat. “I’m sorry for bleeding in your cab,”
Michelle groaned happily. “It’s
alright,” Tony responded. “It’s not like
this has never happened before.”
Back at Baby Vegas, Chris and I got to see Michelle in full
light for the first time. She was
smeared with blood from head to toe.
Once we got inside the house, any assistance we were getting from
Michelle abruptly stopped. She went from
belligerent and smiley and animated to unconscious and dead weight the minute
we walked through the front door.
Eventually we got her cleaned up and tucked into bed.
The following afternoon, Chris and I were nursing our
hangovers and watching television. At
approximately 2 pm, Chris received the following text from Michelle: “Why am I bleeding?”
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