Drunk Horse

It's late. Or early. The difference is philosophical, probably. The evening began many hours before at Scott's house. So many of these nights started out in that place. We've been drinking. Maybe it was the night we watched Sooty and Fraggle Rock, whilst drinking wine and eating crackers with cheese. Or maybe it was the time somebody set fire to a wooden chipmunk on the front lawn. Actually no, it wasn't that night. That night was a big party. House was full of people.

I'm sitting in a car. The car is full of drunks. The driver is not drunk. I do not remember who the driver was. They are no longer a person merely a function, within the pocket of this memory. They have no face, just the back of their head and the ability to drive. The chipmunk on the lawn wasn't tonight. The car is full of people, but not that many people. Most of us had been drinking. I'd been drinking. Maybe it was the night Scott got me to try Killkenny. There's a photo out there somewhere of me wearing Mickey Mouse ears and posing with the can. I look absurd. Absurd and fat. But then I usually do. Before then I was absurd and gangly. Before that I was just a little shit. But that was then and this is now. Now is a car on the side of the road. We've stopped next to a field. I think I know where this place is. I have a vague sense of the direction we've been driving. I grew up around here, or close enough. I never wandered down this way all that much, but I knew about it. A field. We've arrived. We're meant to be here.

I'm having a conversation with Scott. I'm braying and neighing like a horse now and then because that's the kind of thing I tend to do. My horse neigh is loud and convincing. It's also fun. I'm talking to Scott but facing the car window. The field stretches out before me, the edges lit by the streetlamp but the rest fading into darkness. Lemons. We're here for lemons. Somebody wanted lemons for a drink. Or a recipe. Why do we always seem to cook when drunk? Actually it's Scott who usually cooks when drunk. He does it with the determination and obsessiveness of an OCD patient. It's in stark contrast to his wild character. As though he bottles all his little worries and uptight tendencies into this one avenue. But no, the reason for the lemons evades me. Only that the field was supposed to have them and we had arrived. I'm talking to Scott and turn to face him in mid sentence. Somebody else is sitting next to me. They look at me, slightly confused.

I scream like a little girl and wonder why Scott had transformed into this other person.

The car door opens. Scott is standing outside the car and has opened it for me.
"I WANT TO RUN FREE LIKE THE WIND," I cry out. I try to leap out of the car but sort of tumble onto the pavement instead. I think I'd been crying out for my freedom for the last ten minutes. Scott has a huge grin on his face.
"Here you go. Run and be free." He seems to take great joy and pride in this statement as he sweeps his arm towards the field. I get off the ground, nearly falling over twice in the process and begin to gallop.

Not run. Gallop. Like a horse. I am a drunk horse on a quest for lemons and freedom. I gallop up and down the field, neighing and braying and making such noise. The others scatter. There's a tree somewhere. Lemons are collected, as I gallop. After a while I decide that galloping has tired me out and so I lie down. I decide to be efficient about this and let myself just collapse. I seem to do that when drinking a lot. Let my legs give way and come tumbling down like some kind of rag doll.

There is no information on the rest of the night. Except for pulling over a few blocks away from Scott's house on the way home. I tumble out of the car and onto somebody's front garden and throw up. I hate it. It's best to let the vomit flow and eject the badness. But I fight it every time. My body gags and tries to puke but I always pull it back as much as I can. Soon I was back in the car, glad not to have vomited in the car but also feeling sorry for doing it in that persons garden.

Song: "Walking Far From Home," By Iron and Wine.