A Birthday Story

By Patrick C_______

	.
	here once was a boy named Patrick who was having a birthday
	on Saint Patrick’s Day. Now, this special little boy wanted to
	get extra-special loaded on this wondrous day, so at 7 pm,
he went down to George Street with his friends Barker, Crewe, Fancy, and his best buddy, Coleman. They went wandering around for awhile and, after drinking some dirty Guinness in the Trinity Pub, they paid the outrageous $15 to get into Bridie Molloy’s and listen to some of those great Irish bands, which had been playing on George since 7:30 am. Yes children, I said fucking “AM”. Ante meridiem. The morning. God bless Newfoundland.

After knocking back a few drinks of that cherished green brew (a.k.a. dirty draft with dollar-store food coloring), it was deemed necessary to pull an old book off of the display case in back and begin reading it out loud. The beautiful hard-cover book by Nicholas Monsarrat was called “L-I-F-E is a Four-Letter Word” and had been published in 1966. The boys began opening the novel to random pages, yelling a line aloud, lifting their glasses, and cheersing to it with much enthusiasm, not matter what it said. The last line in the book was the best, and became their new cheersing line; "We had not asked to be born, but how glad we were!"

An older man at the next table took note of these hollering young fellows, and sent a round of free beers their way. The boys, having just been offered free booze, immediately befriended this timely old man, who was more man than timely, being only of 40 years. As it turned out, Keith Carver, as the man soon became known, was a former/present member of the Hell’s Angels motorcycle gang. After exchanging pleasantries and drunken conversation for a good half hour, the boys all received some worldly advice from good ol’ Keith (which Crewe thought appropriate to write on the ripped-out last page of “L-I-F-E is a Four-Letter Word”); “Always learn more than you need to know.” Perhaps these well-spoken words originally applied to the drug trade, but each boy found profound personal meaning in his respective heart.

On arriving at the place they called home, the boy named Coleman passed out in bed, hammered out of his fucking mind. He would wake up to learn that he did not remember the journey home. The boy named Patrick ventured to the campus bar, the Breezeway, only to pass out on a table and wake up to find the bouncers escorting him off the premises. Since he had dozed off with his cell phone open in his hand, the battery had died while he slept, so he was unequipped to call anyone who might have been able to get him back in. He stumbled home, and then passed out on Rebecca’s bed.

The End.

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