I remember Wednesday night, I had been stolen away to Varna by Chris and Casey and we were determined to get me out of my ridiculous mood swings. The depression I’d been feeling creeping up over the past several days was building to a crescendo and had to be stopped before it ruined my birthday weekend. We met up with some friends and Casey’s new German coworker, grabbed a bottle of rum, and took to the park to drink it up before having to pay bar prices. Three sheets later, we had an empty bottle and were on to a little place called Kibitzite for gin and tonics. I could feel the booze doing its job as it waged war against my brain chemistry, doing its best to numb the bad parts away with that practiced skill that can only be found in the absolute worst alcohols and best anesthesiologists. From there we found a beach bar and continued on in earnest. The girls were all immediately handed free cocktails and went to walk on the sand. I was frisked and made to wait nearly five minutes for a beer. It was too much; I retreated to the sand to brood. As I was nearly finishing my drink, the German chick (Carolin) came and sat beside me, kicked off her shoes, and stretched her feet out so her toes could test the temperature of the water. It was just past midnight and I was already stumbly drunk, but when she proceeded to stand up, strip down to her panties, and go out into the sea, I had no choice but to do likewise. For nearly half an hour we swam around out there, making laps around a fountain and some lights they had installed about fifty meters out. Ninety percent of my mind is just trying to cut through the alcohol and moodiness to find a way to make the most out of the situation: a beautiful, almost completely naked German chick that’s pissed drunk and alone fifty meters out in the water with me in the first hour of my birthday. The other ten percent of my mind though is screaming so loudly at me that I’m about to drown that I eventually go back in to the shore where two thick-necked bouncers are waiting and asking me to put my clothes back on.

The tortillas are finished and consumed by the crowd with a speed that startles even me. I take a girl’s hand and fill it with cheese, chicken, salsa, and sour cream and congratulate myself on making such a tasty-looking impromptu taco. Before I can enjoy my snack though, Chris that rotten bastard leaps in, pushes me aside, and eats it first. Bitter, I begin to go about the process of making another one when I find that everyone in the living room has been staring at me, an experience made all the more unnerving due to the rarity of a group so large and so drunk being able to focus on something uniformly like that. Curious as to what prompted their attention, I proceed to look myself over and am a little started to find myself in a tight woman’s top.

Conservative bastards, I bet they want me to put a bra on, too.

We had all agreed that Thursday would be our wholesome day, no real drinking being done until dinner at the earliest. Instead, we all filed onto a bus and paid fifty stotinkas to go to a deserted beach just north of town. To spite their almost unanimous decision to put off drinking until later in the day, I drank four shots of espresso as quickly as I possibly could and then took my lanky-assed self as fast and as far as I could go down the beach, hopping from rock to rock as I nostalgically play Hot Lava before diving in and swimming out a ways to go snorkeling. After a little while, Chris meets up with me and we snorkel around for a while doing our best to just spear the hell out of some fish with some sharpened sticks we’d made and watch a couple fuck each other’s brains out behind a bunch of rocks down the beach a ways. A few hours later, we’re back in the apartment and covered in sunburns and scabbed up from a myriad of cuts and scrapes we all got from rocks and oyster shells. Presents: porn star hat and a bottle of Bushmills which I drank with Jackson over the span of thirty minutes. I can promise you now, nothing can further compliment a day of too much sun than a hastily drank bottle of top-shelf liquor.

It was four in the morning and people were starting to drop now. I had given up on the woman’s top in favor of no shirt at all and I sat alone at the kitchen table with my mind burned up and dried out. I reeked of gin and stale pipe smoke and my mouth hung slack and loose.

Then Chris charges up and sticks a few pills in it.

“What’s this?” I manage to ask.

A smile as he moved into the living room, stirring Jackson as he stuffed some in his mouth too. “Your medicine. Eat it.”

Within half an hour I was back from the all-night store with a bag full of vodka and gin in one hand and another stuffed with tonic and juice. The troops would be rallied one way or another! We woke up Celia and handed her a vodka tonic, the bottle of gin already reserved for Jackson and I. She stood up, slightly out of focus now, and blurred her way to the balcony to join the other people out there. Pouring my second drink, she poked her head back into the living room and as an afterthought asked for the meaning of life.

Looking her square in the eyes, I told her as matter-of-factly as I could. “Keep going.”

Striking Out

This was it. This was going to be the night. I had said it before, had said it dozens of times, but tonight I really meant it. Tonight I wasn't going home until I had someone to go home with.

The weekend had been a long time coming and had so far been a good one. Friends in from other towns, a general chance to catch up and bullshit with one another about what we'd been up to, its always fun, but between having guests and being a guest, I don't get enough weekends to myself. Like now. Like this weekend. Like this evening.

It all started pretty low key, I wasn't all dead set in picking someone up, at least no more than the average male normally is, and wasn't making any special plans other than to go out and spend the evening with a couple of the local hipsters I know. And in the beginning, it started out as just that. There's a bar not far from where I live that I like to drop in at sometimes. It's never too crowded, loud, smoky, or whatever. The owner knows that when I come in the day, to get me some coffee going, and when I come in and night, to get a beer ready, its just that kinda place. Everyone recognizes you, but no one really knows you. It's the perfect starting point for any evening.

A table, a little more crowded than I had thought it would be, some friends brought some friends, but its all good. First round poured, an odd assortment of drinks you would only find at this time of night, everything from a handful of beers, a few mentas, a double vodka, and a couple glasses of tea thrown in for good measure.

There was no rush. There was time. There was all the time in the world.

Some of the friend's friends were fun and were enjoying trying out some English on me, which suited me fine. We're all talking, having a good time, the first round goes by fast, another round comes but this time a few more beers and a few less teas.

"So, where are we going to go tonight?"
I'll never understand why, but Bulgarians always just seem surprised by this question, they never really seem to give any thought to even IF they'll go somewhere else until after they've grown tired of the first place, though they always do. And every time I ask, there's always this moment of silence around the table as though no one had even considered it up until now and are letting the idea sort of creep up on them.

"I mean, no rush, its still fucking early and everything," I had finished up my second beer now, mind was racing about what to follow it up with, "I was just wondering if anyone wanted to check out some other place after this, I kinda wanna hear some music, y'know."

This seemed to meet with general approval and the process of figuring out the next stop in our bar crawl began. I thought about getting another beer, or maybe a vodka to try and get the respect of a vodka drinking girl I didn't really know, but figured everyone was almost done with their drinks, that I should just wait and want for a little bit, make it up with something good and strong at the next place.  We decided on the nearest disco, an idea that suited me fine. It was a fairly small place, and the DJ wasn't any good, but it was loud and always overcrowded on Saturday nights. Cover was low and the drinks were reasonably priced. We would go there. That is where we would go.

We arrive before eleven, meaning we were actually able to grab a table so we could throw down our jackets, sip our drinks, and pretend to be cooler than we really were.

"Haide da piem rakia!" It was the menta drinker and apparently, he was ready to start picking up the pace with some of the local moonshine. He slung his arm around me on our way to the bar, a weird invasion of personal space I've decided to just learn to deal with lately, and we ordered a round. Try as I might, I've never been able to convince this guy that I'm just not some zany American stereotype as he always thinks I am, and he loves doing things with me that he perceives are quintessentially American. "Shot! Ah? Ah? Shot! Kato Tequila, nali?"

Apparently, he thinks that sitting back and doing rakia shots with me will make me feel more relaxed and at home. Surprisingly, after two, I find that it does.

This is the part of the night where I made my first fatal mistake: I start thinking.

I figure, its Saturday night, I don't have any guests, I've got nothing to do tomorrow, I just got a haircut, I'm looking good, I've had a couple drinks - but not too many! - and I'm feeling pretty secure about my Bulgarian. This is it. I can do this. Eye on the prize: Host Country National!

And then I order another beer - because what good is going up to the bar if you don't come back with anything? - and make my way back to our table with everyone else. People are filtering in now, people are dancing, the place is starting to come alive, an extra layer of smoke is puffed into it all from some hidden fog machine, and dammit the DJ's actually not too bad tonight, dammit, I think I want to dance, yes, that is what I will do, the girls are already out on the floor dancing and having fun, and I know they would love me to join them, wonderful dancer that I am, but I can't go out there with a beer in my hand, oh no, and I can't leave it behind or it'll get warm, so I pound it down as fast as I can and head out to join them.

See that? The beer pounding right after doing rakia shots? That was fatal mistake number two.

I spend some time on the dancefloor and I am Fred A-fucking-stare. The music slows down, a few people head back to the table, and a few more people head to the bar. I follow the latter group. Why-oh-fucking-why do I always follow the latter group? I order a double vodka and orange juice, throw them together in one glass because the Savoy Club brand is too viscous to sip, and lean back against the bar talking to one of the guys who started the night with tea and even in my quickly deteriorating state, I could tell he'd been making up for lost time.

We start chatting and, of course, he throws his arm around my shoulder. I notice, but am starting to care less and less because I'm too busy wondering how I've made it through half of the drink so fast. He's rattling off in English to me, me in Bulgarian to him, and neither of us are really understanding anything the other is saying, but I must have agreed to something because suddenly we're making the rounds, because, dammit, I need to be introduced to people! I don't remember most of the people, or much of what was said, just that it was all far too casual and small talk-ish. I drop my empty glass off at some random table we pass, the people sitting there say something back, I pretend I didn't hear and keep walking. More people, more faces, and then I get to her.

First off, she's beautiful. After some drinks, people just look prettier to me, I know this, but this wasn't the beer and rakia and vodka talking. This human being standing in front of me was beautiful and I wanted to talk to her. More than anything I wanted to talk to her and stay here with her all night and talk about what we love and hate and have been through and - could he possibly be reading my thoughts? - my friend decides to drop me off there to talk to her as he wanders on and yes! I will have this happen because she's beautiful and I'm beautiful and I know she can see that in me and -

"Hello, its very nice to meet you."

- and yes! She speaks English! We're going to be together tonight, to talk and to feel and to celebrate this pulling together of passions, this powerful and electric connection practically filling the air between us with sparks!

"Hey, your drink lights up in the blacklight, what're you drinking?"

Shit. I meant to say its her eyes that light up, her eyes! Fuck, fuck, its cool, just try and seem interested in her, try and relate to her about something, you can do this.

"Um, a gin with tonic."

"I love gin, that sounds good."

Okay, that's not quite what I was trying to relate to her to, I mean, its obvious we all drink, I don't need to talk about my drinking preferences, I don't need to say her drink sounds good, I need to say her voice sounds good, that she smells good, that she -

"Actually, I think I could use another drink, I'm gonna go and grab one from the bar."

What? What the fuck? Where did that come from? No! I don't fucking need another drink! Stop it you stupid fucking alcoholic, there's a beautiful English speaking girl back there with a glass of gin and tonic and I'm walking to the bar? It's just-hell-okay, I'm here, the drinks been ordered. I'll have this drink, its still early, and maybe I'll find her later and we can sit back and talk about clever things, offer insightful thoughts about why gin and tonic's glow under blacklight, about a million wonderful and beautiful things, three levs to the bartender, and-

And there, that little episode? The turning away from a beautiful young girl to go pound a cheap gin and tonic? That was mistake number three.

"No, no, no, listen, see, I mean, look, I can put the beer in my coat pocket so I can finish it later, or something..."

"Ne mi fucking pooka if you don't razbirash angliski, come on and lets fucking haide na billiards!"

"Hey man, did you pay for those drinks or me? What, pay? P-a-y, like, to give money? Y'know, money, pari. No, ne iskam your money, I just, what the fuck? How did I get beer all in my coat?"
 

I woke up in my own bed, thankful I made it there at all. A long trail of most of my clothes led from the hallway, memories of drunken flirting and mixing cheap alcohol all came throbbing back into my head. Damn, too hung over to even take advantage of myself.
Fuck, fuck, fuck.

The Longest Night

There's a place I go to whenever I find myself in Sofia, a place that not a lot of other volunteers know about. It's dark, quiet, drinks are relatively cheap, and its guaranteed that every time you open the door here, you're going to be greeted with a cloud of stale cigarette smoke, the rank stench of spilled beer, and the restless mumblings of a couple of dozen Bulgarians.

It's a jive joint and I love it there.

A week ago last Saturday I found myself passing through Sofia and, as I always do, I made a point to sneak away from the other PC volunteerss for a while so I could go and enjoy a couple drinks without killing my wallet. The place was a little less packed than usual for a Saturday night, but there were still a couple of people dancing and having a nice time so I settled in with a beer. I was actually falling into the lull of the atmosphere, people chatting all around me, laughing, an argument in the corner that no one seemed to pay much attention to when suddenly I was hit by a cold draft from the door and the whole place went quiet.

"I've been traveling all over Europe and everyone keeps telling me that this is the place I need to go for cigarettes, that no one else in the world smokes as many cigarettes as you people do. Is this true?"

I knew the voice like I knew my own self, who wouldn't? But still, I couldn't believe it and I was terrified by its implications. I turned, looked, and found myself speechless at what I saw.

Framed there in the doorway was Christopher-fucking-Walken.

"Oh come on people! Don't tell me that not one of you sonsofbitches here speaks English! I've been traveling for days in the back of a truck full of immigrants, a truck that I had to fight a man to the death for a chance to get on. Now don't you go telling me that after all this, after all this work, that not one of you knows a little fucking English!"

Oh, it was Christopher Walken all right. The way of talking, the hint of craziness about him. Yeah, it was Christopher Walken, and he was pissed.

Maybe it was just the sense of charisma about him, some indescribable force that bends people to his will, or maybe it was just some latent part of me that's always looking for trouble, but before I knew what I was doing, I stood up from my chair and brought his full and powerful attention to me.

"Mr. Walken, sir, I speak English, and you're right, I mean, its true, there's something about this country that just makes everyone here smoke all the time, and..." I was making an ass of myself in front of Christopher Walken and couldn't stop. I pulled out a pack of Victory Lights that I'd just bought that afternoon and held it out to him, my hand shaking. "If you're looking for a cigarette, sir, you can have one of mine. They're just Lights, but-"

In three powerful strides Christopher Walken made his way from the door and slapped the pack of cigarettes out of my hand. "You think I traveled halfway around the world so I could bum a smoke from you? Listen to me now. I have scoured this earth for a country where I can find a man that can sit down with me and match me, cigarette for cigarette, puff for puff, until I decide to finish. Tell me, have I found this man now? Are you a man who can smoke cigarettes with me?"

He was standing mere inches away from me, his breath stale and acrid. From up close I could see a speck of dried blood above his left eye, though no visible cuts. He was shorter than I had imagined he would be, but still dominated the bar with his presence. Not one person had made a sound since his arrival, and it seemed as though even traffic had stopped so as to not interrupt him. I had never been more scared in my life, more terrified, and I had no idea what I would tell this man. I opened my mouth, and prayed for words to come out.

"Yes."

Christopher Walken smiled at me, eyes burning with a type of lunatic intensity I'd never seen before in a human being, and pressed a wad of cash into my hands, American money, crumpled and warm like a sweater from the drier.

"You take this money and you go to one of these little corner stores I've seen around. You buy every single pack of cigarettes they have, and when you're done, you go to the next store you find and do the same. I don't want you to come back here until you're either out of money or this town is out of cigarettes, understand?"

I nodded at him numbly, my mind still spinning from the pace at which everything was happening, and I hurried off into the night.

There in the cold Sofia air, my jacket not even an afterthought in my rush to leave, I began to gain some sense of lucidity. What the hell was going on? Did I really just agree to smoke cigarettes all night with Christopher Walken? The sheer absurdity of it was simply too much for me to take in. This was impossible! As I walked to the first corner store I saw, I prayed I would run into someone I knew, anyone at all, just so I could give myself a reason to stuff this money into my pocket and never look back. But it didn't happen and I found myself in the cold halogen glare of the store's lights.

The woman behind the counter could have been anyone at all; her face and features were too trivial in the wake of what had just happened to imprint themselves on my memory. In fact, as I asked for every pack of cigarettes that she had and placed a few crumpled up fifties on the table, it was only her sheer indifference that stood out to me at all. Without so much as a raised eyebrow, she dutifully filled two bags to the brim and placed my money in her pocket, never saying a word.

I continued this bizarre ritual at three more stores before I ran out of money. Never once was the American currency refused and never once was the oddity of my request mentioned. Each faceless woman simply handed over all her cigarettes as though it was the most normal thing in the world before readily taking whatever ridiculous sum I had laid down before her.

On the walk back to the bar, I played out a dozen scenarios in my head of what might be in store for me. In one, I imagined myself coming in and finding the place suddenly alive with energy as Christopher Walken amazed everyone with some story or another, everyone sipping a martini, everyone somehow understanding him. In another, I saw myself walking back into the bar, seven full bags awkwardly in hand, and finding it exactly as it had been when I had first arrived, nothing out of place, and no sign that Christopher Walken had even been there.

What I got turned out to be neither of those.

The first thing that struck me as I stepped back inside was that everyone else had left. Somehow Christopher Walken had managed to coerce every single person in the place to get out of there. Coats were still on coat racks, drinks were still on the tables, but aside from him and me, not a soul remained.

Christopher Walken was seated at a table squarely in the center of the room under a low hanging lamp. His hands were folded neatly on the table, his demeanor calm, and he looked as though he could have sat that way waiting on me forever. On the table were a bottle of Wild Turkey, two empty glasses, an ashtray with a single match inside, and next to the chair across from him, my chair I was to assume, was a small plastic bucket.

"You did good my friend, I'm proud of you. Now, come and place those bags of cigarettes next to the table here and we will begin."

I did as I was told, my mind once again caught up in this sort of surreal fantasy that had chosen tonight to manifest itself. I began to take a seat across from him then stopped myself, not yet having been told yet to sit. I was completely drawn in by this man's charisma. I was hypnotized. I was in a trance. I was an actor lost onstage, no script to be found, blindly performing at the director's whim.

"This is a bottle of Wild Turkey, two glasses, one for each of us. I took it from behind the bar because, when I smoke cigarettes, I also like to drink bourbon. I don't know if this is a drink you enjoy, but I would be privileged if you would drink with me tonight as our lungs ignite with smoke and fire. Sit."

I sat. He poured the two glasses full and continued.

"In this ash tray is a single match and from it shall come the spark that begins this all. There will be no other flame tonight, each cigarette will, before it is extinguished, be used to light the next cigarette that is smoked. This will continue until either every one of those cigarettes has been smoked or you have resigned yourself to filling that bucket with your evening's dinner and quitting."

He took a pack of cigarettes from his pocket, the same pack that he had slapped from my hands earlier, and took out two cigarettes. He handed the first to me and placed the second in his mouth before setting it on the table between us and picking up the match. He smiled at me, winked, and set the match ablaze with a quick flick across the unlaquered table, breaking his eye contact just long enough to light his own cigarette. The match was dead now. He leaned across the table, cigarette still in his mouth, and I realized I was expected to use his to light my own.

I closed my eyes as I placed that cigarette firmly between my lips, moved in towards that burning cherry at the end of Christopher Walken's cigarette, and sucked it into mine.

The night had begun.

I wake in bed to find that my world is pain. I feel like I've lost five fights and quickly touching my face sends rockets of agony sailing as my fingers trace over my black eye and nearby cuts. The small of my back feels like it's been friction burned and the tops of my feet are agony. I sit up, world spinning, and see that in addition to what appears to be dried vomit, the skin of the top of one of my big toes has all but been scraped off. I'm sweating alcohol already and my mind races to the night before, desperate to put the pieces together.

Some friends were coming to a nearby town and had agreed to come down to Bourgas for dinner and a show. Their hotel ended up fucking them on reservations and I ended up with nearly a dozen people looking to my sitemate and I for help. All good people and all friends of ours, we agree.

Dinner, drinks.

We go to see a local band, Lora, of whom I'm a bit of a groupie and friends with and immediately people start recognizing me from a party I had thrown nearly a month before at this same bar. Now, women get bought drinks all the time and have eventually gotten used to the process. They know how to nurse a drink and how to make the most of free drinks when the need is there. I, however, am not a woman. I am a male, 24 year old with a drinking problem and as one person after another, after another, after another proceed to excitedly offer me free beers, whiskeys, vodkas, and tequilas, I was too stunned by the rarity of the situation to do anything but accept them with gratitude and small-talk the bar. The band is rocking, playing one of their better sets with tons of new songs, and energy is high. People are dancing and everyone's having fun. At the end of their second set, my friend Jackson and I stop to buy the band a round of shots, each of us already having had quite a few ourselves. We find Lora, the lead singer, talking with a cute red-head and rather than interrupt to chat them up, we simply slip a shot of vodka into each of their hands and head upstairs to find the rest of the band. The bassist says no to the shot so Jackson drinks his. The drummer says no to the shot so I drink his. The lead guitarist says no to his shot so....

And cut scene. Blackout. No memory. Done.

I painfully pull myself out of bed and make my way for the door to go shower myself, tossing one hesitant look back to see a number of mysterious stains all over the sheets. Trying not to think about it, I get myself down the steps and nearly make it to the bathroom door before the rising nausea becomes too much for me to bear and I make a hasty retreat back upstairs to my bed, a sanctuary just as vile and disgusting as I am at this point. The entire house reaks of vomit by this point and as I pass the living room I see "the fellas" all blacked out in their usual poses in the living room. Jackson is sprawled on the cushion from my couch, no pillow or blanket necessary. Alex, our friend from near Russe, is slung over an armchair, neck in a position so uncomfortable I'm reminded of horror movies and automobile accidents. His friend Nick, a British chap who's been living in San Francisco and has been passing through Bulgaria on his tour of Europe, is simply face down on the floor, not so much as a carpet to soak up his drool.

And, of course, two dozen red plastic cups and a few empty two-litres of beer as evidence of a fairly heated match of beer pong.

I throw myself back down on the bed and let a foot fall to the floor to help steady the room from spinning. Slowly, it works, and I fall back into a dreamless stupor until a mixture of sun and the cawing of seagulls wakes me back up. The pain hasn't stopped in the slightest and it takes me another moment to gather my senses and try to remember what happened. Another attempt at the shower and another attempt failed. I decide to cut my losses and consider this a wasted day; grabbing a pillow I retreat to the couch where I find Greg now, another soldier from last night's battle, sitting idly at the computer watching my episodes of "Family Guy." Greg had been drinking with me since eleven in the morning yesterday as we woke up and had white wine for breakfast, with things going quickly downhill from there. While I, however, eventually decided to skip a beer here and there in place for enough food to help soak up some booze, he simply kept going until he couldn't stand anymore and disappeared five minutes after our arrival at the show last night. Where had he slept? Had he slept? I was too nauseous to think about it now, the bile already rising in the back of my throat again.

"Greg, you're my boy and I love you, but if you don't get the fuck off that couch right now and let me lay down there's a very good chance I will go and throw up in your backpack."

Greg in the chair Alex had been in, Alex where Nick had been (albeit with a pillow now) and Nick curled up in a ball under the kitchen table. Jackson, not surprisingly, hadn't shown an ounce of movement since I had last seen him and I was hoping that the smell lingering in the kitchen now was from all of last night's vomit and not from his dead body.

"Jesus Christ Tom, you look like shit! What the hell did guys do last night?"

I touched my eye again, wincing at the rapidly swelling lump under all the cuts across my face. My hand came back covered in pus and I found myself midway between a laugh and a gag. Once again, I had survived. Better than that though, I had lived.

"I've got no idea, but let's do it again tonight."