Art Gallery Blackout

Name: Tim Sheahan

Age: 21

This all happened fairly recently, the first week of may. My painting professor had invited a few of us from class to one of his friend’s gallery openings on the north side of Chicago. Now, while I’m an artist, that doesn’t mean I can tolerate artsy types for several hours, so I decided it’d be much easier to deal with the smug if I fortified my mind with a 750ml of Smirnoff dispersed evenly into an 8-pack of blue Gatorade, cause I love Dr. Who and all they’d be serving there were 2oz cups of box wine. So it was early Friday evening that me and three friends made the hour-long drive into the city while I diligently set to work on downing all eight of those bastards, figuring my metabolism would then provide me with a steadily increasing inebriation throughout the night. Sound reasoning, I thought, but its important to note at this point that I was in the city for five hours that night, and barring momentary flashes of recollection, the only clear portion is the first 30 minutes or so after arrival. The majority of the rest of this story was related to me a couple days later by my handlers, after they lightened up enough to speak to me again.

We parked and walked toward the gallery, stopping briefly at a vegan restaurant so I could take a piss. Apparently we would return later for dinner.

After relieving myself we continued on, met up with some more people from the class outside the door for a cigarette then into the nest of yuppies we went. I was tipsy at this point, but only just enough to A) forget my plan of letting my body process the alcohol at a constant rate, and B) decide I needed to get drunker. I made a beeline for the beverage table and grabbed a couple cups of pinot grigio and downed them like shots much to the horror of the guy taking donations. I hesitated for a moment, gave him some money, and grabbed a couple more cups to take with me in my trek around the room to check out the new work.

I suppose I was walking a bit worse than you’d expect of someone who’d been practicing his entire life, which is probably why a couple of my more alert friends dragged me back outside. They combated my protests with a logic bomb suggesting we have another cigarette. It was right about here that I started losing massive periods of time, so you’ll excuse my behavior since my neocortex had decided it was a good time to flip the auto-pilot on and take a nap.
The girls in the group, all of them taken, were then subjected to lewd compliments, licking, and groping until one of the more uppity (and from what she would later tell me “severely disappointed”) broads decided to smack me hard enough to make my head look behind me. I guess it wasn’t hard enough to register, as I proceeded to shout at her “Oh, slap me harder, my libido is throbbing!”

Deciding to do something about that, she slapped me in the balls while I maintained a neutral expression for about ten seconds, which turned to a confused expression, and then a pained one as I slowly dropped to the ground while letting out a soft “owwwww”. I guess I was being sort of obnoxious by now, because a group of people standing nearby congratulated the girl for her fine deed and actually began to clap. What kind of douche does one have to be to cause people to applaud when he gets backhanded in the sack? At the very least, the sidewalk must’ve been quite comfortable, since I sat down on it, legs splayed out in front of me, for the next two hours. I realize now that I probably could’ve gotten some money thrown at me had I not dressed so nicely. Ah, well, there’s always next time.

Everyone’s smokes depleted, they let me know they were heading back in, and if I needed anything. I requested more wine, and one of the kinder girls agreed. That treacherous harlot. She brought out what I thought was more white wine, but upon sipping it I spit it out like deadly poison, exclaiming “This shit tastes like water!”
She confirmed that it was, in fact, water, and that I should drink it for my own good. I threw the cup up at her face. I let go too soon and it fell back on my own face, but I think she understood the gesture as disapproving. She went back inside, leaving me to tell every passing woman how attractive they all were, which was perfectly reasonable for an invincible demi-god to do.

And I was invincible, damn you, until I noticed this photographer, taking great interest in me from various angles. Of course I enjoyed the attention, posing, making faces, throwing up the horns and whatnot, until I heard a subtle tone in his laughter that I didn’t quite like. This most certainly wasn’t “with you” laughter as I had originally assumed, this was the “at you” variety. Although by the time I’d processed this and was ready to punch him right in the lens, he was gone, so I got to my feet and stumbled through the door, spotting my friends sitting on a bench in the center of the room. I stood there, swaying, trying to plot a course but these fuckers weren’t making it easy on me. They were so close together, I was certain I’d inadvertently tackle someone if I didn’t watch my proximity, so I walked along the wall, drawing gasps as I occasionally bumped into it, causing paintings to shake on their precarious hangings, then went to the bench when I found a reasonably empty path. I reunited with my group by sitting down with all the grace of a sack of potatoes, crushing someone’s plastic wine cup beneath me. Not that I noticed, I had a story to tell about that Luther Vandross-looking motherfucker making fun of me as they scooted away, passively trying to deny their association with me. Frustrated with the lack of attention, I decided I’d have to just wait out the rest of the night, having already seen the artwork and talked to all the people I was supposed to. I looked around and saw a plate of candy on a small table next to the bench, and reached for some. According to the burn on my forearm, a candle was between me and the candy, and it had taken me awhile to successfully grab a piece, while that candle burned away inches below my thoroughly numbed arm.

Having not pissed for the last two hours while my body was doing everything it could to dispose of any water it could find, I staggered to the bathroom in the back of the room, which was decorated with all sorts of random crap to make it seem more interesting than a toilet and a sink, I guess. One of these decorations was a pocket knife, and I must’ve thought it was a really nice one since I found it in my pocket later, but I’ll get to that.

Since my friends had decided to avoid me at this point, I don’t have much to go on until they gathered me to leave for the vegan restaurant. Two of them were shouldering my arms to help me navigate, and I decided it would be fun if I picked my legs up and started swinging back and forth between them. I thought it would be even more fun if I surprised them about all this, and they dropped me as the additional weight came out of nowhere.

I tell ya, for all the stuff that auto-pilot lets slip by, he’s a pretty observant guy. When we got back to the restaurant, I took a moment to absorb my surroundings. Vegan restaurant. North side of Chicago. Many tables had pairs of men sitting at them. My survival instinct kicked in and I shouted “But I don’t wanna be raped!”, abruptly halting the conversations of about half the restaurant. The waitress was willing to let the first strike slide, and quickly seated our group in the corner. I suppose I really wanted to drive the point home that I was a heterosexual, since every time she came to the table I let her know just how hot she was. I couldn’t focus my eyes on the menu, nor did I care to, since I had some super-suave flirting to do, so to keep my mouth shut the people on either side of me kept shoving bread in my mouth. I had a really hard time keeping it all in my mouth as I chewed, and bread is solid. So when I tried to wash it down with some water, a liquid mind you, I ended up spilling it all over myself, the table, and splashing some on the people on either side of me. The rest of the group ate quickly, ushered me back outside to get back to the car.

This is when I discovered the pocketknife I’d so slyly lifted from the gallery bathroom. It was a high quality knife, and I decided that I should show it off. When I showed my friends I was disappointed by their lack of interest, so I decided I would find someone who appreciates a work of such craftsmanship. I assumed a couple people walking towards us would contain at least one other person who knows a good knife when he sees it, so I unfolded it (how else could they appreciate the well-ground blade?) and hobbled towards them with great enthusiasm yelling “Hey check out this knife!”My earlier character assessments were incorrect, these philistines didn’t even bother to examine the knife, instead choosing to run to the other side of the road.

It turns out one of my friends did understand how nice the knife was, since he took it from me, the selfish prick. They dragged me faster than I could walk back to the car saying something about how we needed to “get the hell out of here before those people find some cops.” and tried to stuff me into the back seat. I was having none of it, seeing as I needed to relieve myself once more, and just to defy them even further, I chose to do so on a well-lit street corner a block away, facing traffic. Once I’d finished, I was dragged back to the car and shoved back inside, where I proceeded to pass out. I awoke the next morning on my front porch, and later that day was shown a video someone had shot of me while I was in the midst of time-traveling. The recording ended with me saying “High-five future Tim!” and slapping the lens with my palm. I high-fived my former self by slapping the monitor, which I’d predicted quite precisely as the image of myself on screen said “I know you were all over that shit!” Indeed I was.

So people ran for the hills when you stumbled toward them with a knife?  How rude.