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- Story Listed as: True Life For Adults
- Theme: Drama / Human Interest
- Subject: Life Experience
- Published: 02/10/2021
“Hello?” I said, fumbling with the phone while still in bed, my mouth feeling like it was lined with cotton then stuffed with peanut butter.
“Hey man,” came Lopez’ scratchy, slightly accented voice through the line, “You okay?”
“Yeah, at least I was till you called and woke me. The hell time is it?”
After a rustling pause Lopez came back with, “Almost 9:30”, another pause, this one accompanied by the sound of liquid being slurped. “You talk wit’ Faust yet, man?”
“You just woke me up, remember? So no, I haven’t talked with anybody.”
“Oh yeah, okay. I’m gonna’ give Faust a call,” then Lopez hung up.
The night before slowly swam into focus. It was my mother’s retirement party, held at the Watchung Inn way up north near Plainfield. Dorothy Loretta had served tirelessly with the New Jersey Bell Telephone Company for forty two years, starting right after high school as an operator, just like Lily Tomlin saying ‘one ringy-dingy’, and working her way up to a District Manager’s position.
“Of course I’ll be there, mom,” I said in response to her invite a few months earlier, “This is important, you’ve literally worked for them all your life. Okay if I bring a date or maybe a couple friends?”
“Sure,” said Dorothy Loretta without a moment’s hesitation, “Just let me know how many so I can tell the office.”
The event was an easy sell to Lopez and Faust for several reasons, one of which was with all of us growing up on the block, they’d known Dorothy Loretta almost as long as I did, and then, of course, there was the free sit down dinner and open bar till midnight. I’ll always remember the look of pride on my mother’s face, being escorted into that banquet hall by three strapping young men wearing their best suits, then hugging and handshaking her way to her seat at the dais while we headed straight for the bar. Aside from Faust heckling some department head to pull strings and get him a job as a lineman, the party went smoothly, with Dorothy Loretta both laughing and crying during her coworkers’ reminiscences. It was around midnight, just after we helped load all the gifts, placards, and achievement awards into the trunk of my mother’s car and sent her off toward home, when the evening’s remaining events get blurry.
“So what time did you finally get in last night?” By now I’d made my way upstairs, after hanging my rumpled suit and throwing on jeans and a sweatshirt, to find Dorothy Loretta sitting at the kitchen table perusing the ‘Use and Care Guide’ of her new mantelpiece pendulum clock.
“Not sure,” I said, nursing a black cup of coffee. “But it wasn’t too late.” Fact of the matter was I had absolutely no recollection of even getting home last night, never mind what time. Then I remembered Lopez’ wake up call and was thinking of calling Faust when the phone rang. It was Lopez again.
“Just talked wit’ Faust, man. Said he wants us to come over soon as we can.”
In the opening scenes of some popular Hollywood films, people wake next to strangers in their beds or encounter other mysteries from the previous night that have to be pieced together and solved, which makes for interesting, often comedic, storytelling. There are instances, too, where people have ‘awakened’ in unknown cities or on trains and airplanes in route to destinations without knowing why they’re going there. Here’s what actually occurs, or ceases to occur, in the human brain during an alcohol induced blackout. Short term memory remains up and running but with no transference of information to long term, so long term memory is essentially shut down. Activities like carrying on a conversation, playing in a card game, or purchasing items in a store, a bar, or at a ticket counter, all relatively complex exchanges, can flawlessly take place because they require only short term memory. From a less scientific perspective, a blackout is akin to self induced amnesia or even the later stages of Alzheimer’s. Another activity which requires only short term memory is driving a car.
By the time I stepped out the front door, Lopez was already sitting on his porch, but he got up stiffly when he saw me coming and we met in the middle of the street. Bumping shoulders as we walked down the block toward Faust’s, I said, “Man that was a crazy good time last night.” Lopez just grunted something incoherent in reply. After a pause I pressed on nonchalantly, “So what time was it about when we got in, you remember?”
It took my friend, who I’d known since first grade, a half second too long to reply when he said, “Uh, must’a been around three...maybe four.” And sure enough when I looked up, I saw that same expression on his face from those old school days when he was asked a question and didn’t have a clue what the answer was. We walked the rest of the way in silence. Getting closer to Faust’s, I could see there was definitely something wrong with his gold Buick Opal parked out on the street. The front of the car didn’t look quite right; nothing was obviously broken, the headlights, grill, and bumper looked okay, but there was a strange, uneven gap between the hood line and the grill, almost as though it was watching Lopez and I with a raised eyebrow. The banging of a screen door announced Faust’s arrival, as he bounded with determination down the front steps lugging a tool box.
“Hey,” came his one word greeting, dropping the tools along the curb while we all convened around the car.
Lopez was the first to speak. “Holy chit’, man!” whenever he got excited, his Cuban accent would intensify, “The hell happin’ to da hood a dis car?”
While Lopez’ question hung in the air like the smoke from our cigarettes, we silently circled the small Buick import, as if it was for sale on a used car lot, looking for further damage. Aside from the hood there was nothing; the rest of the car was exactly as it was when we left for Plainfield the night before.
Crinkled and warped, the hood of Faust’s car looked as though it was installed upside down. Instead of following the aerodynamic contour and flowing slightly downward from the windshield to align with the front grill, it curved up like a giant serving bowl, giving the front that raised eyebrow look. While Faust tugged in vain to get it open and have a look at the engine, we engaged in asinine speculation as to what could’ve possibly slammed down on the car to leave an impression like that; our best guess was a full beer keg from a height of no less than ten feet. That was when Faust noticed a wire coat hanger had been bent and woven through what was left of the hood latch to keep it in place, and that was also when I leaned into the driver’s side window and pulled on the hood release leaver, only to find it had already been pulled. By now Faust had the mangled hood up, and he and Lopez were peering inside at the small engine.
“Bet there’s nothing wrong in there,” I said, slowly straightening while they looked up and just stared, their expressions inviting me to continue, “I think I know what happened.”
With me on one side and Lopez on the other, we gently raised the hood further, well past the point when the stretched and broken hinges should’ve stopped it, and were able to eventually let it rest where its new contour fit perfectly along the windshield then up onto the roof.
Medically speaking there are actually two types of alcohol induced blackouts. In some cases, the disruption of information from short to long term memory is only partial, and that’s when verbal or visual cues the following day may allow some recollection of events. This type is logically referred to as a ‘brownout’. The other type is called ‘en bloc’, and that’s when the disruption of information is total and memory loss permanent. It’s close to forty five years now and those events that occurred after midnight at Dorothy Loretta’s retirement dinner remain a mystery, not only to me, but to Lopez and Faust as well. Somebody pulled the hood release from inside the car, probably whoever was driving, the second latch, the one operated from the outside, didn’t hold, probably because the car was moving so fast that air rushed in lifting and plastering the hood against the windshield. Somehow we were able to pull over, tie the hood down with a coat hanger, then drive the rest of the way home and anything beyond that is speculation. One certainty is those events after midnight were anything but a ‘crazy good time’, in fact, memory loss makes them more of a crazy terrifying nightmare.
“So,” Faust said securing his hood with the coat hanger again and letting out a long sigh, “You guys feel like going to get a couple a beers for lunch?”
Still Bill, 02/10/21
Anatomy of a Blackout(Still Bill)
“Hello?” I said, fumbling with the phone while still in bed, my mouth feeling like it was lined with cotton then stuffed with peanut butter.
“Hey man,” came Lopez’ scratchy, slightly accented voice through the line, “You okay?”
“Yeah, at least I was till you called and woke me. The hell time is it?”
After a rustling pause Lopez came back with, “Almost 9:30”, another pause, this one accompanied by the sound of liquid being slurped. “You talk wit’ Faust yet, man?”
“You just woke me up, remember? So no, I haven’t talked with anybody.”
“Oh yeah, okay. I’m gonna’ give Faust a call,” then Lopez hung up.
The night before slowly swam into focus. It was my mother’s retirement party, held at the Watchung Inn way up north near Plainfield. Dorothy Loretta had served tirelessly with the New Jersey Bell Telephone Company for forty two years, starting right after high school as an operator, just like Lily Tomlin saying ‘one ringy-dingy’, and working her way up to a District Manager’s position.
“Of course I’ll be there, mom,” I said in response to her invite a few months earlier, “This is important, you’ve literally worked for them all your life. Okay if I bring a date or maybe a couple friends?”
“Sure,” said Dorothy Loretta without a moment’s hesitation, “Just let me know how many so I can tell the office.”
The event was an easy sell to Lopez and Faust for several reasons, one of which was with all of us growing up on the block, they’d known Dorothy Loretta almost as long as I did, and then, of course, there was the free sit down dinner and open bar till midnight. I’ll always remember the look of pride on my mother’s face, being escorted into that banquet hall by three strapping young men wearing their best suits, then hugging and handshaking her way to her seat at the dais while we headed straight for the bar. Aside from Faust heckling some department head to pull strings and get him a job as a lineman, the party went smoothly, with Dorothy Loretta both laughing and crying during her coworkers’ reminiscences. It was around midnight, just after we helped load all the gifts, placards, and achievement awards into the trunk of my mother’s car and sent her off toward home, when the evening’s remaining events get blurry.
“So what time did you finally get in last night?” By now I’d made my way upstairs, after hanging my rumpled suit and throwing on jeans and a sweatshirt, to find Dorothy Loretta sitting at the kitchen table perusing the ‘Use and Care Guide’ of her new mantelpiece pendulum clock.
“Not sure,” I said, nursing a black cup of coffee. “But it wasn’t too late.” Fact of the matter was I had absolutely no recollection of even getting home last night, never mind what time. Then I remembered Lopez’ wake up call and was thinking of calling Faust when the phone rang. It was Lopez again.
“Just talked wit’ Faust, man. Said he wants us to come over soon as we can.”
In the opening scenes of some popular Hollywood films, people wake next to strangers in their beds or encounter other mysteries from the previous night that have to be pieced together and solved, which makes for interesting, often comedic, storytelling. There are instances, too, where people have ‘awakened’ in unknown cities or on trains and airplanes in route to destinations without knowing why they’re going there. Here’s what actually occurs, or ceases to occur, in the human brain during an alcohol induced blackout. Short term memory remains up and running but with no transference of information to long term, so long term memory is essentially shut down. Activities like carrying on a conversation, playing in a card game, or purchasing items in a store, a bar, or at a ticket counter, all relatively complex exchanges, can flawlessly take place because they require only short term memory. From a less scientific perspective, a blackout is akin to self induced amnesia or even the later stages of Alzheimer’s. Another activity which requires only short term memory is driving a car.
By the time I stepped out the front door, Lopez was already sitting on his porch, but he got up stiffly when he saw me coming and we met in the middle of the street. Bumping shoulders as we walked down the block toward Faust’s, I said, “Man that was a crazy good time last night.” Lopez just grunted something incoherent in reply. After a pause I pressed on nonchalantly, “So what time was it about when we got in, you remember?”
It took my friend, who I’d known since first grade, a half second too long to reply when he said, “Uh, must’a been around three...maybe four.” And sure enough when I looked up, I saw that same expression on his face from those old school days when he was asked a question and didn’t have a clue what the answer was. We walked the rest of the way in silence. Getting closer to Faust’s, I could see there was definitely something wrong with his gold Buick Opal parked out on the street. The front of the car didn’t look quite right; nothing was obviously broken, the headlights, grill, and bumper looked okay, but there was a strange, uneven gap between the hood line and the grill, almost as though it was watching Lopez and I with a raised eyebrow. The banging of a screen door announced Faust’s arrival, as he bounded with determination down the front steps lugging a tool box.
“Hey,” came his one word greeting, dropping the tools along the curb while we all convened around the car.
Lopez was the first to speak. “Holy chit’, man!” whenever he got excited, his Cuban accent would intensify, “The hell happin’ to da hood a dis car?”
While Lopez’ question hung in the air like the smoke from our cigarettes, we silently circled the small Buick import, as if it was for sale on a used car lot, looking for further damage. Aside from the hood there was nothing; the rest of the car was exactly as it was when we left for Plainfield the night before.
Crinkled and warped, the hood of Faust’s car looked as though it was installed upside down. Instead of following the aerodynamic contour and flowing slightly downward from the windshield to align with the front grill, it curved up like a giant serving bowl, giving the front that raised eyebrow look. While Faust tugged in vain to get it open and have a look at the engine, we engaged in asinine speculation as to what could’ve possibly slammed down on the car to leave an impression like that; our best guess was a full beer keg from a height of no less than ten feet. That was when Faust noticed a wire coat hanger had been bent and woven through what was left of the hood latch to keep it in place, and that was also when I leaned into the driver’s side window and pulled on the hood release leaver, only to find it had already been pulled. By now Faust had the mangled hood up, and he and Lopez were peering inside at the small engine.
“Bet there’s nothing wrong in there,” I said, slowly straightening while they looked up and just stared, their expressions inviting me to continue, “I think I know what happened.”
With me on one side and Lopez on the other, we gently raised the hood further, well past the point when the stretched and broken hinges should’ve stopped it, and were able to eventually let it rest where its new contour fit perfectly along the windshield then up onto the roof.
Medically speaking there are actually two types of alcohol induced blackouts. In some cases, the disruption of information from short to long term memory is only partial, and that’s when verbal or visual cues the following day may allow some recollection of events. This type is logically referred to as a ‘brownout’. The other type is called ‘en bloc’, and that’s when the disruption of information is total and memory loss permanent. It’s close to forty five years now and those events that occurred after midnight at Dorothy Loretta’s retirement dinner remain a mystery, not only to me, but to Lopez and Faust as well. Somebody pulled the hood release from inside the car, probably whoever was driving, the second latch, the one operated from the outside, didn’t hold, probably because the car was moving so fast that air rushed in lifting and plastering the hood against the windshield. Somehow we were able to pull over, tie the hood down with a coat hanger, then drive the rest of the way home and anything beyond that is speculation. One certainty is those events after midnight were anything but a ‘crazy good time’, in fact, memory loss makes them more of a crazy terrifying nightmare.
“So,” Faust said securing his hood with the coat hanger again and letting out a long sigh, “You guys feel like going to get a couple a beers for lunch?”
Still Bill, 02/10/21
Christopher Matta
02/17/2021Great story, Still Bill. Very descriptive, and it evoked eerily familiar feelings.
It makes me remember some of my own fuzzy nights. Some funny, some not so much.. I was relatively lucky though. I recall one fellow alcoholic's story about hanging out with his buddy and a girlfriend, drinking away. When he came to the next day, he was in a holding cell, with a possible murder charge. The woman was dead, and his buddy put the blame on him...He didn't remember either way..
Glad to be "over here", with you and the other knuckleheads, Still Bill.
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Help Us Understand What's Happening
Sylvia Maclagan
02/17/2021I like the information about memory loss, either short, long or forever. My late husband had senile dementia, so he went through those phases. It was so sad to watch...
I don't think I can relate to your story, because nothing like that ever happened to me, but it's certainly well written and captures the mood perfectly.
Congrats for being STAR of the Day! Kind regards, Sylvia
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Sylvia Maclagan
02/17/2021Yes, it was a very sad time and lasted almost 15 years, Bill. But I really wanted to comment on your story, just got to rememberging sad times. That means you're a good writer. Sylvia
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Still Bill
02/17/2021I can’t even imagine what it must’ve been like to go through that with your husband.
Thank you for reading and the encouraging comment, Sylvia.
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Gerald R Gioglio
02/11/2021Bill,
Another nice, descriptive piece on an all to frequent occurrence. Thanks.
Help Us Understand What's Happening
Help Us Understand What's Happening
Louise Bader
02/10/2021Very good description of what a black out is. Glad you made it home safely.
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COMMENTS (5)