Getting Drunk with Fred the Bum

We rode in a beat-up car that was running on its last legs. The kind of car that would give you anxiety stepping in it. Rust, the color of dehydrated piss, covered the cheaply made shell of the car. The inside smelt of stale cigarettes. Trash and empty packs of GPC cigarettes lined the back seats. Young kids — adults defined by status quo — filled the car. Their still developing brains were thinking of one thing — hard liquor and fast music. “Yo! Stop at the liquor store someone said.”

It was the junkiest liquor store in town. We’d frequent there often to buy 40oz bottles of malt liquor. Spend a couple of bucks and get shitty wasted. Falling over, slamming heads into walls and sleeping on the floor kind of drunk. Sleep until 2pm when the whistle of work sounded on our phones. Get out of work at 10pm and do it again.

I was the only one who was 21. The purveyor of poison. We wanted to drink on the way. Our DD didn’t mind. We paid for his ticket to the show straight up. I grabbed a few half pints of Mohawk Vodka and blue Gatorade. In the hot days of the endless summer, we’d frequent mix a whole bottle of blue Gatorade with a half pint Mohawk Vodka. Walk around our town of Nowheresville aimlessly. Hide from cops in the shadows of trees. It wasn’t our first rock n’ roll. Neither our last.

We were on our way to the city. The city of crime, chaos and mystery none of us small town kids knew. It was about an hour and a half drive. We planned to get shitty drunk before the concert started. Money was scarce in those days. A part-time $7.00/hour job and hustlin’ eighths wasn’t going to make me rich overnight — a way to pay the bills and buy the brews. We had to get drunk before we went into the concert. Why pay $8 dollars for a beer when we could spend a few bucks on Mohawk Vodka and get piss drunk in a short car ride?

By the time we got to the concert I was already wasted. I stumbled out of the car lighting a cheap cigarette. People dressed in leather jackets covered in shit band patches surrounded the proximity. I was donning plaid yellow and red pants — one leg yellow the other red. My shirt was a Leftover Crack shirt with the words, “Rock the 40oz” on them — Eric and Dylan cheering with 40oz’s in their hands. I fit the description of a degenerate street punk — a term I haphazardly gave for myself, when I was really just an upper middle-class kid. Always one class above my friends. A silver spoon around when I needed it. But it was the self-destruction of punk rock I liked. The nihilism that drew me in like a fly to it. The older I got the more I realized — there were more privileged white kids from silver spoon fed households that took advantage of this fucked idealism of self-destructive nihilism than kids who actually upheld these poorly created principals.

This venue was my favorite. Real punk rock bands frequented it. It was dangerous. People shot dope by the pool tables. Fights and fucks in the bathroom. The venue was located in the part of the city where the bums and burned houses were located. A lost paradise of chaos and structured anarchy. My glazed eyes looked for a good place to stand near the stage. The first band was about to start.

Lights went down and music blasted. A mosh pit had already started. I was level fucking 10 drunk at this point. An impulsive urge ran through my blood. My eyes tunneled in on the stage. I rushed the pit and jumped on the stage. Pushed the front man around. Got thrown off and did it again. Before I knew it a man three times the size and covered in five times the amount of tattoos I had was dragging me out of the venue. When I caught my breath, I was on the streets.

I tried to sneak back in the venue, but the bodyguard wouldn’t let me in. Told me if he saw me again, he would call the cops. Then I met Fred.

“You got any money mane?”

I turned around a homeless dude was in my face asking me for money.

“I got money but what do you really want? I’ll buy it for you.”

“211 mane. Get me some of that 211.”

211 is the logo for the malt liquor Steel Reserve. The nastiest malt liquor known to man. If you drink enough of those in one night your piss will be a dark orange color the next day. But they’ll fuck you up good. You slam a 40 and you will be gone.

I ended up buying Fred and myself a couple of steelies. We went into a back alley and drank together.

“I’m actually a businessman,” Fred said.

“Oh really?”

“Yeah mane check out this leather jacket. You wouldn’t catch a bum in this jacket, would you?”

It went on like this. Fred kept saying how he was a businessman from out of state just hanging out. Businessmen who ask white boys to buy them beer.

“You’re not from around here are you,” Fred said.

I told him I wasn’t. Came to the city to see a concert. Ended up getting thrown out before seeing the band I wanted to see. All my friends were still in the venue and I was stuck out here until the concert ended.

When we were done drinking our Steelies Fred said, “let’s find some food.”

We were off into the city. Drunk as all get out. Wandered aimlessly down trash littered street after street. It was a city covered in darkness. All the streetlights either didn’t work or were broken out from bullets or rocks. Up ahead, a group of five or six men approached.

“Waddup?” Fred shouted.

They were another group of bums. Clean ones at that. They didn’t smell like they have been living on the streets. Fred introduced them to me. Said I was an outsider and we were looking for food. I told them I’d buy them all food if we found something.

It was getting late now. We continued to walk and talk. Talk about nothing I can remember. Drunken talks that seem important in the moment but lost in a nether of bliss the next day. A florescent light glowed ahead. A fried chicken fast food joint. The doors were locked so we walked around to the drive thru window.

“Hey girlie,” Fred shouted. “Can we get some of that chicken?”

The young lady in the drive thru said she couldn’t get any. I told the lady I was Fred’s son and we were hungry. Been on the streets all night and just looking for a bite. She wouldn’t budge. Told us to leave or she would have to call the cops.

“Fuck it let’s just get some more beer,” I said.

Buzz, buzz, buzz.

My phone was blowing up. My girlfriend was calling me.

“Where the hell are you?” she shouted.

I told her I was hanging out with some homeless people and we were about to buy some drinks. She fucking lost it. Told me the concert was over and they were looking for me.

“I gotta go guys it was nice hanging out with y’all,” I stated.

The biggest meanest bum looked at me and said, “well can you at least give us some money so we can get beer?”

I threw them a couple of 20s and was off. Running full speed back to the venue. When I made it back I hopped in the car. They told me the concert was great. Wished I could have seen it. My girlfriend was beyond pissed at me for getting thrown out and hanging out with bums — but that’s another story.

When I got thrown out of the concert, I was devasted. I had no idea what I was going to do in a city I didn’t belong to for four hours. But as I sat in the car with the city lights in the rearview, I thought about Fred. Thought what a unique adventure hanging out and getting drunk with a bum was. The concert would have faded from my memory as time passed. But Fred will live on in my mind. In the mind of an adult whose adventurous side is all but dead.