Yet another black square from my checkered past
I saw something today that referred to "Sunday, Feb. 4, 1990." It's an ad that's been running in the Classified section of the Edge-of-America Beacon at least since 1996, when we were here the first time. In the early morning hours of Feb. 4, 1990, a woman disappeared from her shift at a 7-Eleven somewhere near here. They're still looking for her.

Being who I am, of course, I always bring things back around to me. Wonder what I was doing on Sunday, Feb. 4, 1990? I asked myself. Then I remembered: That was the day when I realized I might have a problem.

I remember a lot of the previous day very clearly, because it was a hell of a lot of fun. But there's a huge chunk of it I don't remember now, 13 years later. I didn't remember it 13 hours later, either, and haven't remembered it since.

Saturday, Feb. 3, 1990, was the zenith -- or nadir, depending on how you look at it -- of my pre-marital drinking days.

As mentioned previously here, I turned 21 in July 1989, but I had a several-month head start on a just-turned-21 drinking binge. I was at one point consuming a 12-pack a night. The cycle went something like this: work until about 12:30, rush to the bar (which closed at 1) and drink as many beers as you could in 15 minutes, rush to the one package store in Anytown that stayed open until 1:30 (all the Anytown readers' minds just went to the intersection of Glenstone and Grand; we've all been there) and buy a case or two, which my co-workers and I would split while listening to Billy Joel records and/or playing Nerfoop in L's apartment on Bennett Street. The sun would come up about 5 or 6 a.m., and that was our signal to go get breakfast. The breakfast of choice was served at a place called George's, where they served a $3.99 Steak and Eggs special that L called "Secretariat and Eggs."

After Secretariat and Eggs, I'd drive home -- very carefully -- and fall asleep around 7 a.m. By 11 on most days, I was back at the Y playing basketball. Shower, lunch and go to work at 4 p.m. Then repeat the cycle.

On my days off, the cycle was a little different. At the time, I was usually off on Tuesday and Wednesday. One of the people who lived at our shithole abode only worked when he needed money; the rest of the time, he lived the casual life of the unemployed. On my days off, he and I would go to lunch at a joint called Casey's, which served a kick-ass steak sandwich and 2-for-1 beers at lunch. "2-for-1 beers" meant two huge mugs of draft brew for $1 -- very appealing to a guy who was usually unemployed, and equally appealing to me. After lunch, we'd go buy a six-pack of something and polish that off while we waited for our friends with normal jobs to get off work. We'd go to the bar about 9, and get a head start on my co-workers, who'd make the mad dash to get there by 12:45. Then we'd do the cycle mentioned above.

I probably did a few stupid things that I don't remember, but my stupidest things simply involved spending a lot of money. I was clearing about $200 a week from my job, and pretty much everything that wasn't going to my car payment or rent was going to beer. When rent became inconvenient, I moved back in with my mom. I viewed car insurance as optional. When the cash flow started to get spotty, I used a Conoco gas card to buy beer at the Conoco convenience store.

It was that Conoco card that got my friend and I started on Feb. 3. We were headed down to Branson to visit an ex-girlfriend of mine, M, whose mom and dad owned a local bar on the non-tourist side of town. I had gotten this girlfriend out of a pretty bad jam (that's another story) a few months previous, and her parents wanted to meet me and express some gratitude. So, at about 11 a.m., F and I headed down there after stopping off at the Conoco to buy some Pony bottles of Bud. Our thinking: Pony bottles stay cold all the way to the bottom, because they're smaller, and we didn't have a cooler. There was a science to this drinking thing.

We had killed the Ponies about the time we reached Branson 45 minutes later. We showed up at M's parents' dive, and M's mom greeted me with a big hug and two bottles of Budweiser. "M told me you guys like Bud," she said. I reached into my wallet, but M's mom said, "It's on the house." Well, woo-hoo!

F and I played some shuffleboard, despite my having no idea how to actually play. We shot the shit with M's mom. M wasn't there; I don't know where she was that day. Probably working. The bottles of Bud proved to be bottomless. Every time we turned around, there was a fresh bottle waiting for us. I was beginning to wonder if I had driven my truck into a ravine back on the highway and somehow made it into my version of Heaven.

F and I had tickets to a basketball game in town that night, so we said our goodbyes around 4:30 p.m. and headed back north to Anytown. I probably would have blown .23 into a generous Breathalyzer at that point. F's tolerance was a little higher, but he wasn't in much better shape than I was.

I have a clear memory of taking an exit we shouldn't have taken and winding up on a farm road. I discovered the error and backtracked. By backtracking, I mean driving about 25-30 mph in reverse. F said, "Man, you're scaring me now." I laughed a bit, until I realized he wasn't being funny.

That was around 5 p.m. Then there's a period of blackness. It's not like me to not remember a sequence of events. I remember nothing of that evening between that incident and about 10:30, when we were sitting in a local pizza joint after the game listening to a local band of musicians who specialized in parodies. The guy at the piano announced to the crowd that Buster Douglas had beaten Mike Tyson. "No way," I said. "Did I hear that right? I'm not that drunk. Must have been a gag." By that time, I was drinking water, making my way down.

The next morning's newspaper confirmed that my school had won its basketball game the previous night. Usually, even if I wasn't covering the game, I'd remember a lot of the details. I searched my brain. Nothing. No idea. I know I was at the game, but I remember very small bits of it. My ticket stub was in my pocket and torn. That was the only confirmation that I had been there.

That was the first time I was aware of having had an hours-long alcohol-induced blackout.

It didn't happen again.

I began to reassess a lot of things, starting by coming to the realization that my pickup truck must have been guided by the hand of some deity for most of that day. This is why I'm pretty sure I'll never win the lottery; I used up all my luck by not driving into somebody or landing in jail during that time. Driving around like that isn't even funny. It's just stupid. I'm not the least bit proud of it.

I started making my way off the cycle. I still made the mad post-work dash to the bar, but I started skipping the package store and headed instead to bed. I noticed the impact from that in my checkbook almost immediately. I still shot hoops, but I skipped the four-beer lunch on my days off.

This is not to say I went on the wagon. I still enjoyed -- and for that matter, still enjoy -- a good buzz.

But not every day, and sure as hell not behind the wheel.