It's 22:00 and we've got our pretty clothes on. I've only got one nice button-down shirt, and it's on. It's some shade of gray, which I don't think ever gets old or blase. Grant and Max have their black ones on, and we've all got our decent shoes on for once. I don't think we wore them at all in Berlin. Well, maybe at the beginning when we were in the hostel. Hostels always demand the best, I guess. There's three Austrians (not Australians) in our room also and we all get proper sloshed and riotous before we stumble out and towards the center of Prague. Someone, I can't remember who, told us of some magical six-story club that we absolutely needed to see. According to the map though, it seems kind of far, and before we're even at the old market square we run into a horde of drunkards, riotous and swaying as well, and among them is, of course, the dastardly duo, Bobby and Ryan. It's the pub crawl, and they're on the last leg, going to the last bar. What are the odds. I hadn't even gotten their phone numbers and well, I don't have a phone so I'd thought that chance encounter after the weed deal would be our last. But the fates had other plans, I suppose. And we're already wasted so we forget all about the six-story mega-club and mesh with the crawl and end up in some basement bar with two big dance floors and free shots at the door. Works for me. Bobby throws me a courtesy cig and we just burn 'em down inside. Smoke hang heavy over the whole place, even with the AC on, but it's a blast. A dance riot. A bunch of English girls and Aussies drunk off pub crawling, grooving to an eclectic mix of American pop songs from across the decades. A lot of Michael Jackson, and thank goodness for that. Grant, Max, and the Austrians leave around 2:00, they're tired. But Bobby and Ryan are still down to rage, so I stay and we rage right up until they play us all out of the place after last call with an old Sinatra number. Worth it, it's 4:00. I say good-bye to Bobby and Ryan, that high school nostalgia, and I don't really know when I'll see them again, if ever. But hell, it's a romping good time. I figure I'll just go back the way I came back to the hostel, and it's a bit far so I pace myself at a fast jog.
Surprisingly fast considering how drunk I am. And maybe I'm too busy realizing how fast I'm going to notice how fucking lost I've gotten because as far as getting lost goes, I'm pretty much peaking. I'd made a wrong turn somewhere, I think, and I flat-out forgot to make a handful of them. After thirty minutes, I'm sick of running, but too pissed off and aggravated not to. The streets are all empty and lit orange gothic and eastern European by the streetlights. They fork and split and splinter off in every direction at times, and I haven't the faintest clue of which one to take. No cars, no people. No clue. Miraculously, I stumble upon the train station, and there's flashes before my eyes of our night-time walk to the hostel the first night we got here. The place certainly isn't as inviting by myself. It's rather gaunt and creepy actually, but I'm too drunk and annoyed to care. And my legs are starting to burn. Apparently, I'm also too drunk to even remember how we got to the hostel that first night because before I know it, I'm lost again. Maybe it's the booze, or maybe it's the hour, but every street looks like the one the hostel's supposed to be on. Same looking buildings, same looking intersections. It takes another thirty minutes to find the stupid place. The little walkway to the back, next to the closed tattoo parlor. I'm panting and sweating in the lobby as I tell the young Australian (not Austrian) man behind the counter that I don't have my room key (Grant and Max had it). He must've thought I was crazy, sprinting up into the place at five in the morning. "Well, that's all right," he says regardless. "What's your room number?"
"Umm..." Please remember.
Remember. "309? Yeah, that's it."
He fiddles around on the keyboard for a bit, asks to see my ID, then hands me a key, "Here you go, mate. No worries."
"Why, thank you," I say. "And
good-night."
