10-13-07. A tale from the past
“Cousin!”
I jolted into a sitting position from the floor. my back was sore, hair frazzled, and I was obviously still drunk. Wiping my eyes in confusion I looked for the source of the last audible noise I had heard. A silhouette stood between the light and me; it was my cousin. With every ounce of strength and sobriety I could muster my body slowly lifted itself from the carpet. It took a couple moments for me to find stability, clarity, and memory. Once the fog lifted I had remembered where I was, what had happened, and what was going to happen. I was at Sean’s, my cousins, apartment. It was a humble abode filled with all sorts of neat extensions of wealth. Three fine recliners, an Xbox 360 and a relatively large flat screen TV. My last memory had consisted of stumbling into this apartment with a fellow boi and two girls at 3 in the morning. I faintly remember yelling “Cynthia is a saint!” The clock read 5:30 am, and reality struck. Regardless of how hung over(or drunk) I was we had an agenda to complete. MY cousin obviously had watched my confused mannerisms long enough.
“you ready to this nick?”
“yeah, Linda, lets do this”(1)
With my friends still fast asleep and my clothes unchanged, my cousin and I left for Amscot and a convenience store. We had many things to do before the sun held high noon. Our first stop was the aforementioned Amscot, only because the counties conservative legislation restricts us from buying alcohol before six. Sean’s putt-sy corolla sputtered into Amscot and the first adventure of this particular Saturday morning began.
Amscot happens to be one of the many establishments in the north Tampa area catered to the shady and shadier. Bold blue lettering reaches across the front of the building reading “You’re OK with us!” These words seem to call from all corners of the local ghettoes. Some of their customers are honest citizens trapped in the poverty cycle while some are obvious abusers of government welfare programs. As Amscot reassures however they are all ok with them. Sean and I are neither poverteers or abusers of the system, we are just simply looking for somewhere to cash a check at five forty five in the morning on a Saturday.
Ten minutes later the puttsy corolla pulled out of the parking lot with roughly three hundred and forty dollars, with some odd change. The clock now read Five fifty eight and our next stop was the convenience store. Hess seemed as good as choice as any so Sean pulled into the equally as shady establishment. We sat in a car for a minute debating what purchase to make. Sean suggested a brand name beer such as Coors or bud light; something the average drinker wouldn’t think twice to send down the hatch. I on the other hand posses much different motives. I am looking for a chuggable and inexpensive beer; Natural Light. There is a four dollar difference per twelve pack between the former and latter beers and considering we are spending between forty and fifty dollars, we are going to get at the very least twelve more beers out of transaction. With the only god-given talent I possess, I convinced him to buy Natural light, or “Natty” as I affectionately refer to it as.
As we drove back towards my cousins apartment the scenery starts to change. The buildings begin to look newer and so does the populace. We have entered Bulls Country, the area of Tampa surrounding the University of South Florida. Normally a Saturday morning would be dead as most of the students are sleeping or just getting to be from a rough Friday night. This particular Saturday morning however is game day, with kickoff scheduled at high noon. College football is unlike any other sport for fans. The intensity level is four times that of any other event save maybe the world cup. In the eyes of the student the success of the team is correlated to the belligerence and intoxication of the stadium. So tens of thousands of twenty something’s gather around kegs, makeshift Jacuzzis, cheap grills, and ancient RV’s as they consume as much alcohol as possible before kickoff.
After navigating the mainstay of Bulls country, Bruce B. Downs Boulevard, we found ourselves back to Sean’s apartment armed with enough alcohol to kill a gorilla. Sean and I decided to leave the beer in the car since three flights of stairs were part of the trek to his front door and neither of us wanted to carry booze that far. Instead we grabbed two beers each for our shortened return to the apartment. Since leaving earlier that morning the scenery inside the apartment had changed. Light filled the entire living room to expose three people squeezed in to every inch of floor space as well as an absent floor space where I had been sleeping prior. Each person seemed to be deep in a drunken slumber, but that was about to change. I immediately went for the only boi in the room, Maverick. It was almost seven o’ clock, the sun was up, and it was time to get ready for the game. I stared at his unconscious body for a few moments, taking note to the half cocked jaw and slight snore; then I yelled. He (like myself earlier) jerked awake and started mumbling something inaudible. “Rise and shine boi.” He blankly stared at me as I handed him one of the beers I grabbed from the car. Maverick wiped his eyes popped open the can and took a healthy chug. “I’m up” he declared and then rose to his feet.
The commotion woke the two girls occupying the other floor space. Their daintiness held me back from giving them a “rudeboi wake-up” similar to Maverick’s. Unlike us three boi’s the girls needed showers, toothbrushes, lotions, makeup, and all other sorts of preparation to start a day. We allotted them thirty minutes to complete these tasks while we prepared coolers and beverages for the upcoming charades. It was a relatively uneventful thirty minutes as I flirted with the idea of falling back asleep while waiting. Maverick, whom I had just ripped from slumber, and Sean would not allow that to happen however. So to pass the time we talked; mostly about the night prior. We had tackled a keg in the waning hours of the previous night/current morning. As expected, the tackling of a keg created more than enough pillow talk.
Thirty minutes had passed and the girls were coming around, and although they looked unfinished in their preparation they obliged to the time limit. We took the remaining coolers from the apartment and brought them downstairs. Through some type of negotiation that I somehow missed Erica, one of the two girls, had been designated to drive. Her SUV provided ample room for the three recently packed coolers. With a turn of the key the Ford rumbled to life and rolled out of Deer Park (the apartment complex) to the rendezvous point. This rendezvous point was another girls home; and I slept the whole way there, a decision I later discovered would be valuable.
We arrived at the rendezvous somewhere in the neighborhood of eight o’ clock. The girls were obviously hung over and not alright with the early morning call. By this time Maverick, Sean, and I were four beers deep and starting to get loose. The adage “Fight fire with fire” seems to only work with hangovers, but the girls had no will to meet with those ends. The last thing on their minds was drinking. We stumbled into the two story townhouse and were greeted by familiar acquaintances and strangers I have met over the course of the 2007 football season. Fortunately the bulk of this crowd was female. The crowd lingered in the town home for thirty more minutes before leaving for the stadium. Ironically the USF Bulls lack a stadium to call their own so they play at Raymond James Stadium, home of Tampa’s professional football team. The only downside to this location is it is located on the other side of the city, far away from the USF campus. Lately however, there has been no problem drawing a crowd. With the affirmative pop of another natty opening we sped cross town into the sunrise.
Within reaching five miles of the stadium the density of traffic tripled. Honking horns, drunken battle cries, and excited “woooo!”-s filled the air. I popped my head out of the sunroof of Erica’s SUV and gave battle cries of my own. You could feel the intensity in the air as it hung with the morning dew. What would normally be a distressing situation of Tampa traffic had been turned into a mockery of civilized behavior. As a boi, I lived for this kind of situation. Maverick and I both knew that the shit was about to hit the fan.
There is a particular parking lot I always attend at a home game; lot 4. If for some reason my entourage does not park around lot 4, I will always (and normally successfully) lobby to walk to lot 4. In my previous escapades to RayJay lot 4 has provided me with numerous allies in the form of clubs, fraternities and regulars who frequent that section. Luckily we found a parking spot up close in lot 4. Both Maverick and I slammed the remainder of our beers and stepped out of the SUV. The next few moments took time to absorb. The lot was filled with screams, cracking glass, music, air horns, and the occasional police siren. The average student drunkard was obviously underage but it seemed the police had bigger fish to fry between the various brawls, auto accidents, and parking violations. The entire three square mile block of Tampa was in complete anarchy at nine in the morning. Maverick looked at me with the kind of look that pleaded me to pick a destination. I guided his eyes to our first stop, the SAE bus. SAE is one of the affiliates I had met in my prior tailgating experience and perhaps my favorite. Their rickety RV was garnished with public beer taps, a roof that had been converted to a dance platform, pullout awnings, and a beaten and battered Jacuzzi. “That’s where we begin boi.” Maverick grinned in response. This is going to get ugly really fast.
