So when the girls were finally booted I sighed and began melting into the mattress until CRACK! smashed the door into the wall, anew shaking lead-based flecks from the painted concrete, shuddering flakes across the carpet like wall dandruff. My eyelids craaaaaaaankily garage-doored upward, exposing my looming tomato-headed amigo, his brain-container sagging so far toward his chest that it appeared his torso had gobbled his neck, his inebriated T-Rex shortarming adding a comical effect to his personage. He gurgled something, pinballed between beds and the wall and ended up seated on the queen, facing me, left arm stabilizing his woozily leaning mass against my travel pack. "Oh, jesus, don't throw up," began it's loop through my cranium. Chase's chin would slowly droop into his ribcage, he'd begin a Gumby-topple to one side, then he'd shake his head, mumble something, gaze around the room in senseless stupor, and then rise, his heavy, tilted head providing the momentum to carry him back out of the room.
This routine was repeated at least ten times over the next hour, with several highlights, the most hilarious being several sudden crumples onto the concrete patio outside our room, followed by several minutes of Peter Griffinesque, knee-hugging, monotone moaning. There was also the glossolalia-heavy tirades directed at the night watchman, and, once his shift had ended, at Sunday-morning sweetheart Milagros ("Whaaaarsh yooooour - *bleeeeeeeaaaaach* - naaaaame?" "Wha'on'cha talk a'me?"), profanity-laced abuses that eventually urged me out of bed, ready to scold.
I encountered a googly-eyed maniac chomping down an apple. "Chase, calm down."
I encountered a googly-eyed maniac chomping down an apple. "Chase, calm down."
"Whah? 'M no' dun' anythin'. Wh'on't sh'talk a'me? FUCK!"
"Dude, she doesn't speak English. You're hammered and being a fucking asshole. Please, shut the fuck up and get in bed!"
"What? How'uh fuck can'u calmyan asshole. You wur sleep intha street laznight!"
Touché.
So he continued to stalk Milagros as effectively as any shadow, a Silly Putty-postured bumbler occasionally swigging from the half-liter of warm beer he'd discovered stashed in the corner of our bedroom -- as Chase'd inform me later, prior to the warm Pilsen, he'd already drained a bottle of liquor he'd pilfered from the community fridge -- occasionally veering from her side to yet again have his attempts to pump "Still Dre" through the hostel's sub-woofer equipped computer thwarted. The first round of retard-karaoke had been sufficient torture for all the hotel's inhabitants, regardless of any language barriers.
It was quite miraculous, witnessing the alcohol-induced deterioration of a human being at 8am, yet fearful when surfaced the rage, a windmilling, air-punching, sudden onset violence straight from 28 Days Later. He'd storm into the room, ranting mindlessly that nobody would let him do what he wanted! and why wouldn't she talk to him? The indiscriminate screaming and punching pulled me upright in bed, with both hands readying my comforter to smother the beast should need be. Chase picked up a plastic sheet of 50-caliber stomach pills and pushed one through the foilback, popped it into his mouth and began to masticate. He managed an impressive, senses-delayed ten seconds before his eyes crossed and he began thrashing towards the bathroom, white-specks flying his lips, the tortured howls escaping with the powder-shower reminiscent of the primal pains of a full-grown human suddenly freed from lifelong captivity below some pervert's staircase. He spent a few minutes in the bathroom spitting and gagging and growling, emerging stamping toward his bed, where he lifted his large travel backpack from the floor, proceeding to shake all its contents onto the floor.
And I'll never forget what happened next, when Chase jammed the empty bag over his head, pulling it down over his shoulders and arms, and then proceeded to perform what would equate to a shriek-accompanied standing seizure, a human-imitation of starved pitbulls in a bag, fighting over a steak. When the bag came off Chase set about the room, retrieving and jamming all of his possessions into his 60L cloth cavern, emptying the bedside table of everything including the lamp, which I somehow convinced him to return to it's place amidst shards of newly-broken glass.
I watched in utter disbelief as Chase hefted the pack onto his back, strapping the smaller daypack to his chest. "Fuuuuuuuck you! Nobody let's me have any fun! I hate this place. I hate it!!!" he shrieked, sprinting toward the door. But our door is actually two small wooden doors that open inward, latching in the middle. Thus, while attempting to squeeze out of the single, inwardly-opened door, his bulging bags caught on the doorframe and the immobile door, producing a few hysterical and maniacal seconds of sprinting in place, his legs churning and arms pumping through pained shouts, "Let me go, Pleeeeeeeease, LET ME GO!" before his determined wiggling sent him lurching into the patio, from where he sprinted to the hostel door, threw it open and flew into the street, famous last words freezing me in disbelief, "Fuck you! Fuck everybody! 'M'goin' to Bolivia!"
Despite the obvious instability of the gringo sprinting through the streets, screaming "TAXI! TAXI! Take me to Bolivia!", I guess Peruvian nuevos soles are scarcer than I'd realized, as the first taxi on the scene pulled to a stop and calmly loaded up the liquor-bomb, whose passenger seat wailing reverberated even after the taxi had disappeared around the corner, the taxi driver presumably deducing from the baggage and torrent of BOLIVIAs that la terminal terrestre was the desired point-of-departure.
Chase disappeared, without paying his bills, at 8:30am one Sunday morning. Twenty-five hours later I received an email detailing a drunken emergence from blackout at 4:30pm, on a bus somewhere between Cusco and Lima, where after being calmed by the bus attendants Chase accepted his fate and crashed back into unconsciousness. He even managed to arrive with all his bags.
Thank god I have Chase to make me look like less of a problem drinker.
(As some of my fellow Cusco volunteers have suggested, with a picture of Chase's face plastered between the quotes, "Fuck you! Fuck everybody! I'm goin' to Bolivia!" would make a fantastic shirt.)
It was quite miraculous, witnessing the alcohol-induced deterioration of a human being at 8am, yet fearful when surfaced the rage, a windmilling, air-punching, sudden onset violence straight from 28 Days Later. He'd storm into the room, ranting mindlessly that nobody would let him do what he wanted! and why wouldn't she talk to him? The indiscriminate screaming and punching pulled me upright in bed, with both hands readying my comforter to smother the beast should need be. Chase picked up a plastic sheet of 50-caliber stomach pills and pushed one through the foilback, popped it into his mouth and began to masticate. He managed an impressive, senses-delayed ten seconds before his eyes crossed and he began thrashing towards the bathroom, white-specks flying his lips, the tortured howls escaping with the powder-shower reminiscent of the primal pains of a full-grown human suddenly freed from lifelong captivity below some pervert's staircase. He spent a few minutes in the bathroom spitting and gagging and growling, emerging stamping toward his bed, where he lifted his large travel backpack from the floor, proceeding to shake all its contents onto the floor.
And I'll never forget what happened next, when Chase jammed the empty bag over his head, pulling it down over his shoulders and arms, and then proceeded to perform what would equate to a shriek-accompanied standing seizure, a human-imitation of starved pitbulls in a bag, fighting over a steak. When the bag came off Chase set about the room, retrieving and jamming all of his possessions into his 60L cloth cavern, emptying the bedside table of everything including the lamp, which I somehow convinced him to return to it's place amidst shards of newly-broken glass.
I watched in utter disbelief as Chase hefted the pack onto his back, strapping the smaller daypack to his chest. "Fuuuuuuuck you! Nobody let's me have any fun! I hate this place. I hate it!!!" he shrieked, sprinting toward the door. But our door is actually two small wooden doors that open inward, latching in the middle. Thus, while attempting to squeeze out of the single, inwardly-opened door, his bulging bags caught on the doorframe and the immobile door, producing a few hysterical and maniacal seconds of sprinting in place, his legs churning and arms pumping through pained shouts, "Let me go, Pleeeeeeeease, LET ME GO!" before his determined wiggling sent him lurching into the patio, from where he sprinted to the hostel door, threw it open and flew into the street, famous last words freezing me in disbelief, "Fuck you! Fuck everybody! 'M'goin' to Bolivia!"
Despite the obvious instability of the gringo sprinting through the streets, screaming "TAXI! TAXI! Take me to Bolivia!", I guess Peruvian nuevos soles are scarcer than I'd realized, as the first taxi on the scene pulled to a stop and calmly loaded up the liquor-bomb, whose passenger seat wailing reverberated even after the taxi had disappeared around the corner, the taxi driver presumably deducing from the baggage and torrent of BOLIVIAs that la terminal terrestre was the desired point-of-departure.
Chase disappeared, without paying his bills, at 8:30am one Sunday morning. Twenty-five hours later I received an email detailing a drunken emergence from blackout at 4:30pm, on a bus somewhere between Cusco and Lima, where after being calmed by the bus attendants Chase accepted his fate and crashed back into unconsciousness. He even managed to arrive with all his bags.
Thank god I have Chase to make me look like less of a problem drinker.
(As some of my fellow Cusco volunteers have suggested, with a picture of Chase's face plastered between the quotes, "Fuck you! Fuck everybody! I'm goin' to Bolivia!" would make a fantastic shirt.)
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