The repugnant assholes are just flowing out of the woodwork. I know, I can see the residue of their slime trails.

The other day I got suckered into drinking half a liter of rubbing alcohol. I tell you this much, the shit will get you high, but I don’t recommend it. It does too much internal damage, all the way to the brain. I don’t have to remind you twice, those components don’t regenerate. You’re stuck with class four cerebral damage all the way to the end of your days. You end up talking like George W. Bush.

We were hiking along this washed out lonely highway in Baranco. Florian and I. We got lured into this horrible little one horse joint because this fifteen year old piece of jail bait smiled at us. That always gets me. But as soon as I stepped through the arches, her face started to contort and melt into repugnant, low grade CGI effects. Didn’t like that one bit.

We ordered Cuba Libre by the pitcher because it was only four dollars that way. I only found out later that you aren’t supposed to drink the cheapest Cuba Libre you can find in Peru because the bartenders put all kinds of god awful shit in there. All the wounded soldiers from other tables go straight into the Cuba Libre, where the dastardly dark color of the coca cola covers them up like lye. Chemical burns all around.

The other thing they do to save expenses is fail to use Rum at all. They switch the shit with rubbing alcohol, and cover up the God awful, make you choke, make you dry-heave, make you vomit flavor with extra lemon extract. I can dimly remember that the first swig I took was so revolting I almost sent the pitcher back. But I didn’t, by God, I wasn’t in the mood for confrontation.

Once I got past the first glass, it was all over. That shit just keeps burning dude. Do not drink it! It ain’t worth it, and the high isn’t any good either. It’s just step one on the journey to being that stinky old guy with no shoes and mud on his face who hasn’t eaten in a month and hasn’t made a coherent sentence in ten years. Sure, that’s how I plan on ending up, but I still got some ginger in me yet to blow. I’m not in the need of any short cuts.

We stumbled out of that first bar into another. Florian was looking for his girlfriend. Thank god he found her. I just sat at a table and put my head down to concentrate on keeping the room from spinning. It took great effort, but this was a case where vomiting would have been better for me. Curse my tremendous concentrational powers, they kept that degenerate poison in my gulliver.

Dudes kept talking to me like I gave a shit about what they had to say. I told them to fuck off with my eyes because my lips failed to respond to my psychic commands. I saw Florian in the stairwell, then he disappeared. God only knew what happened to him. It seemed like he’d been swallowed up, but there was nothing I could do about it. You hate to leave a man behind, but I had my own problems. Like the surging vomit and the spinning room.

I sat, motionless, for four hours. Then some dipshit bartender tapped me on the shoulder and asked me to leave. Repugnant pigfucker. I told him to bring me a glass of water, and slapped a coin down on the table.

Water in me, I stumbled to the door. Just the fact that I retained my motor skills was a minor miracle. If that piece of human excrement had asked me to leave an hour earlier, I would have been lost. Somebody’d taken them. But they’d come back now.

Like a fool, I again resisted the urge to vomit as I walked to the street. In the taxi, I sent it a way like an aggressive transvestite whore. I don’t know how, the urge was strong, so was the whore. Lot‘s of foggy memories here, not sure I want to sort them out. More walking. Later, I learned that Florian was repainting his room bile green, and pizza remains red. Horrible, horrible sight. Worse than battle.

I’ve been sick the last four days. Shouldn’t happen. I can hold my own against a bottle of rum. I’ve drunk two whole bottles and done a hundred mile bicycle ride the next day. But after this rubbing alcohol binge, I feel like I’ve had a frontal lobotomy. I’m less aggressive, sedentary, and I drool all the time now. I should have gone in and had my stomach pumped the next day, but I didn’t. I’m an ornery fucker, and the only bright spot about the whole night was at least I didn’t pay all that much to be poisoned. I wasn’t going to wash out that minor highlight by forking over 100 Nuevo Soles for a stomach pump! Brain damage is a small price to pay.

Looks like my plans about figuring out the meaning of life and writing it all down in the world’s greatest novel are all out the window. Don’t have the brain power anymore. Guess I’ll have to just settle for making several million dollars in the oil industry and running for president.

Might have to go on another rubbing alcohol binge to get down to that level though.

The End