Item #2: Be D.D. For My Friends

This story winds up explaining why I did not take care of Item #1. The words here really can not do justice to what happened on December 12th, and, as usual, certain things are intentionally being withheld. This day did bring to my attention what this list could actually do for me, and, hopefully, other people.

My deadline for telling Bethani that I liked her was not arbitrary. She had originally asked me to join her at her father's Christmas party on this date. After saying yes, the Christmas party turned into a Christmas Bar Crawl in Tempe, AZ, followed up by another person's Thirtieth birthday party. The Tempe Bar Crawl actually turned into a Bar Sit. There were five of us, myself, Bethani, two others who will remain nameless, and (codename) Stacey. This group only made it to two bars. Two. Only two. And this is where everything becomes about Stacey.

I only know this girl in a very minor capacity. I have no room to say anything about her as a person. What I can say, and what I will say, is that I have seen my fair share of drunks, and I have been that emotional drunk my fair share of times. I assume Stacey was just having one of those days. At bar #2, Stacey started sliding from the happy-go-lucky drunk frame of mind to the drunk, psychotic wreck. Her friendship drama with Bethani, no matter how many years in the past it was, started to show itself immediately.

Driving the Arizona freeways with two totally trashed ladies in the car, I navigated my way to the Monastary out in Mesa, as Bethani promised to meet up with her friend who was celebrating her Thirtieth birthday. En route, things got decidely worse with Stacey. She was ramping up the crying, emotional jibber-jabber, hugs, and "I Love You's".

We reached the Monastary safely, and I will say, it is a cool f'ing place to have a B-day party. Here, Stacey turned into the drunk wanderer, hugger, and, probably, moocher and smoocher. She was doing whatever she was doing, and then "it" happened. The moment a drunk person completely flips into the negative realm of being stupid, hammered drunk. This is also the moment that makes the night change. Stacey came walking out of the bathroom with her right hand covered in blood, while being chased down by a bouncer and a waitress. I pointed this out to Bethani, who, being who she is, went running to Stacey to see what was going on.

Skipping through the stuff that I don't know, it had basically become time for us to leave. I intercepted Stacey while she was in the parking lot, talking to a cop. I just gave the cursory, "I'm the D.D. and I'm taking her home" schpiel, with Bethani only steps behind me. Bethani and I got Stacey into the car and headed to Bethani's place. And shit got weird.

Stacey's crying ramped up a ton, then came the yelling. Not words, mind you. But deep, gutteral howls that come from a woman who just saw her child murdered and could not do anything about it. These painful howls came inbetween more "I Love You's" and hugs and singing along with songs and "Thank You's", and it was just a wreck. Beautiful in it's human element, but a total wreck none the less. Stacey did say all sorts of things about what was going on with her, but that information is not for this forum. And if it were, I seriously doubt she would want me to share it.

What really strikes me is the "what if" factor. If I wasn't being DD this day, would all of this still have happened? Yeah, probably. Had this all gone down the exact same way, without me being there, Stacey may have very well hugged Bethani to death, in one form or another. That's just not good for anyone. Back at Bethani's house, Stacey was put to bed, then Bethani and I continued our night. I busted out the whiskey and weed (it was my turn to get messed up) and, as usual, Bethani and I talked about everything. The focus of this talk was obviously about what had gone down. Bethani had even remarked upon the fortunate nature of me being DD on this very night. I believe I did a small amount of good on this night. Should the rest of my list go half as well as this item, I will have a very good, fullfilling life.