Reunion (2)

So... this was Vernon, eh?

An oasis, seemingly - situated so close to the desert, yet sustaining itself so lusciously and vibrant - just like the faces of the street's pedestrians.

Scrib was overjoyed to return home. His smiling face matched that of everyone else's as we strolled through downtown. A new town is ten times better when you've got a friend to show you around, regaling you with tales about every street corner. Such was Vernon; his history here was colourful in the strangest of ways. Friendships had been formed here, drugs had been done here, blackouts had been forgotten there.

We searched high and low for his old friends, and finally found out that one had gotten a job at a local gas station. He wasn't on shift by the time we got there, so we figured we'd grab a couple bottles of cider and head down to one of Scrib's old drinking spots.

We sat down on a bench by a slow rolling stream, listening to the soft murmur of its flow and letting the luminescence of the stars flicker down on top of our alcoholic craniums. The serendipitous sound of Celtic music arose from the speaker of my phone as we passed back and forth the bottles of cider, though the music soon came to become indecipherable as our voices rose above it.

As the last bottle was finished and tossed into oblivion, we found ourselves staring into the obnoxious glare of a flashlight. Three cops strolled up and told us that they'd received a complaint about some belligerent morons (to paraphrase) hanging around this park. We'd calmed down by then, so it was no problem to convince them that it wasn't us. They soon left, and I stood to leave.

Scrib, too, stood - if you could call it that. His balance had been ground into nothing; his coordination had been curb-stomped. I'd never seen him this drunk - shocking, because we'd drank much more than this on a million more occasions. Perhaps the excitement comingled with the alcohol creating a shit-storm of emotion that captivated his motor functions.

Either way, we roamed back to the gas station where Dennis was working. He was just getting off work, and him and Scrib locked eyes. Someone might has well have taken a paintbrush and dipped it into a jar of recognition before slapping it all over both of them, because the looks on their faces were more than memorable. They embraced and rekindled their friendship, though Dennis was a little put off by how hammered Scrib was. Understandable - to make an impression like that on a person you haven't seen in so many years was a bit strange. He was worried that Scrib himself had changed.

We made our way to an old school where we drank a few beers with Dennis and Scrib got ahold of another one of his friends. Dennis parted ways and me and Scrib decided to wait around until 3 AM for Chels to come pick us up. Though it was midnight, the night was still young; though the rest of the story is for another entry.