My life up here has not been completely without entertainment. Last night, for instance, I went to the midnight movies with some of the guys from work. Colt, a gentle giant of a 23 year old, at 6'2" and 300lbs and wearing a bushy sandy blond beard, is the leader of the little group of employee buddies that I've run across. He is my fellow bartender and showed me the ropes. His two "little" buddies are both 17 year old bus-boys, Anthony, a 6'0", 280lb curly headed Puerto Rican, and Patrick, a baby-faced, long haired man-child of 6'5". They listen to heavy metal and play World of Warcraft. They find it astonishing that I do neither. I am very strange to them already, though, being an ancient 29 (and being me, to boot, of course).
In the car ride over to the theater I was entertained to listen to them talk about the various sundry aspects of the neighborhoods we were passing. Substance abuse is a big issue in Alaska. As the guys said, "It's either spend the winter drinking or doing drugs til you die or play video games." I decided at that point not to mock the World of Warcraft any more. They pointed out where the local heroin dealer lives and talked about how, since the liquor stores close early (and they are the only places to by alcohol), the local drunks will go to the 24 hour grocery stores and buy listerine to drink. "Oh yeah," said Anthony cheerfully, when I asked if people really drank Listerine, "my grandmother used to drink that stuff and it tears off the stomach lining. Then their breath stinks. We had to tear out the carpet in her room because we couldn't get the smell of her breath out of it."
Besides the conversation, the car ride was memorable in and of itself. Colt's car, an early nineties Pontiac, has worn out shocks on the right side, a busted out front driver window where someone broke in to steal his Ipod, a back driver-side passenger window that stays half-way lowered, a windshield that is spider-webbed with so many lengthy cracks that it may just burst at any pothole (particularly with no shocks on one side) and a board in the backseat that he jams against the seat behind the driver's seat to keep his driver's seat propped up. Of course, the car is filthy and littered with fast-food packaging and crushed energy drink cans.
After the movie, which was thoroughly silly, we dropped off Patrick and Anthony. I live close to the restaurant, but far away from where they live. On the way back, Colt said, "Uh oh...I'm out of gas." The car began to sputter. He began to pull the car over.
"NO!! NO!!!" I yelled, "Coast as long as possible!"
Colt, having never run out of gas before, had never had to push a car before. I have had to push a car before. When we were still rolling at 15 miles an hour, he said, "Well, we may as well start pushing. We're going just as fast."
"Hell no we're not! Roll until it stops. Trust me."
Eventually it did stop and out I got. I am quite thankful now for the daily six miles of walking I've been doing, because, unpleasant as it was, pushing that car (with the 300 pounder in it) would have been excruciating otherwise. In it's way, it was sort of pleasant as I pushed, asI looked out at the mountains, whose snows are now rapidly retreating, and the soft glow of the ever present dusk that passes for night. After a mile, which was rather long and troublesome considering it was 2am and the other cars on the road no doubt had their share of drunk drivers, we got to a gas station and then finally made it back at 3am.
Apparently, that was just what a normal night in Anchorage is like.
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