Happy Birthday Little Buddy!

I had a steakhead relapse of sorts on last week. It was my little brother's 21st birthday. I arrived at my parents house in New Jersey from Boston at 11:00 PM on a Friday night with no intentions of hitting the town or getting drunk. I was exhausted. My brother's plans for the big day were pretty grandiose at first but had since been reduced to Morristown, NJ. Vegas was first downgraded to AC which was downgraded to Morristown. The "Hoboken of the western suburbs". The clock struck 12:00 and I reluctantly joined my brother, sister, girlfriend, and some of their friends in someone's mom's minivan for a trip to Motown.

We went to a pseudo "Irish" pub that was neither Irish nor a pub. Between my brothers friends, my sister, my girlfriend and myself, I think my brother must have been force fed 50 drinks. Needless to say, he was drunk. We shuffled out of the bar at closing, herded like sheep out the door by the guido bouncers at the Irish pub (welcome to New Jersey).

As we sauntered towards the car a group of people headed in the opposite direction said something rude to my brother's ex-girlfriend in passing. With a BAC approaching the first decimal place, he took offense and decided his malcontent needed to be heard. Temporarily aware I was the responsible older brother on this night, I separated him from them, pushing him in the direction of the car while providing words of wisdom I would moments later ignore. "Not worth it! Let's go home! Not worth it!"

This group of 4 guys, each accompanied by their girlfriend, was a persistent and stupid bunch. They kept at it, antagonizing a newly legal drunkard who could easily destroy each of them without help. As he walked away, this observation struck a nerve in me. What were these kids thinking? Why did they think they could get away with this? So I turned back to them and tried to [drunk] reason with them.

"Shut your mouths! Are you guys seriously fucking stupid?" My infinite wisdom fell upon deaf ears. They continued as if I'd said nothing at all. So I turned up the volume, "You guys should turn around and walk away or you're all gonna to get hurt!" I clenched my fists and inched ever closer to losing all control.

Then...I was shoved. And in what was hopefully my fisticuff swansong, I threw a punch. To my surprise I threw a really good punch. As I completed my follow through I realized the girlfriend, who'd been standing behind him, was going down with him. As the couple fell towards the sidewalk, reason crept back into my head. I hadn't meant to hurt the girl. Now she was on laying on her back on the sidewalk with her half knocked out boyfriend, eyes rolling around in his head, on top of her. I picked him up by the shirt and tossed him off to the side and begun to pick her up, apologizing all the while. I had her about half way up off of the ground when I heard frantic but familiar female voices behind me. I turned to find my brother on top of one of the others, holding his head up by the hair, and punching his face over and over again. I could tell from his body language that he didn't intend to stop until restrained.

I later discovered, thanks to the designated driver, that having seen the first kid push me, my brother turned and punched his nearest friend in the face without a moments hesitation..... Male bonding.

But I digress, having forgotten my manners completely, I dropped the girl back on the sidewalk and ran towards the melee. Before I got there, one of my brother's friends tackled my brother, knocking him off of the kid. As I urged him away from the scene, I looked down at his handy work. This guy hat been beaten the fuck up. Beyond reason at this point, I stomped around screaming and carrying on like an idiot, challenging the other two to fight. I think I may have actually said, "you guys want some of this????!!!!" They wanted nothing to do with [my brother] us and retreated.

Then, while I was still trembling from the adrenaline, entered the police. I never even heard the sirens, only saw the lights as they sped around the corner and towards us. Reality set in. How was I to explain this to my parents? I was supposed to be some sort of role model. I looked at my brother's shirt and the intermittent blood stains, then to his knuckles, bloodied from the dozen or so punches he'd connected all over the kids face. I directed him to walk away and shoved him in the direction of the car/minivan as the police got out of their cruisers and one of them shouted, "You, in the yellow shirt!....get back over here." Too late.

Cop: "what happened here?"
me, my sister, and brother's friends: (shrug)
brother: (slurring and covered in other guys blood) It's my birthday.
DD: (undoubtedly the only one of us making any sense at this point) They started it.
me, my sister, and two of mike's friends: (shrug)
my girlfriend: (sometimes talks us into more trouble rather than out) I don't know what their problem is...
me: (to self: shit, who told her to talk?....fuck, stop talking.... Shit, we're all going to jail.") (shrug)
Cop: what was this about?
me: (shrug)
my girlfriend: I don't know. We couldn't understand what they were saying. They had accents. They definitely started it.

This was partly true. They did in fact have accents. I remember that much. I couldn't tell you what kind (and under normal circumstances I am pretty observant of these things), but it definitely didn't impede our understanding of what they were saying.

Cop: (coaxing and guiding us) Okay. where are you guys going?
us in unison: HOME.
Cop: Good. Go home. Now.

Lessons to be learned:
1. Cops are ignorant and conduct investigations, if that's what you could even call this, on the basis of who's the most American. If you find yourself engaged in circumstances similar to the ones described in the passage, appeal to their ignorance. You might get to go home.
2. Brothers enjoy talking about fights they've gotten into together and on eachothers' behalf much more than they enjoy actually fighting. Trust me. I've spent the last week and change complaining to anyone who'll listen about my hand and it's not even broken.
3. When I am drunk and faced with an authority figure and potential repercussions for my actions, all I can do is shrug...which is saddy sad sad.
4. Fathers aren't so much dissapointed when their sons get into fights as they are when they lose or complain about injury.