The Bizarre 4th Of July Celebration
When 4th of July turns outlandish, anything is possible - from break-ins to fall-downs.
When chicks start falling off their bikes, the party takes off, a friend chuckled as we – three Americans and a Bulgarian – chugged along 2nd South Street, several wheel turns away from the Atlantic Ocean.
Little did we know his quip would turn vatic. Yet, it failed to entirely capture the liquor-drenched street snafu on “America’s birthday,” to use another of that friend’s witticisms.
Allow me a step a back to explain how on the 4th of July I wound up in a car in Jacksonville, Florida, in the moody company of three Americans, who hatched and scraped festive plans every few minutes. Two of them – blond and bright-eyed, were a couple I had met only once before.
The other one – a mate of theirs – was my you-are-my-girl-but-not-exactly-girlfriend boyfriend of sorts, who sidled into my life through Tinder one evening last July. The day after our first “date” I left for Bulgaria, my Eastern European homeland. The bulk of our interaction stretched in lengthy feeds on Whatsapp until I returned to the States this summer.
“We are on an adventure,” he said, ensconced on the back seat next to me, and pulled his plump lips in a wide smile. “But what is an adventure?”
“I don’t know,” I replied.
“Exactly,” he laughed and squeezed my arm.
After several short phone calls, attempts to concoct a modus vivendi strained. Crashing someone’s house party, crawling the bars, and heading for the beach armed with a bottle of fireball swirled as suggestions. We consecutively settled on all and carried out none.
At some point, we swerved away from the throngs of red, white and blue swimsuits, tops, trunks and leis. The earlier light thunderstorm that had morphed into a drizzle did not seem to dampen the fiesta.
We pulled over in a parking lot in front of a derelict building. Another friend of theirs – a tall and butch brunet in tankini, staggered from around the corner.
“She cannot hang,” my (boy)friend quipped referring to her level of inebriation that seemed to jolt beyond her limits. Once her hazed gaze settled on him and me, she threw her shaky hands around us in a tight, mucky embrace. “Heyyy.”
Soon, she stomped away to find her bike and ride home. We took shots of cinnamon whiskey and readied to drive to the pad of yet another girl.
Meanwhile, our half empty bottle of vodka, which we, far from wisely, tucked behind a nearby trashcan, got swindled. How and by whom remained misty.
As we reached the house, in which that friend had a room, a third girl, imbibed but “hanging” in a two-piece swimsuit and murky green backpack, had already biked there. As it soon became clear, those two girls had recently sparred.
Their wrangle further entangled as one of them locked herself in her den and the other tumbled in it, after cracking open a window. Indiscernible yells wafted on the street. Soon the girl in the swimwear emerged on the doorstep.
She took a couple of hearty gulps of whiskey through a tiny blue hose, jutting out of her pack, and wriggled her eyebrows.
“The 4th is overrated! I am done,” she proclaimed.
We were far from done, however. As she biked away, we strolled toward the bars.
Bending a corner, we bumped into a crowd huddling, those at its center crouching. On the wet grass splayed the tall and chubby brunet, who only half an hour ago had ventured away from us to find her bike.
Now, it lied next to her.
A stream of blood oozed from her left eyelid. Two women hunched over her and pressed tissues to stop the flow. Several men argued whether she needed medical attention. She cried she did not.
My (boy)friend and I kept to the side as a police buggy approached and two officers rolled out of it. The girl wobbled up on her feet to relate what had happened.
“I am fine,” she insisted.
We split – the couple stayed with her to see her home, while my (boy)friend and I sauntered in a bar.
He guzzled a couple of whiskeys and coke. I sipped on a margarita. Even if I could, I would not chart another course for the 4th.
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