i was thinking about alfredo.
i have been thinking about him for a while now. i think i'm going to make him the next subject in my 30 seconds project. so, i have to find a fitting song.
i found a song yesterday, i think. and it made me think of alfredo.
we were twenty-ish. i was home for my birthday.
alfredo still had a car, and we all still could hang out in the same place at the same time.
i remember being in uniform.
it was some time after september 11th.
wait... that means i wasn't home for my birthday.
i'm no longer sure what i was home for. ohhh... maybe it was the funeral. i was wearing my dress blues.
anyway.
we were young men. invincible. on our way to the airport. in alfredo's car.
it was me, sam and alfredo was driving.
we packed my stuff into my big green seabags and threw them into the jetta. sam got into the back seat and i got into the front passenger side. alfredo had a six pack of Corona bottles for the road.
i didn't drink like that.
so we drove to LAX, and alfredo drank the beers, one at a time, until they were almost gone.
then he had to pee. we had to pull off the freeway and drive into some random los angeles neighborhood so he could get out and piss against a pole on some dark street while we waited in the car. but that's what it is to be cool. you can't tell him he shouldn't do that.
he gets back in the car and we drive the rest of the way to the airport. along the way i collect bottles at my feet until i have the complete six empties under me. my shiny black shoes reflect the passing streetlights almost as well as the rims of the now empty glass bottles do.
we get to the airport and there's a big line.
The Inspection Point.
shit.
alfredo was six beers in, the car reeks, there's empties all over the floor and we have zero excuses and i need to be on that plane back to okinawa.
i was starting to freak out and so was sam. alredo was always unnaturally cool.
we get up to the point where to cops are standing guard. one on each side.
by this time we have shuffled the bottles under whatever we can find and made ourselves to look as normal as possible.
we pull up to the stop point and the cops look at alfredo, then at me.
then, they just wave us through. they see that i am a Marine and just wave us through without even rolling down the window or anything.
we calmly roll through and when we are far enough away we let out a loud roar of laughter that says... did you fucking see that?! how lucky are we!!... tinged with a little bit of nervousness and covered in young bravado. we had won.
i don't remember anything after that part, but i will always remember the night alfredo drank a six pack of bottles while he drove me back to the airport. the music was loud and the air was warm. i had nowhere left to run.
we were young, and we thought we were men,
life was as real as it was going to get that year...
that's alfredo on the right in the yellow shirt. ha.
