Out and out nonsense on a work night

I woke all blurry and intensely aware of the fact that I was fucking up after a rough 25-minutes of alcoholic sleep before having to go to work and act normal-ish and do all I could do to not smell like a brewery. I noticed black marks up my right arm, woven in and around my tattoo like the path of a drunken infant on a hands-and-knees quest for a breast to suckle.
I used my “Drinky Royale Decoder Ring” to make sense of the scrawl:

“--[[And she had an unfortunate profile, like an unsynchronized set of speed bumps]]--”

I have a tendency to write notes on my arms (complete with punctuation used for form over function) as they are much more immediate than paper, and those scribbled down onto paper generally end up tucked away into the man-sack and forgotten, only to be unearthed at a later date. By that time the blur has spread like an oil slick in a flamingo sanctuary and I can rarely decipher the words or the meaning. When I tag my arm I am forced to reckon with it whilst the memories and contexts are as fresh as they can be considering.
So, She of the Speed Bumped Profile (maybe they were more like rumble strips…?): She was cute, but she smoked, and she was part of a world I didn’t need to visit regularly. It was a world of high-maintenance and grace. Whether she was legit or merely putting on airs is something that I would never have the energy or the opportunity to decipher. She was tall and classy, and out of my league, and even if I perceived her to be IN my league, she still wouldn’t qualify as she smoked and that is a deal breaker of extraordinary magnitude—right up there with any form of sports sandal and people who wear mostly black and listen to Nick Cave.
But I did notice her, primarily because it was unavoidable. She stood out like an awkwardly glamorous and perplexingly beautiful bird that was all legs and neck. And as I acquainted and talked and wrote of strangers and their unfortunate choices in footwear (that was written up my other arm, poorly with the handicapped right hand of a blessed left-hander), I couldn’t stop thinking about speed bumps and her. So I hung out with the ex and talked shit about other things. Beers disappeared and I tried to catch glances when I could. This was complicated by the fact that there was a 4x4 directly betwixt us that was doing a damned fine job of holding up the patio cover. Another problem was that her friend had some confounded radar that went off every cur’sed time I tried to study her drinking buddy’s profile. Whenever the radar dinged in friend’s head, she would look over at me precisely when I went in for a glance thereby causing me to have to look away. This was driving me insane.
Alas, there was nothing I could do about it. My spotting expedition kept getting cock-blocked, if you will, so I gave up on it and just began calculating the time of night, how many beers I had consumed, guess-timating how many more were lined up for the night, how many waning hours until I had to be at work, and how long it was going to take me to get home.
Finally, after 3,000 PBRs I called it a night… well, technically the bartender did. I walked the ex home but on the way, for some unholy reason, we stopped by the brewery where she was on friendly terms with the Adonis-like sexpot who I insisted was gay, and she swore was not as it would crush her dreams. We walked, fell, stumbled into the empty space oblivious to the guy putting chairs up on tables. We sat at the bar and the Man of My Dreams saw Mary and smiled and informed us that it was too late, they had to close. I shook my fist and uttered a weak “Drats!” but Mary did some girl-magic thing and he gave us two pints for free under the condition that we didn’t dilly-dally. We thanked him, slammed the pints, and I escorted her home.
From the bar where She of the Speed Bumps was, I had traveled 5 blocks in the wrong direction, and at this hour every block counted. I bid the ex a fond farewell, did an about-face and headed home.
Seven blocks later my liver clued me in on something. We had been drinking PBR for about four hours. The effects were noticeable but not deleterious. The last pint we got, the gift pint, was a microbrew that was something like 6.5% alcohol. It literally slammed me in mid-stride and I almost toppled over the freeway overpass I was walking. Really, it was sudden and a bit nerve-wracking. It dawned on me that this was going to be a long 30-minute walk home. I also knew that I was fucked as far as work was concerned.
I started swerving, doing all I could to stay on the sidewalk. It must have been a pathetic sight to behold, but I fully understood Tom Waits’ quip about using parking meters as walking sticks.
I turned onto Interstate, too late for any bus or train to get me most of the way home in a safe and efficient manner. I just headed North and hoped to not get rolled by some random no-good-niks or run over by a car. At one point I half-considered just going to sleep in the park, but my common sense put in a brief appearance and put the kai-bosh on that plan.
A few blocks later I felt like I was wearing a patch on one eye for all the good my peripheral vision was doing me. I screeched to a halt at Interstate and Killingsworth as I noticed the light turn red, not that there were any cars out at this time of night, but I figured I’d err on the side of longevity considering the circumstances.
Something bothered my brain at the stop light next to me and I whipped my head around with such force that I am lucky I didn’t paralyze myself. Imagine my surprise to discover a lovely, lovely Tri-Met bus stopped right next to me, going my direction. I reached over and hit the door, probably a little too hard, and it opened. All I could say was, “Cou’ you get me ta’ Lombard? I’m broke.” Luck upon luck, the bus driver waved me on with a nod. I stumbled on and into a seat and barely noticed that there were two or three other disheveled looking folks on the bus as well. I was close to going down for the count so I had to concentrate. Damn this microbrew. It’s like carbonated, hoppy whiskey. Like some cur’sed moonshine bathtub brew.
Then I heard, “Here y’ar, pal. Have a good ‘un.”
“Thank you, and may God r’serve ya a place ‘n heav’n,” was what I shot back and off I went, 4 more blocks and into my house, onto my bed, and out.
Loop back to the beginning to see how it ends and begins. Repeat, ad nauseum.

Post Script: The next afternoon, after my 87th cup of coffee, it dawned on me that A) no bus runs down Interstate Ave, and B) even if one did, the bus lines had all been down for at least 2 hours before I jumped the one that got me home.
Did it really happen? Was it a phantom bus? Was the driver dressed like a driver or was he some wiley wino who stole a bus and took his fellow drunks on a joyride? I will never have a clear answer to this, and I’m OK with that. A little bit of mystery is good for the soul.