Reciprocity - Part II

The road to recovery was long and arduous, but rewarding. As is the nature of all true devotion, however, I lost myself in the process. I hadn't been paying attention to the steady increase of alcohol I began to consume. Harmless outings at the local watering hole began to mutate into hideous, all-night carousals. I heeded not the warning signs as the world around me faded into the background and took a seat behind my habitual revelry in the name of Dionysus.

Enter Johnny. On an unusually frigid St. Patrick's day, my vice finally got the best of me and I collapsed in the forest. Alone, unconscious, and hypothermic, my student, prodege, and friend came upon me lying in the dark, on my back, on the bare ground, full of cheap Canadian whisky and store brand antihistamines. As I vomited for what seemed like an eternity, John graciously tilted my head to the side, saving my life for what would not be the final time that night.

The rest I have only been able to piece together from the accounts of those whom bore witness.

After some struggling, John was able to hoist my arm over his shoulder, stand me up, and guide me out of the forest. Amazingly enough, when we came to a stream, I leapt across it as gracefully as a man with less than half my blood alcohol content. Unfortunately, that was all I had left in me. Once on the other side, I fell again, and assumed my previous position. Finally, John decided he had to call an ambulance, and not one day goes by that I am not grateful that he did. My memory of the following events comes to me in the form of small cross-sections of the entire ordeal. It is as if my consciousness was a faulty light bulb, flickering for brief, infrequent moments, never lasting before fading back into darkness. I remember men rolling me onto a stretcher, hoisting me up, me shouting "Beam me up, Scottie!" I remember asking no one in particular if Jesus would forgive me for all the trouble I'd brought. And I remember answering my own question, "Of course He will. He loves me! He loves eeeeeeverybody!" I am told that I serenaded the EMT's with that stupid wicked witch song. I'm sure it was stuck in their heads for weeks.

Anyway, next thing I knew, I was waking up in a hospital bed. I was clothed in nothing but a paper gown, with an I.V. in my arm, and this huge inflatable thing on top of me - some machine or something that was supposed to bring my body temperature back up to normal. I puked again. Some doctor told me that if my temperature had been one degree lower, I'd have had brain damage or been dead. I wanted to puke again. Some nurses thought it was cute or something and they gave me some stuffed animal. I puked again.

I got back home and went to sleep, still drunk. The best part was before I left, the doctor told me that the I.V. would replenish all my fluids and I probably wouldn't even have a hangover. He was right.