There is a group on the dark side of Facebook, named “Mate in a State.” If you’re not really into vomit, other bodily fluids and near-fatal levels of intoxication, my advice is to steer clear… But if that sounds like just the average night out down your way, fill your boots.
Frankly, given the amount of marker-pen penises featured on the site, my main opinion is that some of these pissheads need better mates-but that’s not going to stop me from throwing one of my own mates under the bus, by telling my favourite “mate in a state” story in honour of the theme.
My friend Carl (not his real name) is a big bloke-rarely seen without a tin of Stella in each hand, something of a used car salesman look to him, and a generally impressive capacity for holding his ale.
Not actually Carl, but not far off.
So at the end of a long, rowdy boat-based party (we all live on boats, not that this is strictly relevant) my then-bloke Mark and I thought nothing of inviting Carl back to the boat with us for a nip of vodka and a smoke. (Yes, we’re good with the boat-dwelling hippy-Goth stereotype, cheers…)
Now this boat that we were living on at the time was a converted tug, which means that you have a massive long front deck to carry cargo, and all of the living accommodation squished up in the back end of it. Once you got seated on the sofa with beers in front of you, the table holding the beers would block your exit to the back of the boat, while the next compartment the other way housed the engine, a lumbering, oily beast of a thing that you had to squeeze past to get to the other doors-nobody used this exit out of choice.
You get the picture.
Anyhoo, so Carl was comfy on the sofa with his tin of Stella, glass of voddy and a smoke, when Mark decided to take himself off into the hedge for a pee. Carl, as I mentioned, was a big beefy bloke with a legendary capacity for drink, so when he appeared to be going a little grey and quiet, I didn’t really pay as much attention as I maybe would have done if it were anyone else-I was pretty pie-eyed myself, so I just laughed and said “Carl, are you going to vom?” While not really meaning it at all.
Carl, however, went greyer and nodded, but despite this affirmative, I just flat didn’t believe him.
I started moving everything off the table blocking his exit, except my own inebriation seemed to have put me on a go-slow, and I was simply picking up each item individually and carefully putting it back in the cupboard, when upon reflection, I should really have just swept everything off and thrown the table out of the way.
Either way, I wasn’t moving fast enough, because Carl suddenly started making the retching noises and bulging from the eyes in that way people tend to do when they have a mouthful of vom and nowhere to go; I froze in mid-movement with the bowl we had been using as an ashtray in my hand, and as Carl started gesturing at it frantically, handed it over, upon which a literal fountain of vomit emerged from his face, plastering the table, seats, bowl, and pretty much everything but me, which was lucky.
Trust me, it was not glitter.
My response: Hysterical laughter. I got out of the way enough to let Carl finally get out past the table, where he proceeded to lose the rest of his innards all across the back of the boat-all I could do was laugh, to the point that I could not speak or breathe.
Mark returned from his pee; standing in the dark ten feet away, the sound of my hysterics and Carl’s puking was enough to confuse the hell out of someone who wasn’t exactly sober themselves.
Mark returned to find Carl sprawled out in a puddle of sick on the back of Mark’s boat, which was only the beginning of it; the inside of the cabin looked like an abstract artwork. Taking it better than I would have done, and with Carl in no state to help us out, Mark poured him into bed, we provided him with water, and then retired for the night to the non-vomity end of the boat.
When we awoke the next morning, Carl was gone-leaving no trace of his presence, save for one lone washed-up bowl-come-ashtray in the sink. We threw it out, funnily enough.
Facebook reminded me of all of this earlier on in the week, with their “Timehop” feature, and so I thought maybe I should send Carl an anniversary card or something… But decided to share the tale with the internet-at-large instead. Huh. Maybe I’m not above marker-pen penis level myself, after all.
Do you have a mate in a state story? Tell me more!
