Life Lesson #9: Nothing’s Ever Free: The Narcs Are Always Watching When the Lip Starts Tingling

I really don’t think I should be allowed to stay out past midnight during the week (maybe with the exception of Thursday, but I’m still deciding on that).

I was thinking Madonna and I should impose a curfew in our apartment. Or she should have the right to ground me if I’m out too late. Maybe a punishment of sorts for thinking it’s perfectly acceptable to be gallivanting all hours of the night, only to have to face the alarm and drag my ass to work the next morning. So not cool.

And I’m not one of those people that can pull off hangovers. At all. My eyes are always red, regardless of how many times I flood them with drops. My skin gets that off-color, dull appearance that makes it look like I just slathered it with expired self tanner. No matter how much makeup I put on, I look like a shovel was taken to my face. If I’ve taken it a bit too far, my thumbs will puff up a tiny bit and my ankles will throb (which makes me theorize that all the alcohol is pooling in my extremities because it can’t get out of my body fast enough). And the absolute worst: my bottom lip swells.

I should be grateful that I don’t get the swollen lip to the same extreme as my brother. Growing up, he would always get caught if he’d been drinking because his lips would swell to epic proportions the next morning. He wound up finding out that he’s allergic to the yeast in beer, but he faced many a grounding before that was discovered. My other brother and I would torture him mercilessly, pestering him with ‘shrimp is the fruit of the sea, Forrest’ and knocking things over and blaming it on his giant lips (I know, not really funny, but at the time, we thought we were hilarious).

While my bottom lip doesn’t get as bad as his, it is noticeable if you know me well enough. Basically, it’s really irritating and all I can do is wait it out. I know it’s completely my own fault for being such a lush, but I still like to bitch about it. And that is exactly what I did all day Thursday since I clearly drank way too much on Wednesday night.

The evening was to just consist of dinner with Goose and Madonna. Of course, dinner is never just dinner, is it?

I went to Goose’s brother’s apartment (she was house sitting while he and his girlfriend were on vacation), where we would wait ‘til Madonna got out of work. I bought a bottle of vino on the way over.

Now, a bottle of wine is just that; a bottle. Relatively harmless on the alcohol scale, particularly if you’re sharing it with someone. Factors that might contribute to it becoming slightly dangerous, however, are when you haven’t had much to eat all day, when you had a trying ten hours at the office, or when it’s followed by other alcohol, particularly not wine.

All these variables came into play Wednesday evening. By the time Madonna met up with us and we left for the restaurant, the wine was long gone and I was starving.

We headed off to the restaurant, a Japanese place called Fusia. While I’m usually not one for cocktails at dinner (at the most, I’ll get a vodka soda with appetizers), we noticed a few fancy drinks that piqued our interest.

The Razzmapolitan stood out among the crowd. What a fancy name! So jazz-a-riffic! Why, how could anyone resist? The three of us certainly would not!

A round before any food is even ordered should send off an internal warning signal of sorts for me, but alas, it doesn’t. My life would probably be a lot less complicated and hazy if such a forewarning existed. But you know, it would probably also mean a much more boring existence, so really, who wants that?

And so, I will go on to say the Razzmapolitan does not disappoint. Served in a martini glass on steroids, and with an alcohol to nonalcohol ratio that, I’m guessing, stands at around 98:2, I was delighted at our beverage of choice.

Dinner was great too, as was the additional wine we ordered. By the time we asked for the check, I think we were all in good spirits and comfortably satisfied (I don’t know about you, but sushi never completely fills me up). A perfect way to end the night.

Well, that’s also kind of uncharacteristic of me: to just take myself home at a reasonable point.

Goose was in a going-out sort of mood. A friend of hers whom I’ve met on occasion was bartending only a few blocks away. And while Madonna has much more self-restraint than I, the Law of the Triads prevailed. Off we went.

“We’ll just go for a drink,” I promised.

The thing about going to a place where you know someone that’s working is that it’s rarely just a one-cocktail-then-home-to-bed-because-it’s-a-school-night sort of evening. At least, in my case it rarely is. Because you get your first drink, which is often on the house, chat it up with whomever you know, they probably introduce you to someone they also know, or you run into someone else that you know, and the first free drink winds up going down faster than light speed. It would almost be rude to simply leave at this point, especially if that first drink was gratis. So another drink is usually purchased, with a high probability of being handed over with a shot since everyone is just so chummy, and it all just goes downhill from there.

That was kind of what happened as the night progressed.

We went over to Goose’s friend at the bar and made ourselves comfortable. Our drinks were made in pint glasses. This is always a bad thing. Pint glasses are for beers, lagers, Guinness. That sort of thing. They really shouldn’t be used for vodka consumption.

We chatted it up amongst ourselves until an acquaintance of Goose made his way over. She met him the last time she was there, although she was with a male friend, which I don’t care what you say, always changes how a guy will act around you.

Being we were three females hanging out, the situation was going to get messy. Goose’s friend introduced himself as Earl (the first real Earl I think I’ve ever met) and offered to buy us a round, on him.

But of course.

Soon enough, Earl’s friends, Jose and Angel, made their way over.

“How do you guys know each other?” I asked.

“We work together,” Earl answered.

“We’re narcs,” Jose continued.

“Yeah, in Washington Heights,” Angel finished.

Oh. Well, this is definitely a change from the usual.

Angel and I begun discussing how working thirteen years on the beat can be really exhausting. But your skills and tactics become so top notch, it’s hard to walk away. Basically, you get really good at what you do, you know that you’re really good at catching the bad guys, and you always think, one more year, so many more people I can put behind bars, just one more year. Because one of the best things you learn and the thing you become so good at is that you always let them run. Just don’t keep up with them: you just keep a nice, steady pace. They’re going to run like they just heard their momma’s house is on fire. But then, BAM, they’ll lose their wind, and soon, and that’s when, BAM, you got them. Because you were pacing yourself and you always win if you pace yourself.

Angel then asked if he could take me to dinner. I got away without giving him a straight answer and soon learned that he has children, three to be exact. One of his daughters is only two years younger than I am. I tell him this. Regardless, he thought we had a lot in common and would like to take me out.

At this point, Earl asked Angel and me if we’d like another drink. With it comes a shot. How nice.

I’m pretty sure that not much later, I felt the telltale tingle in my bottom lip, and decide to take heed the sign and turned to Madonna and Goose to see how they were doing. Madonna walked over just as I turned around.

“You guys, I’m really tired. I think we should get going,” she said, which I immediately understood as: Really, these people are kind of nuts and I think we should get the hell out of here before we’ve got three narcotic officers on our asses.

At least, that’s what was running through my head as the tingle turned to a dull throb.

I found out later from Madonna that Jose has taken some time to impart his wisdom on her as well. In the undercover world of Dominican drug addicts, my name would be Italiano. Hers would be Angelia. He wanted to take her to The Copa for some meringue dancing, although once he learned she has a boyfriend, he respected her and told her about his two children, both boys, eight and eight months. He wants a little girl badly. Madonna took that as her cue to make her way back over to us.

“I agree. Goose, I think we should get out of here. I have an early day tomorrow,” I said, grabbing my coat and making a beeline for the door.

I know this is totally mean, but it’s what always seems to happen: We chat it up for a while, become BFF with total strangers, one person says something that makes us realize, good lord, what the hell am I doing, and we try to bust out of there before having to exchange awkward ‘it was so great meeting you’ and fake cell numbers.

Unless you get so drunk that you actually give someone your actual number.

Which, sadly, on the promise of Yankee tickets, Goose gave to Earl.

Life Lesson # 9: It’s true what they (whoever they are) say – nothing is for free. Sure, someone may buy me drinks, but what winds up happening? An allergic reaction and headache that linger with me throughout the next day.

And Goose? Well, let’s just say, she’s kicking herself in the ass right now. Because she’s gotten at least ten phone calls in the past few days from Earl. From three different numbers. And the last thing anyone wants is a possessive narcotics officer tracking them down. Because the second she loses her wind, BAM, he’s got her.