Fiction: Bacchus

It was eight in the evening on Friday night, and Tom was already in bed. An anomaly for him, but it would nice to get some much-needed sleep. The problem was, he was expected at a pre in an hour. He got off work at four, went to the gym at five, came back at six, and had a bite at seven. He’d been in bed ever since. He idly moved from TikTok back to Instagram, but there was nothing new on there. He put his phone down, then picked it up with his other hand because his hand was getting sore. Back to TikTok.

There was a particularly fun rabbit hole he was currently falling into that was comprised of an anime theme and people moving the phone to the beat. Tom really didn’t want to move. His phone buzzed with a notification, and his eyes flicked over to the preview. It was James, whose party he was expected at tonight.

“Hey, when are you coming over tonight?”

“I don’t know, I’m not really feeling it anymore,” Tom’s finger hovered over the send button.

God, he really didn’t want to go. He didn’t know why he was so tired. He had enough sleep last night and work was light. He just wanted to bathe in the cold glow of his cellphone. He also needed to pee. Sighing, he rolled out of bed, went to the washroom, brought a pack of chips back to the bed, and continued scrolling TikTok.

“I’d be nice if you came early,” came the follow-up from James, “we haven’t caught up in a while.”

This was patently false. James wanted him there early because he was the life of the party. But now he felt like he couldn’t send the message he had written. He erased all of it, chose an ambiguous thumbs up, and flipped back to Instagram. Half an hour later, he received another text, this time from Ariana.

“You’re going to James’ tonight, right?

That snapped him out of his stupor. God, he had to give James a proper response. “Ye, work ran late and I think maybe 930?”

Then he sent Ariana a thumbs up emoji. He checked the time. 8:39. He turned to TikTok again. Ten minutes later, he got a Facetime from his mother.

“Hey, is now a good time?”

“Yeah, sure mom. What’s up?”

“Do you have time to come back to Barrie to help me sell the car tomorrow evening? There’s someone who wants to pick it up and I’d feel better if you were there.”

His mother sounded sheepish, as though she was asking for a big favour. Tom immediately felt bad. This woman was his mother after all. It was a hassle, but the shy tone of her voice reminded him of how he had reacted in the past when she asked for help.

“Yeah, of course! Only if you pick me up from the GO station,” said Tom, mustering as much enthusiasm as he could.

“Deal,” said his mother with a smile, “you’re in bed already?”

“Yeah, just a quiet night in.”

“Good, good, get some rest Tom.”

“Thanks Mom, see you tomorrow.”

It was half-past nine when his phone notified him he had spent over two hours on Instagram already that day. He was in the middle of watching a third-tier friend’s story of them at a ridiculous izakaya, getting drunk for someone’s birthday. He felt a sense of longing and he realized that he had been in bed for the last two hours without moving. He groaned and rolled out of bed.

By the time he arrived at the lobby of James’ condominium building, it was already ten, and there was a long queue of revelers waiting to use the buzzer. When it became his turn, it took three tries until to get through to James, much to the chagrin of the folks behind him. Now there was a queue for the elevator. It seemed as though there was always one elevator that didn’t work in James building.

As he scrolled through his notifications, he saw an email from Kristina. She had come back to him with a revised copy of her resume. He volunteered at the careers center of a homeless shelter in his free time, and this week, he was helping her out. He briefly scanned over it and smiled. She was smart, and he was sure she’d find a job in the coming weeks. He’d give more detailed comments on the GO train tomorrow, he thought as the elevator arrived. Tom had been to James’ place for many parties in the past, but even if he didn’t know which unit it was by heart, he could divine by ear. He tested the handle of the door with loud blaring Top Forty leaking through. It was unlocked. He gingerly pushed it open.

Inside was the wild, frenzied party he had become accustomed to seeing. Red Solo cups everywhere, forties of Belvedere, cases of Steam Whistle, and oh goodness, was that a Magnum of Dom? Who sold the family farm? People were screaming over each other to make themselves heard, the line to the single washroom was three people long, and there were already a few drinks spilled on the floor, paper towel strewn atop in a half-hearted effort to clean up.

“Hey, Tom’s finally here!”

He took a deep breath as all the heads in the room turned towards him. They erupted into cheers, quickly replaced by demands for punishment shots.

“You know the rules: a shoot for every ten minutes. And that leaves you with,” said James in a mocking apology, looking at his phone, “five shots!”

Tom made a show of moaning and groaning, but he was fine with it. He had to catch up after all. James measured five shots from the magnum of Belvedere into a Solo cup and passed it to Tom. He down it in one gulp, without hesitation, to loud cheers from the party.

“Dude, I thought you weren’t going to make it,” said James after everyone had turned back to their own activities.

“Yeah, work ran really late today,” said Tom again apologetically, “seems like the party got on fine without me though.”

“Yeah, it wasn’t bad, but it’s really much more fun to drink with you around. Look, everyone is doing shots from Solo cups now.”

And it was true. Whether in mockery or flattery, everyone was pouring ambitious looking amounts of vodka into the red plastic cups and trying to finish it in one go. Tom turned around to acknowledge that to James, but had already flitted away to another group, ever the flawless host.

“Hey Tom!” He turned over and saw Ariana waving at him.

“This is Kristen,” she said, gesturing at a tall blonde girl beside her.

“That was impressive with the vodka,” Kristen said shyly.

“You haven’t seen anything yet,” cut in Ariana, “Show her what you can do with bottle of soju.”

“Ariana, is this really where you want to start me off?” asked Tom in mock sternness but with serious reluctance.

“Do it for Kristen,” said Ariana, “you’re curious, aren’t you?” Kristen nodded, and Ariana pulled out a bottle of soju from a brown paper bag.

That was the last thing Tom remembered before waking up the next morning. He opened his eyes: he was in his own bed. He patted his pockets: he was wearing yesterday’s clothes and his phone and wallet were there. A moan came from the couch. He stuck his head out, and saw Peter starting to rouse a little too. How either of them got there, he didn’t know.

“Dude, you were a riot last night,” said Peter “I don’t know how you do it.”

“What did I do?” asked Tom with a look of concern.

“You took off your shirt in the club twice”, said James, “and almost got kicked out. Plus, you were dancing on the tables, but that shouldn’t be a surprise,” he continued.

“Nothing else I should know about?” Tom asked hopefully.

“Oh, you also drunkenly pulled Ariana and her new friend,” said Peter, “but you were really drunk and kept on telling them you couldn’t take advantage of them even though they wanted to go home with you. Which worked out fine for me.”

Peter threw a shirt at Tom. Tom gave Peter a questioning look.

“We have drag brunch with Ariana and her hot friend,” said Peter.

It was three hours later when Tom looked up in the hall of the Drake Hotel, head pounding from the bottomless mimosas, and ears pounding from the kitschy music. There was a retro message board with a scrolling display with LCD type font. The text, as he looked up, read “He is simplistically portrayed as the jolly Bacchus who is invoked at drinking”.