When the Spirit Consumes You

I moved to Topeka in 1974 into a house with two male roommates, one of whom I would marry a few years later.  It should seem that it happened much longer ago but in my living memory it was just a while back.  We had a lot of fun and we took care of one another - after a fashion.  To cheer up one of the roommates recovering from a hernia operation, we planned a trip to Aggieville, the little bar district located at the southeast corner of the Kansas State University campus in Manhattan, Kansas.  Thanks to a large bottle of tequila and a bag of lemons for the road we arrived in Aggieville quite merry. Quite.

As the night progressed our merriment diminished with our capacities to think and speak clearly.  One of my dear roommates drunkenly attempted to throw a punch at the other.  The punch, easily avoided, was the culmination of consciousness for the swinging roommate.  He spent the rest of the evening passed out with his head cradled in his arms at the table.  All good (and stupid) things eventually come to an end.  Those of us still standing decided to leave.  When we attempted to rouse our slumbering roomie he was out, down for the count.  Ambulatory roommate easily hoisted unconscious roommate over his shoulder.  Unconscious roommate had a head of hair that would have done Jesus proud.  That cascade of freely swinging hair was an impressive sight coupled with the spectacle of a 160 pound man being hauled out like a sack of lumpy flour.  Making the way from the back of the bar all the way to the front drew a thundering round of applause from the other patrons. The last the cheering crowd ever saw of us were the tendrils of untamed hair waving adios as my roommates stepped back into the real world.

When we arrived home, the flour sack method was used to get unconscious roommate from the car to the sofa but there was no cheering.  We were far past merriment by then.

The next morning dawned golden and gorgeous.  I felt fine despite the Tequila and the raw lemons.  My bed was situated under large, wide open, upstairs windows that overlooked the front lawn.  I heard unusual voices from the sidewalk.  When I looked out, two elderly ladies, drawn close together in fear, stood staring at my supine roommate peacefully asleep on the sidewalk, his hands folded angelically over his bare chest, his mane of long hair fanned around him.  The ladies were on their way to church and neither expected to find Jesus asleep on the sidewalk that very morning.

I read in the newspaper this morning that the Topeka police and first responders were called to an address by a report of a naked man lying in a driveway.  I wondered if it had anything to do with tequila.