My roommates kicked off their own little wine club recently. Driven out of the bars by the high price of cab fare when they forget the trains stop running, they have decided (as an economic matter) to keep the fridge stocked with box wine. Two kinds, red and white, cool and refreshing, sitting on the second shelf at all times, restocked about every five days -- and after last night.
Wine club at my house is not a genteel affair. It begins small; several overweight friends and co-workers crashing about in the kitchen directly over my bedroom. They laugh, play dominoes, shoot the breeze, bitch about work. Later, the laughter becomes more profound, leaping down the staircase towards my bedroom with the force of a pack of hungry wild dogs. It happens every ten seconds or so. This lasts about an hour and a half.
After the laughter (for the laughter must end) comes the shouting. Screaming. Crying. Insincere apologies to me. Brief quiet. Last night I listened to the shouts; they were over who called who a whore, anger over someone checking their email during a movie, and who bit (yes bit) who last weekend and who started the fight that led to the biting.
That goes until about eleven, when things are all worked out via an Indian wrestling ritual. I had to read between the lines to discover this, however, as I lay in bed listening to the crashing directly overhead, I could think of no other activity that could cause such a ruckus. Plus, most of my roommates and their friends are American Indian; thus...Indian wrestling.
As I drifted off to sleep to the thumping vibrations of box-wine drunk fatties throwing each other about, I couldn't help but think of the homeless and how good they must have on the cold windy streets of DC. No wine club. Just wine and a steaming subway grate.
