There's No Day Like Tonight

Originally written June 13, 2006

On a long enough timeline, the longer your day stretches into the night and beyond, the stranger your stories of the episode become. And few were more far fetched than the last night of my first year of law school.

The alarm went off sometime around 6am that Friday morning. I picked myself out of bed after four hours of sleep realizing, without any thought to the night that would follow, that today was going to be a hell of day. For it was the last day of the most difficult year of my life, and between now and the celebrating, I had the eight hour all essay federal rules of civil procedure II final. When I say eight hours, I don't mean six and time to check your work, its a full eight hours until your brain cramps up and you start writing about how geography grad school would have been such a better option. I drive on over to campus, only about ten minutes away. Once there I realize the campus has gone insane, since for some reason Bill Clinton decided to come speak on the last day of finals. I pickup my finals, dodge security and hippies, and go back to the apartment to take the final. Over the next eight hours, I listen to every pure moods album I have three times to calm the urge telling me to swan dive off the balcony.

Driving back to school eight hours later, I see Dan in the parking lot bringing his test in, and we take a moment realizing we just made it through the hardest year of education for anyone at any level. Yeah, doctors you can shove it. Off to Lita's for the small section bbq to celebrate the fact that 15 out of the 18 of us that started made it through. We're drinking, cooking out, drinking more and realizing its all over. Phone rings and its morman John, and he needs another person for the morman softball league. So into my car I go, race home to get the bat and glove, and sprint to the field. As I'm running up they tell me I'm on deck, the guy grounds out and I literally have gone from my car straight the batters box. Standing there, ready to play, I realize wow this is pretty good, playing ball again. Afterwards, back to the bbq, finish the grilling and drinking, and hit Mass Street.

By midnight on Mass Street, the main road in town with a couple dozen bars on it, Lauren and Pete and their crew were out celebrating finals being done, and Lauren was leaving for Italy in nine hours. I meet up with them at a bar and we do some shots and I'm out of mind lit. And then, she had to ruin everything. This girl, who shall be nameless in evermore, got separated from the group. She ran back into the bar and said these men outside attacked her in bad bad ways. She lied. For all that is holy I wish I didn't have to say that, but she lied, and for the next 10 hours we paid for it.

First priority was to sober up, and a crying hysterical girl does that to you. The reaction among the group we were with was split. Some people were really concerned. Others assumed she was trying to get my attention because of some crush. It didn't matter, I was the adult and I was in charge. Pete, Lauren and I tried to get her to the car, tried to get her to hospital, and she would have none of it, just wanted to be way too friendly. Eventually, after an hour of literally dragging her, we brought her to the emergency room. As Pete and I wait around, I see a professor of mine walk past me with presumably his kid. At 2am, in the emergency room. Pete eventually bailed. Lauren had to leave for Italy. There was Jay, defender of the little people, as the only person to take care of this supposedly traumatized girl. Far be it from me to say when people are really hurting, but if one detail of her story had been true, hanging out with Jay would be the last thing someone would want to do in her alleged position. And I realized, she was lying. Refused to talk to the cops, refused to get checked out, changing her story every time I asked. I may be cold and heartless, but I know a tourist when I see one, and she was looking for attention.

Eventually I took her back to her apartment and got the hell out of there and went straight to the police. I explained the entire night, how she made it up, and how I was conned into being the good guy. 10am, I'd been drunk three times that night, sat around for hours in an emergency room, and fought a night of doubt. What scared me the most is that at some point I actually believed her, and that part of me clicked on that I would do anything to protect her. And she lied, she brought out those protective instincts, she made a fool out of me and scared the hell out me in the process. The details from that night, far more intricate than explained here, tell a story about a girl desperate for attention that would do anything to get it.

I know you read this blog, and you're as dangerous as ever. I like to think I can handle just about anything, when the situation calls for it I take control and deal out justice how I see fit. Whatever you have become, I don't want to know it, because once it scared me. I absolve you for what you have done, for what you've become, I give you absolution so that this anger for what you did and fear of what you might be capable of will never be heard from again. I am a vengeful man, but I release you from that debt. Our paths will cross no more.