4^th of July

The time had come, the busiest day of the year was here and we were ready…sort of. I had stayed up until three or later, three out of four of the days leading up to the fourth and worked exhausting server doubles, at a packed restaurant. I also got to take a few hours off here and there and would get off early on occasion. Jim and I went fishing during one of my breaks and he caught a beautiful brown trout and we both got numerous bites. We would have five servers, five cooks, and two bartenders for the fourth. When I got to work I was still feeling the drunk from the night before. Katie stumbled into work after crashing at another local ex-boyfriend’s house the previous night and Hadley looked hungover as hell. Clint had gotten wasted and had the day off so he was partying. We got to work around 9:30 and made some signs before the parade. We had bought some water balloons and right as we were fixing to fill them up Shane the Sheriff comes in the back door of the restaurant and tells us to throw them away. When questioned about why we had to throw ours away when everyone else had them he stammered, “because I don’t want you hittin’ any random people.

I got on the back of Clint’s truck in the blazing sun and wondered if I was going to make it today. Clint had a couple of beers in the car, so I chugged one and got back out on the float as we came around the corner there was a cop. He had some bottled water and the girls asked him for it because they were parched. He threw it up on the truck and we split it. We told him to come by for some pizza. As we came across Main Street there were thousands of people lining the sides waving flags and watching the parade. There were also volleys of water and water balloons from the tops of the surrounding buildings. We were going to get soaked. Katie had tied a bandanna around her for a shirt and was looking good, Hadley had a tank top on and a skirt. I was shirtless and had a red bandanna on. We yelled about Big Boobs, Jager Bombs, and Happy Hour and then we got soaked, as we came around Kip’s Grill, we got caught in a crossfire, I caught 2 balloons and returned fire scoring two hits. As we went by RJ’s on the way into town he soaked us with his garden hose. The girls went to shower before they came back to serve and were late getting back, I was still prepping as the doors opened. This was going to be nuts. We were full up from 12 until 8, busy as hell, and we had a new waitress Brenda who did great. I was working upstairs and on the deck, it was like running a full marathon. Everybody got served, a couple of tables got screwed up but all in all it was a good day. I made $90 in tips and did $622 in sales.

Hadley came in after she had gotten off right before the kitchen was set to close and started yelling at the kitchen staff when her food wasn’t coming out. She slapped my ass twice during work, and the second time I replied “fucking Hadley”. Daniel chewed her out she got her food and left. It took a while to finish everything up and Brooke got pissed that Katie got cut first but I talked to her and it was cool. The best part about the setup and the day is that everyone helped each other out. It was teamwork at its best. Jim had food flying out of the kitchen and all the servers helped each other out when they had the time and everyone did well that is until after the bars closed.

Night of the 4th

Late the night of the fourth Sam’s sister and her boyfriend who were in town got into a pushing match. He tried to kick down our door and Jim and Clint went apeshit on the guy. Jim chased him around the house, and he hid underneath the porch. He crawled in the doghouse. Eventually he came out, and Clint pursued him. Clint walked around the block and found him and kicked his ass. He took him down with a couple of shots to the head, and kicked him while he was down. I heard this second hand having gone to bed before any of this started. The dude came over the next morning and he looked pretty...no reall rough, you could see that he wasn’t walking very well, and his mouth was pretty fucked up and he kept stammering about some guy in South Fork that was a meth head. This guy was a real piece of work. He got his shit and left, like I said, you fuck with the house you get the fuck out.

Later we heard varying accounts but the most common was that the guy had run, yes run out of town 22 miles to South Fork that night. There were more stories from the night of the fourth. Some guy that lived in South Fork and came to Creede to party took a bunch of pills and drank a bunch and ended up passing out in the middle of the highway through town. After that a couple of locals that were hanging at the Halfway House earlier in the night found him, took his knife, and threw his shoes in the flume. After the local Sherriff Fred almost ran over him, he picked him up and took him to the hospital. The kid (I believe he was underage) ended up that night at the hospital in Del Norte. The dude who got f'd up at our house, apparently knew this kid.

Layover

Mac’s was closed the day after the 4^th for repair and recovery. We had run out of pizzas and a number of other items. The 5^th was a day of rest. In the afternoon Sarah, Alesia, Dani, Megan and I had gone to Kips and run into a vinyl connoisseur named Chelsea and her boyfriend Matt who Megan had told me previously about. They invited us out to their cabin up Bachelors Loop. We arrived at a rustic cabin in the woods. It was beautiful. We drank rum, smoked cigarettes, and did a J. Clint showed up with Wanda and the kids with a box of fireworks. After an hour or so of fireworks we went back to town. I took a shower and headed to Tommies to party. I was really drunk and danced for a while with Mel our other bartender. It was a good time and the Dewayn Brothers were a great bluegrass band. I talked to their guitar player for a while and they had played Galileos in Oklahoma City with my some of my friends’ band Tall Cotton. I went up to the bar for another drink after the band wrapped up and tripped and broke the BBQ sign at Tommies. Chelsea grabbed me, propped me up and stuck her thigh right into my crotch holding me up. I staggered outside and down the street to Mac’s and somehow got back home. Once I got home I pulled out the bong and as I did this I got the bright idea to go see if the theater chicks were partying at the bordello. No such luck, so I drove back home and crashed hard.

The next day of work was rough. We had to do a major cleaning of the restaurant and once again were prepping as we opened an hour and a half late. I felt bad but maintained. There was another band playing at Tommies that night so I went back to the Halfway for a nap and a shower.