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Juvenile

Around the summer of ’93,  three of my closest friends and I went to “Galle” to spend an idle high school summer day at the mall. Dan was the only guy with a car during those times, and RJ, Cyrus, and I were always his rowdy passengers. This was teenage shallowness at its finest, set during the zero Internet 90s. Somehow, this appreciation for cheap thrills during a relatively primitive time was a blessing. None of us could really afford much on “summer allowance” back then, and as a coping mechanism, we had to convince ourselves that something as mundane as window shopping was a blast. Honestly, with this gang, we never really had to try hard.

Soon enough we were in the arcade. RJ was down to his last video game token when we distracted him as he played Street Fighter.  He was furious (for real) and of course this just meant more fun for the rest of us, as “ang pikon, talo” was always the mantra. We joke about this wasted token until today.

At the early hour of two in the afternoon, I bought Teeth’s recently released first album on cassette, and we all chipped in for a bottle of tequila. Tripping on the new album, we were heading to my empty house to have a simple afternoon drinking session.

Two hours into drinking, Dan was knocked out. Both with tequila and the misery of his recent heartache. RJ got my brother’s guitar, and with some “song-hits” chordbooks, he proceeded to be the official drunk noisemaker for the day. Cyrus flipped through my “soiree partners’ phonebook” and dialed each one of those numbers. I don’t even want to know what he told those girls, if he ever did get to actually talk to them. I was just busy cutting calamansi, which was quite the challenge when done intoxicatedly.

My family returned around 4pm, and we offered my eldest brother the left-over tequila. Around 5pm the gang was sober and heading off.

Today, Dan is working hard in California. RJ is stationed in Korea with a mission for the US Army. Cyrus is furthering his research in oncology. I myself have my own weight to carry.

This day in ’93, and many juvenile days like these, are lighthouses that bring us home.

I’d do it all over again 🙂

Recollections of better days gone by — Chris Cornell