Fonze

The story of "Fonze and the Drunken Deer," by Fonze.

Animals can do crazy things sometimes and aren't always perfect; the following is a story of a brief moment in time where perception matched reality in the most uncanny of ways.

This story begins a little over a half a decade ago: it was the late 2000's; I was 19-20, working overnight, and going to college during the day. During one of the breaks, I took a trip with some friends over to a big party college. I of course went directly to the library and shut myself in; get your heads out of the gutter.

(Jk)

We were only there for the weekend, so the first night we stayed in the house and drank; talked to our buddies staying there. The second night we went out to different house parties; I'd like to say each was wilder than the last but to be honest I don't remember much of them. Mostly I just remember drinking a lot and talking to tons of people I'll never meet or remember again, but that's a topic for another time. We were out for a while, then it got to be about that time; we left back for the house, stayed up a bit, then people started crashing. Eventually it was just me awake; I had just finished the bottle and working overnight at that point in my life I wasn't exactly tired. So I made a decision that would forever stick with me as (the first time I truly believed) 'that moment I saw everything' (except this was before that 8-car crash which definitely tops this in shock factor). I decided to go for a drunk walk. Hey, maybe I'd get into a party somewhere.

A pretty simple concept: get drunk with a bunch of people; when everybody goes to sleep and you're the only one left awake, go for a walk. Don't ask me why, but you have to be drinking with a group for drunk walks to be possible. Don't ever decide to just drink a bunch and then go for a walk; that's how you get picked up by the 5-0, hauled off, and given a fancy yellow piece of paper for drunk in pubic.

So I set off on my fershnikit way, heading off into the unknown. This apartment coxplex is on a mountain; it had only one road leading in/out to the main road, so that was where I went.

As I reached the entrance/exit portion of this area, I had just crossed the road when suddenly the 5-0 appeared. For some reason I thought it'd be a good idea to act like I was fiddling with my keys at "my car," so they wouldn't think I was drunk or underage; (yeah wtf was I thinking) luckily they didn't stop. Still, in a way fiddling with keys might look a bit less drunk-in-public-y than stumbling around.

A little rattled, I continued moving on; at this point it became clear that this wasn't necessarily a good idea. I couldn't, however, return back the way I came because the whole 'one-road throughout this complex' thing, so I took my walk around the back side of the nearby building with hopes to make a loop around somehow.

As I walked a little way, I came to a clearing between two buildings and noticed a party going on with two guys standing at the door talking to some people inside. Naturally I'm like, 'sweet, I'll get into another party,' and I walk on over. Well about 15-20 feet away from the door my plastered eyes finally begin to make out words on the backs of the jackets of the two men standing at the door. Did it say the name of a college or sports team? I would have liked to think so, but in this case the jackets simply read "POLICE."

No sooner had I read that than I had turned right back around and walked towards the closest corner; somehow, by some great grace, I wasn't noticed.

Well, that solved the question of 'where the cops were,' but unfortunately now I was commited to finding a loop around somehow; in my haste to gtfo, I had ducked back behind the next building and my path back was reeeally cut off now. My only option at this point was to follow a road up a big hill towards some houses and see if there was a way around from there.

I reached the top of the hill; a cul-de-sac of all things, and took a look in the direction of the place I was staying at. To my surprise there was a large clearing in the woods going in kind of the right direction. This clearing was like those places where they clear out 15-20 feet of woods in a long, straight line to give large power cables room.

I'm walking down this clearing, big drop down (and the way I had to go) to my right and some houses on my left. I was behind them, so their back yards were closest to me, with all of them having a little, 4-foot tall chain link fence bordering their properties. All of a sudden I see a flash in my peripherals over to the left, and I looked over just in time to witness a deer try to jump this tiny little fence and fail epicly.

You ever get that feeling when you've been drinking that everybody around you is just as drunk as you are, particularly in places where you know for a fact nobody else has been drinking? Well that was how I felt here as I watched that deer slam into the side of the fence... with his side. Maybe he was just practicing for the deer-lympics and their high jump is as unintuitive as ours; I dont know.

So I see this deer hit that fence and right away he pops on up and runs the opposite direction, going behind a small shed where I couldn't see him. For the next full minute, I stood there entranced by the sound of a chain link fence rattling; long enough for me, in my inebriated state of mind, to go through the following series of thoughts, with pauses in between each:

 "What's that?" "Hey, is that that deer?" "I think it is; maybe he's in trouble." "Maybe I should go help him." "How do I get over this fence?" What if this isn't a good idea?" "What if the owner comes outside?" "He really does sound like he's in trouble." "How do I get over this fence?" "What if he attacks me like in that movie?" "No, I should definitely help him; he'd do the same for me." "Omg this fence, wtf?"

Finally, the sound stopped; I still hadn't gotten close to surmounting this impossible obstacle before me, tried as I might, but for the next moment all I could do was pause to listen, making no sound, one foot still raised, barely not wedged into place, and both hands still on the fence. No sounds. Now, fortunately I didn't question "what if he died," as I would likely have been in that same spot by the morning, or head-first in the home owner's backyard with like a pant leg caught on the fence or something, or running around in my skivvies. No, I just assumed he was okay and stood there for a few minutes, happy my new friend was okay and wondering what his story was. So many questions; so many things left unsaid.

The rest of my walk back wasn't very eventful, I soon found a decent path down and walked/hopped/rolled my way to glory and back to the place I never should have left.

Since then, I've taken many a drunk walk, still looking for that metaphorical deer, even when in a big city. In all the drunk walks I've taken, I've seen some funny things, but I've never seen anything to top the time I saw that deer as I was. Nor have I seen him again, though a man can dream...

I have a couple tribes of Native American in me floating around somewhere in small doses; perhaps that deer was my spirit guide. Or maybe I haven't seen him since on account of the fact that I accidentally killed Bambi one day while driving down a dark road in the woods with a mid-to-high speed limit. Hey, not a scratch on my car though!

Lol, apologies; I'm a terrible person. Maybe I'll see some friends in Hell, if it exists ;D