At 4:30 AM phase two of the night began, Aftermath. Polar Bear, Hedgehog, and I banged on that apartment door for what seemed like hours. Honey Badger did not stir. The subway closed four and a half hours eariler and Polar Bear and I did not have the funds for another cab. It was either get into the apartment or sleep on the street. Although Polar Bear is sure footed on a sheet of ice he is not one for climbing. In the animal kingdom this is common knowledge, the only animal not to get the memo is Polar Bear himself. Honey Badger sleeps in her room on the top floor of a building that is in close proximity to three other buildings resting to behind and to the left and the right. Polar Bear had the idea to climb up one of these buildings then jump to the roof, maybe it’s door would be unlocked. He ran off into the night we lost lost sight of him. Hedgehog and I rested our drunk weary selves in the alley. We talked and dreaded the Wednesday morning that we would come to face in a few hours. Our conversation was interrupted but a loud yell, then a crash. It’s origin high up in the rafters of the night. We looked at each other ears listening intently.
Polar Bear jumped down beside us and offered defeat in the form of large painful gashes on his lily white forearms.
“Do you think I should see a doctor?” He said.
For Polar Bear the night was finished. I had other plans. Wandering around the building I looked for a different approach to the roof. I found it in the form of a small awning on the right side of the building. My path to it was a parked cube truck that thankfully was tall enough. Drunk at 4:30 AM is a bad enough scene, but scaling a building drunk at 4:30 AM in the middle of Taipei City is not a bad scene, it is a bad story. I leaped and bound up and up until, after scratching myself multiple times on different rusty pieces of metal, I found myself on the roof.
There are certain moments in life that make even the staunchest atheist pray to god. Not to the specific god of a specific religion, God is just the name of person most likely listening to you at 4:30 AM, so you end up praying to him, or her. I prayed to God and tried the door. Locked.
We were out of options and the lurking hangover was starting to massage the tender parts of my brain. I had only been in Honey Badger and Hedgehog’s apartment once before but I knew where Honey Badger slept. Right on the left side of the building. Peering over the edge of the roof I saw a small landing outside her room’s window, just enough for a big cat to perch. Thankfully, I was a big cat.
After descending carefully looked into the room. I saw nothing. Knock Knock.
Nothing.
I banged harder.
“Fuck off.”
It was Honey Badger.
“Honey Badger, get up. Were locked out and you need to open the front door.”
“Go away.” I imagined Honey Badger said this while turning over to face her back towards the window.”
“Honey Badger, you don’t understand. I am not at your door. I am at your window.”
“Yea right, fuck off.”
“No, your not getting it, I am not fucking off until you open this fucking window.”
“No.”
At this point in time I start to bang on the window.
“I am not going to stop until you open this door.”
Honey Badger must have realized that she could not make me go, seeing that I was outside the window, and she now had to open the window.
“Okay bitch, chill out.”
With that the glass slid away and I fell onto her bed. I immediately gave her an enormous kiss. Polar Bear and Hedgehog were waiting outside the apartment door. Victory. Nothing compares like overcoming a drunken obstacle. The risk of having our night become a disaster and a lesson learned was almost seen too. I hate lessons that you have to look at twice, first drunk, then sober. Persistence saw this through. Later the cops knocked on the door but we talked them off. In Taipei you only need to play the foreigner card and you can avoid a whole lot. The only lesson of this night was never send a Big Cat to do a Polar Bears job.