The Night My Frat Brother Escaped From The Hospital, Pt. 2

El Taco9 years ago

To read part I, click here.

“Melvin’s in the hospital?!” I said in absolute astonishment. “Holy shit!”

Twenty minutes ago, I got a semi-concerning phone call about needing a ride home from the bars, and now Melvin is in the hospital?

“What the hell happened?”

“Well, we’re sitting there drinking and these moms that are in for mom’s weekend and their daughters are at the table next to us. It was dollar Rumples night so Melvin buys all of us shots and even the table next to us. The moms and their daughters left before the shots got there though,” Spike explained.

Oh shit. I know where this is going. Rumpleminz can be a cruel bitch. She’ll love you when you two intimately embrace in irresponsible alcoholism but oh man does she turn on a dime. Your night goes from tasting like Christmas morning to tasting like a different Christmas morning — a Christmas morning when your alcoholic stepfather comes home, beats you with a belt until you don’t know which way is up. What did you do to deserve this? Nothing, but this is your life now.

“After the outrageous demonstration of back-to-back-to-back-to-back shots, so many shots it’d bring a tear to Kobe Bryant’s eyes, we lost Melvin,” he said.

“Whoa, you lost him? How in the Lord’s name did you lose him?! He was wasted as fuck, he couldn’t have gotten that far,” I said, bewildered by group’s lack of basic management skills.

“We just lost him. He said he was going to the bathroom, I was closing out my tab, Stan was trying to stop Lil’ Gooch from fighting the door guy that’s five times bigger than him. He…he just vanished,” Spike said.

Alright, that’s fair, I guess. A lot of chaos happening, definitely possible that a 5’11”, 250 pound drunken toddler escaped at the speed of light, right?

“Next thing we know, we find Melvin in a pool of blood,” he said.

Oh fuck. This isn’t good.

“Yeah, Melvin was so drunk that he went outside, fell backward and hit his head on the bar’s steel fence, cracking his head open,” he said.

This story just keeps going from bad to worse. On top of all that, he tried fighting the paramedics. He didn’t want to go to go to the hospital at all. The first responders said they couldn’t force him to go, but if they released him, he could die on the walk back. It was bad. Real bad.

This wasn’t a game. This was scary. A fraternity brother was on the verge of death and there was nothing we could do about it. My stomach was turning.

Trying to think of the most logical next step for a group of drunken 21-year-olds, I said, “Well, I guess there’s not much we can really do tonight. We’ll go right as visiting hours start tomorrow, early in the mor…”

The door suddenly swung opened.

“F…f..fuhck yous guyz.”

“No, like I really think you need to go back.”

“F…f..fuhck you. I ain’t going back there. Where’s my cigs?”

Finally, the mental light turned on.

“You don’t have any. We’re about to go on a booze run though. You wanna come with and get some?” I asked.

“F…f…fine.”

After he doled out some high fives, IV in tow, we finally coaxed him into the car. Now, it was time for us to get him back to the hospital before we ended up dragging a limp body out of my backseat.

We arrived just in time. The rain had let up and blackout Melvin knew his game was over. He let out one of the loudest groans I’ve ever heard.

“Ugggggghhhhhh.”

“We got to get you back, I’m sorry,” Spike explained.

We walked in and were immediately greeted by an overworked nurse who’d clearly been through too much shit for one day.

“Are you Melvin?! Come with me now,” she said.

Melvin let out the moan that impressively outdid his prior performance.

“Ughhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.”

Spike went in but I stayed back, casually making small talk with all the other freaks there at 1:42 a.m.

“Yo, is that the one guy that broke out,” one guy asked me.

“Yeah, why?”

“Oh shit. That’s nuts. Nurses were looking all over for him. They described him as looking business casual and possibly dangerous,” he said.

And that point I knew things would be alright. Not only did Melvin buy shots for moms, bust his head and break out of a hospital in a single night. He did it in style.

Melvin survived the ordeal, waking up the next day with what I can only assume was a hangover headache on Barry Bonds-steroids. He was released from the hospital later that day. Later that night, he got laid.

Some call him a legend. Some say a god. I call him a role model. One day I too hope my drunken shenanigans qualify as business casual and possibly dangerous. One day. .