Legendary Cringe: Drunken Neighbor in Epic Death Spiral

Kit Duggan
Sep 9, 2018 · 6 min read

My neighbor Glen once laid on the floor of my apartment and refused to leave on account of his extreme drunkenness. After a couple hours of pleading with him to leave, I reluctantly yelled and kicked him. His dog Lucky snarled at me, defending his supremely wasted master.

“Listen Glen, I don’t want to do this — but I’m about to throw water in your fucking face!”

He took a moment’s pause before slurring out his response. “…I’m ready.”


Glen was hated throughout our apartment complex for his horrible drunken antics. He eventually became my friend, but I first knew him as an amiable weirdo who would hang out in the parking lot and chain smoke cigarettes, Lucky by his side. But others, including Glen’s neighbor, complained about loud disturbances and late night domestic disputes next door.

After his wife left, Glen’s front door would be left completely open for hours on end. Lucky would escape and the neighbors would have to corral the poor dog, only to find Glen inside the apartment, passed out cold, still blasting Nirvana from his sound system.


For a drunk that seemed to live off the fumes of reckless abandon, Glen sure had a lot of professional acumen and financial clout. He loved taking me and my roommates out for breakfast, lunch and dinner — sometimes all in the same day. As a poor college drop out, it was next-to impossible to refuse his company and offers of free food.

The only catch? I had to chauffeur Glen around, especially to the liquor store, but also to a litany of restaurants, ATM machines, and other comic errands. At face value, it was a pretty sweet deal, considering he paid for all my meals and would regularly fill up my gas tank. But there were a few drawbacks to this arrangement.


While sober, Glen was a meek, nerdy programmer. After the day’s second bottle of J&B Whiskey, he became a cackling madman who would say the most absurd shit a person could hear.

Once, while extremely intoxicated at a Black Angus restaurant, Glen bellowed “FUCK YOU” at me over some petty disagreement. It was a loud and resonating kind of “FUCK YOU,” and I recall hearing an eery silence fall over our section, with other diners looking on concerned.

It was humiliating. I couldn’t even finish my filet mignon.

We never went back to that Black Angus.


Simple interactions like ordering food at a restaurant could turn into an excruciating ordeal when accompanying this incredible drunkard.

Glen liked to order off the menu. If the waitress was cute, he might try to clumsily flirt with her or attempt to say something pithy while rambling away about his custom order. These interactions were some of the most cringeworthy of my entire adult life, and sometimes felt like a flaming gamut of hell I’d have to endure to enjoy several plates of sushi later on.

To his credit, Glen loved to tip waiters and waitresses for their tough assignment, occasionally leaving tips over $250 dollars. I remember Glen tipping a waitress $100 at iHop one night and she started crying. He made sure she noticed how much he tipped and soaked up the adoration.


Before she left, the scariest part of being Glen’s friend was his wife, Amy. Glen had one of those bizarre marriages that seemed incomprehensible from the outside, but somehow worked for both people involved.

Amy was an exchange student from China who met Glen at UC Riverside. Apparently, Glen taught her how to drive, and also ended up teaching her English. I didn’t know Glen back in the late 80s, but apparently he had enough swag to court Amy and eventually marry her.

Glen’s wife hated our friendship, because she thought my apartment was a safe harbor for him to drink, which I found out was forbidden at their place.

Though I actively discouraged Glen from drinking to the point of stupor, I didn’t explicitly prohibit him from drinking at my apartment. Looking back, it’s obvious he needed my company to escape his wife and binge drink.


Glen lost his job after a business trip in Chicago. Apparently he fucked up a presentation and embarrassed his boss in front of clients. I would pay money to see footage of this incident as he described it.

The final straw was after he “invited a bunch of homeless guys” up to his hotel suite that night. He told me hotel staff vacated his room on a noise complaint and contacted his employer about the matter. That sealed the deal.


Once, I found Glen slumped down listlessly against a wall in the parking lot covered in blood. This time he wasn’t wasted…but it looked like someone beat the shit out of him. He couldn’t even walk to the liquor store.

His face and hands were badly scraped up. He had an awful black eye. His clothes were dirty and ripped. Apparently a couple guys found him passed out near the complex and dragged him back to his apartment, bloodied and bruised. This was his first time leaving the apartment in over two days.

Glen never clarified what happened to him, and the whole thing was a weird mystery shrouded in vague explanations and contradicting claims about the timeline and his whereabouts.

a recollection of that conversation:

Kit: “What the fuck happened to you?”

Glen: “Ah, fuck. It’s you. Well, shit. Think I got hit by a car.”

Kit: “Damn. How’d that happen? You alright?”

Glen: *cackling like a mad man* I don’t fucking know man, can’t remember.”

Kit: “…Can’t remember? Glen, did someone beat you? Were you robbed?”

Glen: “No man, I think it was car. Don’t remember, though. Everything hurts. Fuck! Can you drive me to the liquor store?”


This isn’t a funny story.

Alcoholism is no joke, and I’d never observed an acute case so closely until I met Glen. He knew he had a problem, and recognized how destabilizing it was for his marriage and career. But he couldn’t stop.

He told me he drank to quell the nerves and anxiety caused by social interaction. To make himself feel more confident and happy. He drank small amounts at work to keep the shakes away, drank a bunch after work, and lathered himself into an awe inspiring stupor on the weekends.

He drank hard liquor in the mornings. He could down a twelve pack of beer like it was nothing and then playfully insult you for not having enough alcohol. Despite repeated pleadings for him to taper his drinking, I couldn’t help Glen, and neither could his wife.

But he was still my friend, and I loved him.


Glen bought me a PS4 for no reason. Including games, and extra controllers. A couple times, he’d stumble back from the ATM and hand me a fistful of cash, and then laugh hysterically at how I’d waste his money on idiotic purchases like preying mantis nymphs and knock-off volcano vaporizers.

He was an intelligent and perceptive person, though most wrote him off as an obnoxious drunk. At times, he gave me compelling advice and perspective, some of which was gold — the majority just rambling and madness. He repeatedly told me stories about growing up around Indio, California.

Glen liked to tell me the same story about moving a bunch of furniture with his father’s company, and how there was nothing better in the world than moving a bunch of furniture and then eating some greasy food like a bunch of cheeseburgers right after. Moving furniture was the best, he often said.

In his own weird way, he cared about me like a father or an unstable older brother. He was a good friend to have, even though I got dirty looks from the neighbors for associating with a walking train wreck.


Tragically, management had grounds to evict him after his near-death incident and repeated noise complaints from next door and below.

He moved back to “the desert” in Southern California with Lucky. Amy returned and Glen says he’s cut down on drinking. For the sake of his tender soul and waitresses at chain restaurants everywhere, I hope he’s serious.

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