The Night SHIfT

Written by: Christopher Mitchell

This is a true story….

Have you ever seen what happens when a 19-year-old child is given a 90-day prescription of Adderall?

Gather around, kids, it’s story time…

So, no shit, there I was, slumming it up as a “Drill Sergeant” in Fort Sam Houston, TX.

My “job” was to keep kids alive.

Kids whose parents should have ended their sad existence with the coat hanger they’d promised their high school boyfriend they would use after peeing on that weird stick.

Good job, Katie… Thank you for leaving me with your troglodyte offspring, I’ll do my best to keep him from swallowing his own tongue in his sleep…

Anyway…

We had a kid that we’ll call “Alvarado”, because this crazy little shit may pop out of a shrub if I Beetlejuice his name.

This kid was weird, man….

Like, advanced weird….

Like, the kid whose firing pin you grind down while he’s asleep so you can breathe a little easier during his waking hours, weird.

Alvarado was in the process of being discharged from military service for failure to adapt because….

Well… he failed to adapt…

To life…

To survival…

To socializing with people… all of it.

While this kid is in the process of exiting stage left from the service, the Behavioral Health doc diagnoses Alvarado with ADHD and sets him up for the next 90 days with an Adderall prescription.

I’m not sure you heard me correctly…

The licensed psychiatrist just gave ninety pills of legal crystal meth to a 19-year-old kid with no basic understanding of how to properly human.

So, in standard tradition, as any normal person might, Alvarado consumes three days’ worth of Adderall in a little under 12 hours…

This man-child is now locked into an Alex-Jones-level conspiracy/murder mystery plot line, making wild accusations about illuminati ties to Pepe Silvia and how the Army is a giant sex trafficking ring (to which I can’t help but think wouldn’t be surprised kid, have you met the CSM?).

At the time this is going down, I’m covering as the senior Drill Sergeant while the actual senior is out on emergency leave.

So, I’m the one that gets the call from the night Drill, who says that this kid has entered Narnia and refuses to come back up for air.

I get dressed and make my way to the company, then get to watch with a mixture of interest and horror at the ravings of this odd little shit-bird, who is now fully making shit up about inventing Times New Roman and other similar yet outrageous claims.

After Alvarado finishes telling me how he had drawn the plans for a functional trebuchet, I decide that I have heard enough and try to get this kid to go back to his room.

Alvarado proceeds to go full Ricky Bobby aflame, and I had to walk-chase this kid through the entire barracks to make sure he didn’t hurt anybody (#whyareyourunning).

At this point I’ve made the decision to call the MP’s and let them deal with this dumpster fire.

And this, my friends, is where the story gets very interesting.

The first pair of MPs show up, and I recognize one of them as the night desk clerk at the PMO. We took the drunk kids there and had them breathalyzed when they tried to lie their way out of UCMJ, so me and this MP were acquainted.

The MP proceeds to tell me that it’s one of his first shifts on the road since he got to Fort Sam, finally ditching the desk and getting the opportunity to do his job.

Buckle up, buttercup, is all I can think to myself, you’re about to enter the fucking Shadow Realm.

We tell the MPs about the prom night dumpster baby, how much Zip Cola the kid’s consumed, then let them take over.

But!

You can be damn sure I was going to watch that shit go down like it was a Jerry Springer episode, and the girl just told her boyfriend that she used to be a dude named Tyrone.

The MPs walk up to this kid like he’s a cornered kitten and try cooing him out of his manic state. Meanwhile, I’m over in the corner telling them they should just taze him and be done with it.

#hithimwiththechairrickflair

New Jack, who’s now fully immersed in the I’m a real cop experience, makes a too-sudden move for our caged ferret.

Alvarado suddenly becomes sentient and picks up the nearest weapon—which was a metal water bottle that one of the other recruits had left outside—brandishes it at the MPs, and says they’re a part of the hive mind or some such nonsense.

Unsure what to do, the MPs look dead at me like I knew what the fuck he was on about. I just shrug and mime a tazing motion at them, to reinforce that they need to put this kid down before he goes full retard.

Their break in eye contact gave Alvarado enough lag time to whip that fucking water bottle at New Jack like he was in a fucking Jai-Alai tournament, and New Jack takes it full on in the ribs as his senior partner finally draws his taser and fires.

Alvarado proceeds to take 500,000 Jigawatts to the soul….

And remains UN-FUCKING-FAZED…

This rodeo has now turned into a full-fledged hootnanny.

TheMP’s try their best to subdue Alvarado, but two scrawny white kids with desk bodies stood no chance against the fucking lizard king and his borrowed Adderall strength. He bucks them like he’s the raging bull, and they proceed to call for backup. Meanwhile I’m giggling and clapping, watching this whole shit-show unfold while the Night-Drill’s jaw hangs open, baffled as he witnesses the dichotomy of man unfold in 4k.

Backup arrives shortly thereafter, and I get to watch different levels of “Hooah” enter the battlefield as they start dogpiling this kid, who is now screaming “JEEEESUUUUUUSSSSSS” at the top of his lungs in between biting, spitting, and kicking at everyone he can reach.

Pretty sure one of them dropped the people’s elbow right on his fucking face…

It was beautiful…

Watching military security forces take the boots to Alvarado medium style was like watching Rembrandt wield his brush.

It was a living work of art unfolding in terrifying wonder before me.  

I’m also pretty sure I audibly moaned when they had finally had enough and took the Asp to the kid and did their best to Rodney King him into submission.

Finally, after about five minutes of hard-fought action on their part—and hysterical laughter on mine—they manage to hogtie the little cretin and throw him in the back of the cop car.

At the end of it all, as the police are taking our statements, my son, who I’d forgotten had come with me, comes out of my office with my phone.

“Mom is mad that you brought me to a live taping of Cops. Now she wants to talk to you.”

My beautiful son had apparently been feeding her the play-by-play of the nine o’clock shitshow, and she had scolded him when he had offered to bring the phone to me as Alvarado repetitively screamed Jesus into the ears of the MPs like they were sweet nothings whispered in the ear of a hired street walker.

I then proceed to tell her about the happiest moment of my life, our marriage and the birth of our children now coming in a distant second to the calamity I’d just witnessed in the form of a tiny Hispanic kid taking on the whole night crew of the Fort Sam Houston police force…

This encounter and others like it were one of many reasons why I wasn’t allowed to say, have a good night to any night shift after that.

For whatever reason… if I did so. The Night Shift turned to night shit….