Chapter Thirteen: Caustic comrades in the solution
We went to pick up the girls. In the hall, Elyssa radiated ribbons of light as she kept fidgeting with her hoop earrings. The scent of summer rain drifted off her hair and soaked me with deviant thoughts of grueling sex. The spaghetti straps of her white top kept slinking off her lithe shoulders. She drew the soul out of me with a wink.
“Hi,” she said and bumped me with her hip.
“Hi.”
She spun and her arms went around me, a hydraulic clamp began to press. I offered no resistance. Maybe she threw Justin to the curb and I had a chance? I couldn’t let this display of affection alter my conditioning. The barriers were built for a reason. I asked,
“So, are you hanging with us all night?”
“I’m going to see where the night takes me. Why, are you going to see somebody interesting tonight?” she asked as a devil may care attitude skipped across her face smooth as clouds.
“No, just asking,” I said as my lips tightened up.
“Well, you should have said that I was the interesting person you were going to see,” she said and nudged my shoulder. I felt the rush of blood and my cock got heavy. A drop of perspiration dripped and ran down my cheek.
“Wow, your face is so red. Don’t be embarrassed sweetie,” she said.
“I am not embarrassed. It is just a little warm out,” I said while shaking my head.
“Do you think we should leave now?” she asked the group.
We left and began our trek up the hills to the party. Elyssa led the way.
I reduced my pace and fell to the back of the pack and shadowed Tim. When we met up with George, he told us there was an “easy drinking” party up the street and urged James and I to go with him to check it out. If it was lame, we would head back to the Three Girls House. George told the rest of the group what we were doing. As we left, Elyssa looked at me, her lips curled up and she turned away.
We entered the party through the front doorway and it was easy considering there was no door. It was on ground covered with screen doors in an empty dining room. A dirty yellow tear drop chandelier hung low in the dining room. The house looked like a Repo-man ransacked the place.
We followed a series of loud counts that echoed through the house. It guided us to the back deck where there were two kegs in red barrels and one was being used for keg stands. As each drinker’s feet went to the sky up, they counted and only when beer burst out of their cheeks did they stop, sometimes. A guy named Steve, dressed like a banker on vacation, smiled and came toward us.
“I hate to ask this since we got this keg for free, but could you fellas appropriate some funds to support our on going struggle to pay our rent and throw some killer parties. Only three bucks and the other kegs will be unleashed when other guests arrive in an hour,” he said.
“Okay,” we said and paid.
Steve walked back to his friends and put his beer down on the deck’s hand railing and lit a smoke, which made me want one.
“George, ever heard a speech like that? No one ever explained anything before,” I said and pulled out a squished pack of smokes and offered one to George.
“That’s how it is. They take some of the money their parents give them and blow it on food and good beer. They make it back with parties. Kegs cost like fifty-five bucks and when you have a party with a hundred people at three bucks a pop and have three kegs you still make like a hundred and thirty-five bucks. Then you have a few more. Places aren’t shit to rent down here man, it’s like five hundred a month for a twelve room house,” George said, spit and got his smoke lit.
“Makes sense, you want a beer Joaquin?” James asked and I looked around and nodded. Our conversations for the next hour consisted of “Yups” and “Nopes” as the masses swarmed, mostly guys.
George was the first to speak out, “Guys this is a sausage party. Helmets everywhere. Let’s get a few more and then go back to meet up with Tim and Cyrus. There are always hot Betties at the Three Girls House.”
“Whatever you guys want is cool just as long as there’s enough beer,” James said.
“Leave, definitely. Plus George, there is something that Tim wanted to tell but kill these beers and we will go and mingle with the girls,” I said and the beers were gone.
The Three Girls House picked up since we left and more than half women. Some danced, some talked too loud and a clutch of rugby players in black and white striped jerseys stained with red Virginia clay tracked clumps of dirt across the floor. I was blunt from the beer and wanted to sharpen up. I couldn’t stop tapping my fingers together and itching my chin.
“You guys should go on and get beers. I am going to look for Elyssa. George go to the room in a bit, you know,” I said so James would not hear and George winked at me in recognition.
I went straight to the upstairs room itching to amp up.
The people I assumed would be there were, but some new faces took up space. The chairs circumnavigating the squat tables as Tim’s face was dancing and his fingers were rolling on the table’s edge. He smiled and through his clenched teeth yelled, “Walking.”
Erin held her hands out in front of her as she scanned the room back and forth with her eyes. Elyssa looked at me, turned away, ran away with her eyes and began talking to Jill. Of all the people she could talk to, she talks to Jill. I squeezed myself between the couch and wall next to Tim and Erin sharing a wine crate. Dust was everywhere and my black shirt was soon sprinkled with decay.
My package slipped out of my pocket and since everyone was tweaked beyond belief, I took matters into my own hands and snaked my way through to the mirror from the other end of the table.
I dumped a fifth of my bag of product out and cut it to a pulverized state. The tracks were laid and inhaled them at an even pace. I could feel the grit as I spread the powder on my gums and they numbed up in one heart beat. The light reflected off the mirror cast a speckled shadow across my face. The dim ambience was no barrier. Being in an unusually generous mood, I left a pile for the hosts and the other participants. A beer flew across the table to me from the far corner, I shouted “Thanks.” but I could not see who the pitcher was.
Propping up, I stood up and saw the pitcher was Alexander, a familiar face from a Professor Campbell’s class. His Pittsburgh Penguin’s jersey fell down to his knees. Alexander raised his beer to me and went back to rocking in the chair.
I offered Tim and Erin some of my stuff but he said, “Dude, I’m crispy for now. Maybe later. Anyway, Erin and I are going back to my room.”
“Cool. Later,” I said. A minute later they got up and left. Erin lost her footing as she went out into the hall and slipped onto her behind but sprung back. Her laughter wrinkled my flesh. I was scared she might be amped beyond capacity. A space opened up next to Elyssa on the couch after Jill sat on the crate.
“Where did you go?” she asked and patted the cushion beckoning me forward.
The cushion sunk under my weight and the warmth Jill left behind was nice.
“We went that new house down the street. It was boring. We came here as soon as we figured it out,” I said.
The atmospheric pressure increased between us.
“Do you want some?” I said and pointed to the mirror. She cleared her nose with an unsettling snort and said, “Love some.”
And so she inhaled the snow like an old pro, not even a little flake flurried out.
“You know, I was looking forward to going out with you tonight and you blew me off for two hours,” she said.
“Uh…sorry,” I said and looked into her eyes.
Everything went silent.
“Well that’s all right. The night is young and so are we,” she said and then took another blast from the unfrozen flurries. In the time it took to light a smoke, her complexion transmuted. A delirious contentment, a divine grace beyond good and evil, beyond the ideal forms the Greek philosopher could have envisioned, appeared and I could tell she liked the feeling.
The rest of the night went well enough and we went down later to get some beers and chill with the populous. Elyssa wanted to mingle so we both dispersed from each other’s view into the undulating crowd. George and I went and took a few more token toots throughout the night, but I concentrated on drinking because my hands were shaking.
Every once in a while the lights would brighten and dim.
The tide of the party continued to ebb and flow well until the wave crashed and the expected weekend fight occurred. It was of no consequence, I didn’t know the participants.
I was floating on the surface tension of a pool of booze and my head was consumed by the shadows. The darkness was comforting when the world was vibrating out of control and I didn’t know if it would stop.