Writing!
Never be afraid to sit awhile and think. ~ Lorraine Hansberry
There was nothing better than a party.
Truly, what could be more fun than a bunch of people getting drunk, dancing, interacting, interacting naked, it was humankind at its finest. And who was I to look down on it? Who was anyone really? The Greeks partied, they worshipped Gods that partied, and they did it with style and togas. The Romans copied the Greeks and went all out for massive gorging dinners and orgies. The Egyptians didn’t even have the word for virgin. And If the Mesopotamian’s weren’t so busy being screwed over with their Euphrates’s and Tigress rivers, they would have partied, instead of creating the world’s first written code, too. How could people look down on debauchery? We started out with lust and chaos in our veins, if it was a bad thing, we would have evolved past it.
I smiled largely at the inebriated girl in front of me. She was trashy with heavy raccoon make up and breasts popping out of a too tiny tube top. Her hair was that weird unnatural orangey color. She was ranting with an unsteady foot about the injustices of sluts. Apparently some whore had stolen her man with the use of oral sex and bigger breasts than hers.
“Oh yeah, how much did he pay for her services?”
I had to half shout this because of the steady pulsating of The Strokes coming from the amphitheater. Which I noted that I loved because God, bad music made me leave a party in the first twenty minutes; not even pure mischief could make up for having to listen to Soulja boy all night long. The girl leaned into me, digging her nails into my sweater and I could see the clumps in her mascara.
“Huh?”
“Well you said that she was a whore. So I was wondering, what exactly are her prices? Are they decent? I’ve heard that whores generally overprice to pay to keep their pimps off them.”
“Wha…?”
Confusion showed through her alcohol-clouded eyes and was quickly replaced with arousal.
“You know, you’re like really funny…. Brian wasn’t funny…he was too busy sleeping with that whore. I’m prettier than she is. Don’t you think I’m pretty?” Her smile turned coquettish (but still very drunk) and she lowered herself a little so I could a better look at her at her heaving breasts. They were very pretty. I was in love. Truly, madly, deeply, in that instance I would marry her and teach her all about Tolstoy and existentialism. Hypocrisy made my heart thump and my blood race.
Just as she was starting to cloy around my neck and mumble about her beauty, I felt a sharp tug around my shoulder and was dragged into another room. I looked back to see that the future Mrs. Kennedy was consoling herself with a bottle of Jack Daniels. Class was not dead only a little tipsy.
I happily went along with my captor and was lead to what I presumed was a kitchen. Considering there was an island and a stove and refrigerator and one of those annoying cutesy signs about a King and his Castle, I can only say that I presumed right. Sadly, my captor was not a French maid or a lingerie model that wanted to punish me for my frolics, but instead was Juliette.
“Miss Capulet! I haven’t seen you all night! Did you see my future bride? Gorgeous isn’t she? I’ll have her reciting French poetry before the end of the night!”
Juliette’s face was a mixture of annoyance (she hated being referred to as the ridiculous heroine from Shakespeare’s most famous play) and badly hidden amusement (out of our whole group she enjoyed my antics the most). I smirked at her and she smirked right back.
“If French poetry, you mean, I’ll have her on her knees by the end of the night, then yes I believe you can do that Kennedy. “
“Actually, apparently she doesn’t do that. And that’s why her whore of a boyfriend left her…for a whore…I think she I listen better to my future Missus. Hmm.” I tapped my hands on the counter with lost rhythm and imagined our future beautiful children, who if female, would not be allowed to take makeup advice from their mother. Juliette looked at me for a minute, sighed heavily and started rummaging through the cupboards for something. She came out with a loaf of bread and stuffed it into my hands.
“Lucky for you Ashley’s mom doesn’t believe in the Atkins’ diet. Now eat.” She crossed her tiny arms and looked down on me fiercely, for a ninety-five pound girl, Juliette had powerful gazes and a good temperament for a leader.
“ I don’t want to. I want more alcohol. I want to be like the Greeks and truly live, letting the sweet nectar of the gods enrich my mortal being.”
Juliette untied the plastic surrounding the whole grain and shoved a piece of it into my mouth. At least she was kind enough to let me finish my genius.
“Kennedy, I love you.”
I gagged, chewed, and swallowed.
“No, you don’t. You’re too busy being a lesbian.”
“Kennedy, you’re an idiot. I still love you though. Now have another piece.”
This time she handed it to me gently. I still gagged. And after that Juliette got out the butter for me. She really must love me. I felt an intense warmth for her in that moment, mostly because the bread was really delicious, and also because who else had an amazing lesbian friend to take care of them?
She patted me on the head fondly and grabbed a slice for herself. (Without butter, I’ll never understand her palate). I was most certainly her good deed for the day. If Juliette cared about good deeds, which she didn’t, but she cared about her friends.
“Why are you trying to sober me up? I like being out of it. I have my most intelligent thoughts after a bottle of red wine. Aged of course. “
She snorted and played with her brown locks. Juliette really was a gorgeous creature with her alluring dark eyes and her soft delicate body. If she wasn’t the only person I could talk to some days, I would be absolutely infatuated with her. Mrs. Kennedy would just have to deal. Oh and if Juliette wasn’t so like me that she also liked girls. But that was pretty hot; I would have to be a gay monk to not enjoy having a friend who told me in graphic detail the dirty things she did to girls.
Oh she was talking.
“I’m more of a mixed drink girl myself. There’s nothing better than a white Russian. But if you weren’t such an ass and you drank beer like everyone else, you wouldn’t get drunk so quickly.”
I was going to point out to her that wine would you get drunk at the same level of time it took for beer to get one drunk, but her eyebrows rose before I could, and I closed my gaping mouth. She kissed my forehead like a sister and I knew that she knew I also had downed a good amount of Absolut vodka when no one was looking.
“I’m going to go convince Sarah Burkhart that experimenting in high school is the new experimenting in college, I think she has a secret Katy Perry in her. Be good Darling. “
Darling. What a silly endearment. I adored it.
I stood up with my usual grace and went to rejoin my Mecca.
~
As it turns out, the whole grain did help sober me up a bit. Of course I ate half of the loaf, but one never thinks you’ll ever be sober again when you’re in throes of a really good haze. It’s a beautiful chaotic thing. I liked the after though, it was peaceful and calm and still separate from the regular lucidness.
I was looking for James. Somehow I had wound up with his cell phone (How do you confuse two iphones?) and his mother was calling him. Oh James was truly a character straight out of the fifties some times. Whose Mother even had their son’s cell phone number?
Ok, so maybe my mother did. But she never called me on it. We were eighteen now, we were men about to discover the world! Nothing could hold up back but our own limitations, and apparently James mother. Pathetic. I’m ashamed to call him my best friend. Not that I really did, outside of telling people he was my best friend.
Mrs. Conner’s was a pleasant lady though. I talked to her for five whole minutes in the attempts to see how sober I could make myself sound. I wasn’t sure if it was my musings on the greatness of her boy, or my reference to popular culture with the reality show Survivor, but she bought it. Of course she also believed me when I said we were out bowling to celebrate our acceptances into college.
Right. I got into Princeton, and I bowled a perfect game.
I walked through the drunken wonder of my classmates, past Juliette working her mojo on Sarah (that girl makes me proud everyday), and randomly I walked into a bookcase. Huh, I guess I wasn’t completely sober. All through it, I had James phone in my pocket, to protect the innocence his mother prayed he still had.
I found him outside with Natalie. Of course, god she could be dull. There was a whole house full of merriness and she had dragged herself outside. And James in the process because they were joined at the co-dependent hip, so boring.
“Jimmy, my boy! The woman who gave birth to you for 18 hours is on your phone. Which I have in my possession,” I held out the expensive mobile. “So I suggest you talk to her and leave your lady love behind.”
James stood up immediately, and Nat who still sitting on the steps gave me her best irritated look. He like any good Momma’s boy grabbed the phone and went over to where his car was parked for privacy. I took his vacated seat. Natalie rolled her eyes at me and took the drink in my hand.
Champagne. I never drank it; I only brought it because when separating the lovers it was best to have a gift to appease the fiery vixen to my right. I don’t even know how I found the bottle, really, who brought out a wedding drink for a party? So pretentious.
She didn’t thank me and I didn’t expect her to. Natalie didn’t really like champagne if truth was to be told, but it was the only thing she permitted herself to drink. I laughed softly as she winced at the first sip. She always winced at the first sip, even though she had been drinking it since she was fourteen. I watched her and figured my laughing equaled to her not thanking me, we were never polite with each other anyways.
I knew Natalie’s little secret. Miss Walsh, the queen of all things proper and logical and dignified and classy, liked beer. Trashy beer, that kind frat boys drink to kill their brain cells, the kind that Joe six-pack loved, the kind that people drank like soda with a meal, the kind that America was bathed in. She loved all types and flavors, and no one was to ever know that. Except me, but she told me that a long time ago, back when things were different, and I was not supposed to remember.
Oh but I would never forget, it was too much to know that completely logical Natalie had a taste for the cheapest of alcoholic drinks. And she liked being tipsy, even if she never let herself be. Most importantly I was the only one who knew that.
“Why are you smirking Laurence?”
“No reason, darling. “
“Oh Lord, who called you darling? When you’re drunk you let things stick to you.”
“ I want the future Mrs. Kennedy to stick to me. But I think I would have to pay her.”
She laughed and the sound floated through the air. I wanted to go get her a beer and make her laugh again. I thought about telling her that beer tasted like horse piss and she was crazy, red wine was much better, but the silence was too nice for my tongue to ruin. Although I could see how the conversation would play out, she would tell me that I was too much of a snob to know what Beer tasted like, and I would retort that we got drunk once off corona during the summer before ninth grade. Before Red wine and Champagne and White Russians and just soda for James.
I leaned back and took in the whole sky. I was still drunk enough to be wondrous at something I had seen a million times. The stars looked brand new to me then, and I drunk them in, while Natalie sipped her sparkling non-beer and looked at the stars too. But they were old and commonplace to her. She told me the proper names of the stars. As if I didn’t know. And I made up overtly sexual new names for them. Except for the Big Dipper, that one had already reached Roman levels of sin.
There was nothing better than a party.
Truly, what could be more fun than a bunch of people getting drunk, dancing, interacting, interacting naked, it was humankind at its finest. And who was I to look down on it? Who was anyone really? The Greeks partied, they worshipped Gods that partied, and they did it with style and togas. The Romans copied the Greeks and went all out for massive gorging dinners and orgies. The Egyptians didn’t even have the word for virgin. And If the Mesopotamian’s weren’t so busy being screwed over with their Euphrates’s and Tigress rivers, they would have partied, instead of creating the world’s first written code, too. How could people look down on debauchery? We started out with lust and chaos in our veins, if it was a bad thing, we would have evolved past it.
I smiled largely at the inebriated girl in front of me. She was trashy with heavy raccoon make up and breasts popping out of a too tiny tube top. Her hair was that weird unnatural orangey color. She was ranting with an unsteady foot about the injustices of sluts. Apparently some whore had stolen her man with the use of oral sex and bigger breasts than hers.
“Oh yeah, how much did he pay for her services?”
I had to half shout this because of the steady pulsating of The Strokes coming from the amphitheater. Which I noted that I loved because God, bad music made me leave a party in the first twenty minutes; not even pure mischief could make up for having to listen to Soulja boy all night long. The girl leaned into me, digging her nails into my sweater and I could see the clumps in her mascara.
“Huh?”
“Well you said that she was a whore. So I was wondering, what exactly are her prices? Are they decent? I’ve heard that whores generally overprice to pay to keep their pimps off them.”
“Wha…?”
Confusion showed through her alcohol-clouded eyes and was quickly replaced with arousal.
“You know, you’re like really funny…. Brian wasn’t funny…he was too busy sleeping with that whore. I’m prettier than she is. Don’t you think I’m pretty?” Her smile turned coquettish (but still very drunk) and she lowered herself a little so I could a better look at her at her heaving breasts. They were very pretty. I was in love. Truly, madly, deeply, in that instance I would marry her and teach her all about Tolstoy and existentialism. Hypocrisy made my heart thump and my blood race.
Just as she was starting to cloy around my neck and mumble about her beauty, I felt a sharp tug around my shoulder and was dragged into another room. I looked back to see that the future Mrs. Kennedy was consoling herself with a bottle of Jack Daniels. Class was not dead only a little tipsy.
I happily went along with my captor and was lead to what I presumed was a kitchen. Considering there was an island and a stove and refrigerator and one of those annoying cutesy signs about a King and his Castle, I can only say that I presumed right. Sadly, my captor was not a French maid or a lingerie model that wanted to punish me for my frolics, but instead was Juliette.
“Miss Capulet! I haven’t seen you all night! Did you see my future bride? Gorgeous isn’t she? I’ll have her reciting French poetry before the end of the night!”
Juliette’s face was a mixture of annoyance (she hated being referred to as the ridiculous heroine from Shakespeare’s most famous play) and badly hidden amusement (out of our whole group she enjoyed my antics the most). I smirked at her and she smirked right back.
“If French poetry, you mean, I’ll have her on her knees by the end of the night, then yes I believe you can do that Kennedy. “
“Actually, apparently she doesn’t do that. And that’s why her whore of a boyfriend left her…for a whore…I think she I listen better to my future Missus. Hmm.” I tapped my hands on the counter with lost rhythm and imagined our future beautiful children, who if female, would not be allowed to take makeup advice from their mother. Juliette looked at me for a minute, sighed heavily and started rummaging through the cupboards for something. She came out with a loaf of bread and stuffed it into my hands.
“Lucky for you Ashley’s mom doesn’t believe in the Atkins’ diet. Now eat.” She crossed her tiny arms and looked down on me fiercely, for a ninety-five pound girl, Juliette had powerful gazes and a good temperament for a leader.
“ I don’t want to. I want more alcohol. I want to be like the Greeks and truly live, letting the sweet nectar of the gods enrich my mortal being.”
Juliette untied the plastic surrounding the whole grain and shoved a piece of it into my mouth. At least she was kind enough to let me finish my genius.
“Kennedy, I love you.”
I gagged, chewed, and swallowed.
“No, you don’t. You’re too busy being a lesbian.”
“Kennedy, you’re an idiot. I still love you though. Now have another piece.”
This time she handed it to me gently. I still gagged. And after that Juliette got out the butter for me. She really must love me. I felt an intense warmth for her in that moment, mostly because the bread was really delicious, and also because who else had an amazing lesbian friend to take care of them?
She patted me on the head fondly and grabbed a slice for herself. (Without butter, I’ll never understand her palate). I was most certainly her good deed for the day. If Juliette cared about good deeds, which she didn’t, but she cared about her friends.
“Why are you trying to sober me up? I like being out of it. I have my most intelligent thoughts after a bottle of red wine. Aged of course. “
She snorted and played with her brown locks. Juliette really was a gorgeous creature with her alluring dark eyes and her soft delicate body. If she wasn’t the only person I could talk to some days, I would be absolutely infatuated with her. Mrs. Kennedy would just have to deal. Oh and if Juliette wasn’t so like me that she also liked girls. But that was pretty hot; I would have to be a gay monk to not enjoy having a friend who told me in graphic detail the dirty things she did to girls.
Oh she was talking.
“I’m more of a mixed drink girl myself. There’s nothing better than a white Russian. But if you weren’t such an ass and you drank beer like everyone else, you wouldn’t get drunk so quickly.”
I was going to point out to her that wine would you get drunk at the same level of time it took for beer to get one drunk, but her eyebrows rose before I could, and I closed my gaping mouth. She kissed my forehead like a sister and I knew that she knew I also had downed a good amount of Absolut vodka when no one was looking.
“I’m going to go convince Sarah Burkhart that experimenting in high school is the new experimenting in college, I think she has a secret Katy Perry in her. Be good Darling. “
Darling. What a silly endearment. I adored it.
I stood up with my usual grace and went to rejoin my Mecca.
~
As it turns out, the whole grain did help sober me up a bit. Of course I ate half of the loaf, but one never thinks you’ll ever be sober again when you’re in throes of a really good haze. It’s a beautiful chaotic thing. I liked the after though, it was peaceful and calm and still separate from the regular lucidness.
I was looking for James. Somehow I had wound up with his cell phone (How do you confuse two iphones?) and his mother was calling him. Oh James was truly a character straight out of the fifties some times. Whose Mother even had their son’s cell phone number?
Ok, so maybe my mother did. But she never called me on it. We were eighteen now, we were men about to discover the world! Nothing could hold up back but our own limitations, and apparently James mother. Pathetic. I’m ashamed to call him my best friend. Not that I really did, outside of telling people he was my best friend.
Mrs. Conner’s was a pleasant lady though. I talked to her for five whole minutes in the attempts to see how sober I could make myself sound. I wasn’t sure if it was my musings on the greatness of her boy, or my reference to popular culture with the reality show Survivor, but she bought it. Of course she also believed me when I said we were out bowling to celebrate our acceptances into college.
Right. I got into Princeton, and I bowled a perfect game.
I walked through the drunken wonder of my classmates, past Juliette working her mojo on Sarah (that girl makes me proud everyday), and randomly I walked into a bookcase. Huh, I guess I wasn’t completely sober. All through it, I had James phone in my pocket, to protect the innocence his mother prayed he still had.
I found him outside with Natalie. Of course, god she could be dull. There was a whole house full of merriness and she had dragged herself outside. And James in the process because they were joined at the co-dependent hip, so boring.
“Jimmy, my boy! The woman who gave birth to you for 18 hours is on your phone. Which I have in my possession,” I held out the expensive mobile. “So I suggest you talk to her and leave your lady love behind.”
James stood up immediately, and Nat who still sitting on the steps gave me her best irritated look. He like any good Momma’s boy grabbed the phone and went over to where his car was parked for privacy. I took his vacated seat. Natalie rolled her eyes at me and took the drink in my hand.
Champagne. I never drank it; I only brought it because when separating the lovers it was best to have a gift to appease the fiery vixen to my right. I don’t even know how I found the bottle, really, who brought out a wedding drink for a party? So pretentious.
She didn’t thank me and I didn’t expect her to. Natalie didn’t really like champagne if truth was to be told, but it was the only thing she permitted herself to drink. I laughed softly as she winced at the first sip. She always winced at the first sip, even though she had been drinking it since she was fourteen. I watched her and figured my laughing equaled to her not thanking me, we were never polite with each other anyways.
I knew Natalie’s little secret. Miss Walsh, the queen of all things proper and logical and dignified and classy, liked beer. Trashy beer, that kind frat boys drink to kill their brain cells, the kind that Joe six-pack loved, the kind that people drank like soda with a meal, the kind that America was bathed in. She loved all types and flavors, and no one was to ever know that. Except me, but she told me that a long time ago, back when things were different, and I was not supposed to remember.
Oh but I would never forget, it was too much to know that completely logical Natalie had a taste for the cheapest of alcoholic drinks. And she liked being tipsy, even if she never let herself be. Most importantly I was the only one who knew that.
“Why are you smirking Laurence?”
“No reason, darling. “
“Oh Lord, who called you darling? When you’re drunk you let things stick to you.”
“ I want the future Mrs. Kennedy to stick to me. But I think I would have to pay her.”
She laughed and the sound floated through the air. I wanted to go get her a beer and make her laugh again. I thought about telling her that beer tasted like horse piss and she was crazy, red wine was much better, but the silence was too nice for my tongue to ruin. Although I could see how the conversation would play out, she would tell me that I was too much of a snob to know what Beer tasted like, and I would retort that we got drunk once off corona during the summer before ninth grade. Before Red wine and Champagne and White Russians and just soda for James.
I leaned back and took in the whole sky. I was still drunk enough to be wondrous at something I had seen a million times. The stars looked brand new to me then, and I drunk them in, while Natalie sipped her sparkling non-beer and looked at the stars too. But they were old and commonplace to her. She told me the proper names of the stars. As if I didn’t know. And I made up overtly sexual new names for them. Except for the Big Dipper, that one had already reached Roman levels of sin.