“But if you did that,” you say, having just noticed the spectacular view, “you wouldn’t be able to appreciate places like this.” You nod in the direction of the sparkling lights of the city, and Sadie seems to be as taken with the scene as you are.
“You’re right,” she says. “It’s really incredible, isn’t it?”
You can’t believe how smooth you’ve been so far and decide to push it further. “I wouldn’t let it get you down,” you say, after taking a sip of your beer. “A girl like you? Forget about it. There’s tons of guys who’d want to go out with you.”
She pulls her beer from her mouth and wipes a lingering drop away with the back of her hand. “It’s really sweet of you to say so.”
The two of you settle into a comfortable silence. “God,” she finally says, “I’d really love a joint right now.”
If you didn’t roll a joint at Lisa’s, read on here.
If you did, read on here.
You enter a crowded apartment and make your way to the kitchen, where you help yourself to a beer. As you linger by the fridge, expecting Sadie to follow since she was just behind you coming in, you hear “Dancing Queen” go on in the other room. After a minute you decide Sadie must have bypassed the kitchen.
You go back into the living room and see that she is dancing with a bunch of people you don’t know. Worse yet, there are two girls—a long-haired brunette and a short-haired blonde—doing what they think are really impressive, choreographed ABBA moves. They’re singing along and pointing at each other whenever they get to the word you—as in “You can dance, you can jive, having the time of your life” (though to their credit they alternate hands on each you). They’re very obviously drunk.
To your surprise, their routine becomes more complicated when track 2—“Knowing Me, Knowing You”—comes on, what with different pointing movements for both me and you. Pretty tricky stuff, indeed. It dawns on you that these girls have probably done this before. Many other times. Perhaps whenever drunk and in the presence of ABBA and one another. And that there are more girls like this all over the city—probably doing very similar things at this very moment. Scarily enough, no one’s going for the stereo; on the contrary, everyone seems to be taking a lesson from this drunken dynamic duo and choreographing little routines of their own.
Before you know it, half the room is singing, “If you change your mind, I’m the first in line, honey I’m still free, take a chance on me,” while the other half is rapidly repeating, “Take-a-chance, take-a-chance, take-a-take-a-chance-chance.” People are dancing side by side while facing an imaginary audience all through “Super Trouper,” many of them marching in place. Drunken people start slow dancing—just holding on to each other and swaying, really—when “The Winner Takes It All” comes on, and so it goes.… At the peak of this ridiculous ABBA fest, “Waterloo” is on full volume, the crowd providing definitive proof that the art of social dancing is lost for good. There’s a misguided group in the corner trying to do the Macarena and realizing that “Waterloo” is either way too fast or way too slow—and either way the dance still doesn’t work. And for lack of grace and women, a bunch of guys have started moshing and jumping into the air and banging chests. The CD ends, and in the silence that follows, you hear Sadie’s laugh.
That laugh! Now that’s what you call music!
You’ve been distracted. You must and shall make contact.
As you start across the room, there’s a loud rapping on the door, and since you’re passing by, you answer it.
“We’d like to speak to whoever lives here.”
The fuzz. Busted.
The host appears at your side and exchanges words with the cops, who then come into the room and clear out the party. In the confusion, you completely lose sight of Sadie. The woman of your dreams is gone before you get a word in edgewise.
The End
“Alright, Demi, time to go home!” you yell, and reach her just as she’s about to take off what little clothing is left. There are boos and hisses from some of the guys, but you drag her off the table, picking up the various garments strewn around the room.
A few minutes later you’re in Lindy’s bedroom, fuming as you watch Suzy struggle to get dressed, feeling like a mother reprimanding a naughty child. “There’s a perfectly rational explanation for all this, isn’t there?”
“I was hoping to get an audition for Showgirls Two,” says Suzy, vainly trying to put her head through the armhole of her sweater.
“You’d have better luck with Godzilla Returns,” you retort. Suzy giggles in spite of herself, and soon both of you are overcome by the stupidity of the situation and start rolling around on Lindy’s bed, laughing hysterically. “What a night,” Suzy gasps. “What a fucking night.”
“Baby, you have no idea,” you wheeze. “And now—woohoo!—I get to put you in a taxi home and make sure you don’t collapse in a pool of vomit somewhere.”
“Never let it be said that I don’t know how to show a girl a good time.”
Nick pokes his head around the door and eyes you both curiously. “I met Mark on his way out the door. He said he just peeked in here and saw you rolling around with a half-naked Suzy. So he figured his services were no longer required.”
“Oh, shit. Doubleshit. I’m sorry, again…,” begins Suzy.
“Oh, forget it.” You sigh, too tired and too drunk to contemplate missed opportunities. “Big deal. Any normal guy would have at least offered to join in.”
“You said it,” says Nick, gazing at you both sprawled on Lindy’s bed. He has a definite twinkle in his eye. “Suze, why don’t you and your lovely friend come back to my place for a drink? We could play a game of Captives, like when we were kids, remember?”
Suzy giggles again, and you nudge her and ask, “How do you play Captives?”
“Oh, we’ll teach you.” She grins. “You’ll love it, trust us.”
The End
“It’s funny you should ask.” Amanda smirks as she puts down a mug in front of you and pours it full of coffee. “The time when Sadie pointed you out in that picture at Mike’s…”
“Yeah…?”
“She was wondering what I thought of you for that very reason.”
You scald your tongue on your first sip of coffee.
“Be careful.” Amanda’s laughing. That laugh! It’s the same as Sadie’s, lord god in heaven!
Once the pain has subsided in your mouth, you look at her. “You’re joking.”
Surely she must be joking. Things like this just don’t happen to you.
Amanda shakes her head and tightens the waist tie on her robe again. But not before you see the start of the shadow of her cleavage. “I’m dead serious. We talk about it all the time. I could page her in a while if you’re up for it. We have a code word.”
“You have a code word?”
“Yeah.” Amanda takes a sip of the coffee she’s poured for herself. Then, looking dissatisfied, she goes to the cupboard and pulls out a bottle of whiskey. She pours a shot’s worth into her mug. You push your mug toward her, but she shakes her head. “Not yet. You look like you’ve had too much already.” She screws the cap back on. “But yeah, there are a few guys we’ve agreed upon, and we made up a code word in case any of them ever brought it up.”
“What’s the code word?”
“Bosco.”
“Bosco?”
“What do you want? We were watching Seinfeld reruns when we were thinking of it.”
“Who are the other guys?”
“You don’t want to know.”
“Come on!”
“They’re silly.”
You stare her down until she caves.
“Steve Buscemi.”
“Holy shit. I saw him at a keg party tonight!”
“Get out!”
“I swear.” But you know she’s never going to believe you. “Who else?”
“Our UPS man.”
“No shit!”
“Yup. He’s
hot. And he’s sooooo nice. And he brings us J. Crew packages all the time. What’s not to like?” She smiles easily, and you decide you might actually like her. Part of you doesn’t want to. Because we all know what a sap you become when you actually like someone. It’ll ruin everything.
“So what do you say?” She leans in so close you can smell the whiskey and coffee on her breath. “You up for it?”
If you say, “You bet,” read on here.
If you say, “I don’t know. I think it might be kind of weird,” read on here.
You and Sadie find a cozy corner to settle into on the roof and—sheltered from the wind—share the joint you took from Lisa’s earlier. The lights of the buildings around you blur as the pot goes to your head, and you feel all of your muscles relax. You slide your arm around Sadie’s shoulder and she lets you. Minutes pass, maybe hours, in quiet contentment.
“I’m dizzy.” Sadie leans her head on your shoulder.
You think she must be referring to the wonderful sensation of lightness you’re feeling—like your brain’s wrapped in cotton candy. “I know; isn’t it great?”
“I think I’m going to be sick.”
“Deep breaths,” you say. You’re not really registering her discomfort since you yourself are feeling like every breath you take is filling your lungs with sweet air, numbing your teeth and everything else.
Even when Sadie coughs up a tidy clump of puke and it lands on your lap, you’re slow on the uptake. You feel a warm sensation through your pants and the effect it has on your groin is not entirely unpleasant.
“I’m sorry.” Sadie gets up, wiping chunks from her lips with the back of her hand. In the light, you see a wet streak on her skin. “I’ve got to go home.”
By the time you come down enough to want to deal with Sadie’s puke, it’s practically encrusted on your pants. Too embarrassed to go back to the party to clean up, you make a swift exit, holding your coat in front of you. Out front, you get a cab.
“Man,” the cab driver says as he uses his master controls to open all the car’s electric windows, “you stink.”
The End
“I’m sure that could be arranged,” you say, anxious to indulge this woman’s every whim, particularly if it’ll eventually involve a little bumping and grinding. “My friend Kurt lives right near here. He’s always got stuff around. I bet he can hook us up.”
Sadie produces a cellular phone from her bag. “Give it your best shot, superman. I’d be forever indebted to you.” You really like the sound of that!
Kurt picks up after four rings. “Yo.”
You explain your predicament to Kurt. “Get your ass over here if you want some of my Lemongrass Chicken so badly.” Kurt hangs up. He’s paranoid about talking about drugs on the phone.
“Well?” Sadie says.
“Well, if we want it, I have to go get it.”
“Let’s go,” she says, putting the phone back into her bag.
But you’re not sure you want to expose her to Kurt this early on in your relationship. This is the kind of guy who was lining up The Wizard of Oz with Dark Side of the Moon years before any of the reports about the freaky coincidences. If you’re not careful, you and Sadie could end up sitting through Withnail and I with a Smiths album as the sound track.
If you say, “Let’s go,” read on here.
If you say, “Don’t move; I’ll be back in twenty minutes, tops,” read on here.
You and Sadie get to Kurt’s place without incident. He answers the door and lets you in. “Hey, man,” he says, “how’s it hanging?” Then he sees Sadie. “Or maybe it’s not hanging at all, if you catch my drift.”
Sadie, luckily, started coughing and didn’t hear him. “Jeez,” she whispers to you, “did we just miss the Bob Marley gig?”
The air is so dense with smoke you could carve your initials in it.
“So, once again, you’re looking for the Kurtmeister to hook you up, huh?”
“Yeah, well…”
“What about you, pretty lady? Our secret safe with you?” Kurt always acts like he’s selling every hard drug on the market instead of just grass. Like the DEA has a post in his hallway.
“Absolutely,” Sadie says.
“Just enough for a couple of joints, Kurt,” you say, “then we’ll be on our way. We didn’t mean to bother you.”
“Bother me? No bother, man. Have a seat and we’ll have a smoke together. The bong’s the way to go, you know.”
Sadie shrugs.
If you say, “I’d love to, but we’ve really got to get back to this party,” read on here.
If you take a seat and encourage Sadie to do the same, read on here.
“More over,” you shout, clambering up on the table alongside Suzy.
The audience cheers even louder as you start taking off your shirt.
“Why are you doing this?” demands Suzy, half-annoyed and half-laughing, as you grapple with the zipper on your pants.
“No idea. Hey, Mark, Mark!”
Unbelievably, or perhaps inevitably, given the turn the night is taking, he strides up to you both, stands in front, and begins to take off his own shirt, doing a little dance routine straight out of The Full Monty. Within a couple of minutes at least half the guests are seminaked, whooping it up, while Lindy and her husband, clearly stoned out of their minds, smile indulgently at everything. The coffee table gives way under the weight of five stripping women, and still nobody flinches. Now Nick is hurtling CDs around the room like Frisbees, and for some reason another guy takes this as a cue to wrench the fire extinguisher off the wall in the kitchen and spray everyone with foam. No wonder it takes ten minutes before anyone hears the cops banging at the door.
Sensing impending doom, Mark drags you and Suzy, and whatever clothes you can pick up off the floor, out the back door and through the neighbors’ garden to safety. A taxi pulls up nearby, delivering a posse of unsuspecting guests to the party, and you, Mark, and Suzy hover awkwardly around it.
“Well, I guess you should take Suzy home; she’s pretty bombed,” says Mark at last. Suzy takes this as her cue to climb in and sprawl out on the backseat. Damn.
“But, ah, I was hoping you’d call me?” He gives you his card, and you hug good night. “It was fun. Wild, but fun.”
“Okay, I’ll call. Can’t guarantee that the police are going to show next time.”
“See what you can do.” He grins. “Good night.”
The End
You practically sprint to your stoner friend Kurt’s apartment and quickly get hooked up with a bag of grass and some rolling papers. On the way back to the party, you stop in a deli to pick up a lighter so you’ve got everything you need. It takes ages for someone to buzz you into the building where the party is, and you’re getting more anxious by the minute. You take the stairs to the fifth floor two at a time, stopping for a second before you open the door to the party to catch your breath. You scan the room for Sadie and spy her in a far corner. Boldly, you approach.
She nods an acknowledgment at you as you reach her, and the guy she’s talking to pauses briefly midsentence. He continues as she turns her eyes back to him. “So the groom gets up and says he’d like to make a toast, alright? So the whole room is listening, and he tells everyone to look under their seats. So it turns out there are all these envelopes taped under everyone’s seats and just as they’re opening them and figuring out what they are, the groom says, ‘Here’s to my best man and my beautiful bride, who’ve been, excuse my French, fucking each other behind my back.’ Only he didn’t say, ‘Excuse my French,’ that was just me trying to be polite in the presence of a lady. So anyway, then he walks out, leaving the bride and the best man there with everyone in the room holding a picture of the two of them in bed together.”
“No way!” Sadie says excitedly. “There’s no way that happened.”
“I swear,” her male buddy says. “My friend’s cousin was at the wedding.”
“Oh, please!” You can’t stand to
listen to any more of this guy’s bullshit, particularly not with Sadie standing there eating it up. “That’s just one of those urban legends. I’ve heard it a thousand times. I’ve even told it a few times. And the picture’s not supposed to be under the chair, it’s taped to the bottom of everyone’s dinner plate. And he turns to the best man and says, ‘Fuck you,’ and then to the bride and says, ‘Fuck you,’ then drinks his champagne, then walks out.”
“Oh yeah?” The two of you guys, admittedly, might as well have a big colorful splay of feathers sticking out of your butts at this stage. “Well, if you’re such a star storyteller let’s hear another one of these so-called urban legends of yours.”
Sadie crosses her arms across her chest and looks at you.
If you want to tell the urban legend about the two girls who are vacationing together but come home one night to their hotel room at different times, read on here.
If you want to tell the urban legend about the guy flashing his headlights at the car in front of him on a deserted highway, read on here.
If you want to tell the urban legend about the ransacked hotel room and the mysteriously used-up film in the camera, read on here.
You and Sadie settle in on the couch as Kurt readies the bong. The three of you start taking hits from it and, increasingly, you realize that the program on the TV—some PBS kind of special featuring loads of time-lapse photography—is, how do you say, fucking with your head. Then suddenly, Jenna, Kurt’s girlfriend, appears, wearing nothing but a black lace bra and thong. You look over at Sadie, half-worried about her reaction, but she’s engrossed in the TV show, which is now showing an orange rotting—a few days’ time condensed by photography into a few seconds. “Holy shit,” you hear her whisper under her breath.
Big Night Out Page 27