by Varian Wolf
The party was a huge success, as parties at the Banana Grove always were. Lots of people got drunk, some went off together and got laid, and those who weren’t safe to drive were welcome to sleep anywhere they could find a nook and a pillow or a bosom for a pillow. Lucas was one of the ones who got laid, Jonathon was one of the ones who got s-faced, and Stanley did his Marlon Brando routine in the street, and nobody noticed except Esmeralda, because everyone else was at the party. Hector never figured out who threw the towel on his head while he was in the Jacuzzi with the woman, but he figured it was one of the guys razzing him for batting for the other team that evening. The raccoons that made so much noise on the roof that night didn’t come back, so no one had to call the pest control people. Life was good.
I slept like the dead from about midnight until after noon the next day, and when I woke up, I didn’t feel a pint low. I felt fabulous.
I came down to breakfast at one in the afternoon in a bathrobe and sunglasses and came face to face with Lucas who was wearing exactly the same thing.
He smiled at me knowingly and wandered out.
I stepped outside into the swelter and sat on a porch chair to put on my running shoes. I was going to run an extra mile. I could feel it. It was just that kind of day.
I heard the swish-swish sound of sweeping and looked over to see Old Man, at it again and as usual, cradling his urn and wearing out his broom, but this time he was using a brand new, hand-bound, art-shop broom, and when a passing car kicked a breeze my way, I could smell cinnamon in the air. He didn’t look up at me, and he didn’t look happy, but it was something.
I spent the day pushing the envelope, seeing just how far I could take it, just how many miles, how many crunches, pushups, and pull-ups, how fast I could hit the speedball. I didn’t fight anybody. I fought myself, which can be the hardest workout of all.
I ended my run at the Spanish Plaza, that place where Miguel had invited me into eternity, the place where we had first really kissed. I did some stretches and plopped down on a bench, enjoying the cooling spray from the fountain. I had thought his trajectory that night had been unintentional, but now I began to think otherwise. The colors in brick were not the red, white, and blue of American patriotism, but the red, blue, and white of Spain. On the benches all around the circle were coats of arms rendered in tile, valiant figures, fierce animals errant. I read the nearby plaque. It said that they were coats of arms of all the Spanish provinces. Huelva, León, Asturias, Vizcaya, Las Palmas…. I wondered if Miguel’s home, his first home, was represented here. For the first time, I found myself really wondering, really caring, where my vampire had come from, where he had been, and who he was.
At the end of the day I was beat and starved. So when Yoki called at five-thirty and asked if I wanted to hit a party at her professor’s house, and when she said there would be “gobs of free food,” I was too hungry to resist, and when she said that her Beetle was still in the shop and would I mind giving her a lift, I was too pooped to be pissed. I’ve got all kinds of excuses where Yoki is concerned.
I rolled into the parking lot just after dark to find Yoki and Jesus Christ waiting for me.
“Halloo, old girl! Made any new friends, done any good deeds lately? No? Well, one can hope.”
“There’s gonna be food at this party, you said.”
“Yes, yes. Don’t worry your self-seeking little head about it. Dr. Rathstein has more food at his parties than anyone else I know. I’m sure he’ll even have something that an alien like you will eat. By the way, where’s your beau? I was so hoping to meet him.”
“Only two seats. You’re not bringing that?” I asked of the Christ child, who was grimacing at me as usual.
“Oh, Jesus won’t pee en route. He’s spaceship-broken.”
Food, I thought. There’s food at this party. Lots of food.
“Fine.”
“Oh, brilliant!” Yoki squeaked, climbing in.
“Is that a beer?” I asked of the beer in her hand.
“Why yes. I thought I’d start the party a little early,” she said, taking a swig.
“Yoki, the last thing I need is to get arrested…”
“Oh, it’s perfectly legal. It’s all right to drink here, as long as you’re not driving.”
“It’s legal to have an open alcohol container in your car?”
“Indeed. In fact, I think it criminal to go anywhere without a to-go cup. This is New Orleans, Annie.”
“Yeah, it sure is,” I said, shaking my head.
I shifted and started out of the parking lot.
“Oh!” said Yoki, digging in her tiny backpack, “I have the perfect accompaniment for cruising around in a contraption like this.”
She plugged her MP3 player into the dock in the dash that I had previously been unaware existed. Then she turned up the volume on the sound system to an appropriate level if one’s intention is to go rapidly and completely deaf.
The testosterone-laden opening beat of Monster Magnet’s “Space lord” thundered out of the windows of the McLaren as we drove down the crowded streets of New Orleans. People stopped dead in their tracks to gape. Yoki seemed to enjoy every single second of it. I tried to tell myself that this is what fun looks like.
“Is that actually what you’re wearing?” asked Yoki, as we emerged from the car into the glow of the street lamps in an upscale neighborhood north of South Claiborne Ave. It looked to me like it used to be more of a downscale neighborhood, but progress had taken a bite out of the population of dilapidated homes that still surrounded this new development but were separated from it by hedges and a high iron fence. At the entrance was one of those “Ingress Development” signs I had been seeing everywhere.
“Apparently,” I replied. “What’s wrong with me now?”
“Nothing, if you don’t mind looking like last week’s lettuces.”
“I don’t mind,” I monotoned.
She hopped from the car with a summary “tsk” as though I was some urchin she had passed on the street with whom absolutely nothing could be done.
“Hey,” I said. “I just gave you a ride in my spaceship, and if you want a ride home, you’d better be nice, or I might ditch you out the airlock somewhere so you can die of explosive decompression.”
“Why, Annie –explosive decompression? I don’t even know what that is, but did you just betray your ultra-secret smartness?”
She gathered Jesus Christ into her arms, complete with a blackwatch plaid harness that made him almost resemble a Scotty –a terrible, mutant Scotty. He was particularly feisty this evening, almost bursting out of his mistress’s arms with every third breath of his tiny lungs.
At the edge of Professor Rathstein’s immaculate lawn we were greeted by a “Good Mister Goodwin” sign, placed strategically next to its ally, a matching sign for the party’s presidential candidate. I regarded the promotional paraphernalia with a wary eye, and gave it the cautious berth that one might give a hated adversary.
Yoki tramped along, oblivious to the inherent dangers of political advertisements.
“You won’t regret coming,” she assured me as we moved up the walk toward Professor Rathstein’s elegant, very modern house. The path was illuminated at intervals by landscape globe lights, marching through the darkness to a well-lit arched entryway and a red door. An American flag hung from the doorpost. The muffled brass and base of easy-listening jazz issued from within, along with a muddle of voices and an intermittent blast of laughter from the throats of lusty young folks.
I doubted the validity of Yoki’s statement, but I was past chickening out now. Besides, there were enticing food smells issuing from the house, and I helplessly heeded the cry of my passionately growling stomach. But I wasn’t supposed to eat anything fried, I reminded myself. I could dip into a vegetable tray. They’d have one of those. Sure, they’d have a vegetable tray.
“I just don’t like crowds.”
“It won’t be crowded.”
“Says y
ou. I bet your idea of a crowd is two hundred people packed into a warehouse, bouncing up and down on a pharmacopoeia of illegal substances.’
“That’s not a crowd; it’s a collective. A rave is composed of one mind, one goal, one soul.”
“So is a mob.”
She ignored my comparison entirely. “But this will be cozy. Bartholomew prefers intimate parties.”
“I’m tripping on reassurance.”
“Don’t fall on your face.”
I griped under my breath all the way to the door. Jesus Christ whimpered acutely as though sharing my distress. As we stood on the front step, the house seemed to loom in the shadows like a great slumbering beast whose jaws failed to tell just how great were the hindquarters hidden in the dark.
“How does a college professor afford a house like this?” I asked.
“His wife Molly was well-off. She was a Kinkaid –New Orleans old money.”
“Was?”
“She was found dead in the Bayou Saint John a few years ago. Her ashes were stolen in a robbery, and he couldn’t stand living in their old house after that, so he built this one,” Yoki answered, then answered my look. “He didn’t do her in for her money, Annie. For pity’s sake, don’t bring it up. He hasn’t been right about her death since it happened.”
“What? Like I’d bring that shit up…”
“Yes, you would. So remember, silence is a virtue.”
She was right, on both counts, though I thought she should heed her own advice sometimes. But, for my part, I would try to behave myself, if everybody else would leave me alone.
“Don’t worry. I’ll just creep in, like a mouse. Unobtrusively. No one will even notice I was here…”
I never got a chance to creep. Yoki didn’t knock, just popped the door open as though she belonged there. Who am I kidding? Yoki belonged everywhere.
Just before she greeted the onslaught of people, she turned to me and said, “Oh, and I do hope you like to talk politics.”
Yoki went in swinging, and I followed like a stray dog that doesn’t care where you take it as long as you feed it when you get there. Jesus Christ thrashed in Yoki’s arms like a netted gazelle. He was smarter than I was.
Faces immediately turned and lit up, joined by exclamations at the arrival of Yoki. In the very doorway, dual six-packs in hand, she made her debut of the evening by doing her little “I’m here! Party!” dance. The Yoki had landed.
“Hey hey!”
“Hayashi, baby!”
“It’s about time you showed up, girlfriend!”
“Somebody, tell Dr. Rathstein to switch up the music and get this party going! Yoki’s here.”
They absorbed Yoki into their collective. For a second a couple of them tried to do the same to me, but the look in my eye saved their lives just in time.
Within the house that Bart built was the sort of crowd amongst whom it is okay and maybe even a little complementary to be called “nerd”, and it was the kind of party at which people who think it cool to be called “nerd” are comfortable –no raging music, no nakedness, no rabblerousing, no popping-and-locking, no booty bumping, or packing in your waistband. Most of the attendees were clean and well groomed, except for a couple examples of artsy folk (I cite the dandruff-dusted kid in the jeans, white tennis shoes, red blazer, and black T-shirt with white lettering that read, “Mozart: Pretty good for a kid”). Khaki pants and tucked-in shirts were the normative wear. Venerable professor type mingled with semi-frisky student type. Many clinked wineglasses with which some looked more at-ease than others, and others retained familiar cans of upscale beer in their soft hands with clean, intact nails. They chatted and smiled and laughed with one another with varying degrees of affability, ebullience, awkwardness, and ineptly-veiled rivalry.
The assemblage amplified the effect of Rathstein’s civilized living quarters. Modern ceramic tile floors and modestly vaulted ceilings greeted us. The warm-clime-style open floor plan allowed everyone to be in everyone else’s viscidity and thus shift easily from one scintillating society to the next.
I was already starting to get huge, itchy hives when Jeanne emerged from the crowd, wearing a plain white T-shirt and jeans and looking like a million bucks. She promptly deposited a beer in my hand.
“She’s amazing, isn’t she?” said Jeanne of the hyperactively socializing Yoki.
“I never would have guessed this was her social group.”
“I meant the fact she got you to come in here,” Jeanne laughed, “but everyone is her social group, as long as there are men to flirt with.”
That was precisely what Yoki was doing at that moment, flirting with not one, not two, but three males at once, all of whom Jesus Christ was actively trying to destroy. She was also stealing food from their plates, but they were all too bug-eyed to notice.
“Come on,” Jeanne said over the din. “Better get out of here before you start being bombarded with all the what’s-your-major-what-year-are-you-where-are-you-froms. We’re in way too sociable a position.”
That sounded like a smart maneuver to me. Jeanne led the way to the wall, where we sat on the stone around the fireplace, which, except for an extra noisy blonde chick in a pink halter top beside me, was a relatively comfortable position. Jeanne crossed her long, elegant legs and sat back, seeming to enjoy all the madness with its healthy grain of salt. We watched the spectacle that ensued when Yoki hijacked the stereo and changed the muzak to a techno CD she had brought. Then she dropped Jesus Christ to rampage around on the floor and moved to the center of the congregation, which parted like the biblical Red Sea before her.
Midst hoots and shouts of approval, she proceeded to get down, and she was not satisfied until, one by one, she had drawn the entire respectable group into her 120-beat-per-second anarchy. She was like Typhoid Mary, only people wanted to catch her disease. A crowd by definition not prone to dancing was all doing so in minutes, with its great Empress of Cool at the center. The result was horrific: white boys bouncing up and down in the eternal white boy dance, white girls, hands above their heads, doing their own version. There were a few people who could dance, and one black girl who watched them from the sidelines with a knowing eye but neglected to school them, but there was the inevitable crazy-dancing-guy-who-can’t-handle-his-liquor who eclipsed them all, flailing around like an octopus with its ass stuck in a can, forcing people back like gang of riot police.
A nearby forty-something-year-old woman in a tie-dyed dress and eclectic jewelry, who was apparently thinking the same thing I was of the scene, though I did not get the reference at the time, leaned toward her tall, professorly male companion and said over the music, “They look like a Hieronymus Bosch.”
In the midst of the decidedly un-Bachic celebration, a man shouldered his way through the ranks. He was short and stout, a graying, wavy-haired and bearded man in his fifties, with an expression of self-importance on his roundish face and a round, ample belly to match. He gave the impression of a pompous, bellicose Santa Claus, though his well-ordered semi-casual attire (tweed suit coat and tie-free button-front shirt) and the way the revelers moved about to give him passage suggested that he was, to them, a person of importance.
The elder statesman espied the Asian Invasion, and an almost predatory, if still avuncular, expression came across his face. It was an expression we have all seen many times, the expression of a confident man setting out upon an assured conquest, and one who is aware that others are watching.
I started forward, but Jeanne stopped me.
“That’s Dr. Rathstein,” she said. “Don’t worry. It’s him who’ll need protecting.”
He took Yoki’s hand and spun her away from a bewildered male student. She went easily, surprised at first, and then delighted to find the professor at the other end.
The onlookers immediately went into hoots and whistles and cries of encouragement to professor getting his freak on with a hot piece of real estate. He danced like a man who had danced socially for decades, n
ot a professional by any means, but much more sprightly than his bowl full of jelly would have led you to believe. He twirled and dipped Yoki like he was dancing to a more elegant kind of music, and to the students chanting his name.
Being a professor must do something for the ego.
It was a harmless spectacle, I told myself, an amusing break from death drills and jealous undead exes. But, as time has taught me, Yoki was never happy unless my dander was up over something. She dragged Rathstein to a stop, located me in my safe vantage by the hearth, and proceeded to taunt me –yes, taunt me, to get me to dance with her.
“What the hell is this?” I said to Jeanne.
“She doesn’t think you’re having fun.”
Yoki grabbed my hand.
“How the hell would she know?”
“She thinks anyone who doesn’t dance isn’t having fun. It took me two years to get her to leave me alone.”
The crowd didn’t know who I was, but they played along, backing up their queen, who didn’t need any backup. I looked at my little Asian aggravation murderously and braced my considerably larger mass against her tiny tugs.
“Come on, Annie. Time to get frisky.”
“If you don’t let go of my arm, I’ll kill your dog.”
“Don’t be nasty. She who hesitates is lost.”
“I like to be lost.”
“Come now, neither man nor beast can resist me.”
Rathstein looked on with mild curiosity and amusement at the object of Yoki’s attempted intervention.
She was rallying the troops, calling to the guests, her minions all, to cast me out from among them, which they would doubtless do just for the fun.
The blonde girl, who was also drunk, shoved on my shoulder and squealed shrilly, “Go on! Give us a show!”