by mcdavis3
Composedly, I walked over to the railing and threw up over the edge.
“Oh shit, Marco’s wasted.” Mark announced laughing. “Kid’s always going hard I swear. You need to learn to pump the breaks.”
Breathe in 1, 2, 3, 4. I pulled my phone out of my pocket and set the 1 hour timer. 1 hour was roughly how long it took hard drugs to kick in. In an hour I’d know if I’d been drugged or not. Out 1, 2, 3, 4.
I gazed over at the cul-de-sac down the block and couldn’t help but smile. The party had supposed to be last night. Until my dad and brother had decided to surprise me with dinner out and a movie. They didn’t want me to be lonely with Allan out of town. As they’d picked me up the whole cul-de-sac had been bustling with 70 antsy kids standing around 25 parked cars.
“Well that’s something,” My dad had remarked. “You don’t see that every day.”
Back inside Duncan barreled into me and pulled me up in the air for a spinning hug.
“Dude, I’m outro. We’re gonna go whipping in LFP mall.” He spoke in short sentences as if he was in a huge rush.
“You’re way too drunk to drive, Dunc-a-dunc.”
“Whaa?? I’m good. We’re going stuntin.”
“Okay...” I warned skeptically. He ran off into the crowd. [21]
[21] Duncan got a DUI that night and hasn’t driven since because his insurance is too expensive.
Loren looked different. He looked sick and even skinnier. He had a big bushy mustache and had let his stylish shag grow into full fledged scraggily locks. When you’re cooler than everyone for too long you can start making some serious fashion gaffes.
“Hey girl, are you smiling at me or just thinking about fluffy bunnies? You don’t gotta be shy girl, all these guys are just jealous. They all had their chance to talk to you and they all blew it.”
God, he still knew how to work a room though. I went up and gave him a big hug.
“Hey Loren. My cousin told me you’re living in an apartment with like 20 people on Haight street.” Loren had moved to San Francisco, not for college, just because.
“Ya man, you gotta definitely be a people person to hump it.” She’d also told me he was living like a street kid.
“I saw your music video. Pretty impressive quality. My brother liked it too.” Loren had a music group in San Fran, So Artsy Entertainment.
This made him laugh, “Carlo really liked it? Haha.”
“I like that Kid Crayola’s style.” They had this far out hype man/artist that was pretty captivating.
“Ya, he was like the glue of the group, he had to go back to Haiti. Shit’s kinda on hiatus right now. It sucks.” Very un-Loren like he looked bummed about it. Loren’s ego and all his exaggerations made his rare moments of humility all that much more powerful. But that was Loren, always catching you off guard. [22]
[22] Growing up no one dreamed about being a famous big shot more than Loren.
I popped in on Mike mid-way through a conversation with some Jr. “I just agro farm in outland for like hours with some serious AoE.”
“Do you use Howl of Terror?”
“Nuhuh, fuck that homeboy, use something with a little more affliction. We should totally run a dungeon sometime. My username is ManaSlanger, direct message me.” They’re talking about World of Warcraft.
“You play WoW?” Mike asked, turning to me.
“I’ve dabbled. E-Rock told me you’re pretty good. What level are you?” This caused Mike to laugh.
“Dawg I’ve got a 70 mage and a 70 necromancer right now.”
“How is that even possible?” I’d played for a month and didn’t get past lvl 20.
“I sell my 70’s online too. I get a couple hundred a pop. Easy money. Bro I’ve sold like five lvl 70’s”
“Really?” Not seeing anyone else to talk to out of the corner of my eye I crossed my arms out of boredom. This caused Mike to fidget with his own hands and put them in his pockets.
“You think I’m playing dawg? Let’s meet up online sometime and I’ll show you my 70’s.” He looked skinny, tame, anxious. I took a step closer to him to subtly measure up our heights. Were we the same height? That’s impossible.
It was as if some spell was broken. I felt the sting of losing another idol. My own self-image was bound with Mike being cooler than everyone. Our friendship was one of my greatest accomplishments. Doing lines together until dawn.[23]
[23] Mike went on to become an incredibly successful big time baller after high school… Oh except not. He’s treading water at a crappy job while his bad habits get the best of him.
I looked around and saw Harrison Bung drunk with a blunt behind his ear. Kace was trying to mack on some 16 year old private school girl that wasn’t feelin’ it.[24][25]
[24] Somewhere along the line something got into Harrison, man. I like to think it was the Greg incident. Whatever it was, he’s locked in now. Since high school he’s been party or die for life.
[25] Before high school ended Kace had already become a dark, intense alcoholic. He went on to get 3 DUI’s. Like wrapping cars around poles DUI’s. He finally got sober after the third. In a million years I didn’t think that he’d actually be able to do it. I actually kind of like him sober, we can both relate to how difficult it is to be sober in our society, we share that. I don’t know if there is much hope for his sobriety because he doesn’t have a ton going for him career wise or socially. All his older, gangster best-friends-for-life fell off, and Kace’s smart enough to know it. He posts on Facebook like three times a day now. He just wrote, “People I believe in don’t show their face no more…” The worst part is that when I see him he still thinks I admire him and think he’s cool. I can’t help it, I act really nice around him. Because he still makes me put my foot in my mouth, like he’s going to attack me at me at any moment. The energy between us is so fucked up, probably because we’re such different people. But mostly when I see him I’m just in awe of what he could’ve been. (He’s drinking again.)
My cell phone alarm went off. One hour. I’d pretty much forgotten about the cigar incident but I took a big sigh of relief anyways. I wasn’t drugged. I was safe.
I’d been meaning to say something to Wendy Acer for a while so I went over to her, reaching my hand up for a big high five. Reluctantly, she shyly reached up and tapped my hand.
“Hey I’m sorry for what happened in class Wendy, I feel embarrassed about it.” In world history one of our classmates, Ahba, had been finishing a presentation about her religion, Hinduism, when she went on a tangent about cultural acceptance because some kids had made fun of her bindi dot.
“Any questions?” She’d finished.
My arm hung menacingly in the air. “Why should I respect Hinduism? Where women are second hand citizens. Where there’s a caste system based around which social group you’re born into. A whole class of ‘untouchables.’ I noticed you didn’t talk about those issues in your presentation.”
“It’s just a very different culture. It’d be hard for you to understand. Plus there’s been a lot of reform recently.” Her equally sassy counter-argument struck me like a flint.
“Your backwards religion has been internally oppressing for 5000 years! Fuck Hinduism! Fuck your dot and fuck you, you dweeb!”
The teacher, Mr. Hardaway, pulled me into the hallway. “Marco, I know about your mom. I’m very, very sorry. Take the week off.”
“It’s okay,” Wendy said. “After you left Mr. Hardaway told us about your mom. He turned it into this whole lesson. He spent the rest of class talking about how personal crises’ can cause people to lash out in anger. People told their own similar stories. Ahba cried and said she had no idea.”
I dropped my mouth open. “He can’t do that. Can he do that?” I felt like the butt of a big joke. Wendy laughed, “It even kept going for the first half of the next class.”
“All this time I’d thought I struck a huge blow for universal rights.” I said in disbelief.
The blue packa
ging of a tooth whitening strip on the floor caught my eye. I walked over sleuth-like and picked it up... Scanning the floor I spotted another one, this time suspiciously underneath two girls. I walked up to them. “Did you guys steal my whitening strips?”
One of the girls started laughing wildly while the other inconsistently stared back at me with a worried look. I’d never seen them before, they looked 14. How do 14 year old girls I’ve never seen before end up here? Before I could even say anything else a big thud produced one of my cologne bottles on the floor beneath the laughing girl’s jacket. This caused her to laugh even harder.
“Ya, laugh it up. You’re so hilarious. You’re not sleazy at all.” I tried my best to be scary but they weren’t very intimidated. The comedian started emptying her coat of my toiletries, dropping them on the ground too. Handfuls of white strips, lotions, deodorant, soap, even my toothpaste.
“I’m sorry, my friend’s really drunk, we’re leaving.” The concerned girl started herding her friend on as I frantically tried to gather everything off the wood floor covered in a half-inch of dried beer.
“Haha, did you just get robbed by some little girls, Caldirolis?” On my hands and knees, I heard Justyn’s voice.
“Little girls? They’re straight professionals. They’ve probably hit every party in this town. They even went for my toothpaste.” I stood up with my arms full of toiletries.
“Hey Justyn, I heard you knocked out, Robby. Is that true?”
“Oh ya?” Justyn shrugged with pride, “He tried to jack me 40 dollars like it was no big deal. So I went up to him and said pay me or we’re fighting. And he laughed at me and said ‘alright’ like I was bluffing. So I gave him a little shimmy. A quick side pivot with a hard right. Bam. One hit and he was done.”[26]
“That’s crazy man, he’s gotta have 30 pounds on you.”
“Size doesn’t always matter. Remember me when you take over the world Caldirolis. I could be the head of your secret police.” Laughing I scurried my toiletries back to a safe room.
[26] I still can’t believe Justyn didn’t succeed, not with his charisma, his energy. He’s been off the grid completely, no social media, no nothing. Last thing I heard was that someone randomly ran into him at a party and he was on some crazy e/molly binge. I believe it because he had a scary tendency for self-destructive drug streaks when I knew him. It’s sad, I would have been friends for life with him. At least what he was, who knows what he is now.
I headed downstairs to the basement I’d been avoiding the whole party. I spotted Oakley in the back of the room sitting on the center of my couch, surrounded by a layer of friends, who themselves were surrounded by another layer of people.
I saw a vision of Shoreline’s nicest park at night with the words “Prom?” spelled out in white Christmas lights across the grass. I’d thought over the execution of the plan ad nauseam, but never had the guts to do it. I pushed the vision out of my mind, it had no use to me now.
To circumvent the log jam of kids crowding the couch I stepped onto the coffee table and walked across it over to Oakley, plopping down next to her, right in Elle’s lap.
“Nice of you to stop by, Marco.” Oakley said. Elle tried to scoot over until one of my legs was slumping in-between them with the other still hanging over Elle.
“I just came over to ask you guys to please stop checking out my butt, it’s getting old. I’m not going to tell you again.”
“Marco, why are you wearing your jacket hood up? We’re inside,” Elle asked. I was wearing a windbreaker to protect my skin from a possible contact high, but the hood was dangling halfway off my head for moxie.
Caught off guard I could only gag up, “I don’t know.”
“It’s the style, Elle,” Oakley cut in. “Marco’s a trendsetter.” I laughed.
“Shouldn’t you be on the stand testifying against someone right now, Elle? Are you like officially undercover at this point? Are you on duty right now?”
“I never told my parents about Benny’s! Never! Why don’t you believe me?” Elle protested. We all laughed. I look over at Oakley.
“Isn’t your curfew at midnight?” It was now 12:30.
“Is it?” She turned her impatient face up a degree until her mouth was within a few insistent inches of mine. To this point, in the history of our miraculous, intertwining lives, I’d done enough to make Oakley want me to kiss her. All those other times, who knows. But this time, to be so close to your enchanted goal, and let some ridiculous ping of self-doubt nudge your leaning trajectory so that your cheek brushes up against hers as you nestle your head into her shoulder for a hug. Well generals have sent hundreds of thousands of men to their deaths, but I should have kissed Oakley Carter.
It started on the stairs. Drunk Shorewood and Shorecrest heavy hitters staring each other down, a pushing gathering crowd, yelling, a punch, an errantly thrown bottle that hit a skinny, Lizzie, in the face. I headed for my living room window as the brawl spilled out into the street. The shadows postured for position, carefully clashing and then retreating, converging on the stumbled. I felt a presence join me at the window and looked over to see Greg Cooks. It was an honor having him at my party, he rarely partied with the high schoolers anymore.
“I can’t believe the cops haven’t come yet, lil bro. If I was you I’d get out of here before they come.” Greg’s advice seemed invaluable in this situation, but I could’ve cared less about getting in trouble. I was sober, I had nothing to lose.
“I feel like they would have come already if they were going to come.”
“Oh they’re def coming bro.”
“I bet you they don’t.”
“How much?”
“Two dollars.” Greg laughed. Rumor was he was big into the oxy scene now.
“Pretty tight party though, Marco.”
“Not the same as when you used to do it man.” After a moment I added, “Well the fighting’s still the same.” I cringed as someone got tackled into one of our rose bushes, breaking it in half.
“You know what I did during all those parties I threw?” My periodic glance his way ran into a deadly serious gaze. “I just walked from my garage, to the bathroom, to my room, doing line after line all night long. I can’t remember any of it.” I gave him a few heavy nods. The fight was over, the last cars were speeding off.
“Hey Marco,” Katie called, “We’re taking Lizzie to the E.R. Are you coming?”
“Go ahead bro,” Greg said. “I got your house till you get back, it’s on me.” I’d never been more confident in a promise as I headed out the door.[27]
[27] Greg Cooks is still a pretty nice, funny, somewhat exceptional guy after all the drugs he did. No exaggeration, Greg could’ve been president. But, hey, he partied as hard as you can. Too bad he can’t remember it.
36. Last meaningful night with Oakley (Spring, 2007)
Oakley’s music was bumping as she picked me up on a Friday night. “I never slip, I never fall. Hoes give me they number but I never call…Every freak should have a picture of my dick on they wall.”
She turned it down as I got in.
“You still blasting gangster rap every morning on your way to school?” I asked her, laughing.
“It’s how I wake up, Marco!” She moaned defensively, playfully annoyed. She was wearing a bright purple UW sweatshirt. She’d worn almost every day since she accepted a scholarship to play soccer there. It was bonkers because she got the full ride for soccer on top of never getting anything less than an A- in her life. Seeing that sweatshirt made shake my head in disbelief every time.
“What are you smiling about?”
“Nothing. Are you excited to start LEAP?” That was the summer program for incoming student athletes.
“Crazy excited. I just found out what dorm I’m staying in today.” I didn’t ask any more questions about it, it was a sore subject. I didn’t even apply to any colleges.
We were going to Colby’s house, one of Oakley’ friends from private school. I
knew the kid loosely, he was a year younger and hung out with some Shorewood Juniors that were on the party scene. He was a multimillionaire though, he wasn’t normal. You couldn’t hold him to the same standards as other kids.
“So how’s your love life, Marco?” Oakley asked.
“Oh you know, I can’t keep the girls off me,” I said dryly. “How’s things with your new boy toy?” Oakley had started dating some guy from her old private school. I’d never seen him, but through my inquiries I’d heard he was a good guy, a beautiful, sort of aloof musician, who could be super social when he wanted to be.
“Good.” She paused. “His parents are super strict so we have sex in his car a lot.”
“Oh, good to know…”
“You’ll think this is funny, Marco. He’s obsessed with taking pictures of his cum.
“Like a cumshot?” The blurt sort of comes out in the form of a question.
“Ya but, but like intense into it, and always on different spots all over me. He’s fascinated with the specific way each one goops and drips down my skin. Last weekend he came around my neck and screamed, ‘It’s the best pearl necklace I’ve ever seen.’ He spent ten minutes making my lay still so he could take pictures of it. He says he’s got a collection of them from all his girlfriends.”
“HAha.” I made my loud laughter sound eerily genuine, one of my gifts. Anger pounded in my chest. I puzzled over what could have created this cum obsession. Porn stood out as the obvious answer, but every guy I knew had watched porn since 13 and this was the first time I’d heard of this. I imagined his mom finding cum on his blankets or clothes when he was younger and blowing up at him about it.
“Kid needs to lay off the porn.” I finally remarked.
“Okay Marco, your turn, tell me something interesting.”
A big pen fence running alongside the road signals we were in Woodway. The mansions of Woodway were only a couple miles from Richmond Beach. When I was a kid I would go with my mom to Woodway to feed the rich people’s horses and goats. Sometimes they’d ask us politely to stop, but we’d ignore them. ‘Bill grogan’s goat, not a chicken but a goat, was feelin fine…’