by Ava Michaels
There was still so much I needed to know about this elaborate song and dance.
-----------Chapter 13-----------
A couple nights after our Star Trek date, Jess convinced me to go out – and on a Thursday no less. I knew it must have made me weird, but I still had this thing about going out on nights when I had both work and school in the morning.
Apparently, according to Jess though, this was something she’d absolutely kill me for if I missed. There were a few local bands playing at some place downtown and it was going to be “totally killer.” I pressed Jess further on just what type of “killer” bands were going to be there.
“Um … It’s all that indie dance crap that I know you like,” she said while she pulled a small black skirt up over her delicate, tan legs.
I had no idea what she meant by this, so I just sighed and stared at myself in the mirror. I had on a slightly ruffled black skirt, pretty short, but pretty conservative, and a tight red spaghetti strap top that I thought matched it pretty well.
I couldn’t help but wonder what Big Stick was doing tonight. I didn’t really feel like going out. I wanted to listen to love songs and stare lazily at my journal as I wrote my feelings in it with hearts over the “I’s” and smiley faces at the ends of sentences. I was cool.
“Plus,” she said, “there’s gonna be a ton of hot upperclassmen there. Maybe even that dude… What’s his name again?”
“Ryder, Jess. It’s Ryder,” I groaned. It’s not as if she didn’t interrogate me on a dozen occasions about how the progress was going with my new beau.
“No… Big Stick!”
“Hey Jess,” I yelled to her over the music. I knew what I needed to get motivated. I just needed a little liquid courage. “Why don’t you pour me a shot of that secret stash of Absolut you’ve been hiding?”
She giggled and looked at me shocked. She thought I didn’t see her sneaking in on some of her later nights with bottles of booze, and sometimes a little pot. Why she was concerned with that but not with having sex in front of me I’ll never know.
“Oh, really? Looking to howl at the moon tonight?”
I laughed and took the tall shot from her.
“Don’t you worry about what I do… Especially not with Big Stick. Things will get a poppin’ soon enough. Um, do you have anything to chase this with?”
Jess grinned wide and innocently and shook her head.
Okay, I thought. Bottoms up, it was. I seemed to be taking a lot more steps out, more risks lately. I mean, if you had asked me just last month if I’d find myself at The Snake Pit with a boy, let alone at his house eating sushi and watching Star Trek… I’d have laughed you out of town. Now here I was taking a shot on a Thursday night before even going out… Pre-gaming, if you will. I was not a pre-gamer.
Jess was now touching up her makeup. Once she finished, we headed out of the apartment.
………
Outside, there were kids everywhere, rushing around, texting like maniacs, stuffing bottles into backpacks, whooping it up. Welcome to Thirsty Thursday at Dartmouth.
“Hey, where is this thing at anyway, Jess?” I asked as we were nearly trampled by a cackling group of frat boys who already reeked of liquor. “It had better not be The Snake Pit. Tell me it’s not The Snake Pit, Jess.”
She laughed hard and yanked on my arm.
“Just come on!” she screamed.
As I was being yanked off-campus by my giggling aspiring slut of a roommate, I felt a heaviness swinging against my side from within her purse. I groaned. She had brought the bottle of vodka. Of course she had brought the bottle of vodka. What bar did she think was going to be okay with two freshman girls swigging Absolut from the bottle in their establishment?
We were walking for quite a while when it came to me that we seemed to be joining a throng, a procession really, of drunk kids from every class. And that we definitely seemed to have passed the streets that would lead to Hanover’s few bars. Then it hit me: Jess was leading me to frat row. What the hell?
She just grabbed my hand tighter when I started to protest.
“No way Jess!”
“Come on, girl, I promise it’ll be fun. Have I ever disappointed you?”
I prepared myself to be disappointed. I prepared myself to most likely be disgusted as well. Frat row was a place I’d avoided even more studiously than The Snake Pit so far freshman year. Stories of streaking sessions, lawnmowers being ridden around inside, people being vomited on… They had never done a good job of painting me a very pretty picture of this particular brand of Dartmouth bacchanalia.
Still, I trudged along, trying not to notice the clothes most every other girl on the block were wearing, clothes that bared midriffs and a whole lot more – the lower halves of ass cheeks in some cases, and, naturally, thongs.
“You’d better give me another swig off of that bottle, girl.” I said resignedly.
Jess happily obliged, and, while I was tipping it back and gulping the horrendous stuff, a chorus of bro’s suddenly erupted beside us, cheering, whooping, and asking to “get in on that action.”
I rolled my eyes when Jess turned around to face me.
“Yeah, sure we can share!” She grinned.
The guys were all dressed nearly identically – polo shirts, collars upturned, and backwards baseball hats. I was not impressed with Jess’ gregariousness this particular evening.
“So, where are you guys headed tonight?” she said flirtatiously as the three drunk aspiring Abercrombie models drained almost the rest of our bottle.
“Alpha Delta, baby, you know it!” One of them burped.
“Let’s go,” I said, tugging on Jess’ arm. She turned around to wink at the guys.
“See you guys around.”
Something was wrong though. As we continued up the street, the guys were still behind us. I knew Jess wouldn’t be taking me to Alpha Delta. I just hoped these guys weren’t following us.
Passing by one of the trashier frats, both Jess and I screamed and hit the deck when a front window exploded. Someone had thrown a trash can through it. That was very nice and very classy.
“Animals, huh? Come on, let’s go,” Jess said as we got up and dusted ourselves off with no help from any of the “gentlemen” behind us, thank you very much. In fact, those three tore across the lawn to the building the trash can had just come from, intent on joining the revelry.
“Fuck yeah, this is what I’m talkin’ about!” one of them screamed.
I guessed that they were freshmen too, who probably looked at joining a frat where trash cans regularly shattered windows as the zenith of the college experience. After a few more blocks, Jess stopped.
“No, no way Jess …” I warned, stopping dead in my tracks and planting my hands firmly on my hips as I stared at the monster that was none other than Alpha Delta.
It’s kind of unassuming. Colonial-style brick façade with white window trims and columns did nothing to conceal the noise coming from within.
“Come onnnn,” she implored me. Then she finished the Absolut bottle and tossed it onto the lawn. “I swear the bands are gonna be really good… We don’t have to stay all night.”
“I swear, if you make me regret this,” I mumbled as we headed up to the front door.
The music, although deafening, didn’t actually sound all that bad.
“You ladies are in luck tonight, no charge,” said this gorilla in a sweatshirt guarding the door. The little I could see behind his hulking frame was strobes and masses of bodies.
“Thanks,” I said weakly, and shuffled in.
Jess wasted no time at all.
“Okay, let’s hit the jungle juice first, girl,” she flatly commanded.
I really wasn’t in the mood for any jungle juice. I wanted to be back at the apartment. Scratch that. I wanted to be with Ryder doing whatever Big Stick does. I kept looking at every male face hoping that maybe it would be him, by some chance of a miracle. No luck. Although, in the interest
of full disclosure, I did check my cell phone for a new text message before we started to battle our way through the fray and towards the punch.
“Um, where’s the stage?” I asked Jess.
She didn’t even hear me, unsurprisingly. I recognized the sound of the live and loud music, the drums pummeling through the walls and floor and making all parts of you vibrate in a way that’s always undeniably exciting, no matter what the venue it is. I hated to admit it but Jess was right. There was something about live music that made a person feel… I don’t know… Alive. I followed my roommate through the crowd, noticing how she was flashing the same flirtatious smile at every guy we brushed up against. Sigh. God bless her, I guess.
I knew that even when he was younger, Big Stick wouldn’t be caught dead in a place like this. And then, just then, the smallest inkling of a feeling of complete inadequacy started to flare up inside of me.
He was a professional of some sort, I guess, since he had never actually gotten around to telling me what his job was. He was also much older and almost too handsome. What could he ever see in the long-term with a twenty two year old like me? Well, someone he thought was twenty two. I was lying to him. Particularly, a girl who allowed herself to be dragged, vodka bottle in hand to a frigging Alpha Delta?
This line of thought sort of brought me down for a second, and I took one last look at my phone before turning it off. No, I wasn’t going to punish myself for being young. Perhaps that was what he liked about me.
Jess was holding two cups out in front of her while this guy who definitely didn’t look confident to stand trial, let alone serve alcohol at a party, sloppily sloshed a suspiciously light-colored punch into them. I took mine a little more quickly and greedily than I usually would. My depressing thoughts had left me ready to cut loose for a while.
“Let’s find the band, Jess,” I said.
We followed our ears down a narrow set of stairs, where the smell of pot was suddenly so thick it made our eyes water. Whatever, I thought. There was also some sort of smoke machine going, pumping a fine mist all over the throngs of kids convening on a makeshift stage lit mostly with beer lights and mixing with the thick haze of beer smell and pot smoke.
We were making our way closer to the “stage” where a band with a sign above it that said “Pussy Wagon” was thrashing out some quick-riffed 80’s style garage punk, when it happened. Pushing through the crowd towards me, who was it that should appear but either the first or the last person I wanted to see here depending on how drunk I was and I wasn’t quite drunk enough yet. It was my old boyfriend Carlos.
Great! I should have guessed he’d be playing here tonight. I’d managed to not see Carlos for four months, except for that one social night during orientation where he’d tried to kiss me, and this is when it happens: when I’m on the verge of drunk, feeling inadequate for the guy I’ve somehow got interested in me, and in the dark basement of a frat house.
Carlos had a band in which he played bass called Carlos and the Bulge. Seriously. They played some fairly decent, spiky instrumental dance-punk, and Carlos’s bass lines were the undeniable attraction of the music. We had dated for the entirety of senior year, and I had felt like I was walking on a cloud then, even though I never let Carlos get any further than a kiss. I was just too nervous about getting too committed at an early age and stealing him away from his music.
When it had come time to go to college, we had been planning on going together, and staying together. However, Carlos and the Bulge were taking off in a much bigger way than I’d ever thought. It wasn’t jealousy or anything. I just started to feel like I didn’t fit in. I like music but it isn’t my life. And I can’t quite relate to people who have that sort of driving obsession... I want to settle down in one town and not travel everywhere. Maybe that is because I don’t have a passion like that. Unless you count frisbee golf. I don’t really have anything that I know I would rather do more than anything else for the rest of my life. But hell, I’m still a virgin. In my own opinion, I haven’t even explored the most basic human experience.
He didn’t seem hurt though because he already had another girlfriend a couple weeks later. I didn’t cry… How could I when she looked like a horse... I felt bad really…
“Hey space cadet, look who it is!”
Jess grabbed my arm. As if I needed help noticing Carlos walking towards me with a big, goofy smile on his handsome face. He was wearing the typical uniform of this kind of band – tight jeans, tight black T-shirt, a few facial piercings. Somehow Carlos transcended that look for me though, and tonight, whether it was the booze or not, he looked impossibly handsome. Until I looked and realized that his jeans had gotten even tighter since high school. His balls had to be yelling, ‘I... Can't... Breathe!’
“Hey,” I managed before one of the most awkward hugs I’ve ever experienced.
Carlos was hot and sweaty since he’d already played a set, and his arms wrapped around me a lot tighter than I was expecting. I could feel his privates against me. The side hug would have been much more appropriate. I sort of wanly let it happen, and stepped back, glaring at Jess to leave me alone for a minute. Or that she let this happen. I was confused.
“So how’s um, Pussy Wagon tonight? I hear they’re pretty hot,” I joked.
“Well, we’re doin’ pretty alright, I guess.”
He bobbed his head up and down smiling at me. “I haven’t even seen you around campus all year,” he said, tossing back his sweaty dark hair.
It seemed like he was sizing me up to see if there was any indication that I might have been missing him these months we had been completely apart. The truth was no, I hadn’t thought about him once. But now that he was in front of me, I couldn’t help but enjoy the sense of familiarity he brought with him. However, fantasies with rockers are okay but this was real life so going down that road would be difficult, unlike with Big Stick.
“Do you need another drink? Can we go somewhere where we can talk?”
I nodded weakly, still smiling and dazed. Looking down at my punch cup I realized that I’d sucked the entirety of its contents down in the moment I saw Carlos coming towards me.
Nice job, Olivia. Really classy.
“Sure, I could use another drink… I hope you don’t mean this jungle juice, though…”
We were smiling at each other in this hard, happy way, and it was making me unreasonably giddy.
“Naw, I’ll share some of my special stash with you.”
He opened the tweed-ish jacket he was wearing over his black T-shirt, and exposed to me two cans of Coke resting comfortably within the inside pocket. I giggled and let him lead me upstairs. How old am I? Jeez.
Carlos confidently pushed his way through the crowd, cutting a clear path for me to follow so that I was hardly accosted or even nudged by a sweaty body. As we climbed the staircase I grabbed his arm harder and shouted into his ear, “Are you a brother here?”
He stopped on the stairs and turned to face me. His face turned into a twisted, contorted mask of disgust. For a minute I thought I blacked out from the jungle juice and in reality asked him if he’d like to smell the fart of a dying pig.
“No way, Ol, are you kidding me?”
He laughed and touched my hair. I still wasn’t sure which question came out of my mouth but the feeling of his hand close to my cheek made my heart do a little skip. Maybe it was the alcohol or maybe it was jitters but either way I was feeling uncomfortable. I didn’t need the old. I needed the new.
“I just know a bunch of the guys,” he continued casually. “The Bulge plays here like once a month, and they don’t mind if I take a little break upstairs sometimes.”
I wondered, suspiciously, just what the hell “take a little break upstairs” meant. And who this break would be taken with usually? I pictured a nightly rotation of freshman sluts following Carlos up these same stairs with that same jacket and t-shirt ensemble, with hair perfectly messed up purring the same casual replies to questions as he was
doing with me… And then I told myself to quit it and maybe just try to have fun tonight.
He knocked loudly on one door and, when he didn’t hear anything, opened it halfway.
“What the fuck, dude?”
One of the brothers was reclining on a sofa with a bong in one hand and some sorority girl’s head in his lap. That was lovely.
“Sorry, bro!” Carlos covered his laughter with a hand as he shut the door quickly and whispered “Come on, let’s see what’s behind door number two!”
The next room was empty. It was a typical college bro’s room, posters of barely covered bikini models, beers of the world and, of course, an attempt at appearing either intellectual or ridiculous. Albert Einstein with his tongue sticking out.… Ugh. How original.
Carlos swept a pile of crap including rolling papers, roach clips, Pabst cans, and… Really? Nudie magazines? With the dawn of the internet I didn’t think porn magazines were even in existence anymore, going the way of the elusive Doe-Doe bird. Okay, well, it isn’t like they were Carlos’s magazines.
I wasn’t really sure what I was doing here, in this room with him. I had been looking for a brand new start after an exceptionally awkward high school career. In high school everything was so simple. The classes were practically chosen for you, you still had someone making sure you got up on time and when you were doing poorly, there was always a teacher to chase you down and force you to get better grades. At least, that is how it was at my high school. But college is one hundred percent the opposite. You can either spend your time wisely or foolishly. They don’t care. They’ll take your money until they kick you out and then you are still on your own.
I wanted to be smart about college. I wanted to take interesting classes that would make me want to explore the world and maybe even help a few people along the way. And I really felt I was doing that with We Can Do It! I was ready to forget about the past, forget about Carlos, and to try and dedicate myself to something bigger.
But, looking at Carlos now, looking all cool and handsome like he used to when we dated, all my noble efforts were going out the window. Ironically, much like all my scruples and worries had gone out the window when I met Big Stick.