by BB Easton
When it was over, the guys all grumbled as Allen pulled a piece of poster board out from behind the TV stand. Studying whatever was written on it, he said, “Damn. Nobody picked Pussy?”
“Excuse me?” Juliet snapped.
Allen looked up from the poster. “Ha! Sorry. Pussy was the name of the guy Tony killed tonight. Every week we take bets on which character is gonna die.”
He turned the poster around so that we could see. Along the left side were the names Jason, Allen, Ethan, Evan, Bryan, and Scott. Along the top were the dates of every episode that season, and in each box on the grid was the name of a different character. Judging by all the ones circled in red, Jason was surprisingly good at plot prediction for a guy who could barely keep his eyes open through an entire episode.
I turned to Ken. “I don’t see your name up there. You didn’t want to play?”
“I’m not giving these assholes my money,” he said with an arched brow.
“So, you don’t bet”—I glanced at the now-empty Gatorade bottle on the coffee table—“and you don’t drink…” The puzzle pieces were starting to come together. “Are you, like, a Mormon or something?”
Ken laughed. Hard. Like eyes-closed, head-back laughed.
He had really nice teeth.
“Hell no,” he said once he finally recovered. “I just hate spending money.” And with that, Ken stood, shoved his empty plastic bottle into the pocket of his Nike running pants, grabbed his car keys and cell phone off the coffee table, and said, “Nice to meet you, Brooke. Juliet.”
Brooke. Ugh. Nobody calls me that.
Ken had given the group an obligatory wave and taken two steps toward the door when Allen tackle-hugged him from behind, followed by Ethan, Evan, and finally, Jason, who hit the manwich like a wrecking ball and took them all down.
A chorus of, “But Ken, I love you,” and “Don’t leave me, bro,” and “Shh…just go with it,” blended together until Ken fought his way out of the dog pile and bolted out the door.
The room exploded in laughter the second he was gone, guys rolling around on the floor holding their stomachs.
“He fucking hates us so hard right now,” Ethan or Evan cried.
The other Alexander brother snickered. “I’m gonna get that motherfucker to tell me he loves me if it’s the last thing I do!”
Jason was laughing too hard to speak.
“I just want a hug,” Allen lamented. “Dude’s been my best friend for six years. Is a little hug/back-slap action too much to ask?”
“So, Ken hates drinking, gambling, and warm hugs?” Juliet giggled.
“Basically,” Allen said, pulling himself up and crawling toward the coffee table where he’d left his beer. His hair was all disheveled, and his glasses were on crooked. “Fucker’s the enemy of fun, but I love him.”
“…the enemy of fun, but I love him.”
Something in those words struck a chord deep within me.
I had loved somebody like that once.
An enemy of fun.
A buzzkill with zombie eyes.
But I didn’t love him anymore.
Nope. Not even one little bit.
May 2000
“We’ve been sitting out here for, like, an hour, and they just keep coming!” Juliet shouted, flicking her cigarette butt into the street where it was immediately smashed under the tire of a snarling, slow-moving Harley-Davidson. And then another. And then another.
“I know. It’s crazy!” I yelled back, watching the never-ending parade of black leather and shiny chrome roll down Ocean Boulevard.
“You know what’s even crazier?” she asked, looking at me. “They’re all white. All of ’em. I haven’t seen a black person since we left Atlanta.”
“Oh my God.” My hand flew to my mouth as I scanned our surroundings. Mentally retracing our steps all the way from Atlanta to Myrtle Beach, I was horrified to realize that she was right. “How is that even possible? Black people ride motorcycles too! Remember when we used to go to the track with Harley? None of those moto guys were white. What the fuck? It’s Bike Week, not White Week!”
I was pissed. Pissed but most of all ashamed. How had I brought Juliet here and not even realized how uncomfortable she must have been? Or even what it was?
I hopped down off the cement block that supported the sign for our one-star motel and approached a man walking by who looked like a biker version of Santa Claus.
“Excuse me? Sir? Can you tell me where all the, um…people of color are?”
Santa gave Juliet a quick glance and seemed to catch my drift. “Oh, y’all are lookin’ for Black Bike Week. That ain’t till Memorial Day.”
“Excuse me?” Juliet snapped, standing up to join me.
Santa held up his hands. “Sorry, miss. Didn’t mean no disrespect. That’s just what they call it. This here is the Harley-Davidson Bike Week. Then, next week, the, uh…minorities do their Bike Week up on the north side of the strip. They ride them fancy crotch rockets and such. Lotta young folks, like yourself. It gets real wild though. Not laid-back like this. Coupla folks got shot last year, so y’all be real careful if you go.”
“Uh…we will. Thanks.”
Santa gave us a friendly smile and went along his merry way while Juliet and I stood there, like we’d just been sucker-punched in the guts.
“Oh my fucking God,” I said, blinking at my best friend. The girl I would move heaven and hell for. The girl who’d been there for me through every breakup, every trauma. The girl whose baby I’d helped deliver and name.
She was acting angry, but I knew what she was feeling went much deeper than that.
Juliet pursed her lips and raised one of her expertly drawn-on eyebrows. “Did we fucking travel back in time? I’m gonna ask the next person we see what fucking year it is. This is bullshit.”
“I’m so sorry I brought you here, Jules.”
“Sorry? Why are you sorry? All Hans said was that we were going to Bike Week. Well, here we are.” Juliet spun around in a full circle with her arms out.
I grabbed my purse off the cement block and tossed it over my shoulder. “I’m gonna make it right, boo. C’mon.”
“Where are we going?” Juliet huffed.
“North. We’re goin’ fucking north.”
Juliet and I turned our backs on the Happy Holiday Motel, tossed our empty Jack and Coke bottles in a nearby trash can, and headed north along Ocean Boulevard.
We walked about a mile, which felt more like three with all the bobbing and weaving we had to do around the Harleys and choppers parked along the sidewalk. The sun was beginning to set before we finally heard it—deep, thumping bass.
We had struck hip-hop.
Juliet and I looked at each other at the same time and grinned.
We followed the sound to an unassuming building on the beach side of the street. The sign out front said, Dougan’s Bar and Grill, and underneath it, written in black letters on the marquee, were two words that delighted me like no others.
Karaoke Night.
I squealed and sprinted arm in arm with Juliet across the street. Inside the place was dark, dingy, wood-paneled, and packed full of people.
People who did not look like me for a change.
The main open area of the restaurant was filled with round high-top tables, all facing a decent-sized stage, and each one had about two people too many shoved around it on narrow barstools.
By some miracle, Juliet and I scored a table in the back corner. Just as the hostess walked away, an announcer called out a name over the loudspeakers. Juliet and I watched as a heavyset man in a three-piece suit walked up to the mic. Poor guy was already sweating profusely and looked like he might throw up.
When the music came on it sounded familiar, but it wasn’t until he opened his mouth and sang the words, “If I,” in a soft, high-pitched voice that I realized what the fuck was about to go down.
“Oh shit!” I slammed my hand on the table and stared at Juliet with eyes like sauc
ers. “No! No fucking way!”
Juliet’s mouth fell open as she stared at the stage.
Fishing my phone out of my purse, I dialed Hans’s number prepared to leave him a voicemail. I knew he was at some radio interview and probably wouldn’t answer, but I had to share this shit with somebody.
“Hey, baby!” He picked up on the second ring.
“Hans! Oh my God, I didn’t think you’d answer. Can you hear me?”
“Barely. What’s up? You guys having fun?”
“Yes! Dude, we’re at this place on the strip called Dougan’s and it’s karaoke night and—oh shit, he’s about to sing the chorus. Listen!” I held the phone up just before my new hero hit the highest high note in “I Will Always Love You” by Whitney Houston.
The crowd lost their damn minds—jumping up and down, throwing their hands in the air, screaming and whistling. The energy was glorious. I got high just being near it.
“Did you hear that?” I screamed.
“Yeah, that was amazing. Did you say that was a guy?”
The crowd was still deafening, so I ran outside to finish my conversation.
“Yes! And he looks like Cedric the Entertainer!” I cackled. “You guys have to come here when you’re done! We have a table in the back.”
“Okay. We’ve been done for, like, half an hour, but Trip won’t stop flirting with the DJ. He thinks he can sweet-talk her into giving us air time, but he’s probably just gonna get us banned.”
I laughed. “Good luck with that.”
“I’ll be there as soon as I can, okay? I miss you. I’m glad you have somebody to hang out with this time though.”
“Yeah, me too.” I smiled into the phone. “Oh shit! I hear Tupac. Gotta go! Love you. Bye!”
Hans chuckled. “Love you too, baby. Bye.”
As I walked back into the restaurant, I patted myself on the back for my maturity. Look at me. Came to an out-of-town show and didn’t even get jealous or pouty or wasted or lost or anything. I’m basically a full-grown, mature adult at this point. Somebody, get me a drink and a mortgage and register my ass to vote. I have arrived.
When I got back to my seat, I was pleasantly surprised to see that the drink part of my adult wish list had already been fulfilled. A tall glass filled with smoky-gray liquid sat untouched in front of me on the table. Juliet was sipping on an identical one across from me.
“Who are these from?” I asked, eyeing the murky beverage suspiciously.
“Those guys.” Juliet cast her eyes sideways to a high-top about ten feet away with a group of six dudes sitting at it.
Two of them were watching us.
“Ah, man. Great. Now they’re gonna expect us to suck their dicks.”
“Pssh. Whatever. I got us free drinks, didn’t I?” Juliet rolled her eyes and took another long pull from her big, haunted-looking drink.
“What the hell is this?” I stirred the gray matter with my straw, praying I wasn’t going to find a finger or a toe floating in it.
“It’s called Fuck Me in the Graveyard.”
“How romantic.” I took a sip and was pleasantly surprised. It was strong as hell but had a fruity aftertaste. Like maybe pineapple? Or grapefruit? Or cranberry? Or all of the above? Whatever it was, it hit my empty stomach and bounced right back up into my brain, telling me things like, You should get up there and sing. No, you’re a terrible singer. You should get up there and rap.
“I think I’m gonna go put my name in,” I slurred ten minutes later over my almost-empty drink.
“What? Here? What are you gonna sing?”
I shook my head. “Not sing. Rap.”
“Oh, Jesus Christ. What are you gonna rap?” Juliet started laughing before she even got the word rap all the way out.
“The ‘Thong Song,’ of course. I know all the words. Craig and I have a whole choreographed dance to it.” I gasped. “Oh no, Craig’s not here. Do you know how to twerk?”
Juliet snorted so hard, Fuck Me in the Graveyard came out of her nose. “I am a mother. I do not twerk.”
“Okay, bitch. Have it your way. More glory for me.”
I got up and stumbled over to the DJ booth where there was a huge binder filled with songs. After mustering all the concentration left in my inebriated frontal lobes, I found the “Thong Song” and scrawled the number next to it down on a tiny piece of paper, using one of the equally tiny golf pencils provided.
As I walked behind the table of guys who’d paid for the drink that got me drunk enough to consider doing karaoke, one of them turned in his barstool and clotheslined me with a thick arm around my waist. He was a skinny white dude with a shaved head, who was wearing a wifebeater and about three gold chains. When he smiled, he had a gold tooth to match.
“Where you goin’ so fast, Smalls?”
“Uh, I’m just goin’ to sit with my friend.”
“Y’all like them drinks?” His lips were thin, and they disappeared when he smiled.
“Yeah. Thanks. That was, uh, really nice.” I stuck my thumbnail between my teeth, absentmindedly adopting Hans’s nervous habit, and looked over at Juliet with pleading eyes.
“Is that a weddin’ ring?” Slim Shady asked.
I looked at the black diamonds circling my ring finger and beamed in relief. “Yep!” I chirped. Donning a thicker version of my subtle Southern accent, I added, “My boyfriend done knocked me up, so my daddy said we had to git married, ‘for I started showin’. Just did it at the courthouse last week.”
That did the trick. Slim’s face fell, as did his arm from around my waist. “Uh, congratulations?”
“Thanks!” I grinned, turning to scamper off.
I’d only gotten about three feet away before Slim called after me, “Hey, if you’re pregnant, how come you’re drinkin’?”
Shit. Uh…
I spun around, fake smile back in place, and swatted at him playfully. “Oh hush, you. It was only one! My mama said she drank while she was pregnant with me, and I turned out just fine!”
When I turned around and headed back toward our table, I let my mask slide off, revealing the death stare Juliet deserved.
“Well, he seemed friendly,” she said, biting her bottom lip to keep from laughing.
“I hate you.”
“You didn’t hate that free drink.”
“I hate that I smell like Michael Jordan cologne now.”
“Brooke Bradley to the stage. Brooke Bradley to the stage.”
“Fuck, that was fast!” I downed the rest of my drink and the rest of Juliet’s too, shook out my arms, and said, “Wish me luck!”
I bounced up to the stage on my toes like a boxer who’d just been called into the ring, already feeling that last injection of alcohol. Luckily, I was born with about eighty-seven percent fewer inhibitions than most humans, but the science beaker of alcohols I’d just poured into my body got me all the way to one hundred.
The folks in the crowd were clearly confused about what a ninety-five-pound white girl with a punk haircut wearing a David Bowie tank top was doing on their stage, but I didn’t worry about them. As soon as that cheesy violin intro started, they all disappeared. I was operating on blissful, beautiful muscle memory as I stepped to the right on the first line, slid to the left on the second line, turned around and shook my ass—the only place that jiggled on my whole body—on the third line, and looked over my shoulder to rap the fourth line with a wink.
The crowd died laughing, and the girls stood up and shook their asses with me during the chorus. I pointed at a few pro twerkers in the audience and motioned for them to come up onstage. By the second chorus, I had a whole army of booty-shaking fly girls behind me, and by the third chorus, I managed to get the big guy who’d sung the Whitney Houston song onstage. His face turned bright red as we freak-danced all over him. One girl even took his suit jacket off and threw it out into the crowd.
My heart was racing and I was panting and laughing and forgetting the lyrics by the last verse, but nobody ca
red. It was the most fun I’d ever had in my life.
As I climbed back off the stage, my knees shaky from the adrenaline and my mouth numb from all the smiling and rapping, I looked to our table, ready to make an Oh my God! face at Juliet, but she wasn’t even watching me. She had her back to the stage and was yelling at two of the guys from the douche-bag table who must have come over to hit on her again while I was gone.
I was about halfway to the table when I saw Juliet shove one of them in the chest.
Oh fuck.
I broke into a sprint and was almost to the table when Prince Charming picked up a very full, very gray drink off the table—I assume a gift for Juliet—and dumped the entire thing over her head.
What happened next is still a blur. All I know is that I heard two hits—and felt one.
When I came to, I was outside Dougan’s, sitting on the sidewalk with my back against the brick building. I had a splitting fucking headache, and all I wanted to do was slump over on the concrete and go back to sleep.
“BB! Wake up! Wake up, damn it! We gotta go!”
I opened my heavy lids just enough to make out Juliet’s blurry face. Something wet was dripping on my hands. I opened my eyes a little more and saw that it was liquid falling from the ends of Juliet’s braids. She was drenched.
“Get up, damn it. The manager probably called the cops, and we’re underage. Get up!”
“What happened? Where’d those assholes go?”
“I’ll tell you on the way back to the hotel. C’mon.”
Juliet grabbed me by my forearms and hoisted my bony ass off the ground. It felt like somebody was squeezing my skull with both hands, and their thumbs were right between my eyes. When I touched the spot, it exploded in pain.
“Fuck!”
Juliet swatted my hand away as she dragged me down the sidewalk. “Don’t touch it. We’ll get you some ice at the motel.”
“What the fuck happened?”
“Those guys showed up with another round of drinks, but I was trying to watch you rap, so I asked them to move. The one with the Wayans brothers high-top fade called me a bitch, so I turned around and told him to fuck off, and then that piece of shit poured a drink on my head!” Juliet’s grip on my arm tightened, but I could feel her hand shaking still. “So I punched him right in the fucking face! Who does that? Who fucking pours a drink on a girl just because she’s not interested?” Her voice faltered like she was on the verge of tears, but I knew she’d suck that shit up. Juliet never cried.