by Richard Fore
Sabrina looks at me with great surprise, like Bob Cratchit taken aback by the sudden generosity of Ebenezer Scrooge. “I… sure, I’d like that. Very much so. Sorry, I just wasn’t expecting you to ask me that. Especially not like this, just coming in and asking. But yeah, I’d love to.”
I hear the blaring of trumpets in the distance. A triumph should be declared in the Roman Senate and a laurel wreath placed upon my head. Alex gives me a jealous glare. I can’t help but wink at him.
“I’ll see you later, Sabrina,” says Alex. He walks away utterly dejected, like a child finally giving up on beating Ghosts’n Goblins and going to play outside.
“Bye, Alex!” says Sabrina. “See you next time.”
Alex gives her a weak goodbye and leaves. “I didn’t mean to interrupt anything,” I say. Oh, but I did. I really did.
“It’s okay. We were just talkin’ comics. And he’s one of my regulars. He’ll probably be back tomorrow. So, what gave you the courage to finally ask me out?”
I turned rogue. Went evil. Was seduced by the Dark Side. “It just seemed silly to be so afraid of hitting the jackpot.”
Sabrina smiles at me. “So, whatcha have in mind for our date?”
I hadn’t thought about this. I should go with something I know she’ll hate in order to immediately establish a disinterest in her likes while indulging in my own. This will give her something to complain about to her friends, who’ll tell her I sound like a jerk. She’ll agree, but see me again anyway, because of, not in spite of, my jerkiness. I wish I knew her to be a vegan so I could take her to a steakhouse. The sheer contempt I’d be showing for her beliefs would certainly make her want to jump into bed with me.
“Have you seen the new James Bond movie?” I ask. I briefly considered asking her to a sporting event, but I don’t want to be miserable along with her.
“Not yet, but I want to,” says Sabrina. “It came out the same day as the PlayStation 3 and that’s been occupying a lot of me and my family’s time, lately. But I’m definitely a Bond girl, so we could see that.”
Disappointing. I should have asked her to play darts. Jessica always complained about Scott wanting to play darts, either by dragging her there when they’re supposed to be going out as a couple or his forsaking her altogether to go and play with the guys.
“Bond it is then,” I say. “You want to get something to eat, too?”
“Sure, I wouldn’t mind filling up my tummy first. How about we go out for pizza beforehand? You can see me get stuffed from just two slices.”
“Sure,” I say. “What time should I pick you up?” It feels good saying that, to a bona fide genuine date.
“Meet me here at three on Saturday. I get off then, and since I still live with my dad, he insists on meeting my dates before he lets me go out with them. He’ll be here, too.”
“I can handle that. Just tell him I’m a friend of Chris’. He’ll be down with me then.”
“Hmm, I don’t know if that’d be a good thing or not. Well, maybe he’ll think you’re normal compared to Chris. Don’t worry. He won’t be too hard on you.”
I’ve only ever met a girl’s parents once before. It was before going to prom. They seemed to like me. More than my prom date Nicole did, that’s for sure.
“All right,” I say, “I’ll swing by here at three on Saturday.”
“It’s a date,” says Sabrina.
A date. On Saturday. Molly works on Saturday. Can I handle seeing Molly? Of course I can. Molly will see me with Sabrina. See what she’s been missing. She’ll be jealous, maybe enough to reconsider my invitation out. And Sabrina would be jealous of Molly if she saw me interacting with her. Both of them jealous of the other, with me drawing strength from each of them. Perfect.
The Zeta Psi Mu house is large and designed in a gothic style making it look like it’s the dance academy from Suspiria, but the three Greek letters above the front door call to mind the glyphs designating vampire safe houses from Blade. Perhaps it’s a general house of horrors welcoming covens of witches and all manners of the undead. I know that if my true nature were to be discovered, I would immediately be seen as an enemy to be crucified/sacrificed/turned into a familiar slave, however, I’m confident my disguise will hold up to scrutiny and my intended boorish behavior should cast no suspicion.
I’m still wearing the gold chain but have replaced the White Sox jersey for a Nashville Predators one. They are the Predators, after all. On our trip to Sports Authority, Seth recommended going with a hockey team, telling me that while the NHL is still a professional sports league it is not the mainstream juggernaut that is MLB and the NFL, therefore it is less likely for me to be blindsided by a fellow fan hoping to talk hockey.
Cars are parked up and down both sides of the street and many people are socializing at their vehicles and gathered on the front porch and in the yard. Most of them are smoking. “It’s a non-smoking house,” says Seth, who lights a cigarette of his own. “You know, I would have liked living back in the forties when you could smoke in a stadium, a theater, or even a hospital waiting room.”
“I would have thought a sorority house would at least condone if not outright encourage all forms of hedonistic indulgences for its sisters and guests,” I say.
Seth gives me the same look kids used to give me in PE when they realized there was no one else left to pick for their kickball team but me. “Look, no offense, but I don’t think you’re going to make it in there on your own.”
“Nonsense. You’ve guided me here and I appreciate it, but I must travel into the house alone. I must get Richelle into one of the upstairs bedrooms and ravish her on my own, without your help, being aided only by Richelle’s lack of judgment stemming from her voluminous alcohol intake.”
“I thought you were going to introduce me to her friend Briley in payment for services rendered.”
“That was before I realized there’s the strong possibility Richelle may be more into you than she’s into me, and I can’t have that. And Briley already suspects me. There’s no way I can score with her.”
“But it’s different on the inside. You keeping this act up is going to be like navigating stage seven of Double Dragon II with all those goddamn impossible to make jumps. And I want to be there to watch you fall into the pit of spikes.”
“You don’t think I can hook up with Richelle or some other drunken tramp stamped hoe here? It’s not like it’s hard. She’s not coming to this party hoping to meet a guy who’s interested in hearing her read from her poetry book and be her soulmate. She’s just here to get shitfaced and bang whatever guy is acting like the biggest prick.”
“You said she was a math major who was intrigued by the plot of Pi. Just because she likes going to parties doesn’t mean she fits into your misguided stereotypes.”
“Even math geeks need to get laid. And it doesn’t matter how smart she is, she’s still a woman, and that means whether she admits to it or not she wants to get nailed by the alpha asshole. And tonight that’s me.”
“You shouldn’t even be here. You have a date with Sabrina tomorrow.”
“And I’m going to treat her the same way and she’ll keep on putting up with it because she’s a woman and that’s what they do. And I don’t care how geeky Sabrina is, she’s not going to respect me if she finds out I’m a virgin. There’s a difference between cute shyness and creepy celibacy. I need one lay before I go out with Sabrina so sex with her won’t be like me trying for fifteen minutes to get my bent NES RF switch to finally connect to my TV. And Richelle’s going to be drunk enough that she won’t realize I don’t know what I’m doing or even remember it the next morning. So I need this tonight. My future depends on it.”
“I can see this is just going to have to play itself out. So go on in then, I’m gonna chill outside for awhile with the rest of the persecuted smokers and give you some time to locate your prey.”
“Alright, I’m going in.” I walk up the steps and reach for the doorknob. Like Dr. Lo
omis entering the Doyle house, I’m a man on a mission.
The first thing I notice is the crowd. There are a lot of people in here. I need to make my presence known, establish myself as a power player to these sisters and their guests. I silently begin moving through the house while looking for Pink. I walk as menacingly as I can, like the Terminator searching for Sara Connor in the Tech-Noir club. I even shove a puny nerd out of my way to showcase my dominance of the room. I’m surprised he was even admitted (he’s actually wearing a Marvel Comics t-shirt featuring a who’s who of the company’s roster).
I grab a plastic of cup of beer from the kitchen and lean against the stairway. It’s a smart move. It shows I’m too cool, too good, to talk to anyone yet. I don’t see Pink. I consider heading upstairs to where the bedrooms likely are in order to be closer to the zone of fornication, although without a partner yet that isn’t necessary. And I’m sure there’s no after-sex cuddling to hold up the wait for vacant rooms. Bad boys hate cuddling by nature and even if their conquests are sober enough to still harbor some feminine need for it, I know that a woman will ultimately acquiesce to the guy’s refusal to cuddle. I briefly entertain the thought of screwing with my woman on the living room couch in front of everyone ala Conan (alpha of alphas), but my prowess is definitely not on par with Conan the Cimmerian. Where women are concerned, I’ve much more in common with Kull of Atlantis.
Suddenly wary that I may be drawing suspicion by holding an ornamental cup of beer but not actually wanting to down it, I seek out what looks like a bathroom door and knock on it. There’s no answer and a slight twisting of the knob confirms it’s not locked although the light is on. I knock again. No response. I enter the room hoping that if it is occupied I’ll be lucky enough to walk in on a couple in the midst of a hookup rather than a drunk vomiting into the toilet, but the room is empty after all. I pour my beer into the sink and turn on the water. I look into the mirror and don’t see my true reflection staring back at me, and that’s why I know I’m going to succeed tonight.
Leaving the bathroom I head down into the basement. As in my daydream, this is where the beer pong is being played. The table holding the plastic cups appears to be custom-made, featuring the letters Zeta Psi Mu painted onto the table in pink. Such a decorative board suggests I’m in a den of professional pongers, however the women are fully dressed (although they all appear prepared to go wild at the slightest suggestion) and there are no letterman jackets hinting at the worship of an ancient serpent god, so there’s no need to fear the wrath of Set.
A game is in progress and I’m eager to observe in order to learn the rules but notice that Pink is among the spectators. Playing it cool, I act like I don’t notice her, which is why she approaches me.
“Hey,” says Pink. “So I watched Pi. I really liked it. Except about halfway through Briley started asking me what I was doing watching a movie that was in black and white.”
“It’s a good movie,” I say. “I’m glad I’m not as smart as Max though, because if I was, I’d probably go crazy trying to decipher the Voynich Manuscript and have fragments of it written all over my walls.”
Good. I’ve said I’m not that smart. Women like stupid. If some high-minded knight found that his fair maiden had been kidnapped by some stupid ogre, the knight would enter the ogre’s lair only to walk in on the ogre pounding the maiden doggystyle while having the maiden’s full blessing. Then she’d just turn red and tell the knight this isn’t what it looks like.
“What’s the Voynich Manuscript?” asks Pink.
“It’s this manuscript dating from around the 1400s written in an undeciphered, unique language that doesn’t appear in any other known text. And it has a lot of bizarre illustrations, like plants that don’t match any actual known species.”
“That sounds interesting. Maybe it’s a real life cipher that reveals the true name of God. Or it could be the Necronomicon, so you might not want to study it too carefully.”
Pink surprises me. But beneath her façade I know that what she really wants is to be drunk and naked in one of the upstairs bedrooms with me. If she really wanted to talk Aronofsky or Lovecraft we’d be in a coffee house instead of this beer pong bunker.
“Maybe we’d be able to solve it after we’ve had a few drinks. Do you play?” I ask gesturing at the table.
“Absolutely,” says Pink. “Shall we join in?”
“Sure.”
“Clyde and I want to play,” says Pink to the congregation of players.
“You’re gonna have to wait your turn,” says a guy in a blue polo shirt with his back to us. He’s big and tall, like a frost giant.
He turns to face us and I realize he’s actually Dwayne, author of rape fiction. He smiles at me like I’ve just run out of bullets and he has one left. “Never mind,” says Dwayne, “you can play us next.” He laughs. “So what the hell are you doing here, man? Are you here on assignment for sociology class or something? And since when do you like the NHL?”
Dwayne either didn’t hear Pink say Clyde or he doesn’t know what my name really is, which doesn’t surprise me. “I just felt like showing off that I’m better than you outside of the classroom too, Dwayne.” That was way too nerdy of a response, but I couldn’t think of any good one-liners. If only I’d just killed Dwayne in a creative fashion and Pink had set the stage for an eighties action film style pun by asking what happened to Dwayne?
“Fine,” says Dwayne, “if that’s what you want, you can make an ass out of yourself here, too. You and your strangely hot partner can play me and Tracy next.” He returns to watching the game in session.
“Friend of yours?” asks Pink.
“He’s in my story writing class. He’s the kind of guy who when he’s reading aloud you have to correct him every other word and that’s including stuff he wrote himself. He seems to like you, though.”
Pink laughs. “I know the type. My roommate’s boyfriend, for example. Or for that matter, my roommate.”
While Pink is somewhat nerdy herself I’m still a little wary of being called out by Dwayne in front of her. Damage control comes in the form of Seth who is coming down the steps in the company of a girl. I wave at him. Pink seeing me interacting with Seth should help to reassure her that I belong here.
“Hey, Seth,” I say. “This is Richelle. You’re just in time. We’re up next for beer pong.”
“Hi,” he says. “I’m Seth. This is Kayla. Kayla… this is Clyde.”
We exchange greetings. Kayla is raven-haired going against Seth’s usual preference for blondes, and I learn that she and Pink are already friends. It’d be wise to flirt with Kayla in Pink’s presence were Seth not already interested in her.
“May I see you in private for a moment?” asks Seth.
“Of course,” I say. “We’ll be right back.”
Seth leads me into the back corner of the basement. “What the hell are you doing?” he asks.
“What? I’m just playing beer pong. You saw Richelle. You know she’s worth doing. And once she gets wasted she’ll want to go through with it.”
“Is it really wise for you to get hammered for the first time in your life the night before your first date with a girl with real potential?”
“I’m not going to be drinking. Just Richelle. I’m confident enough in my skill set that I won’t have to drink much. I’ll make my shots. It’ll be just like Beggar’s Canyon back home.”
“You don’t even know how the game is played. Were you even watching just now? You don’t avoid drinking if you make your own shots. You make a shot, the guy you’re playing against drinks that cup. If he makes a shot, you drink from the cup. Beer pong champions aren’t celebrated for their sobriety. The goal of a drinking game is for everyone to achieve drunkenness, not avoid it. But you’d already know that if you had ever come to my Super Friends drinking game nights.”
“Nevertheless, I’m here and I’m playing. I can handle myself. Maybe Dwayne isn’t a Hawkeye-level marksman anyway. And a few
drinks might ease off some of the tension when I’m upstairs with Richelle later.”
“Alright, fine, go on ahead and play beer pong. But don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
“What was that about?” asks Pink when I return to her.
“Seth just wanted to warn me that he might be needing our dorm room tonight. I told him he could have it.”
“So he’s your roommate?”
“Yeah,” I say. “I pretty much had to drag him here tonight, though.”
“Time to play,” says Dwayne who slaps me on the back hard.
In position, Dwayne and I stare each other down from opposite ends of the table like gunfighters about to have a fast draw duel. Pink stands at my side, Tracy at Dwayne’s. There are ten cups on either side of the table but only eight get filled by the sorority sisters. Suddenly another sister seems to materialize out of thin air. She is beautiful and blonde, looking like she answered a casting call for a stereotypical snobby sorority girl. Perhaps she is the leader of Zeta Psi Mu. The Arch-Sister.
“House rules,” says the Arch-Sister, “we play with daily doubles. Two shots of everclear per every ten cups per team.” She makes a big show of pouring the everclear into the remaining cups and there’s a lot of cheering coming from the crowd around us. I can only assume that means everclear is either an expensive brand of alcohol rationed out carefully due to its high price or that it’s more potent than regular beer. Bring it on if it’s the latter.
“And remember,” says the Arch-Sister, “one full match per person, because at Zeta Psi Mu we drink responsibly!” In one of the more forced displays of irony I’ve bore witness too, the Arch-Sister proceeds to chug from the bottle to the delight of the spectators. “Let the game begin!” she says.
Because it seems like the right thing to do, I put my hand up for a high five from Pink. She obliges me and I’m reminded that Jessica was fond of high fives, which only increases my zeal for my current mission.
“Ladies first,” says Pink. She tosses a ball and it easily lands into one of the non everclear filled cups. Tracy picks up the cup and empties it, retaliating with a successful shot of her own. Pink drinks from her cup like a professional.