“No,” I said. “We just hang out sometimes. She’s actually pretty cool. And she’s not gay, either.”
“Whatever,” Eddie said as we walked up to the door. Kerry still had his Beware of Dog sign tacked to the door, though his dog Trudy was sweet as pie and came running the second we opened the door, smelling our hands and letting us pet her before dashing off somewhere else.
Eddie was not prepared for Kerry’s house. He looked around nervously, took in the general sad state of things, which mostly looked like a tornado had happened to a Dumpster full of paneling and shitty old-grandma furniture. Structure-wise, it resembled our rambler. Though bigger. Surprisingly, it didn’t smell like pot, as usual, but chocolate. And peppermint. And there weren’t that many people. But it was festive, as promised. There was actual Christmas music playing, not the vomit rock Kerry normally blasted.
As if he hadn’t realized what he was getting into, Eddie pulled out a little pint of vodka from his coat.
“You want some? I don’t have anything to mix with it, though.”
I shook my head. I just wanted to find Neecie. Eddie seemed hypnotized by everything; the camo coats hung up on the rack and the shotgun in its case leaning against the front hall table and the old dudes in the living room watching football. I could tell he was rethinking his pink V-neck sweater.
Passing through the living room and down the hall, we found everyone in the kitchen, Neecie standing beside Kerry and Wendy. Kerry, still wearing his Santa hat, was stirring this gigantic black pot full of hot chocolate, and Wendy was drinking hot cocoa and had a cocoa-mustache and was smiling, and it was all weird.
“Hi Sean!” Neecie said, her face very red. Her Santa hat on the counter beside her. I wondered if Kerry’s witch cauldron was full of Hot 100 too.
“What’s going on?”
“Kerry’s showing us his secret recipe,” Wendy said. “You need to try some.”
“Does it have Hot 100 in it?” I asked.
“Keep your pants on already, we’re not there yet, Sean,” Kerry said. “So, anyway,” he continued to Neecie. “I bust up like six chocolate bars too. This is none of that Swiss Miss bullshit. Then I add some heavy whipping cream. That really makes it thick and good . . .”
“Nice sweaters,” Eddie said to Neecie and Wendy. Probably because he needed some support, clothing-choices-wise.
“Thanks, Eddie!” Neecie said. All happy. She seemed drunk. Or maybe she’d smoked some weed. She just seemed too happy to be here. Wendy looked all cheery too, now that I thought about it. Or maybe she just didn’t laugh that much at work because she was all stressed out and stuff. Both of them were definitely the Non-School Versions of themselves.
Kerry looked at Eddie like he wished he and his pink sweater would die, but he gave us mugs of the cocoa and then let us dose them with the stuff on the counter: Hot 100, Rumple Minze, something with no label that smelled like burnt dirt.
Eddie was sniffing at the no-label bottle when Kerry came over and glugged a bunch in Eddie’s cocoa. “You’ll like it; it’s good stuff. It tastes way better than it smells.”
“What’s it called?” Eddie said, but he drank obediently, like he thought Kerry would get mad otherwise.
“It’s homebrew. It’s from Wisconsin,” Kerry said. “My housemate Shane gets it for me when he goes back home.”
“We should go out back, you guys,” Wendy said. “Shane’s making a fire.”
Even though it was November, and there was snow piled up, the last few days had been weirdly warm. So we all followed Kerry through his shitty house, past the football-watching old guys, past the bathroom where someone was taking a piss with the door open—nice—and went downstairs, past a very sad-looking couch and a weight bench with a cracked vinyl seat and a million-year-old washer and dryer and out to the back, where apparently Kerry spent the bulk of his home decorating energy, because he had made this half-enclosed deck space with a fire pit and chairs and whatever. It was actually pretty nice. Shane, the other housemate, was feeding the fire with twigs and sipping from a bottle of Jack Daniels.
“This is really nice, Kerry,” Wendy said, leaning back in a chair. “You added the little trellis thing, huh?”
Kerry nodded, started talking about how Shane was growing some vines this spring and whatever else, and then Wendy said that Mary Clare wanted to do the same in their backyard and then Kerry asked where Mary Clare was and Wendy said she was at her mother’s house, but her mother didn’t believe in gayness and so they always spent holidays apart.
The chair I was sitting in had a cracked armrest, which snagged on my coat when I leaned over to Neecie, who was sitting between me and Eddie, and asked her how much she’d been drinking.
“Just one cup before you got here,” she said.
“How much booze did you put in it?”
“Why does it matter, Sean?”
“Just curious,” I said.
“You get that hoodie at the Thrift Bin?” Eddie asked Neecie.
“Yes,” she said, all proud. I noticed Eddie talked straight to her face, too. Maybe he instinctively knew this? “Wendy and I both picked them out.”
Wendy looked up from her conversation with Kerry. “Yes, mine’s more a classic bingo lady sweater. Neecie’s is crazy-cat-lady-does-crafts.”
“You get that sweater at the Thrift Bin?” Kerry asked Eddie, pointing too, as if it weren’t clear. Shane, silent until now next to his bottle, laughed, this kind of hughhughgha-sound, like he was an old crappy machine coming unplugged.
“No, Goodwill,” Eddie said right back, no stumbling or anything. Sometimes Eddie got that way. Like, if he answered your questions fast enough, maybe people would forget what they asked? It sometimes worked, actually. “But it was on sale. I was just looking for a record player,” he said to Wendy, as if she’d be insulted that he visited the competition. “You guys didn’t have one.”
“Record players, stereo systems, speakers,” Kerry said. “I don’t take that shit when it comes through the donation door.” He grabbed Shane’s Jack Daniels and glugged some of it into his hot cocoa.
“Bummer,” Eddie said. “Because I would totally buy that shit.” Now Eddie leaned back and propped his feet up on one of the big-ass logs Kerry had lying around the fire pit.
Wendy sat up now, straightened herself. Like she could tell, like me, that there was something going on between Kerry and Eddie. Which was not going to happen, I mean, Christ! Eddie? Eddie was like some dude from Abercrombie & Fitch. Eddie shaved what little body hair he had every season during swimming sectionals. Eddie had no chance with getting riled at Kerry. Kerry probably cut his toenails once a year with a butcher knife or whatever. It made zero sense.
But then Kerry turned to me and said, “Some Marines guy came into the store looking for you the other day.”
“He did?”
“He said he wasn’t there on official business or anything,” Kerry said. “Just knew you worked there and wanted to say hello.”
Wendy blinked at me. “You’re thinking of joining the military, Sean?”
I shrugged. I didn’t want to say it, not now.
“Oh, come on, Sean,” Neecie said, kicking my shoe with her boot. “It’s not just an idea,” she told Wendy.
“I didn’t know that,” Wendy said. “That’s . . . interesting.”
“Interesting, fuck,” Kerry said. “Dumbassed is more like it. Might as well hand over your nuts to the Man and be done with it.”
“Hey, shut the fuck up,” Shane said. “My brother’s a Marine. He’s been out a few years now. Freedom isn’t free, you know, asshole. Somebody’s gotta do it.”
“Do what?” Kerry said. “Buy into the government’s bullshit that we need all this protection? That our economy must keep churning out shitty crap by the ton so I can bale it and toss it in a goddamn Dumpster even though it’s barely used?”
“You’re fucked up, man,” Shane said, swigging some more Jack.
Kerry grabbed th
e bottle from him, swigged himself.
“My brother’s in the Army,” Kerry said. “He went in, just a regular guy. Pretty cool. Came out a total fucking prick. Even his wife can’t stand him. Rigid motherfucker. You really want that? Just so you can go be a fucking hero, Sean? Save some people who don’t even want you around? Go to some shithole and get your arms and legs blown off for no reason?”
I swirled my cocoa around, drank some. It tasted like ass. I wanted to get up and, I don’t know. Something. Punch Kerry? No, leave. Leaving sounded pretty good.
“You know them guys have DNR orders on them if they step on something that blows their nuts off,” Kerry said. “You gonna do that? Get your nuts blown off? Before you barely get a chance to use them?”
“Kerry!” Wendy said, like she was his mom. Or my mom.
“Well, it’s true,” Kerry said. “I heard a whole story about it on the radio.”
“They pretty much kill everyone they want dead with them drones now anyway,” Shane said. “It’s all different now.”
“Someone has to control those drones, though,” Wendy said. “It’s not like they fly themselves.”
“Sometimes fighting’s just unavoidable,” Neecie added. “It sucks, but it’s unavoidable.”
“You’re fucking romantic about this shit,” Kerry said to Neecie. “They let women on the front lines now; wait till some of them come home all shot-up and one-legged. Then see how you chicks feel.”
That Kerry would sweet-talk Neecie earlier, and now be such an asshole to her made me want to clobber him. I clenched a fist, then unclenched it. Pulled the snagged thread from the sleeve of my coat. Clenched a fist again. Wished I wasn’t such a pussy, that I’d not think twice about punching Eddie but had to rein it in when it came to Kerry.
But Neecie barely shrugged. Didn’t say a word. I wondered how she did it. Was it a matter of not hearing?
“Quit jacking my Jack,” Shane said to Kerry, who was adding more to his cocoa. “Drink that pussy juice you got up in the kitchen since you love it so bad.”
Then Neecie laughed. And then Shane looked at her, and he laughed, too, and the look on his face was surprised. Happy, too. Like he was thinking, Damn, right! You know what: I AM funny. And you’re a cute girl. Ha! I’m just noticing these things.
I thought Neecie would be creeped out. Shane was a million years older and was wearing this ancient thermal shirt and no jacket and his chest hair poked up around his neck and he had long hair and a stupid goatee. Shane looked like someone who would only get laid if he paid a woman to do it. Neecie looked like a little piece of candy he’d like to slurp up. It made me really tense. And kind of sick, thinking about how she didn’t even see this.
But then Neecie stood up. “I’ll refill yours, Kerry,” she said, grabbing for his mug. Like he hadn’t just yelled at her like a cockface. Like she was all cozy and at home in his shitty house now. Kerry smiled and thanked her, and Shane looked at her ass the whole time, but Wendy didn’t notice because her phone rang, and Kerry asked about whether we’d been hunting, and I had to tell him about the three deer I’d shot, and he couldn’t believe it. I’d just started explaining everything, because it actually was a good story, and Eddie jumped in, too, which made Kerry irritated, I could tell, when I saw Shane follow Neecie, holding open the door for her, both of them going inside together.
I wanted Wendy to do something, but she was on her phone, standing up and talking a few feet away, and Kerry was adding wood to the fire and Eddie was talking about field-dressing stuff, like he wanted Kerry to be impressed. I felt like punching someone again. And leaving. I stood up, like to stretch, but if I couldn’t take on Kerry, there was no way I could pretend to handle Shane. Shane was way too big. Just—a really big guy. I was tall, but I didn’t have a chance. I grabbed the log Eddie’s feet were on and added it to the fire, which pissed off Eddie and made Kerry bitch about how I’d added a log when we clearly didn’t need one, so he had to get up and stir everything around until it was just right. Then I couldn’t sit down. Just stood there. Looked at the dark backyard, listened to the sound of traffic from the highway in the distance. Cracked the two knuckles on my left hand that always cracked the loudest and best. I wondered if Neecie was scared. I wondered about the rest of the guys in the house. I moved toward the basement door.
Eddie asked, “Where are you going?” all panicked, like I was ditching him, which I was, but Jesus. That would teach him to think before he put on a pink sweater again.
“Be right back,” I said.
I ran the shitty basement and then back up through the living room, down the hallway. The bathroom door was shut now, at least. And no one was in the kitchen. Though there was a hallway off it that led to somewhere and I could hear people talking and I didn’t pause for a second to look.
It was Shane’s bedroom, and there was Neecie, sitting cross-legged on Shane’s bed, wearing a giant pair of headphones. The expensive kind that asshole kids went around wearing between classes in the hallways, like they were actual deejays and couldn’t live one second without music.
She waved at me, Shane behind her on a chair, staring at me. I realized I had nothing to say. No reason to be standing there.
“I’m listening to this band Shane likes,” Neecie said, talking in that loud way people do when they are wearing headphones. “What’s up? You leaving?” She pulled off the headphones, and they messed up her hair.
“No,” I said.
“Okay,” she said, looking at me funny.
Shane lit a cigarette, blew the smoke toward me. It reeked, and I couldn’t imagine smoking in the same room you slept in.
Neecie stood up, set the headphones on Shane’s bed. “Should we get another drink?”
Shane said, “I’m good. I don’t drink that cocoa shit.” But he was behind her and she couldn’t see his face and so I nodded, said yes.
It was awkward, but only for me, because Neecie breezed out and then we were in the kitchen and there were Kerry and Wendy and Eddie.
“Took you long enough to bring my drink back,” Kerry said, touching Neecie’s back in a way that creeped me out. But she just smiled and said she forgot and hopped up to sit on the counter and started scrolling through stuff on her phone.
Kerry ladled more cocoa into mugs and filled them with Hot 100 and Rumple Minze and passed them around. Wendy opened a cupboard and took out a package of cookies and passed some to Eddie, who shook his head. I wondered if Kerry had smoked her out. I wondered if her wife knew she was doing this, hanging out at this gross coworker’s party. It seemed like it was beneath her, to be around kids like us.
Shane came back into the room, still smoking. He ashed into the sink, stood beside Neecie, who looked up from her texting to talk to him. I wished I could hear them, but Kerry had turned on his shitty seventies rock so I knew it’d be hard enough for her to communicate with Shane face to face. I slammed back my cocoa, then. Feeling annoyed and pissed off. For no reason. Eddie nudged me.
“Is she gonna get with that guy or something?” he asked.
“Dunno.”
“He’s like, way older.”
“I know.” I drank some more, and Kerry and Wendy came over.
“You guys want to smoke out?” Kerry asked.
Eddie’s eyes got wide. “Sure.”
“It better be that mellow shit, Kerry,” Wendy said, biting into a cookie. “I have to work tomorrow.”
“It’s mellow shit. You’ve smoked this stuff before.”
I was shocked about Wendy. You had to be piss-tested to use the baler and probably the forklift, too. Did Kerry have someone else pee in the cup for him? Maybe Wendy did it for him? I was starting to feel like everyone had weird secret relationships now. It made me feel paranoid as hell.
Of course, it wasn’t mellow shit; Kerry never had mellow shit and I knew it, but five minutes later, I was with everyone all circled up and claustrophobic in Kerry’s bedroom, smoking out of Kerry’s little red glass bong.
“I’m good,” I said after two passes, knowing I’d be destroyed with another.
Eddie was coughing his head off, and Wendy was laughing at something Kerry said, but they passed it around some more and then I just knew that Eddie was going to be a total disaster. Wendy and Kerry seemed totally normal, which was something I never understood, how people could smoke pot and not act high. It seemed like a superpower. Or a waste.
After that, though, as if by magic, or marijuana, the party got fun. Some girls showed up—adult women, really, Kerry and Wendy’s age—and that seemed to make everything less grim and shitty and just kind of loose. Having girls around always makes any party better. Kerry hugged and kissed a bunch of them hello, which was weirder still. One of them hung off him, too, which was strange, but her name was Brianne or Brianna or Deanna or something, and she was teasing him and he was laughing and suddenly, everything was fun, all mixed up and loud and people down by the bonfire talking and smoking and someone playing Christmas carols again and Neecie and Wendy were laughing their heads off, wearing Santa hats, and it was all good.
Kerry introduced Brianne/Brianna/Deanna to me and Eddie, and she was funny; she had this tattoo of a fish that was saying, “I’m hooked!” and it didn’t make any sense but she was telling us the story of how she got it and I wondered if she and Kerry were fucking and figured they were. Or had. Or might yet tonight. And somehow that didn’t make me depressed or anything, just kind of, like, all right. Resigned. Everything going along, nothing stopping, sometimes you were up, sometimes you were down, nothing you could do but just roll along and accept it. I knew this was the pot, of course, but it also seemed true, down-to-my-balls True, and I wished I could call Hallie and tell her this, with my mouth, though, not in a text, because I couldn’t explain it in short sentences. I’d need to talk it all out.
I went inside, then, to do it. Call her. Just tell her that it was okay, and we didn’t even need to hook up again, and it wasn’t because we had, either, and I could take back my whole I love you thing because I understood her now, what she had meant that night before she left in the weird un-breakup breakup we had, how there was possibility and it was all so good and we shouldn’t stop, we shouldn’t rule it out, we should just follow our ideas, and plus, that was how I knew the Marines would be good for me, it was my thing, it was where I was supposed to be, where I would fit. Because it felt right, no matter what people said, it felt like the story I would tell about myself, I would be like Shane’s brother or Kerry’s brother, but not a prick; I would be in the Marines, I would know things, I would go there and then I’d come back and still be me, but better, because that was how life worked, if you just fucking let it. I would tell Hallie this and she would say something good and then I’d tell my mom, too, and she’d get it and then it’d be okay and I was leaving and never coming back but maybe I would come back, after a while, eventually, and everyone would see, then, how it was okay, how I’d done it, and you just never know what a person can do with their life and themselves, really, which was fine because everything, all of it, was fine. Good.
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