Hey guys, here is a slightly-more-autobiographical-than-usual piece. Please rip it to shreds.
Spoiler:
Summer I was fifteen. We were playing soccer behind St. Joseph's on that big cement pad with the streetlamp. They made into a basketball court later on, but that summer it was perfect for three-on-three, FIFA street style. Me and Corb and James, and Solomon the Jamaican, and then Petr who we invited so his twin sister Tess would come because it was summer and she wore tanktops. She was about as good as her brother, anyways, and she was scrappier.
So that was good until it got too dark to see the ball, and then we had to find something else to do. It was James who said that we should get drunk, said it like it wasn’t even a thing, probably because Solomon had dangled the ball between his legs and Tess had laughed at him. We were sitting on a cracked bench by the long-jump pit, and the idea just sort of swirled around our heads while we peeled our shoes off. Petr and Tess mumbled to each other in Czech, kind of smiling. Corb knew about drinking because he took beers from the back of his fridge after his dad lost count. He was down for it. Solomon looked nervous, because he was always paranoid about police and stuff, and that’s what James wanted, I think, for him to be nervous.
“Vote,” said James. Corb plucked some dry grass, put his hand up. James put his arm up real lazy and looked right at Tess. Solomon made his joke about no, man, can’t get deported, man. The twins looked at each other. Tess went up and Petr went down, like a lever.
“Yo, all on you,” said Corb, putting a piece of grass between his lips, trying to do that whistle thing. “All on you, Willy.”
Solomon gave me this look, and I felt kind of bad because I was the one who invited him, right, because foreign kids are usually good at soccer and he rode my schoolbus, and ducks imprint on whoever invites them to stuff first. He had wicked feet, but Corb was my best friend and James could grow stubble and I thought maybe Tess had smiled at me a few times when we were playing, so I put my hand up.
“William,” Solomon sighed, like he was a saint or something. Petr said something in Czech. James fistbumped me, and I was feeling like I could get into it, now, kind of excited. Maybe I would go to church tomorrow with a hangover, like a real sinner.
Petr threw his jeans over the front of his BMX and pumped off, because I guess he didn’t care if we thought he was a pussy, or maybe he knew we already did. He left their cellphone with Tess, who didn’t have pockets. She slipped it into her sock and everyone looked a little disappointed.
Then we walked up past St. Joseph’s, where the streetlamps were always flickering, and I picked all the little pebbles out of my shoe treads while Corb and James put their heads together, making big plans. It was summer and so it smelled like grass clippings and hot tar. Solomon’s black forehead was shiny, and I thought that was weird, that Jamaicans would be used to worse, but he didn’t seem to mind the sweat either.
Tess slipped up beside me. Petr was disappearing around the end of the block and she was scowling a little.
“Does he have homework or something?” I asked.
“I don’t think he studies,” she said.
“Curfew?”
She looked at me and kind of raised her eyebrows and I thought maybe she had caught me looking at her chest. “Our dad is an asshole,” she said, real casual. She moved the strap of her shirt and my eyes got stuck on her collarbone. I didn’t know what to say back.
Solomon had been wrestling his shoes into one of those little nylon sacks. Now he came up between us. “Can I use your phone, please? Tess.”
Tess fished it out of her sock and handed it over. Solomon put in the wrong area code, then the right one. Corb and James turned on the sidewalk.
“Fucking rights,” said James. “Okay.” He was looking the way he looks before he scores a game-winner, just really intense and I guess honest. “The liquor store by IGA is real close, and it’s fucking sketchy. So Corb thinks we’ll get someone to boot. Who’s got money?”
“I had a sandwich before I left,” said Solomon, cupping the phone up and away. “With the baloney. In the fridge. Yes. No. No, I told you.”
“Are we getting beers?” Tess asked.
Solomon’s eyes went big and then he dashed a little ways up the sidewalk, hand over the speaker. Tess grinned and I grinned a bit, too.
“Uh.” James looked over to Corb. “Don’t know.”
“No,” I said. “It’s too much to lug around, right? We would have to get rid of the cans.”
“Nice,” said Corb, tapping his temple. “Nice wavelength. Yo, let’s get a bottle. Easy to carry.”
“It wasn’t an actual match, mom,” said Solomon from up ahead. “Nobody brought shinguards. I’m sleeping at my friend’s house. His parents are home. Which friend?” He turned around and flashed his eyebrows at me and I nodded. “William. He’s Protestant.”
“Are you?” Tess asked.
“Think so,” I said. Solomon finally cut the phone call and brought it back, holding it like a snake. His face looked sweatier now.
“Cool,” he said, tightening the napsack. “Let’s get hammered.”
“Fucking rights,” James said, because he was saying that a lot. He looked really jacked for it. Corb looked all calm and professional. Tess was smirking, and with her hair sweaty she looked kind of sexy I thought. Solomon was black and he wasn’t a pussy. It was one of those moments you need a soundtrack for, but I still didn’t have cash to buy my brother’s iPod.
The IGA and the Liquor Barn parking lots were divided up by a wirefence, and it would look suspicious having all five of us hanging around the liquor front so we decided two of us would look for a boot and three of us would wait in the IGA.
James took the offering in his hat, throwing in some loonies and quarters to start us off. Solomon had a rumpled ten that was supposed to be for pizza. I had nothing, but Corb threw in a crisp twenty for the both of us without saying anything, which was one reason he was my best friend, and he could afford it anyways because his dad was divorcing again. Tess also had nothing, but James wouldn't mind that.
James stuffed it all into his hoodie and I volunteered to be the other guy, since I know he noticed I didn’t throw any money in. “Too sick,” he said, and we slapped hands. The huddle broke. Corb and Tess and Solomon wandered into IGA, already looking too sly, kind of grinning at nothing.
“That chick,” said James. “What do you think?”
For just a second I thought he meant Tess, but I looked where he was looking and saw this lady on coke, or crack, or whatever. Her tits were saggy and her skin was sunburned. She wasn’t wearing a lot, and I think she was the kind who didn’t wear a lot in cold weather, either. I kind of felt like pissing myself as we walked up. Like, I had stopped sweating from the soccer, but now I was again.
“Excuse me, ma’am.” James got polite like that with people’s moms and I guess anyone over thirty he wanted stuff from. I was glad he could do the talking.
“You want me to buy you smokes?” the lady asked, real dry. She had one between her fingers but it wasn’t lit. Her tongue seemed really long and it was going all over her teeth.
“Uh, some beverages,” James said, kind of grinning. He gave me a look, like to say how crazy this lady looked and how great it was we were actually fucking doing this.
“Sure, sure, sweetie.” The lady eyeballed us a bit. James had that stubble, like I said. “You give me a ride to Hammerhead’s after, I’ll do that for you boys. I’m meeting my friend there. Where’s your car?”
James picked the biggest pick-up in the lot, but this lady was out of it and she didn’t even look suspicious. He gave her the money and then we went to the corner, where there was a convenience store and a laundromat, and we waited there.
“I told her to get a forty of rum,” James said. “Girls like rum, and Solomon’s from Jamaica.”
“I’ve never had it,” I said.
“You’ve had a beer, though, yeah?”
“Dunno. Maybe tried one once.”
“I haven’t,” James said, looking kind of sheepish. “So you know we’re going to book it, right?”
“Fucking rights,” I said, and he laughed at that and I think finally forgave me for skying that penalty kick last season. I told him he should have picked the shitty blue car with the crooked bumper because it looked like something a highschooler would drive.
“Yeah,” he said, but he was still looking at the big truck. The liquor store door opened and the lady came out, pulling at her shorts with one hand and sloshing a bottle around in the other, all wrapped in a brown paper bag.
“Let’s go,” James said. We started walking towards her. I wondered if the guy behind the counter in the store could see through the bars on the window.
“Import rum,” the lady said, way too loud. I stuffed it into my bag as quick as I could. It was heavier than I thought it would be for some reason, and that made it seem
even more valuable. She didn’t have any change for us, but I was kind of counting on that.
James waited till I zipped it up before he took off. He was a striker and he could also beat kids who were really into track and field shit, so he outdid me pretty good and the cigarette lady didn’t have a chance. He was all blur and the bottle was thunking hard in the small of my back, and the lady was sort of laughing but also calling us fuckers. Corb and Solomon and Tess were waiting on the other side of the fence.
James went up it like a monkey, real careful not to can himself on the top, and I heaved the backpack over after him. Solomon snagged it and James swore but I’m pretty sure it was cushioned enough that the bottle wouldn’t have broken anyways. Then I scrambled over the top and down and we all hustled.
It felt like my stomach was all the way in my mouth, but it felt good. The lady was still swearing and we booked it across the IGA parking lot to the crosswalk, and then jaywalked and almost got hit since we were on this roll with breaking the law, and then jogged probably half the block down towards St. Joseph’s again, just laughing and laughing.
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“Nice wavelength,” I told him, and he nodded real solemn. James opened the rum and passed it around for us to see. It was clear and it smelled like fucking motor oil.
“I don’t need it,” James said, when Corb held the pop up. “Actually, wait. Yeah, maybe. Hey, how do you say cheers in Czech?”
Tess shrugged, so James just slugged it back. His face was tan but it got red, the way Corb sunburns, and the orange pop couldn’t get to him quick enough.
“Whoa,” he said, once he wasn’t coughing. Solomon went next, but the level didn’t change much and I think his lips were pretty much shut. Corb sat down cross-legged and had both caps unscrewed, both bottles ready to go, and he did it like a pro.
“Yo,” he said. “Tastes like shit.” He gnashed his teeth together and handed me the rum. It smelled more like nail polish remover now, like this one time my mom spilled it on the carpet. I drank and it burned all the way down, just incinerating my whole airway and my lungs and stuff. I choked. I swished the orange pop in my mouth and tried to unwater my eyes.
“Oh,” said Tess, taking the rum. “Na zdraví.” She nodded and took a pull. She ran her tongue along her teeth and they looked really white in the dark. She barely even needed the pop, and I think me and James and probably Solomon all fell in love. We did the circuit again, and then again, and it was like this ritual, and I wondered when I would get drunk. The hill was a good choice, because we would see any cars coming up to the school, and also the sky was nice.
“That’s good stuff, boy,” Solomon said. “I’m feeling it.”
“No, you aren’t,” said Corb, lying back and putting his hands together behind his head. His shirt tugged up off his white stomach. Tess laughed and flopped down beside him and said he was so pale, but pronounced it so the a was all dragged out and it sounded kind of flirty, maybe. Corb shrugged.
“So are you,” James said to Tess. “Compare.” He set the rum down, because he ended up holding it even though he wasn’t really drinking from it, and pulled his shirt off. Since his shoulders got big and he got muscles on his arms he had not needed much of an excuse, you know? I pulled mine off. Corb laughed and pulled his off. Solomon looked sort of shy, but it didn’t stop him. Tess rolled her eyes and, and I think this was more than any of us had been hoping for, pulled off her tanktop. She was wearing a sports bra, but still.
“I win,” said Solomon.
When everyone’s shirts were back on we went down to the playground and pushed each other on the swings, trying to get James to flip all the way around, and I knew I had to be sort of drunk because it didn’t seem to take any time at all to get from the hill to the sand. Someone wanted to play grounders, so we did that for a while, like in elementary, and then Solomon unzipped his bag and me and him and Corb went to the steadiest streetlamp and juggled his ball. It felt better, for some reason, like each contact with the ball was just a little punchier. James and Tess sat on the swings and their ankles got twisted up in each other.
The bottle was communion and Corb was like a priest, doling it out really solemnly and making us laugh. When a car drove by James took it and put it under his shirt to hide it and said it was him and Tess’ss baby. She laughed really hard at that. We all went back to the hill and lay down. We asked Solomon questions about Jamaica, and he said it really wasn’t that different, well, it was, but it was hard to explain. It must have made him think of his parents because a little while later he slipped away. James was describing how we jumped the fence and how that crazy fucking prostitute chased us, and Corb was nodding and drinking from the bottle even though the orange pop was lost somewhere on the playground, and then we realized that Solomon was wandering off.
“Have to go home, boy,” he called back over his shoulder.
“Fuck, no, no,” we all said. “No, they’ll smell it, you’ll get in shit.”
“Have to,” he said, and he took two steps left and then one right and then straightened out.
“Don’t be a fucking idiot,” Corb called, and he sounded drunk. Solomon waved his hand and hoisted his backpack on his shoulders and started to jog, kind of wobbly, off down the dark street.
“I gave him some gum,” I said. “He’s not really, uh. He’s not really that drunk.”
“You are,” Tess said. “Compare.” Nobody else heard it but I laughed and she sort of smirked.
“There’s beers at my place, my dad’s asleep,” Corb said. He slapped me on the shoulder. “What do you think, Willy boy? Huh? James?”
Right then there wasn’t really anything I wanted more than to keep this whole thing going, this whole magical thing with us five, now four, just being such tight friends and having this sick, sick time. So I said yeah, and James said, and I swear I knew before he said it, fucking rights, and Tess’s nose was ruddy red and she wanted to, too.
“Who taught you to drink?” James asked her, while we all got up.
“Our father,” she said, and I thought, who art in heaven. Then I thought about my father, who was asleep or doing sudokus in bed with my mother, who thought I was sleeping over at Corb’s house, which would probably end up being true.
We went down the street to Corb’s dad’s house, and everything seemed smaller and warmer, like we were in this soap bubble. Everyone was so happy, and I was smiling even though usually I don’t smile so much and in Kindergarten it worried my teacher. We were probably being too loud. Corb skipped behind trees now and again because I think he needed to piss but couldn’t, then came back. Me and James were teasing Tess.
“You’re Slovakian, then,” I told her.
“No. Only Czech.”
“But they’re the same, right?” James asked, pretending to be really bewildered.
“Not the same.”
“So half of you is Czech and the other half is Slovakian,” I said. “Like the country.”
“Countries,” Tess corrected. “You assholes.” She grinned, but she thumped James on the shoulder, not me, and he pinned her hand and made like he was going to fight her. Her shirt pulled up off her stomach, which was whiter than Solomon’s but darker than Corb’s, and he was going to tickle her but then Corb showed up again, wiping his mouth, and we realized the bottle was empty.
“Holy shit,” James laughed. “Corb, you drank all that?”
“Yeah,” Corb said, sounding really proud.
“No,” Tess frowned. “No, you poured some out.”
“Didn’t,” Corb said. He clapped his hands together. “Yo, let’s get those beers!” Corb usually wasn’t loud. He was being loud. When we were nearly to his house, he threw up.
It was orange like Doritos and splattered all up the sidewalk and then into the grass when his head turned. We all jumped back, like whoa, shit, Corb. Corb put his hands on his knees and threw up again, and when he looked up the spaces under his eyes were sweaty.
James put his arm around him and put his forehead up to his and asked if he was okay, even though his breath must have stank real sour. I felt like I should have been the one doing that, and I just stood there with Tess feeling stupid and looking for red and blue cop lights like the vomit might attract them over. It wasn’t much further to his house so I went under his left armpit and James went under the right and we walked him like he had a busted ankle.
“What are we going to do with him?” Tess asked, frowning, and for the first time I didn’t like her much.
“Window,” Corb said, spitting onto the sidewalk.
“Huh?” James said. “Huh? You okay?”
“His window’s always unlocked,” I said. “We’ll go through the window.”
James looked at me, and for the first time he looked sort of scared. “I don’t want to wake his dad up, man. Should we?”
“He’ll sleep it off,” Tess said. “That’s how it works. Sleeping and coffee.”
The lights were all off in Corb’s dad’s house, but there was a big tangled tree in the yard that would have hidden us pretty good anyways. A weeping willow, I think. Corb was starting to cuss, first about his shirt and then about his dad. We all tried to shush him as we stumbled through the overgrown lawn.
“That fucking motherfucker,” Corb was saying. “Can’t believe it. Yo. Will. Can’t believe it.”
“Quiet,” said James. “Just be quiet or you’ll wake him up.”
We snuck to the window-well and I started feeling around for the edge of the window. It slid open real nice but Corb’s room was pitch black and I couldn’t remember if the light-switch was inside the room or just outside it. I hunkered down and put one leg over, then the other. It was colder in the basement level than it was outside, and my shoe stuck on the floor where I spilled a slush two days ago. Corb was still muttering while I felt my way around in the dark. There were some naked wires and some metal bolts and then finally I found the switch. The lightbulb was a greasy kind of yellow.
“Get his legs,” James whispered. I hopped over a stack of DVDs on the floor, which felt more fun than it should have, and went to the window. Corb’s big feet came through with gum on the soles. James grunted and I grunted and Corb started to move.
Tess was crouched outside, supporting Corb’s shoulder, and just as he was halfway in her ankle started glowing and vibrating. The ringtone was loud as fuck.
“Turn it off, Tess,” I said, while Corb started chuckling and so did James.
“I can’t,” she said. “I have to answer.” She was frozen there, with her eyes really wide and her teeth on her bottom lip. The bulge in her sock kept jangling, one of those songs by Metro Station that we all listened to so much last month. She looked like a deer in the headlights, I think, but I’ve never seen a deer in headlights.
Finally it stopped, and all the air went right out of her, relieved. We waited for another second but we didn’t hear Corb’s dad and James didn’t see any lights coming on upstairs. They shoved and I pulled and when Corb toppled in he sort of just fell on me. His face wasn’t just sweaty, he was crying now. He grabbed my shoulder.
“I can’t believe he’s doing it all over again,” Corb choked. “I barely even met her. I hate weddings.” Then to prove it he threw up again, thin and kind of bubbly. He managed to get it right on the rug.
James swung down through the window and Tess came after him. Corb’s long body was all stretched out against the side of his bed. His head was rolled back and his eyelids were kind of shaking. He looked how Pentecostals look praying or how other people look having seizures, maybe.
“This isn’t good,” James said. “Shit. Shit, shit, shit.”
“Make him on his side,” Tess said. She motioned with her finger. “Turn his head so he’s on his side.” We lifted him up and put him on the bed on his side, but he kept rolling over. We propped him with some cushions and then a stool and a backpack and ended up building this kind of jungle gym around his head so if he puked more it wouldn’t drown him.
“Nice,” James said, standing back. I felt sort of proud, too. James left to the bathroom to get paper towels, and Tess went with him, but I didn’t even think about that, really. I put my index finger on Corb’s collarbone, away from the vomit, and just held it there to make sure he was still breathing in and out okay. If anything happened to Corb, I knew I’d feel so bad, but right then I just felt insulated from it, like I was only feeling his breath because that was what I was supposed to do, and nothing bad could possibly happen anyways. That was a crazy feeling, and I think that’s why Corb finished the bottle off.
James and Tess came back in with wet paper towel and Tess started wiping up the floor, then wiping Corb’s face. She looked concerned about it, really particular, like a nurse, and I liked her a lot again. She wadded the paper into balls and tossed them at the garbage. James picked up the ones that overshot and dunked them in.
“That was an adventure,” he said. “Holy shit. That was a time.” He didn’t look that happy when he said it and he didn’t look at Tess and grin like I was expecting. We all just stared at Corb for a long time, with his crusty shirt and his breath whistling out his crusty nose. James started to make this joke about him not holding his liquor, but we all knew he had drank a lot, drank way too much. James and Tess were not looking at each other at all.
I jumped when the cellphone rang again, vibrating in Tess’s hand. She looked down at it and started swearing in Czech, like she was holding a live grenade. For a second I thought she was going to lob it out the window, but she clambered up and out to fall on it instead. I heard her whisper hello.
“Pretty crazy,” I said to James. His eyes were shut, but I don’t think he was that sleepy.
A big grin stretched too tight over his face. “Yeah, man,” he said. “Crazy night. Sick night.” Then he didn’t say anything else, just sat there on the couch with his eyes closed, maybe trying to remember everything that had happened or maybe just trying to fall asleep.
Looking through the window I saw Tess starting to wander down the sidewalk, with the blue glow of the cellphone held up to her head like a halo. She stopped and rubbed one calf against the other. Her shoulders looked crumpled. I looked again at Corb, and said something to James about watching him, and then I went out the window and slid the screen shut behind me.
Tess was coming back across the lawn, holding the phone tight by her hip. Her eyes were screwed up. “Have to go,” she said. “I was just going to tell you.”
“That’s too bad,” I said, because it was the first thing I thought.
“It’s late,” she said. She rubbed her eye.
“I can walk with you,” I said. That was the second thing.
“Yeah, okay. Sure.”
It was really late now, with the only car sounds coming from a ways off and sounding reckless. Nobody was playing music anymore. Everything was just quietly hot. We walked together under the blurry streetlamps and I thought how nice she looked in the light, twisting her shirt with her hands.
“My brother is too good,” she said. “Petr.”
“Mine is alright,” I told her.
“They always like one better,” Tess said.
“Even twins?” I asked.
“Especially.” Tess rubbed her eye again. Maybe she had allergies, but probably not.
I asked her what her dad said and hoped that was an okay thing to ask.
“A lot,” she said. “My mother is fat.”
“Oh.”
“He calls her the big whore,” Tess said. “And he calls me the little whore. I hate him.”
We stopped outside her house, which was all small and slouching with a wicker lawn chair off to one side. The light flicked on and I saw her dad standing in the doorway, big and bristly. He had a beer bottle in his hand. Since it wasn’t a can I wondered if it was some kind of European beer. He looked mad.
Tess looked at him. We were on the driveway. She looked back at me. Then she kissed me, not aimed so great, only half on the mouth. My lips tingled like at the dentist.
“Goodnight,” she said, really nonchalant, and she went to the door with her head up high. Her dad the asshole stared at me frozen there on the driveway. I didn’t want to wave, but I didn’t want to run, so I just stood there until the door shut and the shouting started.
Back in Corb’s room, I had to prod James awake.
“What?” he asked.
“Um. Corb wake up?”
“Nah.”
“Tess went home. Her dad’s pissed.”
“Yeah, probably.” James sat upright. He rubbed his head.
“When you guys went to the bathroom?”
James grinned, and it looked like a wolf, but then the smile dropped and he just shrugged. “No. Just talked about stuff.”
“Oh.”
He collapsed back onto the couch and I collapsed over beside him, feeling heavy everywhere but in my stomach. I had little feet in there, like James and Tess’s imaginary baby. I wanted to ask him big things, like if he believed, I mean really believed, in God. I wanted to call Tess, even if her dad answered.
“Parents are away next weekend,” James mumbled. “They got stuff they never drink in the kitchen closet. Was talking to this one girl and her friend, think they’d be down. You?”
“I’m down,” I said, still thinking about Tess.
“Yo,” said Corb, I think in his dream. James snorted on a laugh. We fell asleep there with our clothes on and everything smelling like vomit.
But that criticism is only valid looking at it from a traditional short story perspective, and I'm not sure that that's the objective here. It makes writing a critique very difficult. So um, yeah.