This happens everytime my parents go out of town to ferry my sisters to music camp out of state. The minute they wheel out of the parking lot my friends shows up with a Keg of beer and everyone starts drinking and blasting music and getting naked and smoking cigarettes in the house. I told jana she can come over and crash for a couple of days and we can pretend to play house.
When she arrives in the house she asks if she can talk to me alone. I hand her a beer and she refuses and tells me that I disgust her.
I tell her that I am twenty years old, surrounded by everyone I love, and am immortal.
We are drinking. Jana comes
back adamant and pissed and informs Hale and Randall and Dan and Patrick and
Brook as a whole that, excuse me, they will all have to leave as a collective
functioning group because, “we” in quotation marks had plans. I pull Jana
aside. I apologize to her. I state that I had no clue all my friends were
showing up like this. I tell her that my parents just left. I tell her that the
only person I told that my parents were going out of town was Hale so he must
have promulgated the news of the pending fete. Jana makes it a point of
publicly clearing her throat and reminding me that yeah, Hale still owes me
money from all the porn you guys charged to my credit card that one night.
***
Jana leaves again. I grab
another Old Milwaukee from the fridge and imbibe. In my room there is nothing
but books and pictures of writers. I look around and notice a tendril of smoke
emanating from the wink of my closet door.
It is Patrick’s girlfriend
Jenny.
Jenny is three months
pregnant. She probably should not be smoking.
“Why are you hiding in my
closet.” I ask, a lil’ tanked.
“Smoking.” She says,
laughing. “Everyone else is drinking but I still allow myself one per day.”
I look down. She begins to
laugh uncontrollably. I look back at her and ask her what?
“Patrick probably doesn’t
want me to tell you this but here goes.” Jenny adds, a crooked pretzel smile
falling off from the front of her face.
“What.” I ask.
“Well, you know how I told
you that I was bi-sexual and that we were hoping to get that one girl from
Lums, the cute busser who dyed her hair purple to join us for a three some to
add a little spice to our relationship.”
I nod my head. Even with her
hair chopped short above the pale-cracker color of her forehead Jenny’s face
still looks like the perfect caricature of a methed out Raggedy anne doll.
“Well,” Jenny says, beating
around before telling me to shhh.
“What?”
Jenny tells me that she is
not here as she closes the inside of the closet door. Drunk Dan stumbles in the
room, informing me that Jana just called and said she would return shortly and
that Allan is breaking into my sisters closet and trying on one of her dresses.
I bat him away with the back of my sliced palm. He then asks me what I am doing
alone in my room up here. I tell him that I am looking for condoms and that I
am thinking. He says the vowel o, very outdrawn before turning around and
heading towards the stairs.
Slowly Jenny pushes the
bottom hemisphere of the closet open again so that I see just the crescent moon
of her smile
“Is he gone?” She asks. I
nod.
“Anyway,” Jenny continues,
almost laughing, “Don’t tell Patrick I told you thin, but we were bored in bed
last week and Patrick started talking about how much he wished we would have
hooked up with that girl from Lums cause he really in a way wanted to get a
piece of that.”
I nod.
“And then I told him that
that wasn’t fair since if, it was a guy who was partaking with you a three-some
venture he would want nothing to do with it.”
There is more rustle and
clatter downstairs. It sounds like one of the boys is standing on the dining
room table wearing heels trying to riverdance.
“Then Patrick said
explicitly that he wouldn’t mind if I fucked someone else—on two conditions:
that he knew who they were and that he could watch.”
The words what almost escape
my throat. A circulating tightness begins stir in the southern continent of my
anatomy. As soon as I say her name out loud Jenny apologizes and says shes
sorry she’s pregnant and horny but not really. She smiles again.
“So when everyone leaves tonight
I’ll ask Pat again if its alright and if you want to you can fuck me in front
of him—I mean, if your girl friend doesn’t show up or even if she does.”
I look at Jenny. She is
smiling again, laughing. She looks like a ventriloquist doll of old, coddled in
the bottom of the closet. Jenny says that she would have asked me sooner but
that she realized things were crazy between yourself and Jana plus with Megan
and everything the last month.
I nod.
There is more racket
downstairs. I look at Jenny again and notice how she is smiling an almost
conniving grin. I notice where her jeans and waist meet I can see the petite
saltine top of her hips.
Her navel seems to be
winking at me.
“I have to go,” I say,
smiling, inferring that I need to check on the demolishing spawning a mere ten
feet from our plotting.
“One more thing,” Jenny
adds. “If Patrick can say yes to it one more and we have to do it missionary.
If you lift my legs behind my ears or fuck me doggy style it may cause
irreparable damage to the fetus.”
I tell her ok as I walk out
the door.
***
Downstairs the youthful
supplicants of Bacchus are passing around a cubed gallon of box wine, taking
long slurps, passing it counter-clockwise. Allan is still on the table, doing
some sort of an inebriated burlesque jiggle. Jackie is yelling at him to take
it off. I grab a Guinness, sit down next to Brooks little Britney who is
smoking.
“Do you why handjobs are
better than blowjobs.” I for some reason have the gall to inquire to this
precocious freshman. Brittney looks back at me shrugs and smile.
“Because they don’t explode
in your mouth.” I say, as I open the Guinness, press it too my lips, suds and
of thick Irish foam splatter in every which way direction but.
“Shit,” Brook adds, ordering
Brittney to the bathroom fast to wash her shirt off stating that it will be her
ass if she takes her youngest sibling home reeking of alcohol. Dustin laughs
From behind me I can hear a soused Patrick inquire if anyone has seen the
future mother of his child.
The music continues to blare
at a level that is head banging modest but would fail to alert authorities at
this time of day. CD’s culled from Patrick’s MUSIC
MY PARENTS HATE cd visor, consisting mainly of Metallica and Pearl
Jam. I finish the foam of my Guinness and pound two more quick Milwaukee’s
Best. Dan is referencing Heidegger Daisen and Allan is down to what appears to
be a slip. My vision begins to form cubist slants as I reach into my back
pocket and tie a doo-rag in the fashion of my mentor. I am wearing knee length
blue corduroy shorts, the baggy sweaters that seem to be my trade mark, the
purple Doc Martens I bought in Munich that Kristine Rock spilled a yolk on two
summers past. I am wearing all this and Eddie vedder is keening out the anachronistic
anthems of yellow ledbeder, making no sense, and I am looking for Brooke.
Needing to find Brooksie number one. Needing to find Brook who was with me the
first time I kissed Margot Willard. Brook who is the little sister I can talk
about sex with. Brook who is close with my best friend Hale. Brook who always
teases me, lifting up her top, showcasing what kind of bra she is wearing. Brook
who told me that she and Dustin shaved their pubic hairs once for each other
and then asked if that turned me on. Brook who sent me a letter after we were
all alone in my bedroom cuddling last Fall, around the time of my first
anniversary of Appleton and I asked her if she would like to fuck. Brook who I
apologized to profusely. Brook who stopped by my house and gave me a letter and
then dissipated. Brook who then appeared like a seraphim, like a runway diva,
strutting herself down the center of the bookstore where I work, a smile on my
face. Brook accepted my embrace and my apology as she apologized herself. In my
drunken stupor I realize that I need to find Brook. I need to find the little
sibling I can talk about sex and the human heart with. I need to find her and
tell her one thing—that I miss Megan.
***
The more I drink the more poetic I continue to
become.
***
“Brook!!!” I tell her as I
storm into the bathroom saying her name in a very hallelujah we’re not pregnant
sort of fashion. Brook is daubing off part of her sister Britney’s shirt.
Britney is seated on top of the toilet with the top down and her pants on.
“Brook!!” I yelp again. It’s
all so fucking clear to me when I’m drunk. I wish I could fucking be smashed
all the time. I’m in love with her.”
Britney makes a snide
comment if I’m alluding to the girl with the floatation device for an ass. She
then adds in a very Jenane Garafolo sort of way that I should really consider
looking for the valve on that thing and maybe deflate it by use of Atkins diet.
“Is your troop selling
cookies this year?” I retort.
Brook tells me that she’s
glad I’m in love with Jana but that personally, speaking on behalf of the
nucleus of the entire group, she for one is getting sick of all of her
bullshit.
“No,” I say, “Not Jana.
Megan.”
Brittney lolls her eyes up
to the ceiling and says go figure. I ask Brittney is she can tell me what the
lower case first letter of the alphabet has in common with the size of her bra.
She stutters into unintelligible silence.
“I love Megan, Brooke. I
always have. For two years. I love the whisper and resonance of her voice as it
touches me across the phone like a fleck of ocean water as you walk across the
shoreline. I love the snugness of her smile. I love how we share the same
heart. I love how I can feel her, really feel her when I drive way the fuck out
in the country, smoke cigarettes, stare and the sunset and listen to Counting
Crows.
Brook smiles in the way that
only Brooksie number one can. Brittany makes an off-key remark stating what
about Jana, before she says the names Margot, Brooksie number two and someone
else I have never before heard of. I ignore her and continue on with the
drooling antics of my heart.
“I love how she wanted to
have a family with me. I love how she likes my poems. I love how close we wants
were.”
Brittany rolls her eyes once
again. I get down on one knee as if I a proposal is pending..
“I love how she is
everything I have ever wanted in a human being, In a person. In a woman. In a
creature. In a spirit. In a soul.”
I continue to squeeze Brooks
hand in the fashion of a moribund grandmother on a deathbed.
“I love,” I state again
looking into the twin pools of Brook’s eyes,
“ I love how after all this
time she somehow came back to me.”
***
“So what are you gonna do
Romeo?” Brtinney asks me. From outside the linoleum cloud of the bathroom I
hear Hale state that if I need a delegate from the group to volunteer and
impart to Jana the sad news he’d be more than happy to be a jolly delegate. I
am drunk. I take my shirt off.”
“Come on Brook, “ I say,
handcuffing her by the wrist in one hand, picking open another BEAST and
popping it open in the other.
“Let’s Dance.”
We flail our limbs like
inebriated muppets in the Living Room. The music is loud and clangy, something
Techno with a sinister shade of Goth that Dan just so happens to be in charge
of. Midway through the song I stumble into the dining room, open up the lip
dresser stagnant as Penelope’s mattress fingering for a marker. As I hand Brook
the blue sharpie I say the word Here.
“What?” Brook asks,
nonplussed.
I try to repeat my warbled
drool again.
“I want you to write her
name on my body. I’m too drunk to do it myself.”
I lie down my back on the
carpet completely buzzed. Brook squats down and begins to scribe out the name
of my beloved in thick block capital letters on my lower abdomen with as much
facility and grace as little kid writing her name in the sand.
From nearby photos are
snapped. I can hear Brittney state that I sure am in deep shit when sober up
and superbitch finds the name of her chaotic kryptonite scattered on my chest.
“I need to find her.” I say,
“I need to be with her, I need to win her back.”
My shirt is still off. The
area code and digits seem to drip out of my fingertips as I pummel the number,
hearing what sounds like the collective chorus of angels echoing in dome of my
right ear with each bleep. There is music and booze in my parents’ house and a
warbled purr picks up on the other end of the line.
“Hi Annie.” I say, “This is
David. I need to talk with Megan. It is very significant, please. Just put her
on.”
***
“David, I love you so
fucking much.”
***
“You don’t understand,”
Renae notes, in late the second week of 1993 on the phone, in my parents’
bedroom. “I wished death on you.”
***
I am trying to confess with
Megan how very sorry I am. I commiserate with her that I am a douchebag. She sounds
fairly reminiscent of Jana when she said that she cried straight for a week and
lost ten pounds from not eating. She says that her roommates thought she was anorexic
and that she was crying so much she had to enroll in counseling that the
university. I continue to pound out apologies. I tell her to look at the poems
I sent her. I tell her that I was in a very serious relationship when she came
back in my life and that I was sorry it took me a while to break things off
with Jana. I tell her that I am drunk and that I wrote her name on my body and
that I love her so much. I begin to tell her how I can still feel the encore of
her lips on my bottom lips the last time we embraced on the corner of Clark and
Adams and how it felt like I had everything I had ever needed in this lifetime and
in lifetimes to come seated to my imminent left at the Schubert exactly three
weeks ago when she tells me hush.
“You don’t have to say
anymore. I love you David. I still want to be with you.”
***
I want to be with you, wait
I say. Calling out Hale’s name, claiming that he is not working this week
anyway. Telling him like I did in Chicago a month ago after we deposited the
cushions of Jana’s ass off at midway airport.
“Anyone up for a roadtrip?”
I ask
***
We can pack the beer and the
smokes and make a thermos of coffee. If we leave now we can be in Decoarh
between 9:30 or ten. I tell them all is welcome. Everyone is nodding their
heads like plastic ducks in a carnival kiddie pool. I paint visions of a scenic
Kerouac infused drives into the bleating lashes of the setting sun. I am on the
phone promising Megan that I am practically en route to visit her, her name
branded in blue marker across my body. The fete is continuing to get out of
control. Someone says drink up, we’re about ready to go on a road trip. Allan
is now down to his boxers and someone has the gall to ask if he is wearing
panties underneath. Brook is looking at me with a look of promise sewn into her
porcelain countenance, looking at me as if finally in the tattered dregs and
discourse which constitutes my love life I am about ready to do the right
thing. Pitzer rattles the box of wine like a child contemplating the inside of
a Christmas gift and declares that he has half a box left. The house is fraught
with thick tufts of cigarette and cigar smoke. Inside the skydome of my sizzled
cerebellum I calculate that I have just enough time to drive over to Decorah,
spend two romantically-seething days with my beloved before coming back home
and heavily lysoling the house before my parents arrive back from Michigan.
“I want to eat you,” I tell
Megan. From behind me a semi-soused Hale offers out a pun declaring I not eat
the yellow Snow.”
“I want every thatch of my
body in your body, I want to enter your body the way the wet slop of a
dwindling winter creeps into the vernal welcome matt of spring.”
From the wide eye periphery
of my stuttering vision I see the front door swing open. Brooksie number one
seems like she is madly trying to signal some code. I continue on with my
drunken soliloquy.
“I want to open your body
the way an angel spreads open the trajectory of her wings. I want my lips to
touch your bare back like the sun drips slowly in the nourishment of the
earth.”
“David!!!” Brook yells out,
tossing me a shirt in an almost Frisbee like fashion. Smoke still mainly
occludes my vision of the interior of the living room. Still, even in my
inebriated state I can make out Jana, my purported girlfriend, offended by what
she considers to be the noisome flavor of tobacco, waving her hand in front of
her face like someone just farted as she enters near to me.
“Shit,” I say into the
phone, before hammering it down like a gavel of truth.
***
“David,” Megan says to me on
the phone, “If you come bring protection.”
***
Jana takes a look at
Brittney and asks if I’m into buying beer for fourth graders now. Brook
interrupts her sister just as she begins to tell Jana to look at how many
alcoholic proofs are labeled in love on his chest. Jana then demands to know
who I am talking to on the phone. “My parents,” I say, fabricating. “I need to
call them back immediately too.”
“You called your parents
with all this fracas ensuing in the background?’
I nod and say yes, giving
Brook a look that signals, “Stall her.” From somewhere near the french door
someone makes an uncouth comment about looking for a reliable floatation device
just in case they ever happen to be in a plane wreck outside of Geisert.
Taking three steps at a time
I mount the stairwell and dash into my bedroom. The moment I get into my room I
immediately dial her numbers once again. I tell her how Jana is down stairs and
she is being stalled. I efface the poetic frills and convey to Megan how badly
I want to pour my entire body into her. How Bad I want to fuck her. How bad I
want to consummate the marriage of our hearts that was formed three years ago
when we met and cemented over the past six weeks.
“I just want to fuck you.” I
tell Megan. “I just want to fuck you so bad.”
Megan’s voice is the sound
of the sun
I love you so much. I can be
there in three hours, I say again as I see the natural perm of Jana’s hair inch
herself into my bedroom by way of elongated silhouette.
“I love you so much,” I say
again, out loud, so Jana can hear me, “I’ve got to go.”
As Jana enters the
angelic-festooned den of my youth a smile creeps into her face.
“You were really taking to
your mom?” She inquires, almost a bit too naively.
“Yeah,” I stutter, raking
the tips of my fingers through the top of my scalp, before I tell her that I
was talking to my sister actually. I never got a chance to really see her over
Easter break. She’s such a sweetie and she’s been home sick being up north and
all. Mom and dad just arrived in the hotel in Beten Harbor.
“That’s sweet,” Jana says
again, sitting next to me on the crust of my mattress. I can smell apples.
“I’ve been thinking,” Jana
says, “I’m really sorry that I carped at you early today. Your friends came
over, albeit uninvited and you were just trying to be an amicable host.”
I think about drinking more
wine and plowing through the emerald almost musical note-stemmed husks of Iowa,
occasionally swigging a shot of fetid rest stop coffee, harnessing the oval
reins of my vehicle deep into the penumbras of the west searching for the woman
whose hymns I have creatively caroled out over the past two years.
Jana continues to speak. She
is apologizing for being such a bitch. I am thinking of Megan, wondering how
Jana could not intuit that I was talking to her on the phone. I am thinking
about the cinnamon appendages of Megan’s thighs. I am thinking about what our
first time would be like, the two of us, the door to her apartment pelted closed
almost as if in prayer, her roommates out for the evening entertaining Hale and
Randall and somehow Goth Dan who for some inexplicable reason came along for
the ride. I think about all this as Jana continues to point at herself and
apologize, stating that I’ve always been cool whenever their has been a problem
on her resident floor and she needed to be called away so she understands. I
think about Megan, reeling her body into mine, undoingthe top button of her
jeans before slicing the denim avenues of her pants down the twin-peninsulas of
her thighs wondering if she is wearing the underwear dappled with the blue
flowers on them. I am thinking about undressing Megan completely, placing my
tongue at the center altar of her body, telling her that I need to toss my love
in every thing I have ever know, the union, the horizontal and vertical planks
of the cross coalescing into one mystical emblem of eternity, I am thinking
about all this as I feel the tips of Jana’s finger inch their way past my
waistline and head south, my body inching up to meet her.
“This is why I love you when
you get drunk,” Jana adds, “You are honestly the most horniest person I have ever met.”
Brook rattles her knuckles
on the wooden frame of my door. Jana has already unbuttoned the top planetary
orb from near my waist and has her hand cupped around my totemic unit,
stretching in various directions. Brook ekes out the words shit. Jana blushes
finds a pillow on the far side of the bed and quickly plants it in the center
of my lap like some kind of domestic mother ship. From outside I can hear Brook
offer her sister the caveat of if you don’t want to age fifty years don’t go in
there. Jana is blushing, counting aloud the number of people she thinks has
seen my penis since we started dating. I zip up my jeans and go out in the
hallway.
“Sorry,” I say to Brook.
“Great party. We’re off to Lums
to kick it with coffee before we head back home.”
I offer a thanks for coming.
Brook asks me what about Megan. I cast a look of surveillance behind my
shoulder and tell her that I wish it was her in my room instead. Brook tells me
no, Megan, as in the sound the alphabetical shapes produces when Jana reads was
is scrawled in the bottom of my chest.
“Shit,” I add hearing Jana
behind me, giving Brook our famous one-up eyebrow look that indicates stall
her. I rush into the bathroom, slap the door lock, turn the sink on and begin
lather up what I consider my six pack. With the water running I can Brook tell
Jana that he probably needs to throw up, you know, wolfing down beer with all
that cheese. Two minutes later and the alphabetical emblems of my beloveds name
are completely reduced to a blue squiggles, like a slept on part of cookie
monster last night and had a wet dream.
Slowly the Guests begin to filter out. As Dave
and Randall begin to fish up their belongings, I think about what it would have
been like to somehow depart for Megan that afternoon, I think about what it
would have been like to have found her, I think about what it would have been
like to drive up the cement arteries of the Midwest and stop for a tepid cup of
coffee, the tepid kind served in the dilapidated machines the size of college linebackers
you always find at the rest stops dotting I-80 or I-55, I think about what it
would have been like chasinsmoking cigarettes and staring at the bleating
diagonal salutes of the sunset, each translucent lash ferrying me closer to my
beloved as I continue to drive, losing myself in the arena of vast bucolic
emptiness and beauty that is the Midwest, I continue to not thinking about Jana
at all, not thinking about the way I have my arm flung over her shoulder right
now as we are offering the obligatory goodbyes and faretheewells and drive
safely—Brook just looking at me with a smirk sealed to her lip stating that I’m
pussy whupped and that I need to get my romantic shit together, her younger
blood caboose Brittney still smoking one last cigarette before they would go to
Lums and look at her funny for her age—all this happening all at once, Hale,
girth and sober, slapping his hand on my back as if we are in a bowling league
and I just procured the game winning spare, addressing the two of us as kids,
telling us that if us kids can’t be good to then be bad before he looks around
and inquires what ever happened to P-man. Behind him Randall storms up and
offers his palm in hedonistic gratitude. I thank Randall for purchasing the
cardboard box of wine an the twenty-four pack of Beast and he lets go of a
comment stating that it was a good thing I have a floatation device to keep me
afloat when I get drunk. Jackie leaves wreathing her libs around my neck as if
placing a gold medal under my chin. ON my lower stomach I can still feel the
remnants of her name. Someone asks where Patrick is and someone else says who
cares lets roll. I give Jana’s hand a little squeeze as I watch the caravan
trollying my friends to another place and time slowly chug out of the avenue—quickly
I think about inviting Jana to Lums before I realize that Jana would have a
fit, sitting in the smoking section.
As we say goodbye to Goth
Dan my hand is already performing distinct wax-on, wax off running motions
under the back of Jana’s shirt, the moment the door clangs shut are clothes are
mutually sloughed, fingers peeling each others garments apart, clothes behind
us almost blooming in the air as they parachute down into the carpet. We are
completely naked and Jana is groping my unit, our lips kissing every part of
the others body. Jana silently bitches stating how it would be nice to fuck in
a hotel suite that wasn’t sponsored by Phillip Morris. She then conveys to me
how she loves how I blew off my semi-inebriated friends in order to fuck her. I
lift Jana up, her legs straddling my waist like some post modern saddle, I thn
plant her entire body onto the coach in the fashion of an upsidedown question
mark, drilling into her, taking out all my frustration all the while Jana
telling me how she loves it when I feral fuck her, when I fuck her like a
beast, when I drain everything that is emotionally stowed inside of my out on
her body. Her legs are buckled behind my neck as I continue plow my way,
pogoing up and down, fucking her like I am trying to reach some place foreign
only to be halted, wheeled back to the starting point and proceed with
intensity and vigor again. I am thinking about Megan while I am inside Jana.
How she told me to use protection which Jana and I have not used since the
second time we did it in my bedroom in late January. I think about how every
time I try to reach her and go deeper I get reeled back, losing myself, naked
yet when and inside the other person yet somehow totally alone. Jana’s high
pitch soporano ledger-line grunts continue to echo down the hallway. I think
about the offer Jenny made me earlier in the afternoon when I was soused,
telling me how she wanted me to fuck her and she wanted the father of her
incumbent child to watch and jerk off in the background. Jana tells me that I
am hitting the spot, the two of us are slathered in each dew of each others
flesh. We curse at each other. We accuse. Jana tells me that I should be able
to fuck her twice as hard and split her body in half with all the emotional
shit I put her through the last month alone. She then degrees that Megan could
never fuck like this and that we have something special and that we should
stayed locked inside each others body for eternity.
“Fuck me you asshole.” Jana
says, her body still cantilevered and planted deep on the couch. From behind I
hear more squeaks. It then occurs to me that the reverberating chorus I hear
chirping in the background is Pat and Jenny getting it on somewhere downstairs
as well, probably in the linoleum din of the bathroom. Twin couples, less than
twenty feet away, separated by oak. As I notice Jana with her lips still dazed
and perch open I briefly toy with the idea of inviting Jenny to join us, of
“swapping” I though I know Jana is appalled by both Pat and Jenny and that she
would be offended and hurt and don drama queen tiara once again if I were to
bring it up.
We have been fucking hard
for fifteen minutes when Jana cries out and I collapse in the nest of her
thighs, faking victory, kissing the raindrop sweat dripping off her forehead,
pulling out, swiveling my ass in the direction of Jana, telling her that I
really need a beer as my anatomy pulls a complete 180 and I head for the
kitchen thinking only of the ways in which I can somehow get rid of Jana and
cajole Hale into driving me into Iowa tonight to see Megan and to take her
someplace she has never been before.
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