It was a cold dark night. I know- this is pretty close to the cliché “It was a dark and stormy night,” but it WAS a cold and dark night.
November in Oklahoma is like that, the wind chill drops what you perceive as the temperature ridiculously low and you’re left, shuddering, wishing you HAD brought that big, fluffy jacket with you.
Anyway, I left the jacket in my closet, which was a mistake. Now I’m wishing I had it, as the November wind shears at my arms in an attempt to cut all of my standing-straight-up arm hairs off.
This is hot chocolate weather, not “my car broke down and now I have to walk to a pay phone to call my girlfriend because we were supposed to be at a party and oh she’s going to be mad at me” weather.
Unfortunately, that’s what it was, now. I’m walking towards Hastings, hoping to use one of their pay phones, with my car laying on its side off the road, steam rising and a pool of red fluid congealing under it.
No… it’s not that bad. The car looks fine, it just won’t start. I wish it were that bad, it’d give me some defense against a screaming girlfriend.
I sigh, no use muttering about it to myself now. Why didn’t I bring my cell phone? What kind of an idiot doesn’t carry a cell phone around these days? (Actually, I hate cell phones, but it’s times like this when I begin to see how useful they are.)
Hastings is closing as I run up to the doors, it’s really that late. Somebody (me) is going to have an obituary in the paper tommorow.
A guy maybe a little older than me is shutting the door. "Wait!” I yell. “I need to use your payphone, please! My car broke down.”
The man hesitates for a moment, and turns around to look at me. One of those looks pass between us, like when you see someone you recognize- a fellow compatriot of whatever group you’re in.
“Okay. Make it fast, I have a party to go to.”
I almost do a double take, but instead I just stop. “Really?? Me, too! Who’s party?”
“Oh, this girl I know, Jen, is throwing a graduation party.”
I’m not sure if fate is smiling on me or not, but I can hope. “Ferguson?” I ask. Please, let it be Ferguson. The last thing I need is the angry girlfriend figure on my case.
He grins. “Yeah. Did you go to NHS?”
I nod. “Yeah. You must have gone to North, because I don’t recognize you.”
He nods back, and it’s like we’re buddies all of a sudden. We have something- someone, in common. It’s amazing how that works.
“Hey, come’on, I’ll give you a lift over there.”
“Thanks, I appreciate it.” Relief- tangible, and for a second, the air seems to give up its mindless pursuit of relieving me of all my arm hair.
He’s driving a car like mine- You know the typical high school/college car- your parents decided to get a new one and give you the old beater. It’s not the same model, but they might be first cousins.
He opens the driver’s side, unlocks the passenger door, I hop in. Fast, out of the wind. It howls against the window for a moment, it’s chasing me. Then it stops, as if to say, “allright, you’ve won for now. But ONLY for now.”
I mutter something under my breath and my new friend says “What?”
I say, “Oh, nothing. Just the wind.”
He laughs. “Yeah, it’s pretty bad out there.”
“You know, I never caught your name,” I say.
“Andrew.” He holds out his hand, and I shake it.
“Simon,” I say. Thankfully, he just nods. Some people seem to think that it’s their god-given duty to crack a “Simon says” joke, and it’s all downhill from there.
The drive over to Jen’s is pretty quiet, I’m worrying about my car, and my new friend seems to be lost in his own thoughts.
Jen lives in a little Cul-de-sac, and by the time we get there, it’s totally packed. Cars are packed halfway up on the lawns. I have to wonder what the neighbors think, and what kind of a party this really is. It’s not as loud as I expected it to be, but I’m pretty sure that one of Jen’s neighbors is around eighty and I’m surprised there’s not an ambulance or a police car around. In my experience, the older generations tend to freak out when there’s a party like this one looks going on. (On reflection, that’s probably partially because they KNOW what they did when they were young, and don’t want to think about it anymore.)
There are a couple guys sitting on the porch, smoking cigarettes. My dad smokes, and I can’t stand it. It’s even more disgusting in kids my age, cancer at 35 and then death shortly thereafter doesn’t sound very fun.
“Hey, man! What’s up!” One of the guys on the porch- Both of them are skater-type, backwards hat, lots of hair sticking out from it, barely tied Vans, Hurley/Toy Machine shirts. The one who spoke looks, and sounds, drunk. Again, I’m surprised no one has called the police yet, or had a heart attack.
Andrew and I nod our welcome to him, but he’s not really paying attention anymore. He’s taking a long drag on his cigarette, sucking it down to nothing. I can almost see his life leaving in the cloud of smoke, but maybe it’s just my imagination.
We walk in, and it’s much louder once you get inside the house. People everywhere. Everywhere.
I’m looking around desperately, hoping NOT to see Nancy. I know she’ll be pissed, and if only I can find enough of her friends first and tell them the sad story-
No such luck. There she is, she’s been watching for me. I can tell, she has that hunting look on.
Now I’m done for.
I slap my forehead, and Andrew catches both that, and Nancy’s oncoming stare.
“That your girlfriend?” he asks.
I nod and mumble something that sounds like an approximation to the word “yes.”
“If you need someone to save you later…”
I nod my thanks, and he walks off into the crowd, mingling. There are enough people here to fill 10 slug bugs clown-style, I think to myself.
My mind is kind of zoning out, I can see Nancy approaching, and half of me wants to run. She sees the panic in my eyes, and pins me to my spot with a glare that would probably curdle milk if there were any around.
“Simon! Simon! Why are you late, Simon!” She draws my name out in a whine, and I cringe. I’m glad Jen doesn’t have any dogs, the last thing we need is dogs barking in response to the pitch of her voice.
“Nancy! I wanted to call--”
“Simon! You are twenty minutes late! Twenty Minutes! And I promised the others you’d have been here early!”
A small crowd is gathering, It looks like someone is taking down bets as to how badly she’s going to embarrass me this time. I feel a blush coming on, and do my best to stifle it.
“Nance, my car broke down, and Andrew ended up giving me a ride here.”
You’d think she’d quiet a little bit after hearing this information, but not Nancy, no. SHE gets louder.
“Your car broke down! And you didn’t call me? I could have come and picked you up! Why didn’t you call me!” Her voice is really hurt now.
I
HATE it when people (women) use the utter concern for one’s safety or well being as a means to utterly humiliate you.
“and I forgot my cell phone,” I add lamely.
I can almost see a tear forming at the corner of her eye, now.
“Simon, I just can’t believe this! I can’t!”
“I’m sorry,” I say weakly.Now she’s gone all hot and angry, the oven warming up to broil with your hand stuck in the door (Look, I’m sure SOMEONE has managed to do it, okay?).
“I’m going to go and talk to Jen! You can find me later!”
Some people off on the sidelines really snicker at that one, and now I do blush. I can feel it washing up my cheeks, even my ears feel hot. Now it’s genuine laughter. They’re handing out the money now, someone has won something on my embarrassment.
Nancy is rushing off, presumably to talk to Jen. I let my flush die down a bit, and wait for everyone to turn back around to their other business, and then I make my way towards a table covered with drinks. I’m hoping the punch is spiked, and I pour a large glass of it for myself.
“Hey! You’re Simon Carrey, aren’t you?”
I don’t recognize the voice, and prepare myself for one of Nance’s friends. I turn around, taking huge gulps of the punch in the process. It’s spiked, allright. “That’s me, I’m afraid,” I say.
There’s a girl with blonde hair standing there, shorter than I am by a foot. She has a slightly vacant, yet very excited look in her eyes. “You’re a writer, aren’t you? I’ve read some of yourself in the School Compilation!”
My brain seems to be freezing up a bit. I expected one thing, and get something totally different. Nobody gets recognized for something they wrote in a crappy anthology in high school.
“I guess I am,” I say. Before I can even finish the last word, She cuts in with a squeal, “You must be SOOO creative! I want to be a writer, too!” The words come out in a messy gush, and manage to splash all over my shoes. I look down momentarily, and at least four people near me wince. I know that’s going to smell if I don’t scrape it off, so I frantically scrape the top of one shoe with the bottom of the other while she squeals something else.
“What did you say?” I manage out. Probably a mistake.
“I’m going to go to the Kansas Art institute!” she squeals. I stop my scraping momentarily, and put a finger in my ear to clear the canal. It doesn’t help much. Frantically I gulp more punch and say “that’s great!” and try to stumble past her.
She squeals something else, and a general angry murmur arises from her location. I’m getting away as fast as I can, I don’t want to be part of the onslaught.
I stumble out onto the porch, it’s the only quiet place left. The two guys are still out on the porch, and I almost expect to see one or two of Jen’s neighbors throwing themselves out of their second-story windows at any second.
“Dude! Where did you come from!” The second skater is the one speaking, and by the way he’s carefully enunciating his words, I can tell he’s at the least drunk.
“From the inside,” I say. I drink a little more punch, this time more slowly.
“Dude!” he says. “That’s fuckin’ neat!” He begins to giggle, and turns to his friend.
“Don’t you think that’s fuckin’ neat, man?” He collapses into a laughing fit, and I wonder if ANYWHERE is safe.
“Man,” His friend agrees, taking a long drag on ANOTHER cigarette. Just then the wind decides to resume its mad attack against me, and a strong gust blows the smoke right into my face. I begin to cough, and barely manage to save my drink from spilling. “Excuse me,” I cough out in a whisper. I turn and pull the door open.
The carnage around the punch bowl has cleared with little or no mess, so I glance both ways, and quickly hurry over there.
This time, fate decides to let me win the round, and nobody comes up to me while I’m filling my cup.
I’m feeling a bit better now, and I wonder if I shouldn’t wander off and find Nance now.
Of course, fate couldn’t let me win forever. Sam is guarding the hallway, and looks up from the ground with his cat eyes. I moan, and try to step over him.
YOOOOWWWLLL! Sam’s diving for my foot, and now I’m off balance, halfway through a step. I try to pull back, but I’m not fast enough. Sam contacts my foot and-
Apparently there’s still some of that disgusting gush on my shoe, because Sam immediately
YOWWLS again and rushes off to the corner where he proceeds to lick his paws and glare at me. I should be a nervous mess, but I’m starting to feel the alcohol, now.
I manage to get through the hall from the kitchen into one of the living rooms without too many more problems. Nancy is watching for me again, her eyes are all sharp edges. They seem to soften a tiny bit when they see me, and I try to rearrange my face to look like something of a smile.
“At least you came in here,” Nance says. She seems slightly reproachful, but it looks like she’s forgiven me.
I grin, and walk over to where she is. I’m walking carefully now, Gotta make sure not to trip.
The couch is apparently closer than it looks, because I manage to jar myself as I sit down. The drink begins to slosh over on one side, so I move my cup at an angle and with a jerk, catching the liquid. That just causes it to go the other way, so I jerk back the other way. It starts to jerk the other way again. I can figure this out, I think to myself. How hard can this be? After a couple more movements, I get my drink in the cup without losing any. I look up, and realize that everyone is staring at me, again. My grin of satisfaction quickly fades, and disappears entirely. Nance looks at me disapprovingly again. “Would you stop clowning?” she says.
“But Nance-” I start to say- but she interrupts me. “Don’t worry about it, just stop.”
“But I wasn’t clowni-”
She cuts me off totally this time, and digs some nails into my arm. “Anyway, as I was saying, Since my dad works at OU, I can get a discount!” Everyone nods amiably, and then Jen turns towards me from the other couch. “So, How have you been? I’m sorry about your car.”
“It’s okay,” I say agreeably. “I’ve been okay. The punch is good.” That one gets me a jab in the ribs from Nance, who apparently doesn’t approve of the punch. I’m not sure I care that much anymore, sometime between the hall and sitting down my brain decided it’s all going to be alright.
“I’m glad to hear it,” Jen says. “How does it feel to be free?”
“Be free?” I say. “But I’m still under the yoke of---”
“She means High School,” one of her friends cuts in quickly.
“Oh.” I consider momentarily. “Nothing really changed, I think. I don’t feel different.”
Jen nods, and then goes back into conversation with her friends and Nance. I just sit and listen for a while, and then get up to use the bathroom. Nance doesn’t even give me a second glance as I carefully step around the couch and back towards the hall.
Sam’s in the hall again, tail lashing. It’s been at least thirty minutes; he’s been waiting for me.
Yowwwwl! He says. ”God dammit, cat,” I say, “leemme alone!” I start running down the hall, Sam starts running down the hall, I think we’ve both had enough, and now we’re going to end it in one huge ball of destuction. Right as Sam’s claws contact my foot, I let loose a powerful kick that sends him flying into-
Well, that’s not exactly how it happened. I’d like to think it ended that way, but Sam dives straight into my feet with a satisfied
Yoowll! that sounds like a cry of triumph, and I
oof as the floor comes up quickly to meet me.
Fortunately, Sam apparently has either had enough or thinks he’s won, because he doesn’t attack me again after that. I hate cats.
After a minute I think I might see someone standing above me. I open my eyes a bit more, sure enough, there’s Andrew. He’s grinning down at me in a way that implies camaraderie again, not condescension, like I might have expected in this situation.
“Want a hand up?” He says.
I consider it for a moment. It can’t get any worse from here, can it? “Sure,” I say.
