did on the news about how dirty the bedspreads were in local hotels. I drank my beer more assuredly now. Out of necessity, I fashioned a system of holding my breath and counting down as I swallowed, making it a test. If I could drink for three counts, the next time I would try five.
“Semen,” Lola was saying. “Vomit. Blood.”
Tip asked how I was doing, if the search had turned up anything. He said that all things considered, you know, my folks looked pretty good that morning. “We found a dead bird,” I said, and let Lola tell the story of the factory. Tip referred to Bayard as “the French fag” and Lola scolded him, but in a joking voice. She was draped against him, her shoulder pressed against one of his beefy arms, one of her legs hooked around one of his, her hands dangling in his lap, as if she were trying to weave herself, pretzel-like, into him. I felt a wave of contempt for Lola right then, the mindless, un-apologetic way she seemed to devote herself to the attention ofboys. She and Tip were chuckling about something, I wasn’t sure what. The disgust morphed loosely into: envy, annoyance, fascination, and a hopeless certainty that I would never be capable of whatever guilelessness or wiles or bravery made Lola Pepper Lola Pepper.
By the end of my second beer, I could swallow for a count of seven. My throat grew thick and gummy. My fingers started to feel far away. I was tingly.
The group around the woodpile passed a joint, the smell wafting onto the patio. One of the guys was coughing so hard he was doubled over as his friends either ignored him or laughed. People made out in dark corners of the lawn. A particularly bold couple was pressed against a tree trunk just north of me, the girl’s shirt practically up around her neck, one of her hands slipping down into the back of the boy’s pants.
“Look at them.” I pointed. Lola acted aghast. Tip said Tracy Weller was a slut. I laughed. I wasn’t sure why I was laughing, but I was laughing. Already the beer was making me feel unbound, loosened from the harness of self. I had the urge to shout “Bleh!” or “Hah!” I wanted to wave my hands in the air. I wanted to be tickled so hard I might pee. Almost instantly, I loved being drunk. I still do. The prospect of it is dangerously seductive, much more so than the pot or acid all my roommates grew so enamored of in college. Those drugs, the ones that steered you more deeply into yourself, held no appeal to me. Drinking, though, in the way it made me foggy and loose-limbed and slightly dim, was a revelation. A blessed relief.
We sat out there for a long time, Tip going inside to refill our cups every so often, coming back with all three clasped together in his huge hands, as if he were our waiter. “Your brother,” he said atone point, “tried walking across that last year.” He pointed to the top bar of the swing set. “Climbed up there from the slide and tried balancing for a long time, finally made it a few steps before falling on his fucking head. Could’ve broke his neck, the bastard. But then he jumped right up, like one of those gymnasts, his arms up over his head, like it didn’t even hurt him, except his face was all bloody and muddy.”
“You’re a poet,” I said. “And you don’t even know it.”
On the swing set now, three girls sat spread-legged, butt to crotch at the top of the slide, trying unsuccessfully to come down together; they were too wide and stuck. They did a lot of squealing. It was so easy to picture Danny here, I could almost taste him—salty, tough, sinewy. I could feel him in the back of my jaw. I remembered the night Tip was talking about, or the next morning at least—Danny sitting at the kitchen table, his forehead and cheek scraped a rashy red, spots of pus leaking from barely formed scabs. He fell down, he told my parents bluntly. They’d looked worried but somehow knowing and conspiratorial too, in the way they always were with him, nothing ever
“Semen,” Lola was saying. “Vomit. Blood.”
Tip asked how I was doing, if the search had turned up anything. He said that all things considered, you know, my folks looked pretty good that morning. “We found a dead bird,” I said, and let Lola tell the story of the factory. Tip referred to Bayard as “the French fag” and Lola scolded him, but in a joking voice. She was draped against him, her shoulder pressed against one of his beefy arms, one of her legs hooked around one of his, her hands dangling in his lap, as if she were trying to weave herself, pretzel-like, into him. I felt a wave of contempt for Lola right then, the mindless, un-apologetic way she seemed to devote herself to the attention ofboys. She and Tip were chuckling about something, I wasn’t sure what. The disgust morphed loosely into: envy, annoyance, fascination, and a hopeless certainty that I would never be capable of whatever guilelessness or wiles or bravery made Lola Pepper Lola Pepper.
By the end of my second beer, I could swallow for a count of seven. My throat grew thick and gummy. My fingers started to feel far away. I was tingly.
The group around the woodpile passed a joint, the smell wafting onto the patio. One of the guys was coughing so hard he was doubled over as his friends either ignored him or laughed. People made out in dark corners of the lawn. A particularly bold couple was pressed against a tree trunk just north of me, the girl’s shirt practically up around her neck, one of her hands slipping down into the back of the boy’s pants.
“Look at them.” I pointed. Lola acted aghast. Tip said Tracy Weller was a slut. I laughed. I wasn’t sure why I was laughing, but I was laughing. Already the beer was making me feel unbound, loosened from the harness of self. I had the urge to shout “Bleh!” or “Hah!” I wanted to wave my hands in the air. I wanted to be tickled so hard I might pee. Almost instantly, I loved being drunk. I still do. The prospect of it is dangerously seductive, much more so than the pot or acid all my roommates grew so enamored of in college. Those drugs, the ones that steered you more deeply into yourself, held no appeal to me. Drinking, though, in the way it made me foggy and loose-limbed and slightly dim, was a revelation. A blessed relief.
We sat out there for a long time, Tip going inside to refill our cups every so often, coming back with all three clasped together in his huge hands, as if he were our waiter. “Your brother,” he said atone point, “tried walking across that last year.” He pointed to the top bar of the swing set. “Climbed up there from the slide and tried balancing for a long time, finally made it a few steps before falling on his fucking head. Could’ve broke his neck, the bastard. But then he jumped right up, like one of those gymnasts, his arms up over his head, like it didn’t even hurt him, except his face was all bloody and muddy.”
“You’re a poet,” I said. “And you don’t even know it.”
On the swing set now, three girls sat spread-legged, butt to crotch at the top of the slide, trying unsuccessfully to come down together; they were too wide and stuck. They did a lot of squealing. It was so easy to picture Danny here, I could almost taste him—salty, tough, sinewy. I could feel him in the back of my jaw. I remembered the night Tip was talking about, or the next morning at least—Danny sitting at the kitchen table, his forehead and cheek scraped a rashy red, spots of pus leaking from barely formed scabs. He fell down, he told my parents bluntly. They’d looked worried but somehow knowing and conspiratorial too, in the way they always were with him, nothing ever
Similar Books
