The Party
Twenty of us sit out on the patio after closing drinking pitcher upon pitcher of free margaritas and beer playing 'I Never,' 'Biz-Buzz,' and various word games until Stool, a manager, comes out and boots us. Just then Hawk stops by and tells us a party's happening on 5th Street. A dozen of us hike off::::we hear music from the party this side of the creek. Legs dangling from the balcony-walkway above, people snuggled together up and down the concrete stairway, a large gathering crowding out the front door. Psycho, who used to cook with us, greets us inside the door. I tell him how the night before I'd hit Quaff, the GM, in the head with a plastic container lid::::we toss small plastic back-up buckets and frisbee the lids, from the line to the triple sink on the back wall, a passageway there leads back to the office, and Quaff came around the corner just as I let loose::::he grabbed up the lid and frisbeed it back at me hard as he could, hit me square in the chest, then furiously picked things out of the sink and threw them at me hard as he could swearing at the top of his lungs::::Lane was working middle, dropped to his knees and covered his head and started screaming "Shit! Shit! Shit!"::::I just stood there and took hits, even caught a few of the things::::by the time he ran out of stuff to throw everyone on the floor had come into the kitchen to see what was happening::::he ran back to his office. Once inside the party we start dancing. It's a large, untidy apartment with rock climbing posters. Three kegs are out on the tiny patio flowing non-stop. Over a hundred people. After an hour the music stops and the five roommates parade into the center of the livingroom carrying wooden chairs, drawers, end tables, plastic lamps and miscellaneous furniture. "L.A. Woman" comes blasting out of the speakers and the roommates start gyrating to the music, suddenly pick up the stuff and start breaking it over their own heads and busting it with their knees and with karate chops and even slamming it over each other's backs all the while whooping and hollering until by the end of the song all that's left is a mass of splintered scraps. Then everyone dances. The second time the police come around they hand one of the roommates a written warning. Most of the people linger in the parking lot, but El, Tv and I start walking to El's house. There are several bundles of Sunday papers dropped off the back of a truck in the middle of the street. We carry them for a block then knock them off each other's shoulders. The three of us stretch out on the smooth asphalt and look up at the stars in silence.
©2006 wfairbrother
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