Chapter One

“Buzz, buzz, buzz!”   My alarm clock welcomed me to the business end of seven a.m.

“Fuckin’ A,” I yelled at no one as I awoke to the first rays of sunlight piercing the cracks in the blinds. It was time for another day of class. Son of a bitch. At least it was Friday. Come three o’clock I could once again be found taking shots out of a twelve-dollar handle of vodka and leaving all my troubles for Sunday night. For two days, everything would be okay. I would drink away the sorrow of the school week and replenish my soul with mirth and merriment just in time to lose it again on Monday. The weekend was the only break I got from the piles of responsibility which various professors deemed appropriate in return for passing grades in their courses, but the probability of intoxication and the possibility of sex was enough to keep my head up.

First, however, I had to make it through the day. I hit the alarm and staggered into the bathroom,  still mostly unconscious. I reached for the shower and turned the faucet. The water was cold, same as it had been for the past month, and I made another mental note to remind our cheap-ass landlady to fix the heater. She was certainly punctual when it came to collecting rent, the troll, but something as simple as hot water was apparently too much for her to handle. We should have known she’d be a blood-sucker; they all were, though I couldn’t imagine anyone being much worse. 

Our house was in shambles. The roof had been so neglected to allow a family of raccoons to move in where a nest-sized hole had rotted away. I could hear their tiny claws scratching the ceiling above my head at night as I lay trying to sleep. I imagined our roof as a secret hangout for the delinquents, sort of like the raccoon version of the Foot Clan’s headquarters in the first Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie where the troubled youth are encouraged to ride skateboards and smoke cigarettes. 

Our house had both a front and a back yard, which was something of a joke because neither had any grass. Just a bunch of grubby weeds. The fence that bordered our back yard looked like it had been put in sometime around 1953. One day, the whole side that stood between ours and our neighbors’ properties just fell over. Nobody did anything. So, there it sat. Once the weather warmed back up Junior had started mowing right around it as though nothing were wrong.

Fuck it, a man’s gotta get clean. I muttered curses as I plunged my body into the icy misery that had become my morning shower, and ten minutes later, I had dressed, snagged my backpack and begun the daily hike to campus.

My first Friday class was Calculus, located in the Engineering Center which loomed over the far end of the school. It was a twenty-five minute walk out of which I had talked myself many times, but one that, having missed Wednesday’s lecture, I had little choice but to make. Today, at least, was warm. The winter had lasted forever. The snow had piled up over the roads and sidewalks and then melted and turned the town into a sludgy piece of shit. Coupled with my obstinate refusal to shell out the eighty bucks for a cozy pair of boots, this winter had dampened my spirits indeed.

The winter was gone now, although one could never be sure. Last winter, the one from my freshman year, was unusual I had been told. The town had seen a string of sunny, warm days as late as December, and it had snowed on the first day of summer vacation. Not that I minded; I left for home in North Carolina that same day to spend a quiet break in my parents’ house. I went off to work at a summer camp in July and then flew back out west in August to move into the shitty, four-bedroom shack at number 50029 on Grandview Avenue to undertake my sophomore year. 

The house had been an adventure so far. We lived right on the Hill, in the midst of hundreds of other college students. There had been a week of down time between move-in day and the beginning of the semester, and my roommates and I had used it to meet our neighbors and develop a network of friendly houses in the surrounding streets. Within walking distance, we generally had many options for socializing on a given Friday or Saturday night. As more people came to our parties, we met more students who lived on the Hill, and our network grew. At our height, we could get two hundred people to our house with very little notice. And we took advantage of this ability  frequently.

I crossed Broadway at its intersection with University and entered the western part of campus. As I walked through the quad I saw some girls studying in the grass and some guys throwing Frisbees and kicking soccer balls to each other. Some days, I’d borrow my roommate Luke’s longboard  to get to class more quickly, but today I was on foot. I was glad though. I was in no hurry to get out of this beautiful day and into a classroom with fluorescent lighting. Fucking class. At least it was warm.

My old dorm was on the way to the Engineering Center. It sat on the Engineering Quad, and, predictably, most of the students that lived there were engineers. It was supposed to be a substance-free living space. All the dorms on campus had the same rules about the same substances, but mine was one of the few that required the residents to sign an agreement saying that they would neither possess drugs or alcohol on the premises nor enter the building under any kind of influence. I personally witnessed at least half of the students in my dorm break the agreement. I had only lived there because I had filled out my housing form under the supervision of my father, but I made some good friends and shared some laughs and was even arrested for being drunk on the floor of my room one time. I spent that night in detox with a homeless man named God and a heroin addict named Matt, who was reading Scar Tissue.

I arrived at the revolving doors of the EC, ten minutes late to my lecture. This would have been a problem for most engineering students, but I had long since stopped worrying about arriving to class on time. I trudged up the two flights of stairs to room ECCR 250 and stopped briefly outside the closed double doors of the lecture hall to gather myself for what lay ahead. I took a deep breath and gave the door a push. I tried to open it quietly, but, apparently, oiling hinges was not on the maintenance manager’s checklist for this particular building.

“Crreeeeeeeeee!”  The door, which I had taken care to open very slowly and deliberately, had betrayed me. My noisy appearance was greeted with silence by a packed house of diligent engineering students, pens in hand, all staring at me, that fucking late kid who didn’t take his studies seriously enough to make it to class on time.

“Welcome!” beamed Professor Dickhead as I started toward the only empty seat in the room: the middle chair in the very back row. I gave him a nod and a sheepish grin as I passed. Apparently, he was really enjoying my Walk-of-Shame up the aisle because he refrained from speaking until I had made my way to my seat, which creaked loudly as I sat down. 

ECCR 250 was one of a dozen larger lecture halls in the EC. It was shaped like an amphitheater, with a tall ceiling and stadium seating, and it held about a hundred and twenty kids. Unlike some of the smaller technology classrooms, it didn’t have tables. Instead, it had those auditorium chairs with the little folding excuse for a desktop that barely fits a spiral notebook. My seat in the back put me at a good twenty-five yards from the professor, so to say the setting lacked intimacy would be an understatement.

I sighed. A short hour or so before, I had been peacefully asleep, unconscious to this cruel world of academia, possibly dreaming of cars and women, but, alas, wakefulness held no such rewards. Only notes. Dutifully, I took out my pen and paper and made an honest effort to absorb the knowledge from the lecture; unfortunately, today’s lesson was on parametric and polar functions, and I was bored instantly. No matter how much I wanted to pay attention to what the professor was saying, I could not force myself to care about calculus at eight in the morning, and I started gazing around the room between scribbles of useless information in my notebook. The girl two seats to my left was pretty cute; the guy next to me was trying very hard to establish rapport with her and failing tremendously. He didn’t seem to know or care that her refusal to make eye contact with him or speak more than one word at a time in his direction was pretty much girl-code for “Leave me alone.”  It was sad, but in a way it was inspiring. He was determined; I was impressed.

I glanced up and watched the professor write some more meaningless shit on the board. This class always took forever. I checked the clock on my phone. It was 8:14. Ugh!  It had been only four minutes since I walked into the lecture. This was torture. I looked down to the end of the row and caught the eye of my roommate, Luke. He flashed me the devil horns. I returned them and started thinking about what I was going to eat for dinner. I considered cooking Alfredo that night. Luke and I were pretty good cooks, but our fettuccine Alfredo was our masterpiece. I would grill some chicken breast and throw that in, along with some fresh onions and peppers. I could also add some corn. Yeah, that’s what I’d do. I’d add some corn. But first I would need to run to the grocery store, which presented a problem; ever since the lease on Spencer’s car had run out, getting to Safeway was too much of a hassle. My other roommate Sanders had a car, but it smelled like shit and was so full of junk that it could barely fit him and one other person at the same time. We could still get groceries without a car because we lived within walking distance of Whole Foods, but, God, I hated that store. Their selection was awful and their food really wasn’t high-quality enough to justify the outrageous prices they charged. The last time we had gone there, Luke had very reluctantly purchased a four-dollar dozen of eggs. As we were checking out, he fixed the cashier with a glare and said, “These had better make my dick bigger.”  As far as I knew, they hadn’t.

Again, I attempted to pick up the lecture. The professor was explaining how to reach the second derivative of a parametric function, and I immediately lost interest again. I glanced at Luke. He was deep in conversation with the girl next to him, and I knew he was gone. Luke would chat with anybody, and there was no getting to him when he was in that mode. We’d gone to a strip club one night for our friend’s birthday, and instead of watching the strippers with us, he had spent all night in the corner talking to the ones who weren’t onstage.

My mind drifted back to food. I could just say, “Fuck cooking,” and get a Wich. That seemed like a better plan. It was Friday, after all. Which Wich? was on the Hill and was basically on my way home. This plan could also streamline the process of getting alcohol. I had turned twenty only ten weeks before, and I still couldn’t go to the liquor store myself. Usually, Sanders or one of the neighbors were happy to go get my alcohol for me, but I still had to work within their schedules instead of my own.

I broke from my daydream and found myself desperately hoping that the class was almost over. I checked my phone; it was still 8:14. Fuck!

—

The University Memorial Center, or UMC, sat on the edge of campus next to Broadway. It was designed as a sort of hang-out for students, so it didn’t have any classrooms. It did have movie theaters and concert halls, and there was even a bowling alley that served beer (maximum of three per person per night, ID required), and often, on Friday or Saturday evenings, there would be events for students, like video game tournaments and talent shows. There was even an annual Battle of the Bands competition. The school really made an effort to provide us with healthy, safe, and fun options for socialization that didn’t require alcohol. Naturally, I didn’t know anybody that ever went there on weekends.

But there were a couple dining options in the lobby, and it was at a table with a Subway sandwich that I found myself now. I was skipping Programming to eat and browse ESPN on my laptop, and I sat in peace as other students bustled in and out.

“Hey, Escher, come sit with us!”  

I looked up from my computer and turned around to see Carrie Keller, a girl I had met in the dorms the year before, sitting at another table with a beautiful girl I didn’t know. I was six inches into my turkey club when this invitation was hurled in my direction with a ferocity that would have put Nolan Ryan to shame. Even at nine-fifteen in the damn morning, she was full of energy. I was not. I really wanted to decline and continue reading about the NFL off-season free-agent moves, but I knew it would be no use. There was no way she was going to let me get out of this, but I decided to fight it anyway.

“Oh, no thank you. I’m almost done, and then I’m going to head out.”

“Oh, come on!  You’ll be fine!”

“Really, that’s very kind of you, but I’m suuuper busy right now.”

“Busy with what?”

“Y’know… stuff.”

“Shut up and come sit. It’s the polite thing to do.”

“Fine.”

And just like that, I was beaten. With a sigh, I gathered my things and took a seat next to Carrie. Besides, I figured, the Panthers are still going to suck whether or not I read about them. Bunch of bums. Matt fucking Moore. Are you serious?

“You owe me, Keller,” I teased her as I sat down. “Normally I charge for this kind of service.”

“Oh, are you going to take off your clothes?”

“Keller with the jokes!”

“I know, I know. I’m hilarious. Escher, this is Jessica.”

“Nice to meet you, Jessica. I’m Escher, and I’m currently single.”

“Hi, Escher. I’m Jessica, and I’m not at all interested.”  She was not smiling.

“Dammit Keller, why’d you have to introduce me to one with good judgment?  They never like me.”

“Oh, yeah. I forgot.”

“Looks like I’ll have to pull out the ole charm.”

Carrie snorted into her sushi.

“Charming Escher?  I don’t think I’ve met him. I’ve met Douche Bag Escher. Did you mean Douche Bag Escher?”  

“You know I don’t like it when you embarrass me in front of other people,” I said with an affected whisper. I even threw in a stern finger-point. “You know that!”  She let out an exaggerated sigh.

“I’m so sorry. Jessica, Escher is really charming and handsome.”

“See?  Now was that so hard?”

“No, sir.”

“Game face, Keller. So, Jessica. Tell me about yourself.”

“What would you like me to tell you?” she asked. She still did not find me amusing.

“That you’re strangely attracted to men who don’t have any money and underperform sexually. But I’ll settle for your major.”  She hesitated.

“Uh, Art History.”

“That’s amazing!  I’ve heard great things about our school’s Art History program.”

“Escher, don’t,” Carrie interrupted. She could detect my sarcasm as well as any girl I’d met.

“What?  I read it on the internet.”  Carrie winced. She knew this was not going to end well. “You know, Jessica, I was just reading the other day that Einstein started out as an Art History major, but he dropped out because it was too hard.”

“For your information,” she started, “I had a four-point-oh GPA last semester, thank you very much!”

“Incredible!  And in the rigorous field of Art History!  How do you do it?”  I was enjoying myself.

“Okay, well if you’re so smart, then what’s your major?”

“Electrical and Computer Engineering,” I said with more than a hint of self-satisfaction. I waited for her admission of my superiority. It didn’t come.

“Wow. An engineer?  That’s sad. You probably have no life.”  Ouch.

 “Well, there goes my smile. You know, you really should be nicer to people. It could be the only thing you have going for you once you get your art history degree.”  That did it.

“Okay, you know what?  You’re an asshole, and I have to go study. Carrie, I’ll see you later.”  She gathered her things and stormed out of the cafeteria.

“I think we really hit it off,” I offered to Carrie as we watched Jessica’s departure. Carrie sighed.

“Escher, why do you have to do that?  Can’t you get through one meal without offending someone?”

“I don’t know. It might kill me.”  She rolled her eyes.

“Why do I put up with you?”

“Well, I have a theory.”

“Oh?  Let’s hear it.”

“You find yourself helplessly attracted to me.”

“Hah!  Close!”

“Yikes.”

“Anyway I’m late for Psych. Goodbye, my dear!”  She kissed me on the cheek and walked away.

I finished my sandwich and disposed of my trash. I stepped outside, where I lit a cigarette and started toward Circuits. 

—

I arrived home around two o’ clock to find Luke and Spencer sitting in the living room. The TV was on, and apparently Luke was in control of the remote because it was turned to the Discovery Channel. He loved that shit. Just the day before, he had literally spent six hours of his time watching a marathon about underwater caves. I had asked him if he wanted to go get some food, to which he replied, “Nah, bro. I’m watching this.”

I greeted my roommates and sat down, ready to learn about Amazonian tree frogs, when we heard the front door open violently and slam shut. That slam could mean only one thing.

“Buenos días, bitches!”  It was the abominable Sanders.

Luke and I had been at a party the year before, talking to a couple of girls, when a sweaty guy wearing a backward baseball cap ran up to me, thrust a beer into my hand, and yelled, “Drink up, motherfucker!”  That was the first time I ever experienced Michael Sanders. The cops showed up later that night. He, Luke, and I escaped out the back door and cut through the alley. Somewhere in the course of running from the police, he became our friend, and from then on, Sanders was always hanging out with us at the dorms. He was obnoxious, loud, selfish, vulgar, and annoying, but, at the end of the year, we asked him to move in with us, and he became the fourth roommate. It was always an adventure living with Sanders. He was constantly irritating us with his stupid antics, but underneath it all, he was still our friend. Or something, at least.

Sanders lumbered into the living room with a thirty-rack of Pabst Blue Ribbon tucked under his arm.

“Here you go, children,” he said, tossing us each a beer. “Careful with those. They have alcohol in them. Caulfield!”  He ran up to me and ruffled my hair. I punched him in the gut.

“God dammit, Sanders. Do you ever just not act like a jackass?”

“Ah shut it, you boner. Let’s drink!”

That was our cue to stand up and chug our beers. As usual, Sanders finished first. He celebrated by slapping Spencer in the testicles. Spencer coughed and spilled beer all over himself.

“Motherfucker,” he said and went to get paper towels from the kitchen.

I finished my beer right before Luke and sat down. Sanders took this as a sign of weakness.

“Oh come on, Caulfield!  You aren’t done already are you?” 

“Sanders, first of all, you are a terrible human being. Second,” I said as I stood up, “you got lucky the first time.”  We both cracked a beer and started chugging. Sanders probably would have won again, but Spencer dashed in from the kitchen and gave him a solid smack to the groin, and we all lost ourselves in a fit of laughter.

“First rule of boat racing,” I gasped between laughs, “always guard your nuts!”

“Seriously, fuck you all,” Sanders said, once we had calmed down. “We need to figure out what we’re doing tonight.”

“Tonight? Dude, it’s two p.m. Settle down, let’s learn about some frogs, and we’ll figure that shit out later,” I replied.

“Caulfield, fuck you!”

“Okay, fuck me. Pass me a beer?”

“Sure. Here. You vagina.”

I took a big gulp and belched.

“Okay, fine. Let’s decide what we’re doing tonight. Any suggestions?”

“I heard Tommy’s got a keg,” offered Spencer.

“Dude I don’t know if I’m feeling Tommy’s,” I said.

“Yeah,” Luke added. “The people there are usually not that cool. Remember that hippie girl from last week?  Oh man, that girl was annoying!”

“Nah, man, that girl was hot,” argued Sanders.

“Not at all.”  I looked at Sanders after I said this. I was expecting a retort, but instead, he looked at the floor and said nothing. Oh shit!  “Sanders, did you hook up with her?”

“Shut up, man.”

“Wait, you did?”  I prodded.

“I said shut up.”  Sanders was getting defensive. This was funny.

“Woohoo!  Atta boy, Sanders!  You stallion!”

“Shut the fuck up, Caulfield!  You saw how drunk I was that night!”

“Must have been pretty damn drunk.”

“Okay, fuck you, man.”  Sanders was mad. I was enjoying myself.

“All right,” Luke said. “Both of you, chill out. What are we trying to do tonight?”  I looked back at Sanders. He was giving me the if-looks-could-kill. I smiled back.

“Why don’t we just throw down here?” asked Spencer.

“I’m down with that,” I said. “Sanders, you want to fill the keg?”  The deadly look instantly turned to one of excitement.

“You know I got it. Fork over the cash, fuckers!”

One of the benefits of living with Michael Sanders was that he had recently turned twenty-one and could therefore legally purchase alcohol. This right was one which he exercised frequently, and we were all too happy to take advantage. We each handed him fifteen bucks for the keg, and Spencer and I handed him an extra seven each for some liquor. Sanders squealed like a little piggy as he dashed out the door. I shook my head.

“We should tell people to start coming around nine thirty so they’ll be here by eleven. In the meantime, Escher,” Luke said, “help us move this table to the back yard.”

“Aye aye, Captain. Oh, and by the way, anybody feel like getting a Wich?”

Chapter Two

Now, I don’t mean to brag, but our parties were among the best in the town. We didn’t always feel like raging at our place—intoxicated college students can be very destructive—but when we did, we went hard. Our freshman year, Luke had found a pair of gigantic speakers along with a strobe and a black light from some guy on Craigslist. I had a disco ball I had found in a toy store, Spencer had Christmas lights his parents had left behind in their move back to Michigan, and with these items put together, we could turn our living room into a rave-ready dance floor. Sanders’ room was between the living room and the front wall of the house, so even when the music was turned all the way up, outside the front door it was silent. This was a wonderful quality for a college house to have, as cops couldn’t hear the party from the street. The kitchen also led directly out to our big, fenced-in, dandelion-covered back yard which was perfect for drinking games. We hadn’t thrown down for the past few weeks, so we were all excited.

Yes, tonight would be a good night. Our living room was prepared; the furniture was out of the way, the speakers were up on chairs, and, most importantly, the TV was removed from the room for safekeeping. Soon, our house would be packed full of people, and everybody would forget how much they hated school. There would be games, and there would be girls, and I would be drunk and happy. Since it was only Friday, nobody would be worried about all the work they had due on Monday. This would be the college I had heard about, that I had seen in movies, and that Asher Roth told me he loved. This short weekend would be over soon, and everybody would have to return to their lives, but on Friday night, beer was king and liquor was queen, and we bowed in deference as if to say, “Take us, o Alcohol. Take us, and make us more interesting and attractive to other people. Make us willing to dance to songs we don’t like and hug people we don’t know. And teach us that we are still kids, forced to act like adults by society.”  In those first few years of college, we all missed our childhoods. We managed to avoid thinking about it, but it was still there. And after our four years were up, we would have to enter the real world, and years just didn’t seem as long as they used to. We missed our lives, our friends, our families, and the security of life under our parents’ roofs. We missed not having to pay for food or shoes or prescription drugs or shampoo. Life was coming at us. Some of us handled it better than others, but it was coming for us all. In three years, we would be out of school and in the real world. In ten years, we’d have families of our own to support. In twenty years, we’d be old. Or dead. But getting drunk and acting like idiots was our last gasp at hanging onto the past. We could be irresponsible. We could make fools of ourselves, and nobody would judge us. We could be immature and selfish, and nobody would care. The world was once again a playground, reality once again distant.

Sanders arrived with the alcohol just as we finished moving the table. Our house was now entirely party-ready, though people would not start arriving for another several hours. Along with the keg, Sanders had gotten the handle of vodka for Spencer and me. Liquor was a must for pre-gaming because it took us way too long to get drunk off beer alone. On top of that, girls often didn’t like beer, and coming through with some hard alcohol was a pretty smooth move.

Now that we had our house set up and our booze ready, we had time to kill. Spencer and I went to Which Which? and got some sandwiches, and then I took a horrible freezing shower when we got back home. I threw on some nicer clothes and a spritz of cologne, and I was ready to drink. When I came downstairs I brought the vodka with me, and the roommates gathered in the kitchen for shots. I filled four tiny glasses, held mine up, threw it back, and our night was underway.

“Holy shit, Caulfield. I don’t know how you drink this cheap crap.”

“I’m what’s known as a man, Sanders. Whereas you are a little bitch.”

“Yeah, you are kind of a bitch,” Spencer said.

“You know what?  Fuck you guys.”

“Ah, fuck you too,” I said. “Let’s take another shot.”

I refilled the four shot glasses and we took another.

“I’m probably good for a while after that one,” Luke said. Luke wasn’t as into drinking as the rest of us, and his tolerance was not very impressive. When we first started partying together as freshmen, I used to rag on him, but he hadn’t really changed his stance since then, and we had accepted it. Even Sanders said nothing except, “Let’s take another shot, you queefs!”

Spencer filled our glasses this time. We raised them high.

“To Friday,” I said. We took our shots.

I was going to be pretty buzzed after that. So was Sanders, although he was equally obnoxious whether drunk or sober.

“Let’s tap the keg and pound some beers!” he bellowed. This sounded like a great idea to me, and I told him so. I grabbed the handle and dashed upstairs to put it in the secret cabinet in the second-floor common area. When I came back, Sanders had a nice, golden stream flowing from the keg. The four of us each filled a cup, and we sat down in the living room. Luke cranked some tunes on the stereo, and soon we were rocking out. 

About this time, I realized I was drunk. Those three shots had hit me like a wall of insanity and I began dancing around like a maniac. This was becoming our pre-game ritual: the four roommates jamming to some tunes and getting pumped for the night ahead. Friday!  What a day!  

—

Our house was full. The keg was flowing, the games were in full swing, and the night was still young. I was on the dance floor alongside Luke and Sanders. I wasn’t sober, but my intoxication level had settled into a nice, steady ring, and I was having a good time. Sanders was all over the place. He generally went absolutely crazy with his dancing. It was against his nature not to be wild all the time, and this quality was only magnified by the booze. He was up on the futon alternately waving his arms and performing his sort of pantomime running-in-place dance to “Scotty Doesn’t Know.”  I found myself really doubting whether the poor couch would make it through the night.

But even I found the atmosphere entrancing. The music was so loud it seemed to wrap around us like a blanket and fill the room with its mediocre, pop-rap-techno love. This was music that I normally despised, but, in my state, I couldn’t help but feel its energy. The strobe was flashing, the black lights were glowing, and the laser light upon the disco ball had never shone so true. Above the crowd lingered an alcoholic haze of artificial happiness. The pulsating strobe froze the people of the dark room in their silly postures of dance like the brief flashes of lightning in a thunderstorm, and I was transported back to the middle school dances at GMS. In those days, I had been something of a skinny, awkward kid. I had asked Amy Dartmouth to dance in eighth grade and was so spectacularly shot down that my ego didn’t fully recover until mid-sophomore year of high school. Oh, but if she could only see me now, she wouldn’t say no. She’d be honored to dance with me. She’d see my house and my roommates and all the pretty people that had loaned us their Friday night, and she’d realize how wrong she had been to turn me down all those years ago. I’d dance with her for one song, or maybe two, and then I’d say, “Thank you,” and walk outside and pay her no attention for the rest of the evening. That would show her!  I decided I’d grown up a lot since then. Then I looked back up at Sanders and shook my head. Maybe I hadn’t. I needed a smoke.

I stepped out onto the crowded back porch and lit up a cigarette. The night air was cool as I breathed the hot nicotine into my lungs. The back yard seemed a different place when it was packed full of people. During the day, it was always peaceful. Now it was flooded by a roaring sea of drunk college students trying to avoid another night alone. I didn’t mind. I was drunk, too. And just then, I didn’t feel alone.

“Hey, look at this guy!”  I looked up and saw Carl coming toward me. I had met him through Spencer, and he was a regular at our parties. Carl was a freshman, but he was a good guy who had respect for our house, so we all liked him.

“What’s good, man?” I said as I shook his hand.

“Not much, brother. Just havin’ a beer.”

“Some delicious Rolling Rock?”

“Yeah, you know. Hey, could I maybe bum one of those?”

“Of course.”  I handed him a cigarette and my lighter. Since I was the guy who always had cigarettes, I ended up giving out a lot of them at parties. I didn’t mind. I always told people that I’d trade a cigarette for a person to smoke with any day. It wasn’t always true, but I figured it was a good philosophy to have.

“Nice work on the party, as usual,” Carl commented.

“Thanks, my friend. I still haven’t figured out why everybody likes coming here and drinking our beer for free, but I’m working on it.”

“Yeah, but I bet it’s worth it. I’ve seen some cute girls walking around here.”

“Oh, it definitely is. We have a good time.”

“I can’t wait to have a house next year. Then you can come check out my ragers.”

“Hell yeah. That’s the whole reason we keep you around, Carl. This is all an act.”  He laughed out loud.

“Is that right, Escher?  All this time?  I feel so used.”

“Yeah, I’m really sorry you had to find out this way. You deserve better.”

“Nah, bro. I’m a man. I can take it.”

“Good lad.”  I patted him on the back and took a deep drag from my cigarette. I blew out a couple of smoke rings before I turned back to Carl. “So, Braves over the Rockies in four in the NLCS this year?”

“You’re dreaming!”

“I’m wide awake, brother. It’s all about that Chipper Jones!  Whatcha know about some Chipper Jones?”

“I know that Chipper Jones is old as hell.”

“Oh, that doesn’t matter. He could be seventy-five and still putting up Chipper numbers. He ages like wine.”

“Yeah?  Well, how are the Bobcats doing this year?”  My smile faded.

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

“The Hurricanes?”

“Stop it, Carl.”

“The Panthers?”

“Pretty excited about Josh McDaniels, are you?  Look out for Kyle Orton, a.k.a. ‘The Next Tom Brady’ this year. Say, whatever happened to that Cutler guy?  He was pretty good!”

“Wow. That’s just fucked up. I hope DeAngelo Williams blows his knee out in the preseason.”

“I hope Josh McDaniels blows Kyle Orton and pictures get leaked to the press.”

“I’ll take Kyle Orton over what’s-his-name. Matt Moore?”

“Hey!  Matt Moore has heart, okay?”

“He doesn’t have an arm.”

“No, he doesn’t have one of those,” I conceded.

“Don’t worry. I’m sure the Panthers will use their high position in the first round to draft a top-tier quarterback. Wait, that’s right!  You traded your first-round pick. Oh well. I’m sure you had your reasons.”

“Well—Josh McDaniels, so, trump card.”

“That doesn’t even—“

“Trump card!”

Carl opened his mouth to say something back, but then he shook his head and just took a pull off his cigarette. I blew out a puff of smoke as well. As I looked toward the back, I noticed some unfamiliar fellows posturing up as though they were about to fight. “Jesus. These assholes look like they are about to kill each other. You know either of them?”

“Nope.”

“Well, it appears I have to deal with this situation.”  

The short guy gave the taller guy a shove.

“I can handle this if you want.”

“No, that won’t be necessary, Carl. It’s my house. I suppose I should deal with it.”  I sighed again. “I could really use an intimidating black man to grease the deal, though, if you’re game.”

“No problem, man.”  We put out our cigarettes and walked over to the middle of the back yard. A crowd had gathered around the action, and Carl and I jostled our way to the front.

“I’ll knock your bitch ass out!  Come on!  Do something!” yelled Tall, Skinny Guy with the Beard.

“I’m right here, bitch!  I’ll fuckin’ duck your swing and hit you with an uppercut to the jaw!  I’m a fuckin’ trained boxer, amigo!”  Short, Fat Guy in the Flat-Brim and the North Face was not backing down.

“Ready, Carl?” I asked. He nodded. “Gentlemen!  If I could have your attention for a moment!”  I stepped between the two would-be Tysons. “Look around!  I would like to draw your attention to the fact that this is not your back yard!  It is, however, my back yard, and this shit ain’t gonna happen here!  Either settle your differences or get the fuck off my property!”

This seemed to calm the tall guy a bit, but Short Guy wouldn’t leave it alone.

“Look, guy,” I said, pulling him aside, “I don’t know what started this, but everybody is here to have a good time and you are acting a fool and fucking that up.”

“Man, get the fuck off me!” He violently jerked himself away. At this point, I decided that Short Guy was beyond reason, and he had to go. 

“Okay, I’m gonna need you to leave now.”  After I said this, Carl stepped up and prepared to help me escort this guy off the premises. I thought for a moment that he would turn on us, but before he could do so, a group of guys, presumably Shorty’s friends, came up and started guiding him out of our back yard and down the alley behind. One of them came up to us and apologized profusely for his comrade’s belligerence before dashing away to follow his posse.

I took out a couple cigarettes and handed one to Carl. We lit up and started puffing away. 

“Carl, man, I’ll catch you later. I have to go talk to someone.” I had noticed a familiar face moving through the crowd. 

“Okay, bud.”

I patted him on the back and headed across the yard.