I took a little walk because my butt hurt from sitting. Out in the parking lot, you could see the stars coming out. I thought about going home, but that thought didn’t last long at all, because it felt like a big night. I wanted to be here. I mean, school was out! Done! Summer’s here! And all my friends are still here too. Where else would I want to be. …Still, I felt antsy. And thirsty. I went back, sat in my spot again, and watched Archie and Dara for awhile. I couldn’t hear anything, but it was pretty obvious that they wanted each other. Made me smile. Made me a little sad, too.
Kara and Celeste saw me, then came up and sat with me for a bit. They agreed that it looked good for those two. Celeste surprised me when she said…
“Dara’s been trying to get him to pay attention for so long, it’s about time.”
“Really?” I answered.
“Yeah really,” she said. “For like most of the year.”
I stared.
“Lather, you are so dense sometimes,” Kara said. “You don’t see things that are right in front of you. All you boys are,” she added.
Now I was kind of worried. What else had I missed? I looked at Celeste, who was looking down at the fire. Celeste was probably the prettiest of the three girls in triple double, maybe because of her blond hair, but also she was an athlete. She swam and ran track, and she sort of had that athlete pretty going for her. You know, thin with muscles, hair in a tight pony tail, nice face that looked like it had been outside a lot. Was I missing something about her? About her being into someone? Well it wasn’t me — I knew that much.
But what about Kara? I looked at her. She smiled and shrugged — I wasn’t missing anything with her, was I? I stared at her, but then she leans her head and raises her eyebrows, like she’s saying, ‘why are you staring, doofus?’ I looked away. Not Kara. I wasn’t missing anything with her. She was sort of like me, but she didn’t like me, if you know what I mean. I mean, she liked me — she was my best friend of the girls — but…
So suddenly I’m sure I’m missing something. I sighed and started looking over the party again, like I might figure it out that way. It was well dark now. Yeah, you’d see a little light left in the sky if you went up higher and got into a meadow, maybe, but down here be the falls, it was already way dark. Except for the fire. The fire was wild bright now. It made the falls and trees all around look like… well, sort of like a horror scene, with hard shadows and weird colors — like maybe I was sitting on the edge of a big old bomb crater, and the partiers were kind of like survivors.
Survivors who sang! Because there was Track and half a dozen guys singing, We will, we will, rock you! Over and over they sang it, stumbling around on the rocks and lifting their beers high, but then one of them tried to sing, Buddy, you're a boy, make a big noise, playing in the street… but whoever it was couldn’t remember the words, so the whole thing fell apart, and a couple of the guys fell down. it was a good laugh.
…But seeing Track…
Yeah, so there may be something I’ve been missing, right? If Dara’s right. If she’s right. So then — like I do sometimes — I decided I should say something, and I did.
“Yeah, so Dara thinks Track’s gay!” I said to Kara and Celeste, shaking my head with a smug smile. “And that he’s into me,” I said, adding a little laugh to my smug smile and shaking my head more, like I’m saying, ‘what an idiot’ about Dara. … “What an idiot,” I said out loud, because Kara and Celeste were sitting very still.
Awkward. But then…
Lonnie!
“Aaaaawwwoooooooooooo!" we hear, and right behind where we’re sitting, Lonnie steps to the edge so the firelight can hit him. Everyone looks. He’s got a cast on his right arm, wrapping his elbow. Teri, Bets, Ed Guller and a couple others are with him. “Parteee!” he shouts — though it’s obvious he’s maybe down a little energy since earlier. But still, people cheer. Ed Guller’s got some portable speaker thing with him, and he cranks it up with some tunes. That gang walks around us and heads to the fire, and now the party picks up good.
To top it off, Garrett and Tony B come by three minutes later carrying a second keg! I hadn’t even seen ‘em leave. It must have been in Garrett’s car, just waiting. Now the cheer was for real!
“Hey Kara?” I started. “Can I borrow ten bucks?”
* * *
Okay, so the set up here was pretty good for almost everyone. I mean, most of the parents and the cops knew that there’d be a party in the woods, like there’d always been a party in the woods on the last day of school since forever. And they knew there’d beer and pot, and maybe a little bit of other stuff. And I think they even knew someone would get hurt, and they probably were not at all surprised that Lonnie led the way. Yeah, a few kids had curfews, and most of those left. But more kids came, too, so the party stayed big and hard. I’m not sure, but I think there was even a third keg, even if I don’t remember seeing it show up.
After awhile, I didn’t actually remember too much at all, because I sure as hell wanted to get my ten buck’s worth of beer, and I think a managed it easy. I do remember thinking that Garrett and Tony B were making some good money that night, but that was okay.
After a long time by the fire — people coming and going, conversations simple and loud, lots of bad singing, jokes and jokes and jokes — I wandered up to the edge again. Or, well, I sort of lurched up to the edge. I wasn’t too steady. I looked down. There were maybe still forty people. I didn’t see any of triple double left, and I quick decided I wasn’t going back down there. I had this sudden worry that it might get ugly, and that I wasn’t that well liked by some of the hard cores still there, and that I could end up saying something that made the low lifers mad. Or something. It’s one of those things. I like the wild, but not that kind of wild.
I didn’t want to go home yet, though — maybe because the warm had hung on into the night. So I thought, swim!
See, I know the trails around here really well — really well. That matters at night, and it matters when you’re drunk, which I clearly was! And it especially matters when you’re drunk at night! There’s almost always enough light from the sky to see where the trail runs, but you gotta know where to work around brush and branches, and where the path gets rocks, or goes by steep spots — just so you don’t get cut or twist a foot. Well I knew the paths that well. So fucking well. So I headed for the Logs, which was the closest swim spot that wasn’t the Falls.
Pretty quick, the sound of the party faded way down and I could hear the forest a little — wind in the tree tops mostly. And crickets down by the stream. …I guess I heard the stream too, but I’d been hearing that for hours, so I didn’t notice. The path follows the stream, of course, and I’m staying on it. Pretty good. Somehow. See, I don’t have a lot of experience being drunk. Fact, I’ve never been this drunk I think.
But then I heard a sound that I had never heard before in my whole life, but that I knew right away what it was. I heard… sex. No doubt! I heard what I was absolutely certain was the sound of some guy getting off. ‘Uh… uh… uh… uh…’ You know. Cumming, I guess. I’d done that enough to know what kind of sound would go with it. I mean, who hasn’t, right? It was off in the trees up above somewhere — not far. It felt way weird hearing it though, because I knew it probably meant a couple people I knew were having sex — ‘Archie and Dara?’ I think, but that’s a huge, ‘probably not.’ But I guess it could have been a lot of people. Hell yes, a lot. …I did only hear one voice, so I guess it coulda been just some guy beating off. Didn’t matter — except, like I say, it’s my first ever actually hearing it, and so now I’m thinking how people I know must be doing that kind of thing now, so… So, how about that! I didn’t stop walking. …Sorta walking and sorta tripping!
We named The Logs its name, because this monster old tree fell and blocked it, which the water got around it of course, but now it’s a pretty big pool behind the tree in the water. A couple branches kinda made a sort of wall. Not a wall just log. One branch made a place to sit if you want but it’s crooked. The Logs is small pool, but’s nice cuz it’s so still! You could soak or float or just soak there and you won’t get washed away. Here’s where! I know the trails where to turn off the trail. Gotta pee bad. And here’s The Logs in a few seconds cuz it’s close. Water sounds good. It’s super dark dark dark and I gotta pee serious. Water sounds good. There’s a place to get your clothes off with grass. There’s one kinda. If I just sit so I get my shoes off — my shoes are off! But careful, careful, so careful cuz they don’t drop in the water if I let ‘em so I lay back and throw ‘em behind me cuz that’s not the water. Water sounds waaay good, running, running, running. I’m layin’ to need my clothes off. Off, off, off I will. Don’t worry. Water sounds sooo good. Jus’ let it go so good. Oooooh yeah let it. In, in, in I wanna. So fucking warm. Warm warm. Nice. Like I hear music I’m lying down. So fucking drunk my head is just spinning sweet and warm. Let it go all in the grass so easy. “Aaaaahh…” I sigh, feeling like a billion bucks. A billion. Miles deep and easy easy easy. Mmmmm.
“That you, Lather?”
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