Falls Street (16) “Dude, what the hell are you drinking?” Nick McGrath said. He was good friends with everyone, I guess. I never had a reason to like him or dislike him. There were about twenty people, there, I guessed. I didn’t know some of them. I knew a lot of kids like Nick from school. He was just one of those guys who laughed when someone else did or said something. He wore a lot of basketball clothes with Nike emblems on them, but I don’t think he ever played anything other than wrestling. Picking him out of crowd would have been impossible if I hadn’t sat next to him so many times over the last ten years. The crowd was full of buzzed heads and visors like his. He tried to make himself a shade different by wearing his visor backwards and upside-down. Besides looking extremely stupid, Nick was kind of disturbing to talk to since he always had to come in real close. This would have been fine, but he wore his yellow jogging shorts in a way that somehow made his balls the closest thing to you at all times. I was always afraid someone was going to pump him from behind and then, boink! People are scary. “It’s ice tea flavored beer,” I said. “What?” he said. “You’re kidding. Hey, Reggie, get a look at this.” I hate Reggie Marcus. I’ve always hated Reggie Marcus. If my hatred for humanity were a disease, the CDC would be forced to dropped a warhead on Reggie Marcus’ house and destroy half the state of New York just to ensure that the potential to spread the disease was effectively eliminated. I hate that little cock. He wears all the same clothes as Nick, but for some reason he swaggers in them. Maybe, it’s because he can actually play basketball real well. That must give him the right to be an absolute dickhead to everyone he meets. He’s one of those people who see the benefit in being considered a funny guy. He’s not a funny guy. Being a funny guy takes talent and intelligence of some kind. Ray is a funny guy. And when Reggie meets up with Ray, all he can say is “huh, huh,” and “yeah, you think you’re funny, don’t yah?” Reggie is a moron, but his super power is his ability to zero in on anything strange and make sure everyone else sees it. If a kid dropped something, he was the first one to point out the mess and make a loud report about it to anyone in earshot. For Reggie, earshot was a range about the size of an entire county. If a kid fell over, he was there. If somebody said something by mistake, messed up an answer on the board in math class, or God forbid, had his fly unzipped, he’d make a big production of it. This is how Reggie got considered to be a funny guy by most people…. most people who wore visor hats and Nike clothes, that is. I hate to make generalizations. I really do, but if there ever were official asshole apparel, it would somehow follow Reggie Marcus’ wardrobe pretty well. “Oh,” Reggie said. He took a nice deep, stupid breath. What a waste of air. “Guys. Guys. Look at what this kids got in his hand.” And he was laughing when he grabbed my wrist and jerked the bottle into the air. Then, he walked up to Randy’s girlfriend and this other girl and yelled for them to get a look at the shit I was drinking. I snapped my wrist back away from him, and foam crawled up the beer and spilled out over the edge of the bottle. I moved my hand underneath it, but a few drops fell making dark brown circles on the white carpet. “Now, you’re making a fucking mess,” Reggie said. “You don’t know what to drink and you don’t know how to drink. Why are you even here?” And Nick was laughing. So were a couple other guys. “Get something to clean this shit up,” he barked at me. Reggie always had his face a good foot in front of everything else. This wasn’t all that different from the way Nick was with his yellow shorts. I felt pretty sick. He spit when he talked, and I was sure he knew it and liked it. “Awh,” he said smiling. “You were thinking you could just stand there and somebody else would do it for you? Is that it?” “No,” I tried to say. “What? What? Have you got some kind of problem? What’s the matter with you?” he said at his usual volume. “Were you thinking you could just come over here and trash the place?” A small crowd was starting to join, shaking their heads at me. “Fuck you,” I said, and I started feeling it. I started feeling like a big time failure was coming on, like it was going to be inevitable, like he was wiping me out, rubbing my chances at anything right out of the room for his own amusement, just so he could look good. He was some kind of master, I thought. He knew just who to break, who would go down easy, present him with the best scene, so he could be the most noted dick in the room. I smiled at him. “Fuck me?” he said. “Did you hear this kid? Did you hear this kid? Fuck me? Now, you’re starting something with me? You’re trying to start something with me. Why you gotta start shit? This is a party. We’re trying to have fun. Why you gotta start shit?” I sucked up the beer that I caught in my hand, and then I wiped the rest on my pant leg. “Don’t you got any manners?” he asked. “Shut up!” I said real fucking loud. I kind of squeaked when I said it, though. My voice fucks up when I haven’t been using it that much. He paused for a half a second. I could afford to give him a chance to rebound. “Will you get the fuck out of my way, you mother fucking, cock sucker?” That’s about the coolest thing I think I ever said to a person. He didn’t move. He came two steps closer, chest first. “What did you call me?” he said. “Grow up, you piece of shit,” I said, and I pushed him back on my way to the kitchen. I didn’t think it would move him, but he did. He stepped back a bit, and it pissed him off. “Where you going now?” he called to me. “Fuck you,” I said. “What was that?” he said. “I heard that. Why you gotta start shit?” I chugged the beer and learned up against the sink again. The phone was on the hook. Crash wasn’t around, but Connie Stultz was getting something out of the refrigerator. She had on these tight cream-colored shorts. She had a nice tan, too, just like the one we see her come back to school with in September. I watched her reaching around in the bottom shelves, and I remembered why it was a given that everyone wanted to sleep with her. From her red painted toes to her tightly curled light brown hair, she was perfect and dressed the part. And I wondered if it was just a given thing between her and Sarah that they were both wanted and would always be wanted, and that would be the cornerstone of their friendship. Maybe they didn’t realize it at first, why they were drawn to each other as kids, but it’s obvious to any outsider. They both had that special quality, the magazine beauty, and neither one had parents that you ever saw. You only heard about them once in a while, dating somebody else’s mom or dad who wasn’t around that much either. I was looking her up and down. Every ounce of her was alien, and I forgot that it was all supposed to be alluring. I forgot about her nice strong legs and how the curves of her body came together into such elegant mysteries beneath her clothes. I just got thinking how she’s got a heartbeat under there, how all of it runs on a system, and how odd it is that I’ve never seen a woman bleeding, and I’ve seen every guy I know with at least a busted lip. And I knew then why I hit Tommy so hard. It had nothing to do with Donna Smith. I never much thought of her at all. It had everything to do with that flawlessness, that strange inexplicable distance between the sink and the refrigerator, and the reason Crash got his name. And I’m Mr. Breakdown. That much I was sure of, before she even raised her head from behind the door of the fridge. “Here,” Reggie said ripping some paper towels off the counter and cramming them in my face. “Go clean up that mess.” “Don’t fuck with me right now, Reggie,” I said. He had spit right in left eye, and it was everything I had to just stand there. I tried to drink my beer, but he put his big fat hand on top of the bottle as I raised it. He was always sweaty, and I hated the musty smell of him. In a two-foot radius around him, it always seemed like a rainforest. He had these disgusting purple nipples that always crept out of the edges of his tank tops. He was a Bulls fan. Everyone was. “Don’t give me lip,” he said, then he turned to her. “I’m trying to get this kid to show a little respect for the people whose party he’s at and clean the mess he made on the rug. He spilled beer all over in there, and he just starts saying fuck you to everybody when we asked him to clean it up.” “Where is it?” she asked. “It’s all over in the living room,” Reggie said. “All over. I think he should clean it up and then apologize, and then leave.” “I’ve got it,” she said grabbing the paper towels from the counter. “Don’t worry about it.” “Wait,” I said trying to follow her into the living room. “No, no,” Reggie said. “Don’t you worry about it, now. I can’t believe you made her do that. I’d never make a girl do that for me? Don’t you clean up after yourself in your own house? Does your momma do that for you?” “Yes,” I said. “She’s not too busy fucking every guy in town like your momma. Now, get the fuck out of my way.” I pushed him again, and he tried to grab my arm. When he couldn’t get a grip on it, he poked me in the back with two of those big fingers. I stumbled forward a bit. “Don’t be talking about my Mom,” he said. “You don’t know my mom.” And I went into the living room, but she was already crouched down dabbing the carpet. “That’s all?” she asked. “I don’t think anyone would have noticed.” “Yeah, well,” I said trying to start a sentence, but I didn’t have anything to say. I could barely hear Reggie in the kitchen saying to someone that I was talking about his momma all night long. “I hate that man,” I said. She got up and crumpled the partially wet paper towels into a ball. “Who? Reggie?” she asked. “What’s to hate? He’s a funny guy.” She was smiling. She could say that with a straight face. Worse. She could say it with a beautiful face. “Why did you invite me to this party?” I asked. “Because,” she said, “I thought it’d be fun, and Sarah said you should probably show up. Oh my God, you would not believe what your friend Ray just said about the principal.” “Yeah,” I said. “What’s the matter?” she asked. “You’re not having fun?” “Are you?” I asked. “Of course,” she said. “Sure. Why not? Come out onto the back porch with us. It’ll get you away from these guys for a while.” “All right,” I said. And she set the ball of paper towels on the pack of one of the living room chairs. Then, she started plowing through the crowd. Everyone moved for her, and I followed. I still felt like a dick for making her clean up the mess, but she didn’t seem to have a problem with it. Of course, she never seemed to have a problem with anything. Reggie seemed to have a problem with everything. I wasn’t sure which disturbed me more. At least I could understand Reggie. At least I knew what he wanted and how he intended on getting it. I had no idea what she wanted at all. What could you possibly be looking for when you’re already a person like that? Maybe, she was looking for a reflection in Sarah. And maybe her friends were all looking for their reflections, too. And I looked at all the people on the back porch and I didn’t see anyone who looked like I ever did. That didn’t make me feel so bad, though. I didn’t have much time to decide how I felt about it. Sarah caught a look at me. She was standing next to Randy Ruth. She looked at me and smiled. I got this cold chill, and then she whispered something into the side of Randy’s big lumpy head. He didn’t come over, though. He didn’t look at me. I stood there just outside the door, while Connie walked up to the both of them and started chatting. Ray was right there, too, and I snuck around to his side. He was entertaining nicely. Something he said actually had this one girl clapping in agreement. I didn’t know her. Nice chest. Big nose. Terrible, hoarse sounding laugh. “Kelly,” he said to her. “This is Jason Holmes.” He slapped my back, but didn’t look at me. “How are you doing today, Jason?” he asked, still not looking at me. He was using his talk show host voice. I liked that one a lot. “Good,” I said. “Good?” he asked. “You can do better than that. Go get yourself another beer. Would you like me to get you something, Kelly?” “Can you fix me one of those drink you were talking about,” she laughed. “One of those one’s you said your neighbor was having when you caught him sunbathing on his lawn. I know that guy, too. I can just imagine how funny that must have been.” “It wasn’t all that funny,” Ray said. “Until he turned over on his back. I don’t know how he expected the sun to get through all that back hair. He was lucky his wife didn’t mistake him for one of the bushes and start going to town on him with the hedge trimmers.” She laughed again. That was the only drawback to the joke. “All right,” he said. “I’ll make you something nice. Jason, let’s walk.” And so we went back into the living room, through the crowd, and into the kitchen. Crash was there, hanging up the phone. “Chris,” Ray said. “How’s it going?” “Not bad,” Crash said. “Did you just call home,” I asked. “Yeah,” he said. He was real quiet. “No one was there. I guess they either stepped out or the house burned down. Either way, no big deal, right?” “What’s this, man?” Ray asked. Ray was kind of lit. I don’t know if he was planning on driving or not. “Nothing,” Crash said.
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