A greasy diner smelling of fried eggs and sizzling beef. There’s a musk of cigarette smoke but I don’t see anyone smoking.
We have new clothes on. A large part of the drugs are stuffed in a black and pink sports bag around her shoulders, mostly ecstasy, weed, acid, coke, and painkillers. The other drugs and liquor are stashed in the woods a few miles from the party, near a cheap old tent we bought from an army navy store and set up as a fallback.
I’m wearing a dark blue v-neck shirt under a black zip-up sweatshirt, tight black jeans and boots. Care looks like a goddess down to earth in comparison, all-black skate shoes, a beanie, and a plaid miniskirt. Her tank-top is blood red and sexy, covered over with a grey denim jacket.
We’re splurging on giant burgers and fries, savoring every bite. By the time we get to a baked potato loaded with oozing cheese and stringy bacon, I’m stuffed, but Care’s appetite seems unconquerable.
“Can’t go to the ball on an empty stomach, Cinderella.” She chews down a mouthful of food.
“I know. It’s just... I’m going to explode,” I groan. “Hey, what day did the waitress say it was?”
“Friday,” she munches. “Good day for a party, if her or those kids weren’t just playing with us. What kind of person asks what day it is, anyway? We probably sound like maniacs.”
“Old people. People with bad memory.” Like me.
“Druggies who can’t remember what day it is... et cetera.” She stuffs the last chunk down and swallows. She waits and asks the waitress for the check, who comes over with a cigarette hanging from mean thin lips, impatient and uninspired.
Care leaves a couple dollars tip. “Never fuck with the people who make your food,” she tells me.
The waitress comes back after a while and takes the bill, but snatches Care’s cigarette and drops it into a near-empty cup of coffee even while one is half-burned in her mouth. “No smoking.”
Care picks up her dropped jaw and we walk outside, where the sun is starting to drop.
“Nevermind what I said. Food people are the worst. They can spit in my food and I’ll keep the tip.”
“She looked like she might have spit in it anyway.” My stomach grumbles and I stare at the ground for a bit, hoping it’ll settle.
“Hey, are you mad at me?” she asks. “You seem kind of quiet.”
“Mad? No. I’m just full and it feels weird. And I didn’t like all the eyes in the diner.”
“Huh. Okay. It’s hard to tell with you sometimes. You’re not the type to show emotion too easy, babe. Except when something serious is happening. Then you’re all oowooah! Aaaaah!” Her face shoots through a mimicry of expressions, shock, fear, anger, confusion.
“I’m really like that?”
“It’s okay.” She smiles, shutting her eyes for a moment. “It’s cute.”
I rub the back of my neck. “Do you know where we’re going?”
She points at the sign in front of an elementary school as we pass by an empty parking lot.
“Don’t know where Oak Village is, but it’s near here, they said. Should be able to find the place before it gets too dark. Not a lot around the school here but woods and cricks.”
“How do you know that?”
“Psh, how else? Getting driven around, reading maps. Gotta know your own backyard, ya know? I know the main roads and landmarks in town, mostly.”
“You seem to know where you’re going most of the time,” I recall. “Why didn’t you just go out on your own before?”
She scoffs. “Knowing an area and people and stuff is just basics. Putting it all together and surviving on your own is the tricky part. Anyone else I could have run off with before was probably worse than Matty. Maybe I just needed a partner in crime like you.”
“Me? I’m just... nobody.”
“Ha! Then you’re the best nobody I ever met,” she says. “But don’t think there’s a second I ain’t expecting Matty or someone he knows to come bag me off the streets. And kill you, if you’re lucky.”
My eyes widen. “Sounds hopeless.”
“Oh, I’ve got plenty of hope. You gave me more hope in the hour we first met than I ever had in my life. Otherwise I couldn’t have risked leaving with you. I would’ve stayed. But I’m realistic too. If we mess up, if bad luck gives us the wrong fortune cookie, we’re both gonna learn whole new meanings to the word ‘fucked.’”
“I get it. We’re mice in a town full of cats.”
“Put it however you want,” she says. “Ants in a town full of boots. Knives versus guns, whatever. If we try to act like every punk around here who thinks a big mouth makes them invincible, we’ll end up lining a gutter, wrapped in carpets. If we play to our strengths, well, a knife’s as deadly as a gun up close. We got this.”
“Now that you say that... did you notice the knives?”
“Knives?” She digs through the bag and pulls out two folded blades from the bottom. “Oh yeah, now we’re talking!” She hands me one and I pull it open. It’s small and grey, with a dull steel blade. Hers is camouflage.
“We should probably get something better. I still have Dryden’s baton, though.”
“Good thinking, girl.” She looks over hers. “Yeah, getting some real teeth is priority once we have more cash. Gotta be able to kick some ass.”
“Defend ourselves,” I correct. “You think we’ll actually make some money tonight?”
“Hard to know till we get there. It’s gotta be something if those guys are going, but if it’s a bunch of highschool kids sitting around hitting bongs, I’m gonna be pissed. And we’ll be piss-poor still.”
“Hope for the best,” I shrug.
“Yeah, you do that,” she says snarkily. “Hey, here’s our street I think.”
Oak Village Road. Huge two-story homes tucked behind patches of woods along the long, curving road and side-streets, branching off, named after trees and berries. Some are on the small river that runs through the neighborhood into town. We count house numbers down, passing the corner of Oak Village Road and Appleberry Lane, wondering aloud what an appleberry is.
“It’s a name for retards,” Care tells me disinterestedly. “Rich neighborhood is good, anyhow.” Her head turns left to right like a metronome as she observes each house we pass.
Lights peek out through some woods ahead down the road. Anticipation grows in me, while Care falls silent and her steps grow to bounces. She knows we’re headed toward something big.
(...)
A massive grey house with crimson trim around the doors and windows. Cars parked haphazardly all around it and lining the street. Strands of colorful Christmas lights hang all over, front and back. Flashing lights and the din of pumping techno music and loud voices.
“Oh my God, this is amaaazing!” Care squeaks.
I hang onto her sleeve as we wander into the alien world. She starts skipping gleefully and I trail behind. Crowds of smoking teens out front chugging perspiring beer bottles.
Care stops dead in her tracks. She peers annoyedly at a guy in a bee costume next to a creepy tall guy in ragged clothes wearing a hockey mask, a kitchen knife in his hand.
“I hope that’s fake,” I nervously remark.
“Ah fuck, they didn’t say anything about a costume party,” she complains. A few kids’ heads turn. Care scowls at them and they look back to their beers and cigs.
“Is it Halloween?” I ask.
“Huh... maybe.” She adjusts the heavy bag round her shoulders. “Guess so. Whatever, let’s just go in.”
The front door is an ominous red gate to another dimension. The noise and music becomes a roar as we open it into twilight chaos. Rambling packs of teens doused with rainbow neon, UV lights casting purple radiance over crowds of colorful creatures. Greens, yellows, blues glowing brightly, smiles and whites of eyes floating in darkness. A dinosaur sips from a red plastic cup, engaged with a pretty goth girl with blonde pigtails and a face painted ghost white. A small gorilla takes glances at them annoyedly, walks away, takes his head off and stuffs a cigar in his mouth.
The air is smoking and smells of beer and fresh sweat. We go past the parlor, up one of the two staircases on either side, to a second floor even more packed with people and different rooms in every direction. Nearer to the center of the house, we find a quieter room lined with black leather couches. A spinning globe projects rainbow hearts across the evening blue walls and sitting partiers. A few are making out. A girl’s hand rubs round and round a guy’s groin. A group of three girls pushing their fingers through each other’s hair and kissing. Blood rushes to my cheeks.
I realize Care’s not beside me anymore and my head goes fuzzy. A tap on my shoulder.
I’m alone in a dark forest. A torrent of white stars dance through the cold mists, then they seem to see me, swirling around me ever faster, until they become blinding lights.
A tap again. The vision vanishes.
I turn around to Care, wide-eyed.
“Interesting,” she says, looking around the dionysian scene. “Hey... y’alright?”
“Y-yeah...”
Care is suddenly shoved forward and whips back in fury. The girl who bumped into her and her group of friends stop. “Watch where you’re going,” the girl snaps.
“Why don’t you?” Care snarls.” I’m standing right here. Are you blind or something?”
The girl looks to her friends and back to Care with a devilish smirk. She’s tall, skinny and blonde, dark sweatpants and a tank-top, a thin nose and large, crazed eyes, wide pupils, tough and mean.
“Sorry you’re so short. Hard to notice you.” Her friends laugh.
“Oh, right. Maybe this’ll help.” Care slaps her full-hand in the side of the head, cackling. “Notice me now? How’s that? Loud enough for ya? Hahahaha!”
The girl holds her half-deaf ear, face full of animal hatred. The whole room is suddenly staring. She stands straight and her friends and Care ready themselves to fight. The girl lunges at Care but I step forward and push her into a table, beer spilling over her back and the floor as the legs break off and the top flips over on her.
Two of her friends step up and I put my fists up.
“Why don’t you take your tweaked-out friend and fuck off before I get all stabby?” Care threatens, thrusting her hand into her pocket. “We wanna die tonight or have some fun? Huh?”
The girl’s face twists in anger, then she wanders out of the room, bitching to her friends. “Crazy cunt.”
“Yeah, and stay outta my way the rest of the night!” Care growls to me. “Man, I’ll cut her face off and wear it as a Halloween mask.”
She punches another table beside the broken one and downs two random cans of beer. A guy from the couch says, “Chill, yo,” and she looks back, smiles, beer fizzing down her chin. He laughs and shakes his head nervously, kisses the girl next to him.
“God, people,” Care whines. “She runs into me and wants a fight? Shoulda cut her up good. Stupid bitch.”
“Her friends probably would’ve done the same to us. We’re not here to fight or party.”
“Hmm... well, you’re right about the first one, at least.” She picks up our drug bag, patting it to ensure its contents are all still there. “But fuck..”
“Fuck what?” a guy says. It’s the tall senior who invited us here.
Care just looks up at him menacingly.
“Didn’t expect you to show up.” He grabs her by the hips and she pushes him off.
“Back off, little boy. You didn’t tell me it was a costume party.” She rolls her eyes.
“Dressing up is for nerds. I’m not wearing one. You look great anyway.” He pours a cup of punch for her.
“You’re an idiot. Go away. I’m here with my girlfriend as you can see.” She drinks half the cup and pours the rest at his feet.
“Oh great, another dyke.”
“Great, another shithead who thinks the world belongs to him.” Care starts pouring another cup of punch. “Now fuck off before I turn you into Carrie for Halloween.”
He smacks her cup aside with a splash of sweet red, grabs her shoulders and shakes her. I step in, but a dark blur throws him on his back. A short stocky girl with tan skin and baggy black clothes, neon green stripes up the sides of her pants and front of her mini-jacket, a matching black sports bra and fingerless gloves. She has dirty blond hair with recently-dyed red tips, tattoos scattered over her chest and arms.
“Dave!” she yells, her voice a little cigarette-raspy and deep. “What’re you doing, picking on a guest? Especially such a pretty girl.” She winks at Care. “Dumbass.”
“I’m the one who invited her!” he shouts, getting to his feet.
“It doesn’t matter. If she’s here, she’s a guest.”
“She just dumped a drink on me. Fuck that. Fuck this party!”
She interrupts with a rising scream that draws everyone’s attention. All the kids kissing on the couch stop and stare. “Why don’t you FUCK. OFF?!”
Dave’s face flushes an angry pink. He looks ready to hit someone, but for all the eyes on him.
“Always like you to take it to the next level,” he rolls his eyes.
“Fuck off now before I kick your ass up and down the place,” she says.
He flicks all of us off with two hands and walks off fuming. “Suck it!”
“What an asshole,” Care goes, dripping out the sad last drops of her red plastic cup.
“Wasn’t like that when we dated for a while. Broken hearts keep on hurting.” She winks. “So, what’re your names?”
“I’m Care. This is Kade.”
I wave shyly and try to smile.
“I’m Jackie,” the girl says. She shakes Care’s hand and sticks it out to me. I reluctantly shake it. Her hand is soft but strong, a little clammy. “I’m friends with the owner of this place. Me and her are sorta running this little thing.”
“Anything good going around?” Care asks. “Beer and cigs aren’t doing it for me. Lot of stress since we walked in, ya know?”
Jackie shrugs. “Dance floor’s pretty quiet.” She points to the big dark room full of blasting music and flashing, streaming lights beside us. “A few people have coke, but they’re selling, not sharing. People are barely even sharing their pot, and most of it ain’t even good. Everyone’s just getting wasted. Kinda pathetic. Two kids were supposed to come by with X and tabs, but they’re no-shows.”
Care grins and reaches into her bag. “It’s okay.” She pulls out a little blue smiley face the size of an aspirin. “Jesus sent me.”
Jackie takes the pill and bites it in half. “Don’t know him. You have more?”
“Enough to make this a real party. And more than just X too.”
Jackie crunches up the rest and swallows it with a bitter face, washes it down with punch. “Okay girl, how about I show you the peeps?”
“Suuure,” Care says. “Just don’t trap me in a room and rob me,” Care laughs nervously, turning around furtively stuffing half the drugs into my pockets.
“You’re too pretty to hurt, doll,” Jackie says. “Everyone’s gonna wanna be your friend now.”
“Great. Just gimme a second.” Care pulls me aside. “Looks like we’re in business now, but I’m leaving you with most of the stuff, just in case. I’m gonna take care of everything, so you just need to stay around here and have a little fun till I get back, okay?”
I nod unsurely.
“But don’t get wasted. Or roofied. Or raped. Or leave me here alone. Okay?”
“I’ll be fine,” I say. “But umm... you be careful too.”
She smiles. “You kiddin? I’ll have 'em eating outta my hand. Maybe literally if this stuff’s strong. Shoulda tested it first. Guess we’ll see.”
She sticks a joint from the bag in my mouth and looks at me with bright eyes full of little strobing lights. “Be good. I’ll be just around the corner.” She hugs me.
Be good...
I’m sitting on one of the couches in the make-out room. Most of the couples left. There’s a few kids talking and someone passed out across from me with a little vomit dried on his mouth. A nerdy kid in a corner peers around anxiously, wearing glasses with thick black frames and long curly hair and a white dress shirt and dark pants. I wonder if his outfit is a costume.
What am I doing? The punch table calls me over like I’m the nerd and the table’s laughing, though oddly understanding. I drop the joint roach in an abandoned drink. I grab a new cup and look at the table, drawing a small scratch in its marbled white plastic with my pocket knife. The table smiles welcomely still, the punch bowl its mouth, so I shrug and fill my cup.
Some wasted kids are playing beer pong in the next room. One blond kid and his friend keep beating people. He doesn’t look drunk. I watch for ten minutes and get another drink. He wins another match, quits, and starts chugging beers, loses the next two games closely.
I wander to a corner room lined with more couches. Eight guys are talking and passing a bong. I listen for a minute in the doorway as they talk about girls, drugs, and cars. I come in and one of them tries to pass me a bong. I shrug and leave.
Across the hall, people are coming down the stairs laughing hysterically. I don’t know why. There’s a door, I think to a bathroom. Someone’s in it. I think I hear throwing up over the sound of the fan.
At the end of the hall, there’s another door that reminds me of the one I found Care behind at the Ryan. I hear voices and moans and feel compelled to see what’s hiding behind it. I swing the door open to a bunch of gasps, two naked girls with two naked guys.
“We’re playing a game here,” one of the girls says.
“In or out!” goes another. They all laugh.
I shake my head and leave embarrassedly, mostly surprised and a little intrigued.
I come back to the punch table in the make-out room and almost sit again, but the music catches my ear. Pulsating electronic sounds like the thump of a fast-beating heart. I follow it through a little hall and some multi-colored bead curtains into the dance room.
It’s huge smokey chaos inside. Blinking laser lights, black lights, strobe lights lighting up the souls dancing in the haze. Pounding techno full of peril, thrill, drumming bass pulsating through the room and my body. Dozens of bodies flailing majestically in carefree dance. The power of their ceremony draws me closer.
A guy and a girl are dancing sensually and kissing, waving back and forth slowly. They seem so real and beautiful when everything else is a dreamy blur. I walk close to them and slowly become one of the dancers. A stray arm must hit me, sending my head spinning through a bright mental explosion while feeling like I’m falling down an infinite well of coldness, confusion, isolation.
I’m in the dark forest. The silence becomes loud ringing. Suddenly chaos parades of dancing figures flaming in every color, male and female and no sex, producing a soundless noise that can be felt like fire beating in the wind.
A yellow flame wraps around me, fills my body in the darkness and makes me dance. Then a red dance mottles with the gold fire. I become a living display of pure emotion and energy, dancing with it all.
A sound of whooshing. I’m on the couch again, surrounded by distant people, yet alone.
My cup is empty. “What the fuck?” I mumble. The bottom has three worrying scratch marks on it. Am I drugged? I don’t feel it. And the visions... sudden, dazing, alienating, frightening, cold... yet they’re familiar, almost inviting. It makes them almost more terrifying.
I seek solace from the lonely confusion, but I don’t feel like my drinking cup has anything for me, so I leave it on the seat and get up, finding myself drawn back to the noise and energy of the hazy dance room.
It’s hotter and louder now, fuller. Fewer bodies watching, more dancing. The environment charges me, shifts my inner consciousness. My heart beats and my body moves. One part of me is confused and unsure, the other accepting and ready. I’m ready to dance.
The dance floor looks like the forest of trees waving and twirling in the wind and I want to hide myself in it. A figure traps my sight. He’s tall and strong, in tight jeans and black t-shirt, his dark skin shiny and immaculate, glistening with sweat beads reflecting in white and colored lights. I push my way through the floor to find him. I imagine him dancing before me, moving his whole body effortlessly, backing off and coming closer to me in a sexual, almost predatory tease, then he was there, right in front of me.
I have to smile. His face is strained, at work, but he smiles lightly and I feel the ease with which he moves. I move with him and he with me, though I don’t think I can dance like him. Our movements come from a single shared source, a central point between us. We step back and forth, closer and farther, binary stars orbiting a moment.
Then it’s gone. I’m in space alone. The stars are distant and lightless. I look for my hands and see nothing but a tiny light, burning red in the cold.
I’m outside, smoking a cigarette with a group of strangers conversing. It’s cool and calm out here. A cup in my hand, empty. I crush it in sudden hot frustration. Then I pick it back up and look at the bottom. 1, 2, 3... 4, 5, 6, 7 marks.
Seven drinks? And I can feel it. Is this even the same cup?
A kid with a mustache asks me if I’m feeling alright, as if he knows me. I nod, stomp out my cigarette and go inside. I throw my cup into the corner of the room in anger and bump into a kid. He looks at me, says nothing but sorry with his eyes and walks on.
My apparent intoxication steals most of the fear and confusion I have about losing another chunk of time. How long was it? I can’t gauge how long except the sense that, even in whatever state of memory loss I may be in, I might not have gotten a drink more often than I normally would. Hopefully.
Using that factor, I guess I lost thirty or forty minutes. Hard to be sure. It looks like the party has changed noticeably. I come back into the punch/makeout room and the punch bowl is dry. There’s more people in it, ravishing each other more passionately than before. I wonder how the dance room is.
I struggle to push my way back in through the now-crowded hallway, full of people just watching. The dance floor is wild, all but full, surrounded by watchers occasionally joining in. The smell of weed and beer are overtaken by sweat and a feeling of action, a great, long-lasting bustle that emanates from the dancers.
I feel small and alone before the great thing in front of me. The people near me watching are not with me either. They are alone too. Curious but uninvolved. Something pushes me to not be like them, not to just stand by. I close my eyes and meld into the crowd of dangers and happenings again. I’m gently pushed on every side by bodies, but their soulful warmth protects me from the void that calls from far away. I am already somewhere; I am here, with all these people. I am them.
I open my eyes in the middle of the crowd. A girl spins backward to face me, her hands brushing through long, wavy, purple-blonde hair. Her eyes are dark brown, almost black, a plaid skirt and tank-top of black lace, a shiny purple bow pinned on her chest. Black eyeliner and fingernails. She radiates some type of perfection. She dances with everyone, joining in with one person after another, but I feel she dances alone, to herself.
Her eyes keep meeting mine. I feel drawn closer from a distance. I step forward and she spins right in front of me. A circle around us suddenly disappears and her body gyrates with the music like a cobra. She becomes my only focus, her vibe and movements making me move with her, like her, one with her.
I feel her finesse and beauty enter and awaken me. There are no mistakes. Every moment is perfect and wonderful, a necessary release of newfound energy. I feel it as a color cloud, purple bleeding on red and orange and a million colors in a raving trance.
She comes closer and I shiver with anticipation. Closer, but it’s me that moves. I reach out my hand on her belly. She pulls me closer by my waist. My arm wraps around her back, drawing her tightly as we dance. Our hands search each other, grabbing, tugging, scratching, pushing, pulling, all mixed with the dance. Her skin is soft. I lose myself in it.
Suddenly we’re face to face, exploring each other’s mouth. Her tongue licks my lips in a perfect circle and she bites me and tugs lightly. A chill runs through me with unknown emotion, sickly and great. My like for her grows so intense I feel I would do anything for her in that moment, let her do anything to me. I let her lead as she caresses harder, feeling her in return, tearing at each other’s clothes.
Suddenly something tears me from it all. A feeling of severing. A purple flash of grinning sinister mouth full of sharp teeth. I come to, look around, being dragged off the dance floor. I’m confused but unafraid.
Off to the side, I turn around. Care is staring with soul-piercing fury. I don’t unders