"Let's get out of here." I said as the bar filled with people we knew. They wanted to know what was going on for the night, if we knew about any parties or if we were staying at the bar. Lynn was white knuckling her glass and not saying anything and I was having a hard time deflecting people from trying to say hi or give her a hug. She nodded and followed me out.
We walked back to her place, neither of us saying much. I could see tears in her eyes and I felt a little sick with anticipation. I'm not good at serious occasions. I get nervous and run my mouth. Even on the walk back my attempts at humor fell flat. I kept trying to fill up the silence with a joke.
When we got to her place we broke into a bottle of wine just to have something to do and when that was gone we broke into a bottle of Southern Comfort. By the time the taxi came to pick us up I was having a hard time standing and she so drunk that her eyes were crossing. The cab driver told bad jokes in broken English that made us both laugh hysterically. We were still laughing when we got there and that took some of the sting out of pulling up to a memorial service in a cab. Lynn was in jeans and a t-shirt and I was wearing shorts. We staggered past everyone in their suits and dresses and fell into a couple of chairs against the wall.
For the next hour I watched with double vision as people came up to Lynn and told her how sorry they were for her loss.
"I thought you were just sleeping with him?" I tried to keep my slurred voice to a whisper.
"I was." she stopped "We dated sophomore year but that was, you know, over."
The crowd was thinning out, people starting to drift back to their lives when a lady cornered me.
"Did you go to school with Jason?" She asked. I nodded hoping she'd go away.
"It's such a tragedy. He was such a good boy, with a bright future. He was seeing this lovely girl, they talked about getting married. Did you know he had an internship? It was very prestigious. Such a tragedy." She murmured, not even really speaking to me. Something in the way she said it cut through the liquor and snapped her face into focus. Maybe it was because he was fucking Lynn on the side. Maybe it was because I knew his prestigious internship was bullshit. We all had the same internships, we all had the same futures. Jason was suddenly a bright and shinning star because he decided to check out, not because of the way he had lived.
"I don't know a lot about tragedy. Just about waste." I didn't mean to say it. It slipped out but I knew from the horrified expression on her face and the way she waddled away from me that she had known exactly what I was thinking.
A minute later a guy stormed over to us and pulled Lynn out of her conversation.
"I think you and your friend had better leave." He said in a whisper that cut through every conversation in the room. He was puffed up with self-righteous anger.
"Get your hand off of me." Lynn pulled away from him.
"I never liked you. You were always ... cheap."
"The fuck you say to her?" I said stepping in front of Lynn. Too late I realized that was exactly what he wanted. I didn't even see the punch coming.
We stood outside waiting for the cab to take us back and neither of us felt much like laughing.
***
I opened my eye to see Lynn standing in the doorway holding a glass of water.
"How are you feeling?" She asked and sat down on the bed next to me. Even now, with her hair messy from sleep and wearing a bathrobe, she looked composed. It was the way she swept into the room, full of confidence.
I could feel that my left eye was swollen shut. I hadn't been in a fight since high school but I still knew what it felt to wake up with a black eye. I took a sip of the water. My head was pounding.
"You?" I asked. She looked like she might cry. Maybe she had been crying.
"Breakfast?"
"Shower?"
"End of the hall." She stood and left. It was only after I stood up out of bed that I realized I had been naked under the blanket. That's when I saw our clothes on the floor. The empty vodka bottle by the foot of the bed. The condom wrapper on the nightstand. Fuck.
Standing was making the room shake and sway. I got halfway down the hallway and put my hand out to steady myself. Everything tilted at forty-five degrees and I squeezed my eyes shut, trying not to throw up on her carpet. My head throbbed and I turned the shower to the coldest water I could stomach.
I got out of the shower and redressed in last night's clothes. Lynn was on the couch, sipping from a cup she was holding with both hands. Her knees tucked underneath her.
"Hey." I said.
"Hey yourself."
"How are you doing?"
"Bloody Mary?" She asked holding the cup out to me.
"Sure." I said. "Don't get up." I walked into the kitchen and stood dumbfounded. She didn't have bloody Mary mix like any normal college student. There was a bottle of vodka and a can of tomato juice. There was celery on a cutting board and next to it all the jars that I guessed you needed to make a bloody mary.
"Thanks for going with me last night." She said as she pushed past me to the cutting board. She began to cut and chop things while I stood there useless.
"I'm sorry about Jason's brother." She gestured towards my eye. "We never got along." She handed me a glass rimmed with celery salt and kissed me. "Besides the eye makes you look tough." She said it with a little smile. I followed her out to the living room and we curled into each other on the couch. The first sip made my eyes water. It was spicy to the point I couldn't taste the vodka but after a moment everything got a little brighter and I didn't feel as sick. Half a glass later we were giggling again and by the time I finished my drink she had passed out again.
I woke up a while later. She was warm against me and it felt good like that. She still smelled vaguely of vanilla perfume. I untangled myself from her and slipped out the front door.
***
I was sitting on the couch with a washcloth full of ice against my eye, working on my third or fourth beer. My headache was gone and my stomach had settled. For everything that had happened I was feeling giddy.
"I heard you went home with that half-Asian chick from the bar." Ryan said as he came into the apartment.
"You just getting in from the bar?"
"I had work this morning. You look like shit." He said as he saw me.
"It's Saturday."
"Yeah, well the managing partner didn't fucking care. Called me at seven and told me to come in. He was already at the office when he called me. What kind of life is that?"
"The one you're living?"
"Thanks asshole." He pulled his tie off and tossed it on the table as he walked into the kitchen.
"Let me get one of those beers?" He said pointing to the mini fridge next to me.
"Sure."
"So the Asian, she have a boyfriend? What happened to your eye?"
"Her name is Lynn."
"What?"
"Her name is Lynn."
"You go home with her?"
"We just went to dinner."
"So what happened to your eye?" I looked over at him. He looked tired.
"Seven o'clock huh?"
"The thing is, half of what I do is a waste of time and the other half gets stuck in a report that no one will read." He paused. "Bar tonight?"
"Sure."
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Chapter 2 | Suicide and Keg Stands Index | Chapter 4
Posted by Ben Corman at 11:18 AM