Angst (14 page)

Ian leans back on the couch and pulls out his cell phone,
punching at the keys, while Samantha, Hannah, Jared and I start talking.

“You got a problem there, Ian?” asks Jared as Ian’s key
punching gets more and more erratic. He looks over at me and smiles, pointing
to Ian’s bowed head, mouthing, “He’s an animal with these things!”

“Who makes these shoddy-ass telephones?” Ian asks, clearly
outraged, “I mean seriously, this thing is a POS,” he says, slamming his phone
down on the coffee table. We laugh as Ian continues.

“I mean really, the keys are tiny, I can barely type on this
fricken thing, the battery keeps dying. Who makes this shoddy-ass stuff?” he
says, grabbing Jared by the lapels of his shirt, “You know what I’m saying, you
fuck?” he asks with a crazy smile, laughing.

“Maybe if you weren’t a total caveman you wouldn’t have a
problem,” says Jared with a grin, pushing Ian away with a little shove. Jared
picks up Ian’s phone, miming a monkey complete with hoots and under arm
scratching, typing onto the tiny keys with huge fat fingers. Samantha and I
start smirking, trying to hold back laugher. Ian glares.

“Hahaha, ab-so-lutely fuckin hilarious,” says Ian, punching
Jared in the leg. “Charlie horse, you fucka!”

“Wait, everyone shut up for a minute,” says Jared, leaning
in conspiratorially, rubbing his now wounded thigh. “We gotta get Andy. If that
kid passes out after he smokes, or sometime later tonight we have to initiate
some kind of classic shaming. That kid always passes out after he’s hyper. Tonight
is a perfect example.” Ian chortles gleefully, slapping Jared on the back,
clearly liking his idea.

“Hell yes!” he says, grinning, “remember that time that we
drew a huge penis that curved up from his cheek to his forehead and wrote ‘I
masturbate more than anyone on the planet’ on the other side of his forehead
back in high school? That shit was hilarious.” Jared laughs and then gets
serious and I look between the two of them imagining all the wicked funny
stories they might have to tell. I turn inside for a moment, one of the first
times I’ve thought about me in hours.
Wow, it’s incredible to not be my
normal quivery self. God that’s sad
. Luckily they’re still talking so I
don’t focus for long.

“No, I’m talking a new kind of shaming, something really
good. Maybe stacking shit on top of his head. You know how hard it is to wake
that kid up once he’s passed out. We can have a contest and see how many things
we can stack on him, then take a picture and then wake him up with that stupid
annoying boombazala he bought me for Christmas last year.”

“What the H is a boombazala?” I ask, trying to peer into the
corner of the room to see what Jared is talking about.

“It’s that stupid long plastic horn thing over there. It’s
so fricken loud. He’ll wake up and knock all that shit off himself. It’ll be
classic,” he says with a laugh, slapping his knee. We all nod, definitely in on
this plot. The bong is being passed around and finally it’s my turn to take a
hit, Jared showing me how, pulling in with my lungs, holding it in as long as
possible. Just as I exhale, coughing, Andy walks back into the room.

“Well hello, smart-ass,” he says, strolling into the room
casually, as if nothing out of the ordinary were going on, a large fake
mustache adorning his upper lip and a fedora on his head. I can’t help but
burst out laughing at how he’s walking, slinking in, his mouth below the
mustache in a huge white sleazy smirk, a blazer of some kind thrown over one
shoulder.

“Oh my God,” says Hannah, putting her hand over her mouth,
stifling a giggle. “You look like a Goddamned 70’s porn star,” she says with
hoot of laughter.

“He’s just trying to impress you, Hannah,” Jared says with a
grin, “Honestly, the kid still thinks he’s in elementary school. These are his
lady killing techniques.”

Andy ignores all this and bows to us, “Good day ladies and
gentlemen, please recrunkulate the recrunkulator. Ian, I am ready for my toke.”
We all laugh, as Andy sits down in all seriousness, pulling the just repacked
bong over to his side of the table. His expression is classic, definitely
playing the part, serious as ever.

“What, may I ask, is so damn funny?” he drawls, his face
schooled into a solemn questioning look, his lips pursed with the thick black
mustache riding above, grabbing a lighter from the top of the messy table. We
laugh harder, clutching our bellies.

“My dear sirs, what may I ask is all this drug
paraphernalia?” he asks, gesturing at the table, then looking at Jared with a
raised eyebrow. When no one answers he shrugs his shoulders, putting his luxuriously
mustached mouth against the pipe to pull in a hit of smoke. I can’t stop
laughing
. Drunk fun, holy shit…I don’t think I’ve had this much fun in a
long time. And I’m not afraid. I’m not sick. And the best part… I’m spending
this time with Jared and his friends. Whoa.

After Andy takes a hit, choking on the smoke as it exits his
lungs, he leans back, twirling the edge of his mustache between two fingers.

 “I say, let’s play Asshole, assholes,” he says.

“What are you some kind of British porn star from the 1800’s
or something?” Jared asks, pushing Andy in the chest.

“You coarse bastard,” says Andy, his hand to his chest in
affront, acting shocked. “How dare you! Just wait until you have to wear this
mustache. If I trust history, I know you’ll be Asshole soon!” Jared glares at
him and Andy shrugs again. “I speak the truth!”

“Oh shit, I am not wearing that ridiculous mustache!” says
Samantha, finally realizing that if she’s asshole she’ll have to sport the
‘stache.

“Me neither!” declares Hannah. The boys groan.

“Oh no, everyone will wear the mustache. It’s a singular
honor,” says Andy with an evil grin.

“I will as long as everyone promises they won’t take any
photos of it,” I say with a smile, shuffling the thick, clumsy deck of cards. As
I divide the deck and carefully shuffle again, Andy peels off the ‘stache and
places it firmly on Hannah’s face next to him. She screeches.

“Get that nasty thing off me!” she says, about to reach up
to her face. Andy grabs her hands, so she can’t rip it off and she just sits
there staring at us, her eyes watering as she tries not to laugh. The mustache
is crooked and it looks like a huge caterpillar has crawled onto her face. It’s
absolutely hilarious and everyone is dying laughing, leaned over, gripping our
stomachs, eyes watering in hilarity.

Meanwhile I try to pass out the cards, my middle hurting
from laughter for once and not from nerves. It’s so good to feel free, to feel
altered, to simply enjoy hanging out with friends without being worried every
second.

Next, Andy passes out Jello shots as we are going to play a
slightly different version of Asshole, where instead of sips of a drink we take
bites of our Jello shots.

“Social!” says Jared, holding up his Jello shot as everyone
around the table takes a “drink” of their shot. Andy was right and Jared is
Asshole next and he looks utterly preposterous with the mustache. I laugh hard,
but silently, bent over in my seat, my eyes watering, hardly able to breathe. I
can’t stop, I keep look over at him, giggling constantly behind my cards,
trying to pay attention to my hand because I don’t want to be Asshole next. Jared
looks over and glares at me when he notices that I’m trying to withhold giggles
and I blow him a big kiss.

“Sexy mustache, Jared,” I say boldly, covering my huge smile
with my fanned out cards. He doesn’t say anything, just raises an eyebrow and
gives me a slightly crooked sexy grin, looking like a naughty police officer or
porn star.

After a few rounds the card game wears thin and we just
lazes around, doing whatever, everyone drunk and high. I look around the circle
at everyone present, eyes are glazed, bodies are limp, smiles are playing at
the corners of mouths. Suddenly I felt a bit more hyper. I want to dance again.

“What kind of music do you have?” I asked Jared, getting up
from the couch to look at his computer.

“Just poke around,” he says, as Andy steals the mustache
back from Ian and places it back on his own face. Samantha, who is quickly
becoming a new friend, comes up behind me to help me pick out songs and soon
dance music is pumping through the speakers and we dance in the small area in
between the coffee table and TV. Hannah and I are fooling around, getting a bit
rowdy, pushing each other over, doing the Macarena and other silly dances.

“Oh you wanna fight, do you?” I ask with a smile, grabbing
her wrists and pushing her away from me.

“I’ll kick your ass, snatch!” she says with a smile, pushing
me back. Andy is up off the couch now, dancing all by himself on the other side
of the room, twirling around, the mustache pulling away from his upper lip, the
hat tipped over one eye. His feet are unsteady, which only adds to the show. Hannah,
Samantha, and I stop for a moment and just watch. He’s really drunk now,
grinning, eyes shining, his movements sloppy, but he is ever the clown, making
us laugh, jumping around, moving his arms like he’s pedaling a bicycle. While
I’m busy watching, Hannah reaches over and gooses me on the chest and I jump.

“You slut!” I say with a pretend modest look, pushing her
back. As I look over, Andy stumbles and spills his Jello shot all over the wood
floor, making a mess of green goo. He groans, a dumbfounded expression on his
face, pointing a wavering finger at us, addressing Jared and Ian sitting on the
couch.

“I saw them touching titties and I didn’t know what to
dooooooooo!” he says, his mouth open wide in amazement, as if this statement
explains the spill.  Hannah and I laugh at Andy’s continued confused
expression, his mustache crooked, his eyes staring widely. He repeats his line,
drawing out the dooooo and then proceeds to get down on all fours, his upper
body poised over the spilled Jello shot.

“No!! Don’t do it Andy!” I say, watching in hysterical
horror as he slurps up the spilled Jello from the floor.

“I couldn’t let that nectar of the gods go to waste,” he
explains, getting back up on wobbly feet, his arms outstretched for balance,
with a huge grin for Hannah and me.

Eventually, after more ridiculous dancing and another hit
off the bong, Andy does seem to tire himself out and soon he’s passed out on
one of the easy chairs, leaned back with his eyes closed. Jared gets up off the
couch and gets us all together to start plotting our “shaming.”

“We’ve got to find some stuff that we can use to stack on
his head,” he says, squinting as he looks around the room for useful objects. He
goes into another room off the living room, and finally comes out with a camera
and several books. “Here’s my camera to catch the shaming evidence. And here
are some books we can use to stack on his head. Oh, and maybe I can find some
cans or small boxes or something,” he says, going into his kitchen. Once there
he pulls down several small food boxes, cans, and random objects of various
sizes.

Jared is the first to try stacking something on Andy’s head.
He creeps up slowly to the sleeping drunkard and carefully places the first
item on top of his head, balancing it just right so it perches there and
doesn’t fall off.

“There’s number one,” he says, creeping back to us with a
huge smirk on his face and a twinkle in his eye. He is totally getting a kick
out of messing with his little bro and I’m totally enjoying the fact that I’m
getting to see another side of him.
Literally, sigh, he’s hot
. He picks
up another object, slightly smaller than the last and asks if anyone wants to
be the next to try.

“Let me have a go at it,” Hannah says with a very serious
expression, grabbing the box out of Jared’s hand. She goes in low, walking
softly, trying not to wake Andy. Finally she’s close enough and places the box
on top of his head, moving it back and forth a bit, trying to make sure it
isn’t going to fall off. When she’s finally satisfied, she pulls back and turns
to face us with a grin.

“Success number two!” she says in a loud whisper, coming to
stand by me. This continues on for a while, each person taking an object and
trying to stack them on Andy’s head. It’s like a game, trying to sneak up and
place the item so Andy won’t wake up and so the object won’t fall from its
precarious perch. So far everything is staying and nothing has fallen off.

“I feel like I’m playing fricken Jenga or something,” says
Ian with a grin after depositing his pencil sharpener on top of several other
objects on Andy’s head.

“I think we should stack a few items on his shoulders or
knees or something. The one on his head is getting too tall. It’s gonna have to
give soon,” says Jared, ever the engineer.

So we start stacking elsewhere, boldly making our approach,
no longer afraid of waking Andy, since he hasn’t stirred since we started. Finally
our creation is complete, a monumental ridiculous totem to our drunken
enthusiastic creativity.

“It’s magnificent, Jared and I’m so impressed,” I say as
Jared grabs the camera. He grins at me with an ‘I’m the shit’ nod and starts to
take shots of Andy. He goofs off, pretending to be taking photos of a model,
getting in close, asking Andy to “work it big guy, work it!” We all laugh,
standing back as Jared captures his final shots and joins us across the room.

“The best part is that he is still wearing that dumb
mustache!” I say to Hannah with a giggle.

Finally our mustache wearing sleeping beauty is ready to be
awakened by the kiss of the boombazala prince. Jared pulls out the horn with an
evil grin on his face, walking toward Andy, careful not to knock any of the
objects by stepping too close. I stifle a laugh, waiting in anticipation.

Jared puts the horn up near Andy’s ear and looking over at
us for encouragement, finally puts his grinning mouth to the horn emitting a
loud blast. Andy jumps and all the objects fly off his head and other body
parts and across the room. We can’t stop laughing. Ian guffaws in the corner
while I hold my stomach, bent over, my drunk feet shaky, my eyes watering. Andy
looks stunned, his eyes wide, his mouth hanging open, his mustache crooked and
Hannah grabs on to me, holding herself up because she’s laughing so hard. I
can’t breathe and try to straighten up and pull much needed oxygen into my
lungs, but Andy’s expression is too funny and I can’t stop.