Almost Kings (5 page)

10.

There must have been two girls for every guy at the party, and at least partially thanks to me, most of them were freshmen. Melissa and Annie showed up early and hugged me so hard I knew they were already drunk. As they put their arms around me, I saw Hass and Wood pointing at them and mouthing numbers on the far side of the room. I can’t remember which of them Hass did that night. He got both of them eventually.

Dead sober, I moved through the party watching them and waiting for Kallea to arrive. She’d had to stay at her house for some special Jewish dinner and couldn’t show until after 10:00. In the meantime, there was nothing to do but play anthropologist. The freshmen girls moved through the party in what became a familiar pattern:

1.
                 
The girls come to the party not quite sure what to expect. Most are dressed like they belong in a Miley Cyrus video. Anyone with a sweater or a jacket quickly removes it and throws it on the pile in the bedroom, trying to ignore the couple making out on the floor next to the dresser.

2.
                 
A helpful senior directs the girls toward the Jungle Juice: rum, vodka, tequila and just enough juice to help you forget you’re drinking alcohol. It’s the kind of stuff that makes it impossible to count. A red cup’s worth could be two drinks or six. If the girls ask, the guys tell them to count each cup as one.

3.
                 
The girls start dancing, talking to each other, sitting on couches, etc. From here there are several options:

1. Grind up on a guy on the dance floor until he forgets about all of the other girls. Hope he takes you on a walk, either outside or upstairs.
   
2. Kiss one of your girlfriends as a group of guys cheers you on. But only in a fun, Katy Perry kind of way. Hope one of the guys wants to follow suit.
   
3. Lean against a wall with your friends. Hope the room stops spinning. Hope none of the guys realize you’ve never been drunk before.
   
4. Lie down on a couch. Hope your shirt isn’t too short. Hope no one does anything to you when you fall asleep.
   

Around 10:30, Hass pulled me out to the deck, where he, Wood, and Reggie were smoking a glass pipe with my brother. The glass blower had twisted white threads around a blue-green base, making it look like the pipe would taste of blueberry or apple. As the Kings passed it around, they watched the party through the deck’s sliding glass door and pointed out girls to one another.

My brother looked up at me as I approached. Two curls of smoke flowed slowly out his nostrils as he tried to hold it in. Finally, he exhaled a long breath out of his mouth into the center of the circle. He looked around at his friends, and I waited for him to hand it to Wood or Reggie. He held it out to me.

“You got a lot of girls to come,” he said. “Just one lungful. You know how?”

“Not really.”

“I’m gonna hold this lighter up to the green in the bowl, then I’ll put my finger over this little hole here. When I do, you suck in medium-hard and try to get as much of the smoke as you can into your chest.”

Truck did as he’d said, and I sucked the smoke into my lungs. It burnt a little, but I was used to smoke from Truck and my dad’s cigarettes, and I didn’t cough, not even that first time. The other guys smiled, impressed.

“Lungs of steel, just like his bro,” said Wood. “Championship fucking lungs.”

“Probably didn’t even get any smoke in there,” said Reggie.

“Just ‘cause he didn’t cough like a
bitch
—” said Hass, staring him down. He turned to me and took the pipe. “I gotta say, Bug, you’ve outdone yourself. I swear I saw a couple of cherry nines walking around. Who’s that one with the short black hair?”

“Chelsea Castle,” I said. “I think she used to go to church with us, back when Mom used to make us.”

“Jesus fish earrings and no bra,” he said. “I think—I think I feel something.” He started shuffling his feet and raising an arm in the air, his accent shifting to a deep-south preacher’s. “It’s the touch—the touch of the Holy Spirit!”

While the other guys laughed at Hass, I turned to see my brother staring into the party, his face still. He brought a red cup up to his lips and drank without taking his eyes off the scene inside. I turned to see what he was looking at: Miller talking with Lizzie. She was laughing at something Miller had said, and he had his hand on her arm. They looked cozy.

“Okay, fellas, wish me luck,” said Hass. “Better go pick your targets before I get ‘em all. Hell, there’s enough girls here, even Chubs might get laid tonight.”

“Hopefully,” said Reggie, refusing to take the bait.

They peeled out, leaving me and Truck alone on the deck. He took another long puff from the pipe, but he didn’t look happy.

“So, good job,” he said, still watching Miller and Lizzie.

“Thanks.”

He pulled a beer bottle out of his pocket, tossed his red cup over the deck’s railing, and popped the cap open with his lighter. He turned to look at me.

“Can I ask you something?”

“Sure.”

“What’s in this for you?”

“Hanging out with you, I guess.”

He laughed and drank half his beer in two gulps.

“Don’t be a fucking idiot,” he said. “You got a lot of better things to do than hang out with us.”

“Not really.”

He put an arm around my shoulder and pulled me in.

“It’s good to have you here,” he said. “Now go find that girl of yours. I’ve got to tend to mine.”

By 10:30, I was halfway into my fourth beer. I’d been wandering the party alone for half an hour, my head buzzing. I worried everyone could tell how high I was, and the house seemed full of strangers who didn’t like me. The Kings had either disappeared or were busy chatting up girls by the punch bowl. I’d started to worry Kallea wouldn’t come.

“Ted!”

I turned to see her, dressed in a white-and-blue dress and smiling wide. Kallea pulled me in for a hug, and her soft breasts pushed up against my chest. I worried she’d smell the weed on me, but she was still smiling when she pulled back.

“Sorry I’m late,” she said. “How’s it been?”

“Fun,” I said. She looked at me expectantly. “My brother says I did good.”

“Uh, yeah,” she said. “Are you okay? How many is that?” She pointed at the beer in my hand.

“This is my second.”

“Right. What happened? I thought the whole idea was for us to watch everyone
else
get trashed.”

“I’m not trashed,” I said. “You should drink a couple shots to catch up. It’s a party.”

She hesitated for a moment, observing the scene. A group of ten guys and girls was playing a drinking game in the living room, laughing and holding their hands up to their heads to look like moose antlers, and a couple of football players were teaching a younger guy how to do a keg stand in the kitchen.

“No one’s dancing,” she said.

“Oh, yeah,” I said. “But—I bet we will later. People are just, you know, getting ready.”

She looked into my face, trying to read my eyes, and I wondered if they were bloodshot.

“Okay,” she said.

“Okay, what?”

“Shots. I’ve got some catching up to do.”

An hour and three drinks later, Kallea and I were sitting on a couch, watching
Blind Date
on TV. It was a good episode—a carpe diem hippie guy with an uptight lawyer girl who kept checking her pager every five minutes.

We agreed to sip a beer every time the lawyer got another page, and when the hippie guy tossed it over the side of the balcony of the rooftop restaurant where they were eating dinner, Kallea and I laughed for two minutes straight, beer shooting out of our noses.

She turned her face toward mine, so close I could feel her breath against my lips, and said, “You look so—gross!”

I wiped my nostrils with a sleeve and smiled.

“Ew!” She said, pulling back. She looked around the room and held a hand up to her face. “Bathroom?” I pointed down a hall. “Oh yeah.”

As I watched her walk to the bathroom, I noticed Hass and Wood at the other side of the house, walking out the back door with Miller. Wood was joking about something, making an “O” with a thumb and index finger and trying to stick his other fist down the middle, but Hass’s face was stone. They walked out the door, closing it behind them.

I got up from the couch and stumbled after them, past the bathroom and the other partiers. Outside, a light rain was falling, and the air had gone cold. The hairs on my bare arms pricked up, and I wondered what I’d done with my jacket.

I looked left and right, trying to spot the Kings but saw no one. The voices from inside the party seemed distant as I walked the perimeter of the house. As I walked, I nervously rotated the Swiss Army knife in my pocket. I tried to identify each tool by feel, readying myself to pluck out the knife if someone jumped me.

I was shivering and ready to go back inside when I heard someone cry out near the detached garage. I walked toward the sound, navigating around haphazardly-parked cars, one’s windows steamed from the couple inside. As I neared the garage, I spotted the Kings’ dark silhouettes. Three were standing while a forth kneeled. When I looked closer, I saw that he was pinning someone down with his knees.

“Don’t you ever—” said the kneeling figure, and I recognized my brother’s voice. “Go behind my back again.” He threw a fist at the guy below him on the ground, and I heard the soft thump of impact. There was a gasp, interrupted by another punch. The Kings watched, two of them smoking cigarettes.

“—fucking kill you—” Truck said, getting to his feet. He held out a hand, and one of the other figures handed him a beer bottle. He finished it, then threw it up against the wall of the garage, right above the guy on the ground. It shattered, and the figure below groaned again.

The Kings walked away, around the other side of the building, and I took a step forward, trying to see who my brother had hit, though I suspected I knew. As I approached, the boy turned to his side to spit blood, and under the moonlight I saw Miller, his pretty-boy face broken, his polo shirt speckled with blood and spit.

I backed away before he could see me and crept back through the maze of cars, going from shadow to shadow back toward the party. I’d never seen Truck hit anyone except my dad. I remembered getting him ice and Advil after Dad split Truck’s eyebrow open his freshman year, the way he refused to let me bring him a towel, ‘cause we’d just bought new, white ones, and he didn’t want to mess one up. He hadn’t bothered icing his knuckles then, and I doubted he would now.

Back inside the party, Kallea sat alone on the couch. I hadn’t been gone long, but in those few minutes a couple carloads of people had left, and the place felt empty. When I sat next to her, she startled.

“Like a ninja,” she said. “I came out of the bathroom and you were gone. Where did you—you’re soaked. Aren’t you cold?”

“Yeah,” I said. My arms had never looked so white. They were covered in wet goose bumps and seemed thinner than ever. Kallea found a blanket and threw it over me.

“Where did you go?” she asked.

Behind me, the front door opened, and the Kings voices filled the room, joking about some girl they’d seen throwing up outside.

“For a walk,” I said.

Kallea looked around at the mostly-empty party. Music still blared from speakers in every corner of the room, but there was barely anybody left to listen. She looked sad, and when I asked her what was wrong, she put her head against my shoulder.

“We never got to dance.”

11.

I didn’t see Truck for the rest of the weekend. I biked home from Reggie’s the next day before everyone else got up to catch up on homework, and Truck was gone all Sunday, hanging out with the guys. I didn’t even know he’d come home until I woke up to the smell of eggs on Monday morning and stumbled out of bed to find him in the kitchen.

I took my seat at the table, started in on a piece of toast, and pulled out my European history textbook from my backpack to re-read the latest section for that day’s quiz. From where I sat I had my back to Truck, and I couldn’t shake the feeling that something bad was about to happen, like he was going to clock me with the pan full of eggs and blame me for spilling them.

As I tried to read, he knelt over my shoulder and scraped eggs onto my plate with a spatula.

“Before they get cold,” he said, pointing at them.

He drew back the frying pan, away from the plate. I don’t know what I did—I must have flinched—because he asked, “Something wrong?”

I looked at his hand to see the knuckles cracked and bruised. He could have broken my jaw with one punch.

“Nothing,” I said.

The sound of our father wheeling himself toward us started from down the hall, and Truck leaned over me.

“You seem a little out of it. Maybe we need to pull back on the parties. Get you focused again.”

“I’m fine,” I said, taking a bite of toast.

Dad rolled in next to me, and Truck handed him a plate of eggs, which he ate greedily.

“What you working on?” he asked between bites, looking down at my textbook.

“Nothing.”

“The Thirty Years War,” he said, turning the book toward him. “That the same as the War of the Roses? All those European wars are—”

“I said it’s nothing.” I closed the book and shoved it into my backpack. My father stared me down, his eyes burning.

“You think you’re smarter than me now?’

I said nothing. I didn’t have it in me to provide the usual, “No, sir.” What was he going to do?

My dad ate a forkful of eggs off my plate.

“Well?” he asked.

“We’re late,” said Truck, though we weren’t. I picked up my backpack, left the rest of my food for Dad to finish, and followed Truck toward the door.

Outside, I walked past my brother toward the passenger side of the Ford. As I went by him, he grabbed my shoulder and spun me around.

“What’s with you?” he asked. “Picking fights with Dad like that—”

“So what?” I said. “What’s he going to do?”

He spat.

“Doesn’t make it a good idea.”

I shook his hand off me, opened the passenger-side door, and threw in my backpack.

“Something’s up,” he said. “You tell me what it is.”

“The other night at Reggie’s—I saw you. With Miller.” I gestured to his hand. “I thought he was one of your boys.”

“Had to be done,” he said. “Miller was talking behind my back, telling everyone he was gonna fuck Lizzie. Then, at the party, he was all over her. I couldn’t just let that go.”

“Sure,” I said. “But did you have to mess him up that bad?”

“You don’t know what it’s like when another guy wants to fuck your girl,” he said. “You don’t talk. You do something.”

I imagined what it would be like if one of the Kings tried to fuck Kallea. Maybe I would have done the same.

“Okay,” I said. “I get it.”

“Now, anyone asks you about it—people at school, your friends, Lizzie—you tell them you heard he got hurt in practice. Helmet to helmet, and his popped off. You got me?”

“Yeah,” I said. “Sure thing.”

After school that day, I bumped into Kallea by the main steps. She was bundled up in jeans and a parka, and I saw her again as the girl I’d been friends with through middle school. With all those layers, I pretended her body hadn’t changed underneath. It was raining again, and her cheeks glowed red with the cold.

“How was the rest of your weekend?” she asked.

“Boring. Just did a bunch of homework on Sunday.”

“Me too,” she said. “We should totally study together sometime. I’m working on some flash cards for Quiz Bowl this Friday. My mom’s been asking when I’m going to have you over.”

“Damn it,” I said. “The Crescent City trip. I totally spaced on it. Permission slips are due today, right?”

“No need to fret, young Padewan,” she said, pulling a blank slip out of her backpack. “I saw your name wasn’t on the ‘cleared’ list and figured you might have forgotten. Just forge your dad’s signature and get it to Mrs. Gibbons by the end of the day.”

“Thanks,” I said, slipping the paper into my backpack.

“Look, Ted,” she said. “It’s been fun going to parties and stuff with you. And I know you like hanging out with your brother and all. But the freshman team could really use you there.”

“Definitely,” I said. “No way I’m letting you go without me.”

“You fuck that girl yet?”

I nodded awake. I’d been dozing in the back seat of the Ford while Hass talked over a couple of new conquests with Truck. Hass leaned back, and slapped me lightly on the cheek.

“Who?” I mumbled.

“That girl Kallea, little man,” Hass said. “She’s practically begging for your nuts. Just ask her to this party on Friday, give her a drink or two—”

“Ted’s got Quiz Bowl in Crescent City,” said Truck. “He’s not coming to the party.”

“Perfect,” said Hass. “Perfect! She’s in that too, right? Here’s what you do. Take a handle of vodka. Get her drunk, and the rest will take care of itself.”

I thought about the way Kallea and leaned against me at the last party, how she’d wanted to dance, and how she’d made sure to get me a permission slip.

I said, “Maybe I don’t need the vodka.”

Hass beamed and nodded his head as if in rhythm to some song only he could hear.

“Nice, nice. I like the attitude,” he said. “But, still, even for yourself. It couldn’t hurt to bring some along, just to get something started. You can hook him up, right Truck?”

My brother looked me over in the rearview mirror.

“If he wants it.”

“Sure,” I said. “I’ll take it.”

We killed at Crescent City. We didn’t lose a match. It was the first time Mrs. Gibbons had seen a Freshman team run the table like that. After we won our last game, one where I answered almost half the questions myself, she actually came over and gave me a hug.

That night, me and the other two guys on the team, Sam and Joel, snuck over to the girls’ hotel room after Gibbons had done her final check of the night. Kallea greeted us at the door wearing pajama pants, a loose t-shirt, and no bra.

“What are you doing? You can’t be over here!” she said before her poker face cracked and she broke into a big smile. “We were wondering when you’d show up.”

We walked in to see the team’s other two girls, Emily and Carrie, sitting cross-legged on a hotel bed. They turned and swung their legs over the side of the mattress as we entered. Carrie wore mega-dork Mario Brothers pajamas with matching tops and bottoms. A tiny blonde girl, she must have bought them in the juniors section. Emily had on short-shorts and a baggy sweatshirt, which made it impossible to take your eyes off of her legs. Maybe she really did deserve a seven.

Kallea sat next to the other girls on one bed, and the two guys and I took the other. I made sure I was across from Kallea, and my legs swung perilously close to hers.

“I can’t believe we won,” said Emily. “You were, like, amazing Ted.”

“I knew we’d take it,” said Joel. “We kick ass.”

“So let’s celebrate.” I pulled the bottle of vodka out of my backpack.

“Where’d you get that?” asked Carrie, drawing herself back onto the bed in retreat as if the bottle was made of plutonium.

“You’re my hero,” said Joel.

“So what?” asked Kallea. “We just get drunk?”

“We’ll make it a drinking game,” I said. “Truth or Drink. People ask you a question. If you don’t want to answer, you can take a shot instead.”

“What if you want to do both?” asked Joel.

“I’m just going to watch,” said Sam, looking uncomfortably at the bottle, and I remembered why I’d never invited him to any parties. The guy was all talk.

“There’s no watching,” I said. “You’re either in or you’re out. The other hotel room is open if you don’t want to be here.”

Sam glanced at the three girls sitting across from us.

“Okay,” he said. “I’m in.”

Carrie pulled herself forward on the bed and said, “Me too.”

“Cool.” I broke the seal on the bottle. “I’ll go first.”

“I’ve got one,” said Joel. “A warm-up. Which of the three girls in this room do you think is the hottest?”

Kallea wrung her hands in her lap and stared at her feet, unable to meet my eyes.

“Remember,” said Sam. “Hottest doesn’t necessarily imply hot. As in ‘greater than’, not—”

I don’t know why I said it. Maybe I was playing Kallea like I’d seen the Kings do with their girls. Maybe I was still afraid she didn’t like me back.

“Emily,” I said.

Emily smiled and curled her toes. She looked like a very happy cat.

“Nice,” said Joel. “First question. First shock of the night.”

“Shut up, Joel,” said Kallea. She took the bottle from me and drank. “Okay. Me next.”

An hour later, the Vodka was gone, and the game had changed from Truth or Drink to Spin the Bottle. Sam had just taken his turn and forced us all to witness one of the most awkward kisses of all time as he tried to slip Carrie tongue. She made a face like someone had tried to make her lick a bathroom floor and rubbed her lips with her fingers until she was convinced every trace of Sam had been eliminated.

I put my hand on the bottle and let it spin on the motel floor. It went around once, twice. It started to slow as it went past Carrie then slower still as it rolled by Emily before it finally came to rest on Kallea. She looked up at me and smiled.

“You guys can go and kiss in the bathroom if you want,” said Carrie. “We don’t need to see it.”

But Kallea was already climbing over to sit on the bed next to me. She got up on a pillow, sitting cross-legged as I turned my head to face her.

“Close your eyes,” she told me, and I did.

The warmth of her breath brushed against my face as she leaned over, and the smell of vodka filled my nostrils. She put a hand against my side to steady herself, and the spot she touched felt like a burn, as if she’d branded me with her fingers.

Her breath touched my lips, and I parted them slightly as if I were about to ask her a question. The bed creaked, and her weight shifted forward as the wet of her lips pressed against mine. Under the taste of Vodka, I sensed one that was uniquely hers, and I reached for it with my tongue. She didn’t push me away. Instead, her tongue found mine.

She leaned back, and I opened my eyes to find her smiling wide at me. She laughed. Not in a mean way, I thought, but from some combination of happiness and relief. She didn’t get up to go back to the bed with the other girls. Her hand didn’t leave my side.