that always does it for me

I realized I had fallen asleep and it was now 11 o’clock on Friday night.

I was like, “shitty” under my breath.

From bed I started texting to see if anyone was over at Billie’s going away party. When I  got up I dressed in double layers and left my room into the cold house. Drowsy, I washed my dinner dishes and took some beers and the mountain bike to find the trail to Billie’s.

On the unfamiliar path I had some moments of doubt and worry that I would have to take out my phone to look at the map. It didn’t end up being necessary. I picked out the trail as I went, most of it up a long curving alleyway heading north along the cemetery. I looked at the silhouettes of graves up and down the hills to my right. It was dark and cold and quiet, like there was no city to my left.

Near his place I passed a Cadillac parked in the middle of the street, lights on and engine running. My eyes were blurry but I could see that the back passenger-side door was open and there was a guy standing next to it. I couldn’t tell what he was doing, but as I got closer I realized he was turned towards me, staring at me, and pissing in the street. He didn’t move as I passed by, just kept on pissing.

I was like, “okay, I’m ready to find this house about now.”

When I made it to Billie’s, the party was sparse and awkward and unlike usual… somber. There were very few of the usual crazies there, but there was a group of very normal, well-adjusted kids that I didn’t recognize. I went straight to my usual crowd who was standing together in the kitchen: Lillian  Love, Navid, Stella, Noah and Natalie Michaels. Billie was going around toasting scotch and putting on a show of grave resignation. His greatest concern was for Kellie, who was staying behind.

I was like, “C’mon man, Afghanistan will be fun. Kevin Kado is having a great time.”

“Kevin!” He yelled in his twisted Brit accent. He was put-off.

“Kevin, doesn’t know what’s going on…” “That guy….”

He couldn’t find the choice words.

“No, it’s going to be serious dood.” He said.

I was like, “I don’t know man, I mean, you’ll be fine. You’ll probably get to buy a motorcycle and hang out with lots of internationals, have adventures.”

“We’ll see dood, we’ll see,” he said, gloomily.

That’s about how we left off. He moved on to continue mingling. I was still in the kitchen with my friends who were all very into a big conversation and had no intention of trying to mix with any of the other groups at this party.

I could see from where I stood, over the room divider, in the dining room was this girl who was apart of the well-adjusted kids. She was fantastically gorgeous, was gorgeously dressed in a cool skirt, tights and boots; and had a gorgeous ass. She obviously did not belong here and I really wanted an explanation of her existence. I had smiled at her earlier, but there was no way to casually approach her with our two, small groups across the room from each other in different rooms.

Stella was energetically going over her new part time gig of reading books to some rich triplets. It was indeed a crazy story, and everyone was rapt; I would just have to wait it out.

In the midst of the conversation Navid, bored, started to whisper to me under his breath. “There’s a big tittie girl downstairs in the smoking room.” He said, completely unnoticed by the ladies.  “She’s not your type though, you wouldn’t like her,” he said, making fun of my tastes.

“What about the one behind me there?” I whispered back only motioning w/ my eyes. Interested now, he popped his head up. “No, I don’t see who you mean. Behind you? Where?”

I’m like, c’mon. “Right behind me… You see her,” I said.

“Ohhhh, yeah, that is your type.” he conceded (as if she wasn’t hot at all.)

Stella was saying that this part-time gig of hers was for a very wealthy, high-power gay lawyer and his lover who shared these triplet two-year olds. They lived in a mansion with fresh cut flowers every day, two Christmas trees and a life-size electric train set that was large enough for the kids to ride on. They had a bimbo nanny, a super gay butler and they had decided to hire a white girl to read to the kids who had started to pick up bits of the Jamaican housekeeper’s accent.

The conversation, like the party, dragged on. My friends never budged but eventually they all decided to take off. I ended up wondering over to that girl anyway, when her group had dispersed. She was French, and she said her name was Emily, but it was hard to understand because of her rich, thick accent. Her face was so beautiful that it was hard to look at her. Her eye lids were like slabs of sculpted clay over  idealized orbs with painted amber pupils.

She was only in town for another week, she was on business from France to Maryland. She was an accountant, and sounded very unenthusiastic about that. I was like, “That must suck to be stuck in Maryland.”

“Wha.. Huh…?” She said with her big eyes. I repeated myself slower.

“It’s not so bad” she said, “as long as it’s only for a short weeks.”

We were separated when her group returned from the smoking room and the French guy (who must have had a crush on her) started standing next to her again.

A short time later I could see that she had her coat on and was out the door w/out a look back. It figured that the hottest girl at that party would be such a complete random, never to return, and it figured that she was an amazingly beautifully European, because that always does it for me.

I said my goodbyes and grabbed my drum that had been at Billie and Kellie’s for two years. Outside I packed it in the side bag of the mountain bike and made my way back along the long, dark, quiet, cemetery, alley  trail.