more beat than your butthole (chronicles of Julie pt. 3)

third part, better than the first.

I got up from the bed feeling much better than the first time. Sitting down in my chair, I flipped my laptop open to see a few things. Checked the weather, read an email. Send anything stupid the night before? No, good, didn't look like I was anywhere near the thing at all. Occasionally I'll get out of hand on "Tequila Tuesdays" but it looked like my only problem from the night before was the visitor in the kitchen.

I kicked my feet up on the desk and lit a cigarette. The first cigarette of the day is always the best, and it was even better that morning. My bedroom caught the morning sun and the smoke would dance as it floated off the tip. I leaned back and exhaled, thinking about how things could have been a lot worse than they were. If Julie stayed over the night before and wanted to make me breakfast, I'd let her. As I was reclining in my chair, I started to think of some of the good times that we'd had.

===========

It was a couple months after that drunken night down at the bar and Julie was spending the weekend at my place back home. My parents had gone to Vegas for a long weekend and my brother was off at a friend's house. He never cared much about what I did even when he was home.

I smiled as Julie's eye caught mine over the glare of my lighter.

"Pass that bowl already!" She joked as she punched my shoulder.

I passed the pipe with the lighter between two of my fingers. She grabbed both, lit it and took a deep breath.

"You're an all right girl, you know that?" We were smoking a lot of pot in those days, but I never over did it. Julie had the habit of smoking too much and cooking various types of chicken. I would smoke too much and get intellectual, it worked out because we'd talk philosophy over a plate of spicy grilled chicken.

We worked well together at the bar, too. We'd both get ourselves nice and drunk and magically appear safely back home the next day. I personally think that was mostly my doing, but I'd be lying if I said I remembered many rides home from bars, ever.

We were getting comfortable with our situation. I hated the idea of trying to start something over the summer, but it was working out despite my fears. I figured things would either fizzle quickly or it would turn into some kind of perverted phone relationship. Nothing bad happened at all, things were actually going really well.

The rest of the summer went much the same, I would visit her and she would visit me. Sometimes we'd meet in the middle and I even had dinner with her parents once or twice. Things were moving to enter into a new stage in the relationship by the end of that summer and I felt fine with it. I liked this girl, she liked me. It's not like I had anything else going on.

As school started back up again in the fall, there were a few bumps in the road. The first couple weeks went past in the blink of an eye that year. I was excited about being so close to the end of school, the situation with Julie kept moving along, and none of my classes started before 1 in the afternoon.

Eventually the days got shorter and the nights, colder. I went out one night with my roommates to a party across campus. The place was packed by the time we got there because Derek decided to crack open a handle of whiskey before we left the apartment and we started doing shots. At some point between the second and third stop sign on the trip over, the empty bottle was thrown out the window. It was shaping up to be a fantastic night of merriment and revelry.

We pulled up to the house and saw that people were piled in tight like immigrants in a pickup.

Me - "Look at this bullshit. It might look like fun now but with that many people, this party is gonna be more beat than your butthole in about 8 and a half minutes. ... More beat? Beater? Which one is it?"
John - "It's more beat, I think, and I hope you were talking about Derek's butthole."
Me - "It was a fucking phrase, people say that"
Derek - "My butthole is not beat up. Fuck you guys." He slurred.





I was starting to slur a bit too and I didn't think what I had said about the buttholes made any sense but I remember I went with it. It's not always what someone says, it's how confident they are in saying it that matters. We decided to go to that party, in spite of my protestations earlier and continued annoyance at the proceedings, because John went to high school with someone that lived there. This connection did not go unused as within a few minutes of walking in the door I was asked to play beer pong with John's friend because John was terrible. The previous partner had gone outside to smoke and never came back, I didn't care why because I was really in the mood for some kind of game and I had some practice at this particular one.

That night is one of the biggest reasons I hate text messaging. At the time though, I liked the idea immensely. The first game went well and as I started talking to John's friend, I realized he was a generally tolerable human being. Some might even have called him a "sweet dude." I was text messaging Julie to come to the party as the second game started.

I like to think that it's my good looks and charm that bring home the bacon, but it might be my wit. Maybe it's because when I start to get drunk my eyes narrow. I drink and I get bedroom eyes, it's weird, I know. The alcohol might have made the girls on the other side of the table look better. All I know is that I started chatting to the dark haired one, Katie. I was talking shit to Katie, text messaging Julie, and about to sink the last cup to get Katie's team off the table.

We won that game, and the next, but Katie stuck around for a while. I wasn't thinking about doing anything with Katie and I wasn't exactly getting the vibe that she was into doing anything with me either, but that didn't make things look any better to the untrained eye. Julie walked in to see me engaged in an argument with Katie.

Me - "Vin Diesel's way cooler than Chuck Norris. Chuck Norris is, in fact, an asshole."
Katie - "Chuck Norris would kick Vin Diesel's ass. Period. You're smoking crack rocks if you think any different."
Julie - "Heeeeeyyyy baby, who's your friend? I'm Julie, by the way." She introduced herself to Katie.

It was a totally innocent argument anyone could have found themselves in with anyone else at any given point in time. Julie made it a little awkward for a minute, but Katie left. No harm, no foul. We lost the next game and I wanted to leave, but Julie had wandered off. I figured she wasn't very far so I went out for a cigarette to wait.

The air was cold enough to see your breath. I love those first fall nights where it's cold enough to do that, I always walk around pretending I'm some kind of steam breathing dragon about to terrorize a small town. Katie must have seen me walk out the door and wanted to say goodbye before she left. It was kind of embarrassing to be seen walking around like a drunk dinosaur huffing and puffing all into the night. So when Katie saw me and started laughing, I did too. It was funny, I was drunk and my phone started ringing.

Me - "Hold on a second, lemme get this. I wanna tell you something."
Katie - "Ok, but my friends are leaving."
Me - "Yeah babe, outside. ... That's just my friend, don't worry about it. ... Yeah, come outside and let's go. ... Yeah, bye, get out here. ... I'm sorry, actually that's what I wanted to say to you, Jules gets weird sometimes when she's drunk."
Katie - "Oh it's no problem, are you talking about that awkward exchange earlier?" She forced a polite laugh.
Me - "Yeah, she's really a nice girl. But I gotta go find her around front."
Katie - "I'm going that way too."

Julie didn't say anything when she saw me walk around the corner still talking to "that girl." She waited until later when we were back at my place. I guess it looked bad, I still don't know. It was entirely innocent, or mostly innocent. We got into an argument about it regardless.

Julie - "You seemed a little friendly with that girl."
Me - "Jules, I just met her a few minutes before you walked in and then I saw her outside later on. It was a coincidence. I wasn't getting friendly with anyone."
Julie - "I saw what I saw and it looked like you were getting a little friendly with her."
Me - "Julie, I don't want to deal with this shit right now, you're drunk ... I'm pretty drunk, let's just go to bed."

It went on like that for awhile until I let it slip that if I knew she was going to be acting like that I never would have told her to come. She took this to mean something entirely different. She was madder than hell and it was cute. I probably shouldn't have laughed at her that night either, but she reminded me of a toddler throwing a tantrum. I told her that, thinking it would calm her down, but it didn't.

It was a couple of weeks after that night and I wanted to surprise Julie with some kind of peace offering. We fought a bunch of times after that party because, basically, some words were thrown around that neither of us meant. I still really liked her, but we both needed to apologize to each other and be serious about things before anything got out of hand. I bought a bottle of wine and took my nice bong and a bag of weed over to Julie's place. She mentioned earlier that day that she needed to study for some test she had the next morning, so I figured if I went over later she might be in the mood for some making up, so to speak.

Worst. Idea. Ever.

I walked up to the door with the bottle stashed in my bag hoping I could keep it a surprise. Julie's roommate answered the door and told me that Julie would be right downstairs. We were past the point in our relationship where I waited for her to come down any stairs, anywhere. So, I walked up the stairs and turned the corner to her room and found it was locked. I started knocking on it.

Me - "Hey Jules, open up. We gotta talk."
Julie - "Yeah, gimme a minute."
Me - "What the fuck? Seriously girl, I've seen that before."

She came to the door and opened it, but not all the way. She told me she was busy studying with someone from class. I told her to open the door, that I had weed and wine, and they were two of her favorite things. She told me it was an important test. I told her she needed to open the door before I got mad. She refused, I got mad.

Turned out I arrived just in time to interrupt Julie and her friend from consummating their evening of study. She cleared her study friend out of her room and we talked. She chose this time to tell me the whole truth, thinking that maybe if she were honest I would be fine with her plans to fool around with some dude from her stats class. We argued about a few things, I called her a few names and she called me a few of her own. I stormed out of her house with the weed and wine and kept it to myself that night.

Since she didn't technically cheat on me, I took her back eventually. I didn't know what else to do, I really liked her, I hoped we'd be able to move past the whole thing and go back to the way things were.

I learned one important lesson that night at the party, that text messaging is the devil. I would later learn another lesson, that things can never go back to the way they were.

to be concluded...

the binge drinking commenced (the julie chronicles pt 2)

part 2...
I stepped out of the shower and couldn't find a towel. In my haste to get in, I didn't bother to check for any. It was already on track, but as the cold air got to me on my trip across the hall I knew it was going to be one of those mornings.

As I creeped to the top of the stairs I heard the radio in the kitchen blaring some indie band I'd never heard and probably wouldn't ever hear again. Yes, I was trying to verify my earlier notion that Julie was my breakfast bandit, and that was just the kind of music she liked to listen to.

I went back in my room and started to get dressed. I sat down on the bed to pull on my socks and started thinking again.

======

It was about a week after our initial meeting that I stopped to sit and enjoy the day on a bench on campus. I was living about a half mile away and rather than head back to my apartment for an hour, I killed it bumming around. I tried to schedule my classes back to back so I didn't have all that time to waste, but I decided it was better to take a class I liked instead of another in-depth look at the intricacies of the ancient romans or the medical history of 19th century Russia.

"Can I bum a cigarette?"

I was startled back from my daydreaming by a familiar voice. Julie was wearing a hat slung low over her face and I didn't recognize her immediately.

Her - "And I'll even smoke it with you"
Me - "Good, you better. Hey sorry I had to cancel the other day, I really needed to finish that paper. Trying to be a good student and all."
Her - "It's not a big deal. I was better off not going out that night anyways. Uhhm, do you still want to do something?"
Me - "Definitely, let's say tomorrow night, or no, Wednesday night. ... We'll get fucked up and burn down this town?"
Her - "Ok, sounds great." (she wasn't as enthusiastic as her words would lead one to believe)

We eventually worked out the plans to head down to a bar that had their special billed as "Penny Pitchers." Pay a cover and drink all you can for two hours until the special is over. One bartender actually required a penny per pitcher, but most just refilled your pitcher for free. I told her a few sordid tales of the seedier side to my experiences there and she didn't seem to mind. I, of course, glazed over some of the grittier aspects of my misadventures involving large amounts of alcohol at basement bottom prices, but she wasn't phased by what she heard. It was good.

We chatted for a while longer until it was time to head our separate ways as my 3 o'clock was quickly approaching. I remember sitting in that class that day and staring out the window thinking of how great this girl seemed. She was cute, she was fun, and best of all she seemed to be into the same types of activities I was interested in. I was glad it was mostly a lecture that day in class as I had some time to organize my thoughts.



That gladness turned quickly to anxiety as some of my neurosis started to kick in. I imagined we'd get to this bar and she'd find some of her friends and blow me off. I'd get inhumanly drunk after that and cause a scene, as was my habit when things didn't go my way. I thought of how she might turn out to be a raging drunk that couldn't handle her alcohol, she'd throw up all over me and I'd get pissed because she ruined my new sweaties. Another possibility I foresaw was one in which we ran into any number of people that I know. Forced introductions are never a good thing to deal with on a first outing. I tried to block these scenarios from rising in my mind, but once they started, the floodgates opened wide.

I was glad when the professor told us "Blah blah blah, see you on Wednesday" as it gave me something to think about that wasn't an unlikely scenario combining all of the most notable parts of every bad date in a bar I'd ever had. I knew that a bar probably wasn't the best place to take a girl to, but I firmly adhered to the idea that crowded places were good because they offered a distraction if the conversation got dull. Nothing bored me more than dull conversation, and nothing was worse than being trapped in a situation where it couldn't be avoided.

I went home after class and fucked around for the rest of the afternoon. My roommate John came back later that night and informed me that we were all going to the bar that Wednesday. I didn't bother to tell him that I already had plans to do just that. I hoped that I could avoid the awkward conversation resulting from my plan to take a girl to a bar on our first date. Turned out that I couldn't, the next day as I stood in the living room trying to explain how I'd be there but I wasn't planning on getting "buckwild," John started to get mad at me.

Him - "So you're saying that you're going to the bar but you're not going to drink a lot and you're going to try and hang out with some cunt instead of me and Derek?"
Me - "Man, fuck. I made these plans before you said anything about this. Don't try and put blame on me because you're being an asshole."
Him - "What? I told you yesterday. You didn't seem un-enthused then, now you're acting like a twat-waffle. We're going down, and we're going to have a good time. You're being a stupid fuck. What kind of a degenerate takes a girl on a date to penny fucking pitchers?"
Me - "No man, not happening. My plans are my plans and that's final."

As I was driving to pick Julie up the next day, I figured I had better call her and let her know I was almost there. "Hey... Yeah, almost at your place now. Hey look, I uhh... I got my roommates with me, they're coming too. ... Yeah. Yeah, all right, like 2 minutes. See you." It builds character, I remember telling myself. It's an exercise in character building and it's a great opportunity to test Julie to see how well she gets along with my friends. A little early for this kind of test, all right, sure. The test was being administered that night regardless of timing. Rationalizing the change of events in my mind, I picked her up and John was nice enough to make her ride in the back.

Julie impressed me by taking care of the introductions herself. Turns out she had a class with Derek, so they chatted for the short trip down to the bar. Everyone got in just fine and we found a table in a corner and patiently awaited the slowly moving arm on the clock above the bar to turn ten. As was our custom, my housemates and I went up and got two pitchers apiece. With 6 pitchers on the table, realistically speaking, Julie didn't need to get her own pitcher. I told her to get the cups and the binge drinking commenced.

I can't be sure, but I think it was the feminine member of our group that changed the dynamic. Like a couple of kids in the schoolyard, each of us kept trying to out-drink the other. There were no spoken words stating how far ahead John was getting, or how far behind Derek was, but we all knew that there was a definite leader. Exchanging glances in between conversation and slamming the cups down on the table as we finished each was a sure way to start a drinking race under most circumstances. As I felt it wouldn't paint an accurate portrait of exactly who I am, I held back. I didn't want to get shitty just because of the posturing of my friends. The green flag was thrown for the race but no one ever shouted "go."

So it was this precarious balance I was maintaining between fighting for my spot as the alpha male by drinking my friends under the table and trying to pretend I was normal in front of this girl that I wanted. Julie offered to get the next round and with a quick rise, I got up to help. We walked over to the crowded bar and I pushed my way to the front and handed back a pair of pitchers to Julie, but on our way back she stopped and started talking to a group of her friends. I realized that she knew they were there the whole time. I had a suspicion that her original plans for the evening were to do the same thing only with this different group of people. Sneaky, she was more clever than I gave her credit for. I took my pitchers back to our table and went to find out what was taking Julie so long, even though it hadn't been but a few minutes. I figured that she would be a while as the girls she was talking to all knew her, so I wanted to get back to that table to see if I couldn't glean some useful information from her friends. She introduced me to everyone with no problems and then the table got quiet. These bitches were talking about me, or so it seemed.

Back at our table the evening continued as before but I started noticing some of the details I'd been missing all night so far. Julie was drinking quite a bit, I should have known though, because she was a bit wobbly by the time she got back to sit down. The other detail I was missing, but shouldn't have been, was that John was bombed. Midnight came and went, the special was over, but we weren't all the way done just yet.

Things got blurry but I remembered clearly ordering a pair of jager bombs as we were about to leave. Downing her drink, I knew Jules was the coolest girl that I'd met in a long time and she was as clearly interested in me as I was in her. Derek drove my car home that night, but the sneaky fucker didn't bother to stop at Julie's place on the way. This was probably a good idea because John was passed out in the passenger seat. Her and I were sitting in the backseat when we realized that we were parked in front of my apartment.

Me - "I should be fine to take you home."
Her - "Yeah, all right. Do that."
Me - (as we both got into the front of the car) "See you fuckers in a bit."

I drove her the mile or so to her place and put the car in park as I leaned over to kiss this wonderful girl a goodnight. The next thing I knew, I'm back at my place being woken up by the sun shining in my window to Jules' smiling face next to me. Yeah, I liked this girl.

to be continued...

a prince in a brothel (the julie chronicles pt 1)

A bit of stuff from the vault...


The sun was shining. I knew because it hurt to open my eyes. The blinds were drawn shut but it was one of those mornings where the sun seemed to shine twice as bright as normal. The light seemed to shoot through the cracks in the blinds like they weren't even there. I wasn't happy.

Rolling over and sitting up, I kicked a glass as I swung my feet onto the cold hardwood floor. The glass fell and rolled slowly, spilling a foul mixture of yellow water and cigarette butts.

I sighed as I stood up. Slowly, I had to sit back down. Vaguely in a haze of intermittent memories I recalled my last lucid moments from the night before, downing shots of tequila. I remembered yelling something about "Tequila Tuesdays" and constantly being corrected that it was, in fact, Saturday night.

It was a decent night, waking in my own bed with no stranger laying next to me. Breathing deeply the morning air, I smelled something cooking downstairs.

With a roll of my head, I slowly bit down on my lower lip. The only person that could be cooking breakfast in my apartment was Julie. She and I had a tumultuous past. I didn't want to think of how she came to be there just then, so to distract myself I hopped off the bed and slowly crept into the shower.

The apartment was in an older, somewhat more affluent part of town. It was the kind of area with young people, and specifically what seemed like a lot of couples. They were still finding their place in the world, somehow the older buildings and quaint shops brought their world together. There was a time in my life when I would have been interested in the history of the area, but all I cared about that morning was the creaky floors.

I let the warm water spray on my face as I tried to piece together what could have brought me to this situation.

=========

It was 6 years before I woke up that Sunday morning to my peculiar situation. I was at a house party back in college. It was my junior year, second semester and spring was finally in full bloom.

The house was set back from the street and people were overflowing into the front, back, and side yards. The spring thaw brought out the worst in the student body. Winter left one's soul lonely. The cold and snow made more hermits than snow bunnies and when the opportunity arose, everyone flocked to get out and experience the life they were missing in excess.

The fun in the fall seemed more mechanical, as if people just did what they felt they had to. It wasn't spontaneous and wild like the spring.

So I got a little spontaneous that night. I was never a fan of the chaos of parties like that one. They were savage and unrefined. On some level, they were appealing not in spite, but because of this. Letting go of my civil self, I would exist for a few hours on this more basic level. The loud music and louder smells were tolerated because they felt natural. I was a prince in a brothel.

This was an environment where emotions reigned. The people swooned over those with the most excitement. They hated the people who were angry. In order to just exist, everyone had to give in to one feeling or another. Love the party and it will love you.



I did what I thought I should, make a full circuit around the place and find somewhere I felt comfortable. Ultimately, that was all I felt compelled to do.

My comfortable spot was in the main living room. It wasn't overly packed in, nor were there so few people that I felt walled off from the rest of the party. It was a high traffic area with many faces coming and going so I felt my social fulfillment was done.

I knew the people that lived in this house, felt kind of sorry for them really. The important thing was that I knew them well enough for there to be some bad feelings if I smoked freely inside. There was a small deck behind the house that offered some privacy because the door led into the dungeon part of the basement. Not that people were tortured there, but it felt like a dungeon and I always half expected to see some critters. People shied away from the door and tended to shy away from the patio back there as well because of it.

As I lit my cigarette, I saw a girl walk around the building. She couldn't have been much taller than 5'4", maybe shorter. Dark hair, almost black but with brown highlights. She had the look in her eye that said she was about to ask me for something.

Her - "Hey, can I bum a cigarette?" (she must have seen me grabbing for my smokes as I walked out upstairs)
Me - (always hesitant about these kinds of people) "uhrrr. Yeah, if you smoke it here"
Her - (laughing) "Okay, you know that came off as kind of creepy?"
Me - (lighting her cigarette) "Oh, that was the plan"

And we talked. She was a political science major, my year. We never lived in the same building or took any of the same classes but because it was basically a small school, it turned out that we both shared some mutual acquaintances. She said she was also very good friends with the people that lived there. A cigarette quickly turned to two and a solid 20 minutes seemed to go by in the blink of an eye. Her dark eyes, deepened and darkened by the poor lighting and alcohol, seemed to have their own shine. I knew my own were telling her enough about how I was feeling, if only she were paying attention.

As we talked, I began mentally running down the list of things I'd like to do with her that night. Most of them would have been so vulgar as to keep the neighbors awake at night, even if they moved away. I wasn't on the prowl for women, but it's hard to ignore the signs. Though, they could have been brighter and growling for my attention because that's what alcohol does to me. It helps me see things that aren't there and miss the things that are.

Her - (grabbing at her hip and pulling her phone out of her pocket) "Ah shit, it's my friend's birthday tonight, or last night if it's past midnight, but either way..."
Me - "I'll walk you."
Her - "No, it's all right. Let me see your phone"
Me - (handing it to her) "Why?"

I knew she was putting her number in, and I only asked to pretend like I didn't know. The signs were there, I wasn't blind and more importantly, I wasn't seeing things that weren't there. I was glad she was leaving because I liked her enough that I knew I shouldn't defile her just yet. That's what I do, I get it in my head that a girl I can have my way with too soon isn't clean and that only gets the gears in motion to an inevitable torrent of self-loathing and hate. It's how relationships explode so often with me, they've got to be built up and not given up.

to be continued...

just lighting up the dark corners of my mind

Not to say that I'm a thief, but I've stolen some things. I've stolen some souls, some hearts and even an object or two in my past. Most recently I found a marker sitting on a table at the cafeteria and I took that. Of course, I don't consider taking that sharpie as a theft because all I was really doing was preventing someone else from stealing it. I'm holding on to it until the rightful owner comes to claim it. No, I won't be putting up any signs advertising to the owner that I have it, but if someone were to come up to me and describe the marker then I would give it back to them.

When I was much younger, I didn't have quite the same clarity of conscience in regards to these matters. My favorite tale of youthful thievery is the time that I borrowed some cigarettes from my grandparents. I was in the fifth grade at the time and in the narrow mind of that young self, I thought that smoking would make me cool. My grandparents smoked, and so I reasoned that it can't be all that bad and I ought to give it a try.

The hardest part of the whole endeavor was getting the nerve up to sneak a couple cigarettes. I'm not sure if I was worried more about getting caught with cigarettes or actually taking something that wasn't mine. I managed to grab one cigarette (my grandfolks smoked Kools) one day and cart it off to my room hidden in my pocket. I'm not sure if everyone knows this, but it's not a good idea to put a cigarette in your pocket all loosey-goosey like. When I got to my room I reached into my pocket and pulled out a handful of brown bits of tobacco and two smaller cigarettes. This obviously would not work, but after some searching, I found a method of moving these forbidden fruits safely.

I had a pencil case in my backpack that I kept all of my other illegal childhood paraphernalia in. A fifth grade entrepreneur, I was in the business of fashioning mechanical pencils into various types of projectiles and small hurling devices. Use the spring in a mechanical pencil correctly and with a little bit of pressure the entire device can be shot across a room. Fix one up right and it would shoot any small projectile across that same room with startling speed and little accuracy. I sold these at above market value and kept the money and goods in this pencil case. It didn't occur to me that I had the means and method of smuggling cigarettes already in place.

With bolder steps this time I grabbed three cigarettes and quickly hid them away in my tin case as I slid it into my pocket and ran out the door. There was no need to run away from the crime scene because I learned that my grandparents never suspected a thing. I didn't know this at the time, of course, so I had to act with care and caution. What could an 11 year old want with tobacco products, anyway? After years of inquiry, I have concluded that I wanted it all. I wanted to have everything to do with tobacco products and more.

Safely away from the house and out of sight, I paused to look at my bounty. I'd seen cigarettes hundreds of times, touched them and smelled them more often than I could hope to count. I lived with two smokers, these were nothing new to me. I couldn't help but shake the feeling that these two-toned sticks held for me now an intense draw. I felt them pulling me as I popped one into my mouth to see how it tasted. Like nothing, because I had no fire.



I never professed to be a mastermind of planning. Not at that age, at least. If I had thought things through though, I might have remembered to bring some fire with me. Matches, a lighter, hell even a magnifying glass to catch the sun and light up a dried leaf. I couldn't always plan things out perfectly, but I fancied myself quite resourceful. Fortunately for me, this was the age at which my friends and I were already old hands at catching things on fire. The summer before, in fact, I had spent testing various substances in my house for their degree of flammability.

I went to the neighbor's house to see if I could find a comrade willing to bring some fire out to me rather than going back home to sneak away with some matches. I reckoned that someone might realize what was going on if they saw me return to get some matches only to leave again. At the very least I would be questioned about the fire. I imagined it going something like this:

Them - "What are you doing with those matches?"
Me - "Science experiment"
Them - "Are you planning on lighting something on fire?"
Me - "Just lighting up the dark corners of my mind"
Them - "I don't buy that bullshit for an instant. You're smoking cigarettes! Cigarettes you stole!"
Me - "Damn and double damn." (As I ran away)

So instead the only dealing I had with an adult was my neighbor. I walked carefully to the door because I was worried that word was already out about my activities. I was suspicious of all adults because they liked to tell each other about all the adventures I would find myself in. They didn't always see what I did as adventures, but arguing semantics with an 11 year old is foolish.

Neighbor - "Hi Rory*, Tim's inside. Do you want me to get him? Come in, come in."
Me - "Is he in his room? I'll go get him."
Neighbor - "Yeah, you know where it's at."

I stalked through the hallway to Tim's door and slowly pushed it open. After learning of this utterly interesting course of events, Tim grabbed a lighter he kept hidden under the box spring of his bed and we were off. After yelling back to Tim's mom about how we were going outside, I knew I was about to join the ranks of the cool. Or maybe I should say of the Kool. Either way, parents love it when kids go outside and we would be left to our own devices at least until dinner time.

Behind Tim's house was a large growth of weeds and bushes that we'd cleared away discretely enough so as to allow entrance to only people who knew the way. That list of people consisted of myself and my partner in crime. After sitting down on a large log we'd moved there for that purpose, we exchanged goods. I pulled out two cigarettes, handed him one and he handed me his lighter. Since I took the risks, I would be the first to enjoy the rewards.

Again I put the contraband to my lips, but this time I tasted something. I thought I did at least, if anything it was the sweet taste of victory. I had trouble lighting the cigarette. Though I'd seen it done plenty of times, the difficult part was inhaling while I held up the flame. Some coughing came and I knew I had it lit. I passed the lighter to Tim and he struggled similarly.

I remember we didn't talk much while we were smoking that first time. After my first couple of hacks, I stopped coughing. I thought it was weird at the time that a strong wind could kick me into a sneezing attack and coughing fit because of my allergies and asthma, but smoking a cigarette only made me feel awesome. A little lightheaded, I smoked and was chilled out to a degree that I'd never known before. Most of all, I felt like the coolest and most bad ass sonofabitch that ever walked the earth. My first foray into mind altering chemicals was a glorious excursion save for the fact that I smoked some of that first filter.

This scene would play out a couple times over the next few weeks, though I stopped burning filters. I would nab some smokes and Tim's house/lighter would provide the rest of this amazing cocktail. Smoking was more a method of wasting time than a way of getting high. I didn't know what to call it at the time, but these cigarettes I smoked were giving me a delightful buzz that I would forget about for a very long time. It was only on my 18th birthday that I really remembered that first amazing experience with tobacco and I've never forgotten her again.

*Edited to protect the innocent.

the room stunk like a whorehouse in mid-July

I recently was a party to one of the oddest, and strangely most fulfilling, experiences of my life. There are so many names we could have used but we finally settled on "Whack Fest '08."

On the most basic level, Whack Fest was just a bunch of dudes jerking off in a room. It was so much more than that though, there were rules and codes of conduct that needed to be followed. It was a game, a contest of wills and determination. By the end of it, there were so many tissues around the room someone might have thought there was a flu epidemic and we were under quarantine. Things got wild, to say the least.

We'd decided that the only way to tell who was the manliest man in a group of men was to see who could beat themselves up the most in one day. Whack fest was all about survival, making it to the end of the day while also proving to your fellow men that you were able to produce quantity as well as quality. It was the most American thing we could think to do, not that we were assaulting ourselves for the troops or anything.

Things started out as you'd expect with a roomful of dudes going to town on themselves. There was a TV playing a stream of porn titles throughout the day. A couple of laptops were strewn around pointed at different websites. Some over-eager contestants tried to race ahead and lead the pack while others decided to go the way of the tortoise and pace themselves. I can't imagine a loser being declared amongst our lewd group, but there would definitely be a winner that stood tall above the rest.

Conversation for the first couple rounds was flowing freely. We would talk about school and the weather in between and during flogging sessions. Some complained about politics until the rapture would make them forget why they were upset in the first place. It was just us dudes exercising our right to be free-spirited and natural. Natural, of course, meant naked. We decided to go totally bare out of necessity rather than try and wear any type of clothing that would only become so soiled it would need to be burned after the game was over.

Our initial enthusiasm quickly wore off as the horror of what we were doing started to sink in. I remember looking over at "Weird Balls" and seeing tears rolling down his face. He was really beating his dude up. He was beating dude like he owed him a couple years worth of back rent. In Weird Balls' eyes there was sadness and fear. Of course he was sad, he was abusing himself almost to the point of self-mutilation. I think he was afraid because he knew he liked it and the capacity to enjoy that kind of abuse is a very scary thing indeed.

It was weird that we settled in to relative synchronization but as round 5 came and went, everyone still seemed to be going strong. "Dirty Dick" jumped up, covered in sweat and fluids with his eyes all bloodshot and asked everyone if that was where we wanted to be when Jesus came back. I answered him with a series of grunts as I proudly marched onwards to round 6. As I shook it off, I looked Dirty Dick in the eyes and told him he could quit at any time. I imagine that I was a frightening sight to behold with one hand choking myself purple and the other proudly locked on my hip. Dirty Dick came to his senses and started in on himself again but for the rest of the day he was quiet save for a few times I heard him reciting the lord's prayer.



By round 7 or 8 everyone had settled comfortably into a spot in the room and there wasn't as much moving around anymore. "Hairy Ass" stopped talking and started hanging his head low as he turned his back on us to sit and look out the window. He probably wanted to keep in touch with the outside world because we weren't exactly human anymore. We'd all become robots, our primary objective was self-gratification. This was the goal, but it was slowly becoming less gratifying and more like work. We'd finally reached the most important phase of the endurance trial. Since it felt like work, only those with the strength and will power would outlast the rest.

Covered in drool, tears and about as much semen as the navy, the room stunk like a whorehouse in mid-July if the air-conditioning was broke and it was dollar day. Someone suggested a change of venue. I don't remember a lot of the details by this point, but I knew I wasn't going anywhere. I was slumped against the wall, slowly pumping away while my eyelids drooped and sweat began pooling around my ass on the floor. It was a pretty good spot to be, I remember reflecting, for when Jesus came back.

Immanuel Kant once said that 'a man gives up his personality when he uses himself merely as a means for the gratification of an animal drive.' He was right. I was a heaving, sweating beast with only the intention of winning on my mind. Every time I minded my own business was a step closer to winning. I'll be damned if I wasn't stewing in my juices though, in more ways than one. I learned the joys of being ambidextrous as I was left to my own devices more often in the later rounds.

There was one quitter before, but round 10 saw a wave of people tagging out because they "couldn't take it any longer" or "felt sick from the stink" or "were afraid if they continued they would never be able to sleep again." 4 people were left after the 10th round. Myself, Dirty Dick, Hairy Ass and as I started calling the final man "Mr Kleenex" because of the stack of dirty rags he had surrounding himself. He was like an island surrounded by balled up tissue and tears.

The four of us would last another 6 rounds without much to mention. The only thing missing from this sinner's sauna was the steam. It was hotter than satan's asshole in that room and the air was thick and humid. The window was almost completely covered in condensation when Hairy Ass finally decided to call it quits. He said nothing. He did not even bother to pick up his clothes and after about a half hour we realized he wasn't coming back. We didn't see him for a couple days afterwards either. I imagine it was the shame he was feeling that kept him away from the rest of us for those few days. I know I had trouble looking these warriors in the eye for a while. Then there were only three.

Another round over and Dirty Dick congratulated us for lasting so long and picked his things up and left. He seemed smugly full of self loathing as he walked out with no confidence in his step. What happened next has never been repeated until now.

It took a few moments to see clearly through the haze what had happened, but Mr Kleenex and myself realized at about the same time that we were really the only two left. I made eye contact with him and with a nod from each of us, we locked stares and wouldn't break it until there was a winner. When one of us would start revving our engine up to the red-line, the other would try as hard as they could to follow suit. I watched another man's pupils dilate in release 3 times before I'd had enough. I couldn't take it anymore. My hands and man were battered and bruised and I felt so dirty that I knew even an hour in the shower with scalding water couldn't make me clean again.

Exhausted, beaten up and sorry for being alive, I slumped all the way to the floor and fell asleep in my own muck and mire for I don't remember how long. When I woke up, Mr Kleenex was gone and I knew that it didn't really matter that he went one more round than I, neither of us would have ever gloated about our victory. There were no losers, like I said. Curiously though, there were no winners either. None ever spoke of it again in fact, so winning and losing lost all meaning.

No one's talked about that day since it happened and I doubt anyone ever will. I made up some descriptive names to be used so as to protect the innocent. That's horseshit though, as I was there, and in that room there were no innocents. You can't watch a group of men shake their steak and walk away thinking everything is going to be all lollipops and dandelions ever again. Part of me died in that room, and not the part that I was trying so hard to choke to death. In that death, though, came about the birth of a new part of me. Sure, I can now say that I was a part of one of the greatest adventures into social experimentation that ever existed, but I can also say I truly know what it is to be human.