Cool, Calm & Contentious - Merrill Markoe [38]
Most important of all: Bob was supposed to be at this party. Beautiful mad genius holy man Bob with his Brian Jones haircut and his inconceivable radiances. Would he actually talk to me like he remembered that we had made out? Would he be awake enough to join me in some spitting, jumping, and running?
This time I wouldn’t allow him to lie on the floor facedown and fall asleep. I would demand to know what he wanted out of life, the way Sal Paradise used to ask his gonest girls, while also refusing, for their own good, to let them yawn.
The party seemed to be hosted by a boy named Melvin, who didn’t actually live in the house in which it was being held. He was rumored to be half Native American, sending his holy madman ratings into the stratosphere. How he came to have access to this house that belonged to someone else’s parents, I didn’t know and didn’t care.
Not much was going on when I arrived. It didn’t even look like anyone knew there was going to be a party in this standard-issue lower-middle-class living room full of unexceptional furniture. The kids I knew were all standing around in the kitchen, but there was nothing to eat or drink until everyone chipped in whatever money they had to give to Melvin to give to a guy he knew who hung out in front of a liquor store. That guy would definitely buy us whatever kind of alcohol we wanted. How gone amazing maniac madman was that?
I wasn’t present at the sacred moment of the beverage purchase, but I was definitely there when the many tall cans of Schlitz malt liquor and the largest bottle of Gordon’s vodka in North America arrived.
Schlitz was what everyone else was drinking, straight from the can. But Jack Kerouac had whispered in my ear that vodka was the best way to step across chronological time into the inconceivable radiances shining in bright Mind Essence. I wasn’t sure how much I needed to get to the magic mothswarm, so I poured myself a full sixteen-ounce glass.
I drank half of it in one swallow, then shuddered as I waited for the moment when I would join the spirit of the angels diving. Damn, I remember thinking as I open-throated the rest of the glass in order to minimize the agony of the horrible flavor, I’m still not drunk. I wonder what I’m doing wrong. I better drink another glass.
That was also when I realized that I did kind of feel a bit more relaxed than I had at the start of the evening. Definitely giddier, and more ready to throw back my head and unleash my mad demon laugh. Now I knew what I had to do. I made a beeline for Bob, who was standing with a group of guys in the kitchen, sipping his can of Schlitz as he leaned against the refrigerator.
“I need to talk to you,” I said, thrilled when he seemed amenable. He was definitely easier to talk to when he was vertical and experiencing consciousness.
I can’t remember what slick set of moves I used next to encourage Bob to make out with me again. I suspect that the sixteen ounces of vodka I chugged had loosened me up just a little. I briefly felt as though I’d been given a head-to-toe shot of novocaine.
Sadly, I got to live only a very few seconds of my newfound ecstasy, because no sooner did I lie down on the floor on top of my beloved than the vodka hit me like a poorly built ship crashing into a rock.
The next thing I knew someone was helping me out of the backseat of an unfamiliar car at the edge of my parents’ driveway. Whoever was behind the wheel was giving me instructions. “Just say hi to your parents, go into your room, and go to sleep,” a guy, perhaps Melvin, was saying over and over