conversation partner. I’m pretty sure I just nodded and said things like, “Wow, that kind of sucks” and “I’m calling bullshit. You’re unbelievable.” With those insightful gems, I was able to survive the short car ride that felt like a cross-country, post-college excursion.
Vin’s house wasn’t gigantic, but it was well kept. His mother, in her free time, studied interior design so that, while the square-footage wasn’t anything obscene, every inch of the home was decorated to the maximum. Wood cabinets matched the frames around paintings. The colors in the paintings accented the carpet. The brick driveway that wrapped around the front porch was filled up with a range of vehicles, from BMW’s to Kias. The lawn was freshly manicured and trimmed. The front light pushed out a rich orange into an exaggerated doorway. Beth parked around the corner. I, feeling the immediate need for something other than scented, canned perfumed air, threw the door open. The car door got lodged in the dirt past the curb and when I tried to close it, I took out a huge divot of earth. The door made this grinding sound and Beth, wondering what she was doing taking an already-ripped me to this house party, stared in amazement at the clump of dirt now hanging on the bottom of the closed door. She said, “The hell was that move? I’m going to be trailing sod all the way home…great.”
As we walked towards the house, she punched the lock button on her keychain remote and I heard the horn beep and the power locks slam down. We started up towards Vin’s front door. While there were cars, there was no music…no cigarettes being roasted on the front steps, just some stragglers standing off on the side of the lawn, pissing into the grass. The inverted house party was shaping up to be ridiculously subdued. The pot in me activated this superpower where I could actually feel the eyes of the kids on the side of the house burning a hole in my back as I waited for the front door to open. Beth, when I looked over, seemed unfazed by all the sights and sounds. The vibes were ugly - the street was too dark, there were no lights on, and when we knocked on the door a second time, the audible low mumble grinding on the other side ceased. Two hands braced a face against the peephole and we heard the gears in the doorknob begin to work. Vin pulled the door open and the smell of cigarettes and booze hit me even in my numbed-up state. Sometimes, in the interest of maintaining an acceptable high, one should reconsider knocking on certain doors.
Vin stood about 6’2’’, with long greased-straight brown hair and a neck beard that blended into some type of soul patch-chest hair combo. His facial hair, especially in my current state, was particularly upsetting. He was wearing torn-at-the-knees skinny jeans, brown Dr. Martens, a plain V-neck and some Goodwill-inspired cardigan. He flashed a hint of a cigarette-yellow smile before letting us into the house.
“Beth, still parading Duchamp around town I see?” Vin asked. In the background, on the gigantic LCD in front of the couch, I recognized the film to be Salo , or the 120 Days of Sodom . The freaks crowded around looking for some hidden meaning in the shit-smeared grins and sexual perversion that lit up the screen. I couldn’t look at the film for more than 20 seconds without feeling like my cortex was going to straighten out and twist around my brain stem. I barely made it through that movie sober. While I was side-eyeing a scene, I heard Beth tell Vin to suck it, and their conversation was over. As my attention diverted from the movie, I wondered if Vin had a thing for Beth…I wondered if he had always had these deeply hidden feelings for her, just waiting for the day where I wasn’t in the picture. Paranoia took its grip and I felt my hands get clammy and my neck start to grow red. There were Bud Light cans in a blue plastic tub filled with ice and placed in the middle of the kitchen floor. The
Vin’s house wasn’t gigantic, but it was well kept. His mother, in her free time, studied interior design so that, while the square-footage wasn’t anything obscene, every inch of the home was decorated to the maximum. Wood cabinets matched the frames around paintings. The colors in the paintings accented the carpet. The brick driveway that wrapped around the front porch was filled up with a range of vehicles, from BMW’s to Kias. The lawn was freshly manicured and trimmed. The front light pushed out a rich orange into an exaggerated doorway. Beth parked around the corner. I, feeling the immediate need for something other than scented, canned perfumed air, threw the door open. The car door got lodged in the dirt past the curb and when I tried to close it, I took out a huge divot of earth. The door made this grinding sound and Beth, wondering what she was doing taking an already-ripped me to this house party, stared in amazement at the clump of dirt now hanging on the bottom of the closed door. She said, “The hell was that move? I’m going to be trailing sod all the way home…great.”
As we walked towards the house, she punched the lock button on her keychain remote and I heard the horn beep and the power locks slam down. We started up towards Vin’s front door. While there were cars, there was no music…no cigarettes being roasted on the front steps, just some stragglers standing off on the side of the lawn, pissing into the grass. The inverted house party was shaping up to be ridiculously subdued. The pot in me activated this superpower where I could actually feel the eyes of the kids on the side of the house burning a hole in my back as I waited for the front door to open. Beth, when I looked over, seemed unfazed by all the sights and sounds. The vibes were ugly - the street was too dark, there were no lights on, and when we knocked on the door a second time, the audible low mumble grinding on the other side ceased. Two hands braced a face against the peephole and we heard the gears in the doorknob begin to work. Vin pulled the door open and the smell of cigarettes and booze hit me even in my numbed-up state. Sometimes, in the interest of maintaining an acceptable high, one should reconsider knocking on certain doors.
Vin stood about 6’2’’, with long greased-straight brown hair and a neck beard that blended into some type of soul patch-chest hair combo. His facial hair, especially in my current state, was particularly upsetting. He was wearing torn-at-the-knees skinny jeans, brown Dr. Martens, a plain V-neck and some Goodwill-inspired cardigan. He flashed a hint of a cigarette-yellow smile before letting us into the house.
“Beth, still parading Duchamp around town I see?” Vin asked. In the background, on the gigantic LCD in front of the couch, I recognized the film to be Salo , or the 120 Days of Sodom . The freaks crowded around looking for some hidden meaning in the shit-smeared grins and sexual perversion that lit up the screen. I couldn’t look at the film for more than 20 seconds without feeling like my cortex was going to straighten out and twist around my brain stem. I barely made it through that movie sober. While I was side-eyeing a scene, I heard Beth tell Vin to suck it, and their conversation was over. As my attention diverted from the movie, I wondered if Vin had a thing for Beth…I wondered if he had always had these deeply hidden feelings for her, just waiting for the day where I wasn’t in the picture. Paranoia took its grip and I felt my hands get clammy and my neck start to grow red. There were Bud Light cans in a blue plastic tub filled with ice and placed in the middle of the kitchen floor. The
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