Rats Saw God by Rob Thomas Page B

gusto. Bill and I followed a bit more reluctantly. Noticing his little brother wasn’t drinking, Bill levied his wrath against his sibling.
    â€œBoy, I know how long you spend in the bathroom. You best start drinking.” He said this in a tone I thought reserved for the chastising of black children by their parents on television sitcoms.
    Matt bashfully raised his plastic chalice, and in a flash of bravado, said “Cheers” before sipping.
    He was rewarded with polite, if sarcastic, golf tournament applause from the women. Doug’s turn was next, and I thought surely he would settle the score with the girls. Instead, he blindsided me.
    â€œI’ve never not kissed someone of the opposite sex in my life,” he said.
    â€œWhat kind of ass-backwards English is that?” I said. “Does that mean you have kissed every girl you’ve chanced upon during the past sixteen years?”
    â€œI think what he means is that he has kissed a girl at least once in his life,” Rhonda said, picking perhaps the most inopportune time to find her voice.
    â€œBingo,” said Doug proudly.
    No one was drinking. This was embarrassing. I turned to look out the barn door and tried to sneak a shot, but it was hopeless. I was snagged.
    â€œJust as I suspected!” Doug bellowed. “My boy! From this day forward, your Indian warrior name is No Lips.”
    I wanted to explain that I had had opportunities to kiss girls. In eighth grade, Charlene “the Holstein” Sanders towed me into a closet during my first boy/girl party, hoisted her arms over my shoulders, and tried to initiate me; but in the dark, my dodge-and-parry skills overwhelmed her power-smooch strategy. In California, a youngish receptionist at my mom’s office kissed me at a staff party, but it was in front of a knot of smirking real estate agents. Besides, it was one of those “Isn’t he cute? Won’t he be handsome when he’s a man?” sort of kisses… though it was on the mouth.
    â€œI think it’s sweet,” Missy said, making me feel worse.
    â€œI do too, No Lips,” cooed Doug. I tried to stand but managed only an 80-degree angle before crumpling back into an all-fours stance. My only experience with alcohol had been with beer. A case of Schaeffer Light did you the courtesy of providing a glutted, anesthetized, and somnolent sensation to warn you of oncoming drunkenness. André just snuck up and kicked your ass. My lurching induced a fresh cannonade of laughter. I heard Doug say, “And he’s a lush on top of it.” He sounded as if he were on another planet, as if his voice had to travel three or four seconds to reach my ears.
    On my second attempt, I succeeded in standing. I grabbed the remaining bottle and chugged the dregs. Pausing to wipe champagne spittle off my chin, I announced I was leaving.
    â€œOh no you don’t, No Lips,” Dub said. “You’re not driving anywhere. Give me your keys.”
    I’m sure I put up resistance, but not enough, because the next thing I knew, I was in the passenger seat of my car, changing eight tracks at every stoplight. Rhonda was driving, and Dub and Missy were following us to the York villa in Missy’s Land Cruiser.
    Don Henley was fervently warning me about life in the fast lane as we pulled into the circular, red-brick drive, but his advice went for naught. Rhonda put the El Camino in park, turned off the engine, grabbed me by the back of my neck, and began probing my larynx with her tongue. I didn’t resist. I tried wiggling my own stamp licker—a chore given the incommodious chamber it was suddenly sharing. I wanted to be able to say I kissed back this time. My eyes, I realized, were wide open. In a Teen Beat “Rate Your Kissing” survey that sixth grader Sarah had read aloud on a car trip, I remembered hearing “eyes open” equated with frigidness. In the light supplied by the Land