Since Reggie had to work on New Year’s Eve, the party didn’t start until he made it home at ten o’clock. Thomas was the first to show up, closely followed by a short blonde in a slinky dress. She was one of those incongruous women who have craggy faces and ghastly skin, but whose bodies are “built like brick shithouses,” as the saying went. Thomas wasn’t feeling picky this evening, and he looked on her mountainous bosom and sequoia-like legs longingly, but she zoned into Reggie and deleted Thomas from existence within thirty seconds of walking in the door.
Thomas sipped his beer bitterly as more people streamed into the apartment and ignored him. He assumed the entire evening would be like this: everyone gravitating towards Reggie, since they were all his friends, lovers, ex-lovers, or potential lovers. For a few hours, it seemed this would be the case: most of the men were slobbering “bros,” pale copies of Reggie, and most of the women were smart-phone-addicted princesses whose emotional maturity remained at fourteen-year-old cheerleader levels.
Surprisingly, however, there was one girl who’d been willing to converse with him, and Thomas had been talking to her until the “Happy New Year” blast interrupted them. She was a plump forty-two-year-old nurse named Allison. While the other girls were homogeneously flashy in their dresses, make-up, and perfectly-coiffed hair, Allison was wearing jeans and a plain black t-shirt. Her only concession to stylishness were two large silver hoop earrings, which glinted in the light.
“So here we are in 2016,” Allison said.
“Yes, we are,” Thomas replied, sipping his Bud Light. Allison wasn’t the best conversationalist, but she was the only person, besides Reggie, who hadn’t looked at him like he was a desperate loser trying to leech off his cooler, sexier betters.
“Have any resolutions?” she asked, biting her lip in a way that probably meant he should say something like, “Yes, my resolution is to get to know a cute girl like yourself.” Thomas, however, resisted — barely.
“Yes, I do have resolutions,” Thomas replied, trying to sound stern, “but I’m not going to share them.”
“Awww. Why so secretive?”
“Well, it’s serious stuff. There are some things that need to be solved. I really don’t want to get into it.”
“Well, poop,” Allison pouted. Thomas had noticed that she replaced her curse words with cutesy euphemisms: shit became poop, fuck became frick, hell became h-e-double-hockey-sticks, and asshole became bumhole. Now that Thomas thought about it, perhaps she was just as immature as the other women, only instead of never-ending text messages and “OMG” drama, she acted as if she were in an animated movie. She reminded Thomas of Cynthia, but even Cynthia had more intelligence and nuance than this dumpling.
But… he would like to get laid… wouldn’t he?
“What about you?” he asked. “Any resolutions you’d like to share?”
“Well, I’d like to lose a little weight. I go to the gym sometimes, but not often enough to do any good. I’d like to start a schedule and stick to it.”
Again, this was Thomas’s cue to say something like “Oh, you don’t need to lose weight. You look fine.” But he didn’t want to say something like that. He tried mightily not to say something like that. He told himself he’d sound like the biggest doofus on earth if he said something like that.
It was all futile. He finally sighed, and succumbed.
“Oh, you don’t need to lose weight. You look fine.”
“You little sweet talker!” Allison gushed. “A few more compliments like that and I’ll have to drag you out to my car and have my way with you!”
Thomas took a large gulp of his beer so he wouldn’t be able to reply.
Why was he being such a goddamn peckerhead, as Rock Lewis would say? Hadn’t his goal been to get laid, to clear his head (both of them) via sweaty intercourse? Here he had a moderately attractive (well, not ugly) woman ready to let him climb on top of her, and he was acting like a kitchen wench had dared to flirt with the lord of the manor, while at the same time acting like a complete dumbass himself.
“I’m sorry,” he said, “but I need to step outside for a minute. Need to, uh, get some fresh air.”
“I’ll come with,” Allison replied happily. “It’s hot and noisy in here anyway. Some fresh air sounds great.”
“No, I’d like to be alone for a few minutes. Get my head straight.”
“Oh. OK. Uh — see you when you come back in?”
“Sure.”
He looked away from her crestfallen face, half-walked, half-shoved his way out of the living room and kitchen, and stepped out onto Reggie’s small landing. He shut the door behind him, and it muffled some, but not all, of the ruckus inside. It was much cooler out here, so Thomas zipped up his jacket and turned up the collar.
From the landing, you could see part of the driveway and part of the Weavers’ tiny backyard, which was bordered by a small picket fence. Other houses, much like the Weavers’ modest two story bungalow, were bunched in close. This wasn’t the McMansion section of town by the waterfront; this was an older, blue-collar community.
A movement below caught his eye, and when he looked down he was so startled he nearly dropped his beer. The Weavers were sitting in wicker chairs out in the yard, glasses in hand. They were looking up at him with what looked like amusement.
“Sorry to scare ya, son!” Benny Weaver yelled up.
“My, I thought you were gonna have a heart attack,” Maribel Weaver cackled. “Are we that ugly that we cause a young boy like you to have a heart attack?”
Recovering his poise, Thomas laughed along with them. “You know better than that, Mrs. Weaver. I was just a million miles away.”
“I bet you’re thinkin’ bout all those girls in there,” Benny said. “I snuck a peek out the window at ’em when they were arriving, and I must say, some of ’em are mighty fine.”
“Benny, if you ain’t a dirty old man!” Maribel scolded. “Drooling over girls and making them uncomfortable.”
“Bull! They never saw me — I think. And even if they did see me, I don’t care! If a woman is gonna dress in no more material than it would take to make a handkerchief, why, I’m gonna ogle her till my eyes burn, and if she don’t like it, tough!”
Thomas laughed. “Yes, there’re some lookers in there.”
“Got one lined up for yourself?” Benny asked scandalously.
“Maybe.”
“Maybe, he says,” Maribel said. “In other words, mind your own business, Benny.”
“Hush, dear. I’m trying to get pertinent information out of the boy.”
“That’s all the information you get,” Thomas said, pulling an imaginary zipper across his lips to illustrate his commitment to privacy.
“Fine then,” Benny said in mock peevishness. “How’s Reggie doing? Maybe you’ll tell us how his courting’s going, since you won’t tell us about yours.”
“He’s Reggie,” Thomas said, shrugging. “You both know how his courting goes.”
“That we do,” Maribel said, a note of disapproval in her voice. “He’s a good kid, but I wish he’d settle down, find him a nice girl. He can’t be a Casanova forever, you know. Age will take care of that.”
“Yes, it will,” Benny agreed, “but let him have his fun while his equipment’s still working. He can marry some rich old widow when his one-eyed snake’s gone into permanent hibernation.”
“Like you did?” Maribel said sassily.
“You? Rich? Hah!”
“Richer than you were!”
“That’s not saying anything! I was so deep in it back then, I said I was ‘po,’ not poor, because I couldn’t afford the ‘o’ and the ‘r’!”