Right now Jenifer is the most important thing in the world to me. I have to stop and gnash my teeth together when I think about how much I love her sometimes. I sense she knows my intensity and maybe even feels the same way but my attempts to communicate the depth of my feelings just look silly and worthless to me. There is no gift or trifle to symbolize the depth of my passion. I just pray she understands.
We are dirt poor but so happy in our run-down house. I’ve got great friends; Dan and I are getting closer as our interests overlap. Jenifer and I are truly part of a strange family. We all live together, work together and look out for each other. We even bond while doing drugs together. I can freely smoke pot everyday and feel safe in my home doing anything at all. My relationship with my parents is more tolerable than ever and my little sister is growing into a good friend. Hell I even get regularly laid and have more than the occasional vacation with the love of my life. So everything is great right? People pass me in the street and say “How’s it going?” and with a glint of my teeth and click of my heels I automatically reply “Great!” But as I write this I still feel like something is missing. I don’t think my life can (or will) get any better than this and I really don’t see any way to keep making it exponentially better. There will always be little things to work for of course, more money and overseas vacationing come to mind, but I doubt material wealth will ever make me feel any more complete. I’ll be able to say that I’ve got a lot of money and opportunity but inside it will still just be me. I’m worried that I’ll have high school football player syndrome, where I constantly look back and regret that my favorite time of life has already passed on. Gone. I don’t want to look back and wish I were still here and I don’t want to look back and wish I was still where I was. Capishe?
Nugget of wisdom for the day: If your pot dealer has a gun he’s a coke dealer.
Today was the official “welcome back to school” Flying Tomato Christmas party. I volunteered our house because I was anxious to have our first balls to the wall, get shit-faced party. The Tomato provided us with the beer and some food, but once the keg got in the door that party was ours. My boss, Ski, didn’t really have any idea about the enormity of this brouhaha we planned to host. In the past they have always thrown quiet subdued parties where everyone from work gets mellow drunk sitting around listening to classic rock and half of the keg is usually leftover the next morning. When Ski showed up before dark with his kids and some videotapes to watch I almost laughed. For one night it didn’t matter if I got fired. If I had my way, all the magical parties I ever envisioned in my youth, sort of a combination “Animal House”, “Sixteen Candles” (Long Duck Dong!) and “House Party”, were going to be a reality. We invited everybody and I mean EVERYBODY, from random people in the street to cute girls on campus, and anyone who’s ever been to our house. Even Andy, the freaky albino-looking guy who lives in our garage out back, got an invite.
The furniture was moved to secure locations, leaving just a basic empty house and a lot of beer to drink. A lot of pot was smoked and a lot of drugs were done in my back bedroom because it was just off the kitchen and shut off from the party. After the first 30 unrecognizable people came through the door, my boss gave up his effort to guard the keg for the employees and went home in disgust. His wife Becky stayed though and we got her to do a bong hit later that night in front of everyone, which brought cheers from all her workers that were still conscious. We even got enough cash together later to get a late-night keg of crappy beer from Griggs, the dickhead who runs The Corkscrew across from the Delta Lodge.
Dan got laid with somebody from work, but he always pulls the ladies. The house was totally trashed. Moving the furniture out was a good play because the floors and walls got covered in spilled beer, ashes and other shit. I was almost ashamed we still had leftover beer in the keg today but it got to the point where I couldn’t drink any more and I was walking around in a smoked out haze trying to jam nothing but loud Beastie Boys songs on the sound system. If we owned a lampshade I would have been wearing it. Our good friend Jack Valentino passed out early in the morning but fortunately he had his usual doting concubines to take him home. Thankfully Kirk came back over this morning to help clean up and we systematically killed the rest of the warm keg over the course of the day.
All in all it was a successful mission: only one window got broken. I took lots of pictures, nobody got hurt, the cops didn’t show up, I shot at the mailbox with my BB gun, everyone in the southern half of North America got fucked up (seemingly) and I still have my girlfriend despite making quite a fool of myself on several occasions.
Yes, my name is Sam and I am a hung-over fool, fear me…passively. Party antics are pretty universal across the globe I guess, but it felt so good to cut loose for one night in the familiarity and safety of our own home. I doubt any of us will get fired; I still have a picture of Becky taking a bong hit.
Note to self: If we throw a party in the summertime the spilled beer is going to stink very badly. The sun unmercifully amplifies that sick smell of ash and beer. I’m still feeling pretty nauseous.
The whole house spent the morning in an early round of drinking in preparation for the big game. Because of this we just happened to be in the bar (college tip: when you work on Fry St. and give out free pizza, you can drink underage!) when one of the regulars came around looking for another sucker to fill in the last square on his betting grid. I didn’t have hardly any money but Kirk and I scrounged together $2.50 each and bought the very last square. It actually turned out to be a great game and Dallas rallied from behind to win 30-13 and turn our (Dallas 0, Buffalo 3) number into a winner for the last two quarters! We each won an easy $125 just for being in the right place at the right time but since we didn’t watch the game at the bar the ‘regulars’ were pissed when I came back to the bar just to get our cash because the other winners had been buying drinks for their buddies during the game. I guess they really didn’t expect the last minute filler money Kirk and I put down to actually pay-off any outsiders. Fuck them and their bar, fuck them and their fragility. In this case fragility is my euphemism for them being asshole jerks. It doesn’t take a Holden Caulfield to know they’re all phonies.
But I was happy despite the curmudgeons, it’s a human condition and I love it in all its falseness. I felt so strong, so invincible, so good and drunk on spirits and hedonistic luck. My mind actually cringed because I badly wanted to take Jenifer forcibly—that came later and of course I was gentle and honorable.
I maliciously plied Dan and Jim and myself with so many shots it should have been illegal. I guess technically it was illegal in my respect. Of course Dan was hardly affected due to his high alcohol tolerance and I had adrenaline to counteract my poison, but Jim, the reluctant drinker of the evening, was my prime target. I love him so much as a good friend that I must have wanted him to have a really good time. He had been drinking all through the Bowl and I pushed him too far because the last time I saw him he was hanging out the passenger window of Simone’s new car and vomiting as she drove down the road.