Blood in the Sink, Diamonds in the Drain

The smell of musk and deception.
Heel marks on the roof-line.
Bad music on the stereo.
All the seats in recline.

It was the same party, more or less, every year. The same drunks would show up, tell the same stories and the same jokes. Argue about the same things. Somebody would fight, but nothing more than an drunken, groping tumble to the floor. Lazy attempts at punches that burn out quickly and broken-up easily to half-hearted protests. The same lightweights would drink too much, too early and end up puking in the bushes. They’d pass out on the couch, get defaced with a magic marker, and weakly (but sincerely) apologize the next morning. Of course, the apology is accepted. You can’t stay angry at a guy when he’s got a large cock drawn down his cheek.

There would always be girls, but girls of a non-threatening caliber. Interesting enough to make you sit up straight and perhaps take a shot to calm the butterflies before you start in with the familiar pitch, the familiar tease and the familiar range of results. Maybe a shared cigarette and some PG-rated affection next to the Natty Light Keg, something a little more PG-13 in an out of the way corner or, if stars really align, a trip back to your room where you hope against hope that none of your roommates have raided your stash of condoms.

The morning would come with sunlight reflecting off the beer cans strewn in the yard and a house in disarray, but not disrepair. A pain in your head and a little weakness in the knees, but nothing some Gatorade and asprin can’t fix (or Pedialyte and Midol if the brown liquor pour was a little strong). Maybe the girl in your bed is a little more of a 6 in the light than the 7.5 you remembered from the dark, but she’s pleasant enough. More importantly, she’s pulling on her jeans and getting ready to go home. Maybe you pick up a McGriddles or two after you drop her off. Mmm. McGriddles.

It wasn’t exciting, but it was familiar and expected. It was comfortable. It’s not until you’re uncomfortable that you realize how overrated exciting can be.

Because this year, shit got uncomfortable. A bunch of high-flying carpetbaggers showed up, and the party spiraled out of hand. At first, it was exciting to have some new blood and a bigger crowd. The Polls, AP and Coach, showed up with some exciting new drugs, strange colors and weird highs. Phil, though a bit of a dork, brought some exciting new stories to the conversations and kept feeding Jager shots to anybody within arm’s length. SI was slick and old-school like the Dos Equis World’s Most Interesting Man and brought an exciting feeling of legitimacy. Some dude who called himself “World Wide” and his buddy Kirk busted in like a hurricane of lights and noise. And Kirk brought some girls that were, well, exciting.

Maybe too exciting. The girls that exert the gravitational force of exceptional beauty that brings on the paralyzing paranoia of being suddenly out of place (even in a familiar setting) that drives you to the bottom of the fifth. Worse than that, they bring on a distorted reality of what’s possible. You give up the dark-aided 7.5s that were previously satisfactory and join the slobbering, self-conscious hordes chasing the unhealthy high.

SI’s cool elegance of experience quickly deteriorated into mindless, repetitious babble. In the span of a few scotches, he went from respected elder to fucking creepy old dude who pissed himself on the couch. Kirk did bring the girls and then proceeded to have dirty, R. Kelly-style sex with every one of them on every padded surface in every room of the house.

AP: Dude, this place is destroyed. I think the only thing left to drink in his joint is Apple Pucker.

(Def Leopard starts blaring from the next room)

AP: Nevermind. Coach just took his shirt off, jumped on the coffee table and poured the whole bottle over his head.

COACH: (swinging his shirt and touching himself inappropriately): YEAH, BRO! STICKY SWEET!

AP: Well, nothing left to do now but take a shit in the shower and sketch out somewhere else.

ATTICUS: Wait, what? The shower?

AP: Yeah man, that dude Yancey is passed out, head first in the toilet. I think he might have Hendrix’d. I would check his pulse, but you know, plausible deniability and all that.

ATTICUS (pale and sweaty and fighting what feels like the beginning of a bad trip): What the fuck is that smell?

AP: What? No, I said I was going to shit. I haven’t yet. You alright, man? You don’t look so good.

ATTICUS (follows the smell into the kitchen): Jesus. Who put a condom in the toaster?

PHIL: Kirk told me if you warm it up first, it makes it more pleasurable, you know, for the chick.

AP: What chicks? All the ones SI didn’t creep off are locked in one of the rooms with Kirk..

ATTICUS: Which room? I sleep back there.

AP: I don’t know. Whichever one the “Ignition” re-mix is blaring out of.

WORLD WIDE (walks into the kitchen): Well, boys, it’s been fun, but this place is played. I just got a text that there’s a deal over at Bama’s house that’s just raging– like they used to do back in the old days. Y’all in?

AP: Yeah, let me hit the bathroom real quick. Then, I’ll grab Coach and we’ll be good to go. Where is Coach?

WORLD WIDE: Last I saw, he was rubbing one out in the recliner.

AP: Best just to let him finish.

PHIL: Do you think they have a toaster over there?

AP: Hey, Atticus, you need to come with us. Get out of this fucking Hell hole.

ATTICUS: I think I can feel my kidneys bleeding.

WORLD WIDE: Yeah, I know the feeling, man. But you really should bail with us. I donkey punched a hooker earlier, and you don’t want to still be around when she comes to.

ATTICUS: Donkey punch?

WORLD WIDE: Half way through I realized I didn’t have any cash. Seemed easier this way.

KIRK (struts in shirtless, humming to himself): Man, that’s a mess back there. Smells like Corso’s trailer. Atticus, let’s roll out of here, man. I hear shit is hoppin’ over in Gainesville.

WORLD WIDE: We just got back from Gainesville.

PHIL: I say we go to Boise.

AP: You would. Dork.

KIRK: I do hear they’ve got some thick girls there, though.

ATTICUS: You don’t understand. I live here. I’ve got nowhere else to go.