I had originally planned to arrive earlier than I did. It was about 9.15pm when I got to the Bertram house – using the front entrance this time - how novel. I left my house several hours earlier, but I was delayed by numerous personal crises on the way over. I was forced to stop and gather myself on more than one park bench. There were issues to be resolved. How close a look had Mr Bertram really gotten at me last night? Would I be instantly recognized? Would the psycho lawn man even be there?
“You’re not him..” – what the hell was that about anyway?
Eventually, finally, the answer came to me. If a heart-thumping atom-bending romance between Beth and myself was something that Forces wanted to happen, as I believed they did at that point, then this trepidation and risk was surely all part of my test. It would therefore make sense that this was my darkest moment, that the fear would be greatest just before the triumph. I didn’t have a plan for talking to Beth or trying to win her over. I just thought if it would happen, it would happen, and if not, well fucking typical then. This attitude in itself was among the first shots I delivered unerringly into my own foot. Nonetheless, the inner turmoil was now resolved. So go to the party and await your destiny.
I did so.
The party was in full swing by the time I arrived. Music blared – I placed it with an inward sneer – it was a band called The Comma Separated Values. Carefully disheveled alpha-males crying foul. Strike One - bad music. Was this a crack in Day Zero? Something that detracted from the Perfection? No – merely another part of that which was to be risen above.
Guests stood in clumps. A few individuals, perhaps those who could be considered popular, perhaps those who were drunk, spoke loudly, gestured wildly, made their friends laugh. Two girls danced together to the music. There were a lot of people here – that increased the likelihood that I was only invited here as filler, so that afterwards, when people said “Man, EVERYONE was there!”, it would be a more credible statement.
But that wasn’t definite.
The party was disappointingly well-lit as well. Where were the fairy lights and candles of the Imagined Party? Nowhere to be seen. These let-downs, though, (and others too numerous and insignificant to mention) could never have persuaded me to leave. Hell, everyone goes somewhere new with expectations, everyone makes a hell of a lot of hasty changes to those expectations upon their arrival.
All these observations, realisations and analyses ticked over on a sub-level processor somewhere at the bottom of my left brain. The majority of my head was screaming something else – WHERE IS SHE?
Neither Beth nor her father were visible. At any second I would be surprised with that singsong Beth hello, or, at the other end of the scale, a heavy hand on his shoulder and a poker inserted just below the left kidney. One or the other would happen. It was inevitable. It was as if I was standing in the queue of the recently-deceased in Limbo, waiting to see if I was bound for Heaven or Hell, having absolutely no idea which, and being utterly powerless to influence the result.
And just as I imagined Limbo would be, no-one had said a word to me at the party yet. I’m not an outcast in particular, I maintain cordial relations and a semblance of normality with a number of the guests. It was just the way things were set up – everyone was already assigned, there was little mingling. I approached a group of three girls (I can’t quite name them, but I do know all three of their names start with C) and said hello.
“Hi!”, they replied in a friendly unison.
“Have you guys seen Beth?”
The friendly unison hello had been nice. The giggles which constituted the reply to my question, however, were not. C-One got over her girl-humiliation-game-playing long enough to tell me that she thought Beth was upstairs. I looked her in the eye for a second or two and realised that Beth was undoubtedly downstairs somewhere. The C was enjoying the idea of misleading me, of all the cuntish...
Then the heavy hand landed on my shoulder, from behind.
The hand swung down and clamped hard in one single movement. A movement which continued in the form of sheer animal terror down through my body. I fought hard to control my bowels from evacuating. Fought hard and won, thankfully, in the instant before the voice said, “Well, well, well, who do we have here Beth?”.
Beth. Someone was asking Beth a question. Ergo, Beth was now in the room. Heaven or hell. I was now at the front of the Limbo queue, being assessed.
“Oh Cal, that’s Paul – he’s from my Modern Culture class. Hi Paul.”
“Ah, Cell Biology actually”, I tried to say. Even in the world of deepest mindfuck to which I now was exiled, I was still compelled to correct mistakes. The hand on my shoulder squeezed harder. I turned around. “Yeah, Cell Biology, that’s right.” – singsong.
‘Cal’ – who was ‘Cal’?. The hand that had dropped from my shoulder as I turned to face my crappy fate did not belong to Crazy Lawn Guy. It belonged to Cal. Cal had his non-shoulder-clamping arm around Beth. Huge chunks of Day Zero Perfection broke off and fell six-hundred-and-sixty-six storeys to the ground, where they smashed into seven-hundred-and-seventy-seven pieces each. I smiled meekly as my mind raced much much too fast, desperately trying to come up with a logical explanation for Cal having his arm around Beth like he did, in a way that was sickeningly familiar. They could be close cousins. Shit – he could even be her brother for all I knew. He could even just be one of those annoying people who like to put their arms around people they aren’t really that close with.
It wasn’t definite that he was her boyfriend.
“This is Cal, my boyfriend.” - singsong.
I looked at Beth as she said this. She didn’t say it. Her mouth (o god, her mouth, her LIPS) moved. Words came out in singsong voice, and they were even perfectly lip-synced. But no. She didn’t say that. Please. Just…please.
No. No, of course it was all bullshit, this Day Zero stuff. I mean, how could I not have known? Don’t I like to think that I am even just slightly intelligent? So how did I decieve myself so easily and deeply? It was so FUCKING STUPID! Day Zero – what the fuck is that? The biggest irony on the planet is that the people who are most convinced that they don’t suck are the ones who most likely do. SUCK THAT IS. SUCK LIKE YOU. This internal rant came from a beastly voice that lives in my head. Its a voice that envies the control that the pursuit of beauty has over my mind. The voice’s name is Steven Lampshade. No-one knows where the name came from. Now Lampshade had seized the controls. He is a nasty voice.
“Cal goes to WITHHELD. Cal, this is Paul. He’s in my Calisthenics class.”
I looked at Cal.
He was better looking, taller, all of the usual stuff. He went to WITHHELD, so he was obviously richer too. I don’t usually have a problem with guys who possess these things over him – there are plenty of them after all. I’m happy with the gifts I’ve been given, (mostly). Really, truly, I would never swap places with them. Until now. Take it all, just give me the damn girl!
Cal leaned in toward me. For a second, I thought the guy was going to take me up on the swap, unbidden.
“Got a cigga for me mate? I’m fresh out.”
Ah yes, fresh insult. Of course. And why not? I retrieved said vice from his jacket.
“Do you need a light there Cal?”, I asked. The absolute stirling perfect picture of easy, nonchalant amiability.
“Do I need a light? DO I NEED A LIGHT?” Cal yelled, grinning. Some of Cal’s friends heard him and hurriedly urged their friends’ attention to where the trio stood.
“I DON’T NEED NO FUCKN LIGHT!” about five or six of his buddies then yelled in unison, and cracked up. Obviously some sort of in-joke.
How terribly amusing. Kill me.
Cal winked at me. A crowd of party guests gathered around us. Someone even had the wherewithal to turn the music down. “Check this out, buddy” said Cal. He stuck the unlit cigarette, tobacco-end, into his ear. Beth looked confused. I was confused too – how could this be any way to impress your girl in front of a potential competitor? But, o, it was. Cal frowned slightly, and his friends shushed the excited crowd. A sense of anticipation grew.
Slowly, cigarette smoke began drifting out of Cal’s other ear. The crowd oohed, aahed, laughed, and made those shocked delight noises. Then they applauded. Beth laughed, jumped up and down on the spot, then leant over to Cal and whispered something saucy in his ear. He smiled and nodded.
Kill me, kill me now. Fucking take off and nuke the entire site from orbit. It’s the only way to be sure.
Cal took the cigarette out of his ear and took a puff of it. He blew out the smoke, twisting his mouth oddly. The smoke came out spelling the words “Beth is hot”.
As the letters hung in the air and slowly dissipated, Cal blew a love heart, and then an arrow piercing it. Guys laughed. Girls sighed and said “aww, that’s SO sweet.”
I barely managed a broken, “Hey, cool man” before backing away, away from Beth and Cal, their admiring rabble, and the cruel and unusual punishment that is my world. Only when I was almost there did I realise – I was headed for the back yard.
I stood in front of the very glass doors that Mr Bertram had burst through, enraged, last night. Other party-goers milled about, laughed in the kitchen, smashed a bottle of something.
I calmly noticed the German razor wire that now ran atop the back fence. Prick. Fuck. Cunt.
When I came back inside a few minutes later, I was changed. A spring in the step. A reason to continue. Something worth giving a shot. Flies on the wall would have noticed the difference in me. A collection of drunken party-goers however, did not.
Cal and Beth had moved to the staircase, so the other guests could see them better, presumably. I noticed that Cal’s cigarette was almost all gone. He was still doing smoke tricks. You have to give the guy credit on one level, some of them were quite impressive. He made a little smoke television, then a lamp and armchair, and then, god-DAMN-it, he made a little smoke man who actually WALKED over to the armchair, and sat down. Jesus. My dis- and re-appearance had gone unnoticed, as one might expect during such a display. Sure enough, Cal’s cigarette came to its brown-papered end as I wormed my way to the front of the crowd.
“Hey, cool tricks man. Got any more?”, I asked. The absolute stirling perfect picture of easy, nonchalant amiability. Again.
“You bet, if you’ve got another smoke for us!”, Cal half-joked. Even he knew it was a bit much to scam two smokes in a row off the same person in a room full of people eager to ingratiate themselves with you. Some people even threw cigarettes across the room towards Cal.
But I silently proffered another of his cigarettes, and Cal took it. This time, he lit it conventionally – he had a lighter in his pocket. Just the slightest little crease crossed his features.
That crease, I knew, meant the idea was going to work.
Maybe, if there had been less people gazing lovingly at Cal, or if he had been less drunk, or less eager to impress his girlfriend, he would have stopped and put the cigarette out.
Because it tasted funny.
But let’s not concern ourselves with the ifs. The what-actually-happens are much better.
Cal inhaled deeply, more deeply than usual, from the cigarette, as if to try and suck out all the bad taste from the cigarette. He took a full lung of the smoke, held it, held it, then collapsed dead on the floor.
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