Part 4 (1/2)

'You guys are really in the middle of nowhere,' one of the more brilliant ones says.

Denton laughs and says, 'Kind of.'

'Hanover's a real sprawling metropolis,' I mutter loudly.

'I swear this looks like a f.u.c.kin' Halloween party,' one 77.of them says again and they're p.i.s.sing me off and okay, maybe it does look like one but it doesn't give these a.s.sholes any right, so I have to tell them, 'No, it's not a Halloween party. It's the Get f.u.c.ked party.'

'Oh yeah?' They all raise their eyes up and nudge each other. 'We're ready.'

'Yeah. Bend over and get f.u.c.ked,' I find myself saying.

They look at me like I'm crazy and walk off telling me how 'perverted' I am. I don't even know why I bothered to say that. I look over at Denton and he's laughing, but when he sees that I'm not, he stops. It gets late and Candice is nowhere to be found and the keg runs out. Denton says why don't we go to his room since he has beer there. And I'm a little wasted so I say why not. I make sure I bring the pot I picked up earlier this afternoon when I was at Roxanne's scoring for some Freshman girls in McCullough. We leave the party and head for Welling.

PAUL After we returned from our little excursion to the hospital, I went back to my room and wondered what I should do. I first called Casa Miguel and had Sean paged. He wasn't there. He had already left. I sat on my bed and smoked a couple of cigarettes. I then went to The Pub, cautiously at first. I didn't look around the room until I had made my way to the bar. Harry was already there, recovered, getting even more smashed by the jukebox with David Van Pelt. I got a beer, but didn't drink it, then followed some people over to Booth (it was getting too cold for parties at End of the World) to confront Sean. It was a party, after all.

The party was in full swing when I got there. Raymond was standing around but I didn't want to talk to him. He came over anyway and asked if I wanted a drink.

'Yeah.' I craned my neck to look over the dance floor. 'What do you want? I know the bartender.' 'Rum and anything.'

He walked off and then I spotted Sean. From where I stood in the darkened living room of Booth I could see him f in the light coming from the bathroom down the hallway. He was standing in the doorway and had a beer in one hand and a cigarette in the other and he was trying to kick something off his boot. He saw me for an instant and then shyly turned away. I was feeling guilty about our meeting last night - telling him I had failed three cla.s.ses last term. I only told him that because I thought he was great-looking and I wanted to sleep with him. I hadn't failed any cla.s.ses that term. (Sean later admitted to me that he had failed all four. In fact, I couldn't imagine anyone failing not only four cla.s.ses at Camden, but even one. I guess the thought seemed so irrational to me that I found him even more attractive in some perverse way.) He had been coming on to me the night before, there was no doubt about that and that's all that really mattered. From where I stood he looked a little like a rock star caught unknowingly in a video. Maybe a little like Bryan Adams (without the acne scars though, sometimes, admittedly, that can be s.e.xy). I went over to him and told him how sorry I was.

'Yeah,' he said, looking modestly at the ground, still trying to kick something off his boots. I wondered suddenly if he was Catholic. My spirits rose: Catholic boys will usually do anything. Tm sorry too.'

'Did you stay there?' I asked him.

'Stay there? Yeah, I guess,' he admitted, embarra.s.sed, confused. 'I stayed.'

'I'm really, really sorry,' I said.

'Oh, don't worry about it. It's okay. Some other time,' he said.

I felt so s.h.i.+tty about ruining his date that a rush of sympathy (or horniness: the two were interchangeable) went through me and I said, I'll make it up to you.'

You don't have to,' he said, though you could tell he had not wanted to say that.

'I know I don't, but I want to. I really insist.'

He looked down and said he had to use the restroom and I said I'd wait.

I wondered if we were going to sleep together tonight, but then I tried to push the thought away and pretended to be rational about the whole thing. In the meantime, four gorgeous Dartmouth guys came into the party. When I went back to the keg to get another beer for Sean (if nothing else, I was going to succeed in getting him drunk) they all walked over to him and started a conversation.

78.Jealously I hurried back. When I handed him the beer, almost protectively, the one that was the best-looking went off dancing with the student body president (The v.a.g.i.n.a Lady,' Raymond always seemed to call her). The Dartmouth boys thought that this was the annual Dressed To Get Screwed party and they were quite disappointed that they had driven all the way from Hanover to come to the Camden Early Halloween Ball. They said this sarcastically and I thought it was a little mean. But I asked them, flirtatiously, 'Aren't you all a little far away?'

'It's really not all that far away, I guess,' the blond said. 'So, what's going on in the real world?' I asked, laughing.

'It's cool,' the one with a slight double-chin said. The same stuff,' another one said. ”You guys are kind of in the middle of nowhere, aren't you?' the blond asked. They were all looking at the dance floor, nodding their heads. 'Kind of,' I said.

Then Sean made some rude comment that I couldn't hear. I realized then that I was making Sean jealous by talking to these guys, so I immediately stopped talking to them. But it was too late. He was so jealous that he ended up telling them off. He told them it was the Get f.u.c.ked party and that they should bend over and get f.u.c.ked. I hoped I wasn't playing too hard to get, but it was sort of erotic to hear him say that, yet I still showed no emotion. I was afraid that the Dartmouth guys were going to beat him (actually, me) up but they just walked away, too stunned to say anything, their suspicions about this place confirmed by Sean's brash actions. After a while, when it was nearing 79.midnight, I asked him if he wanted to come by my room. I had asked Raymond to stop at Price Chopper on the way back from the hospital so I could pick up a six-pack, especially for this occasion. But I wasn't sure if we'd even get around to drinking it since he was fairly drunk by now anyway. I first made sure he was interested by asking him if he wanted to go to his room first.

'We could,' he said. 'My roommate's gone a lot. His girlfriend lives off-campus, so he's there a lot.' He was slurring his words. He b.u.mped into someone's drink, oblivious.

'Do you have any alcohol?' I asked, laughing.

'I have alcohol?' he asked himself. 'Do I?'

'You do?' I asked.

'I don't.. . have any,' he said, starting to laugh also.

'Let's go to my room,' I said. 'I have beer.'

We walked out of Booth, past the Dartmouth guys. Someone had stuck pieces of paper with the word 'a.s.shole' on them to their backs. We started for Welling.

'Are you a Catholic?' I asked him.

We walked a little while before he finally answered. '1 don't remember.'

LAURE N I don't know why I sleep with Franklin. Maybe it's because Judy likes him, or is just sleeping with him, occasionally. Maybe it's because he's tall and has brown hair and reminds me of Victor. Maybe it's because we're at a Sunday night party and it's dark and I'm bored but what am I doing at Booth anyway. 1 should know better. Maybe it's because Judy went to the movies over in Manchester. Maybe it's because when I asked the boy from L.A. after poetry cla.s.s to meet me at the Beverage Center at dinner tonight he didn't show and when I saw him later at Booth he told me he thought I meant the Beverly Center. I don't know. Maybe it's because Franklin's . . . just there. But he's not the only possibility. There's the cute French guy who comes up to me and tells me he's in love with me. But he also reminds me that maybe I should go to Europe and just find Victor and bring him back home. But then what would that do? We talk, Franklin and me. But not about much. Some great-looking but utterly bland Dartmouth guys crash the party (How can you tell they're from Dartmouth? Franklin asks. They're wearing green, I explain. Franklin nods, impressed, and wonders what our school color is. Easy, I guess. Black.) I really hope (but not really) that Judy comes back so I won't end up doing this. We dance to a couple of oldies. He pays for drinks he brings me. When he sweats he's really handsome. What am I talking about? This is Judy's geek. But then I get mad at him: what a jerk to cheat on Judy like this. But I get drunk and too tired to argue and I crumple into his arms and he doesn't quite know what to do with me. I decide to leave it all up to him. We walk back to his room. How easy this all is. Will Judy ever know? Will she even care? Doesn't she 82.B3.

like his roommate instead? Michael? That's right. I look over at Michael's side of the room: a fern, Hockney print poster of Mikhail Baryshnikov. Definitely not for you, Judy. Forget him. It makes me remember a boy I was in love with last term, part of last summer. B.V. The time Before Victor. And maybe that's why I go to bed with Judy's lover. But she should have been here to stop him. And maybe he shouldn't have touched my neck that way, a cruel but familiar sensation. Even before he's in me I know that I will never sleep with him again. And maybe Franklin reminds me of that lost boyfriend, which is good but maybe bad and now we're in bed, actually on the bed.

'What about Judy?' I ask, reaching back and feeling the knots and blades in his shoulders.

'She's in Manchester.' He has strong fingers.

It seems a sufficient answer.

PAUL I used the dead best friend story. It seemed better than using the girlfriend with cancer story or the favorite aunt who committed suicide after the favorite uncle died story, both of which seemed overly melodramatic. I told him about 'Tim' who died in a 'car accident' on a 'road near Concord' killed by 'a drunken gas station attendant.' I told him this after we finished the first beer, when I was adequately drunk.

He said, 'Gee, I'm sorry.'

I kept my head lowered, tingling with excitement. 'It's so terrible,' I said.

He agreed, excused himself for a minute to go to the restroom.

I bolted up and checked myself in the mirror then took one of his cigarettes that were lying on my desk, a Parliament. Then I sat back down in a suitable, casual position on the bed and turned on the radio. Nothing good was on I so I put a tape in. When he came back he asked me if I wanted to smoke some pot with him. I told him no, but that it was okay if he wanted some. He sat in the chair next to the bed. I was sitting on the edge of the bed. Our knees touched.

'Where did you spend your summer?' I asked. 'Oh, last summer?' he said, lighting the small pipe with a lighter that barely worked. 'Yeah.' 'Berlin.'

'Really?' I was impressed. He'd been to Europe. 'Yeah. It was okay,' he said, looking for another lighter. 'How are the clubs there?' I asked, reaching into my pocket. I handed him some matches.

'Good, I guess,' he laughed and sucked in on the pipe.

'Clubs?'

'Yeah? Do you speak German?' I asked.

85.'German? No,' he said, laughing. His eyes were very red. He took his jacket off.

'You don't?'