by Adam Vine
Bea and Jay left the basement to go upstairs to his car. I watched them ascend the stairs until they were out of sight. Natalia followed, saying she needed another drink.
Carter and I stayed behind while the rest of them went upstairs, staring into the hole.
“Been one helluva weird-ass day,” Carter said.
“Yup.”
“You alright, Thunder?”
“I’ll be right as reggae after a few more drinks.”
Carter raised an eyebrow at me. “Keep it together for me, alright? Can’t have you breakin' down and havin another freak out right now. Stay cool. This will all work itself out. And, speaking of rain...” Carter pointed at the basement 'ceiling. “If we want to use the deck tonight, we'd better head up there soon. That storm is gonna make an encore tonight.”
I smirked. “Oh, is it?”
Carter winked. “I see you.”
But his cockiness masked a deep undercurrent of fear.
I'd never seen Carter scared before, not even when locals would chicken-hawk him at parties looking for a fight. I'd seen Carter stand toe-to-toe with surfers, neo-Nazis, and regular old run-of-the-mill town drunks with no sign of fear in his eyes. I, on the other hand, usually shat my pants whenever anyone so much as said something behind my back.
Hearing that soft flutter in his voice and seeing him nervously rub the back of his neck as he stared at the makeshift campsite in our basement scared me more than anything.
***
We were walking back to the garage when Carter stopped and knelt down next to the Hobbit door. “Oh, that is nasty,” he said, a look of disgust seizing his face.
I peeked over his shoulder to see what he was looking at, and gasped. There was a dead cat shoved into the crevice in the wall nearest the door. It was partially eaten.
“Least we know he isn’t a vegetarian,” Carter said.
“I-s-s th-there any chance it could be rats?” I asked, trying to swallow the sudden lump in my throat.
“Rats? Come on, Thunder,” Carter said.
“Is-is-is th-th-there a c-c-collar?”
I was shaking so hard I had to shut my eyes and count to ten to calm myself down. When I opened them, Carter was standing in front of me, his arms folded over his chest and his lips pursed.
“No. Looks like it was a stray. Go grab a garbage bag from the kitchen. We gotta get rid of this thing before it starts to stink.”
My knees gave out, and reached to steady myself against the wall. “It’s… it’s fresh,” I managed to say.
“Couldn’t have been here more than a few hours, or we would’ve smelled it. We’ll put it in the outside trash.”
I was ducking under the Hobbit door when Carter said softly, “Oh, and Drew. Don’t tell anyone, a'ight? I don’t want Talia findin' out about this, or Bea, for that matter. They been scared enough for one night.”
They weren't the only ones.
***
Nothing I did or said eased the tension. I poured everyone more shots, made mixed drinks, served beers, and DJ'd through our iPod speaker system in the kitchen, putting on my favorite chip tunes beats – including my own latest creation, Don't Go Down the Wrong Road, which everyone at our New Year’s party had loved.
But there was no drunken dancing or twerking this time. Bea, Jay, Carter, and Natalia all stared awkwardly at the floor and sipped their drinks while the upbeat tune hit each climbing crest and trough. The robot voice sang, “Don't go down the wrong road, it's a very bad road, don't, don't, don't go down, down down, that wrong wrong road.”
But even the sound of my voice through a synthesizer failed to lift my friends' spirits. Natalia pushed me out of the way to put her own music on.
“Sorry, Drew. Your song is like, really good, but it's giving me a headache,” she said, removing my iPhone and plugging hers in to put on Iggy Azalea.
I poured myself another shot and it was my turn to stare at the floor.
Jay's shotgun was stashed in the corner behind the kitchen table, where he could easily grab it if a stranger came in the house. But after six or seven more shots, the somber mood in the kitchen lightened, and everyone started to loosen up.
Natalia suggested we all draw mustaches on our fingers with Sharpies. Mine was a long, slender Wyatt Earp. Jay opted for the full Tom Selleck, while Carter went for the Genghis Khan. Bea's was a pencil-thin waiter's mustache. Natalia went with the classic curl.
We spent an hour or two making each other laugh by holding those stupid mustaches up to our faces and pretending to be the characters they represented. And we kept drinking.
At some point Jay and I went down to play darts and bullshit for a while. As we went back upstairs, we overheard Bea and Talia talking on the deck. They didn’t see us.
“No, he’s, like, really cool. And funny. Like, it’s not my sense of humor, you know? But I totally get that you guys click,” Natalia said.
“I think he’s super hot,” Bea said.
“He’s definitely your type. You love those grungy surfer boys.”
“They’re my kryptonite,” Bea said.
Jay popped over the stairwell, startling them. “You fuckers talkin' about me?”
Natalia and Bea both gasped.
“You could not have picked a worse time to do that,” Bea said.
Jay started cracking up. “Sorry. Actually, I’m not. You should see your faces.” He pulled up a deck chair and sat down.
“Drew, where’s Carter?” Natalia said.
“How would I know? He’s your boyfriend. We were downstairs playing darts.”
“Go get him.”
Sure, go get Carter. Don't bother doing it yourself, wouldn't want to disturb her majesty. Oh, no thanks, I don't want to hit that joint, I'll just waddle on downstairs and find Captain Muscles. I need the exercise anyways, right?
I went downstairs to find Carter without a word, still mulling over what Bea had said. I heard them all laugh at something after my back was turned and my eyes teared up. Jesus, what is wrong with me lately?
I found Carter sitting on the downstairs couch with a beer surfing his iPhone.
We rejoined the group a few minutes later. That was when Natalia suggested we do something called a Housecleaning.
Jay scratched under his newsboy cap. “You mean, like, with Ajax and shit?”
“No, idiot. Not cleaning the house. A Housecleaning,” Natalia said.
“Is that like a séance?” Jay said.
“What's a séance?”
“Uh, never mind. So, a Housecleaning – sounds interesting. But can’t we just smoke some weed instead?”
Talia shrugged. “There’s been way too much bad energy in this house lately. I feel like a lot of terrible things have happened here. A house is like the human body. When too much bad stuff starts to build up, it needs to be purified, or that bad energy becomes toxic.”
“So, you want to give your house a juice cleanse?” Jay said.
“Fuck you. Just because you don’t believe in the metaphysical, doesn’t mean it isn’t present in our world.”
“I’m pretty sure that’s what metaphysical means,” Jay said. I tried not to snicker.
Natalia folded her hands across her knees. “I find your opinion to be very ignorant and self-limiting.”
“Whoa babe, you can’t just call people ignorant,” Carter said.
“Why not?” Bea said.
Jay only laughed. “Did Professor Scooby teach you that in Paranormal Forensics 101: Meddling Kids in Theory and Practice?”
“Kill yourself,” Natalia said.
Carter gave Jay a drunken high five.
When Talia spoke again, her voice sounded quiet and faraway. “Actually, it's something my Baba used to say. She grew up in Ukraine, during the Holodomor. You know, that genocide caused by Joseph Stalin that killed five million people?”
Jay and Carter both shut up.
Talia’s eyes wandered into the far corners of her memory. “There was a famine d
uring communist times. Baba used to tell us stories about it. She said a man died on the porch of her house. He was so thin she could see his bones, and his eyes looked like they were going to fall out of his head. She lived in the countryside, and he was from the city. He had wandered almost fifty kilometers looking for something to eat.”
“Holy shit,” Jay said.
Natalia gave him a satisfied smirk. “My Baba wasn’t some superstitious peasant. She was Nurse General at USF.”
“So, how does this Housecleaning work?” Bea said.
“I’ve done it once before. I went with my Baba to Ukraine when I was sixteen, before she died. We went back to her old house. It was hard for her to go inside. She said that unlike the human body, places don’t heal themselves. We have to do it for them. So we sat on the living room floor, and we did the only thing my Baba said could heal a place that’s experienced so much pain.”
“And that was…?” Jay said.
“We played Monopoly.”
Jay threw his hat in the air and caught it. “Well, I’m convinced.”
“You’re a very negative person,” Natalia said.
She explained: “Playing Monopoly was what my Baba and I did when I was sick, ever since I was a little girl. It was what we loved doing together more than anything. That’s the point: to heal a place that’s been hurt, you have to cleanse it with love. You have to create new, good memories to wash away the bad. It’s not a magic trick. I don't believe in gypsy curses, or haunted houses, or any of that shit. The process is internal. But that doesn’t mean it doesn’t work.”
Bea considered it. “I guess that makes sense. It’s like after a break-up. The best way to get over someone is to have sex with someone new.”
We all looked at her.
“What?” Bea said.
Jay ran his fingers through his hair. Free of the cap, it went past his shoulders. “So, how do we get rid of... whatever it is we're getting rid of? Burn some incense? Sprinkle some patchouli oil around and hold hands while we sing Holy Diver? I guess we could play Monopoly, as long as I can still get drunk.”
“Hey,” Carter warned. “My girl is trying to tell you something real.”
“She's knows I’m teasing. Right Talia?”
She stroked Carter's cheek and kissed him. “Baby, calm down. You always do this when you drink.”
Carter frowned. “Jay, I apologize for being an asshole. Tally’s right. I got some anger problems I need to deal with.”
Shielding his mouth from Carter with the back of his hat, Jay leaned over and whispered to Talia, “I think he's just scared we'll use up all his patchouli oil.”
Carter growled and leapt from his seat, tackling Jay and putting him in a headlock.
Jay tried to escape, but couldn't. Carter laughed, knuckled Jay's hair and let him go. When Jay got up to dust himself off, the look he gave me was like a deer who'd escaped a mountain lion. They clinked beers and drank.
Bea couldn't contain her amusement at the scrap. “Oh my god. You got rekt, Jay! Where'd you learn to wrestle? From Drew?”
“Hey, I've seen every WrestleMania there is. I've done my homework,” I said.
Jay dusted himself off. “I don’t know, Beatriz. I would say your mom, but I guess she wasn't a very good teacher.”
Everyone Oooooh'd.
Bea folded her arms and abruptly stopped laughing. “My mom's dead, you jerk.”
“Well, they must have great cell service in the afterlife, cuz I heard you talking to her on the phone twenty minutes ago.”
“Oh. Goddamn it.”
Everyone Ooooooh'd again.
“Now who's rekt, Bumble?” Jay said.
Bea threw her bottle cap at him. “Don't call me that, butthole.”
Jay dodged the bottle cap. “Butthole? Are you twelve?”
“Maybe I should just call you Herp. Didn't you tell me that earlier? That you have herpes?”
“Go ahead. Got a nice ring to it. Herpes: the gift that keeps on giving.”
“And let me guess: you're a very giving person,” Bea said.
Jay held his Sharpie mustache to his face and said, “You want to go to Drew's room and find out?”
Carter and Natalia laughed so hard they both nearly fell out of their chairs.
I didn’t find it funny.
Snapshot #22
Caption: The Knockout King
Mike Tyson passed out on our kitchen floor.
Carter’s costume didn’t win the First Annual Sunny Hill Halloween Bash Costume Contest, but he was close. With his huge muscles, shaved 8-ball head, and contagious gap-toothed grin, he filled the legendary boxer’s shoes perfectly.
Carter’s original plan was to go shirtless, but Natalia got jealous and made him wear a shirt. Carter opted for the Hangover version of Mike Tyson instead, wearing a sharp black blazer over a white collared shirt with the top three buttons open, slacks, polished black leather shoes, a gold watch, and a tribal tattoo drawn with Natalia’s mascara around his left eye. He carried a stuffed baby tiger and box of Tyson frozen chicken nuggets all night.
Carter’s costume placed second in the competition, losing out to Bea’s roommate Meg, who was a One-Night Stand. Meg’s costume consisted of a bedside table around her waist, a lampshade over her head, and a black body suit decorated with condom wrappers, breath mints, travel-sized bottles of lube, and sticky notes with words like Regret and I love Tinder stuck to her with Velcro.
My costume wasn’t very good. I wore a Freddy Krueger mask, gloves, a red and brown striped sweater, and a brown felt fedora. At one point, someone called me “Fatty Krueger” behind my back. I was too embarrassed to turn around.
I personally witnessed Carter take more than ten shots that night, on top of mixed drinks and beer. He was the life of the party, until the party knocked him out.
I ate his chicken nuggets after he passed out on our kitchen floor.
***
“Drewbaby. Thunder. Wethestorm. Wethemothafuckinstorm,” Carter said, as I joined him and Jay inside for another round. The girls stayed out on the deck to talk about some science article they had both seen Reddit.
One shot turned into three, and Carter’s words slurred together, a deep red replacing the whites of his eyes. I knew his drunk-state had advanced from “sweet spot” to “absolutely shitfaced.”
“They’re about to raise a hurricane warning for you, my friend. Maybe you should take it easy,” I told him.
“I love you, brotha. Ain't no slowin' down. C'mere.” Carter gave me a hug. “You my thunder,” he said, and pulled back a little to stroke my hair lovingly. “You my thunder.”
“Just remember, guys: it's only gay if you look each other in the eyes,” Natalia said, entering the kitchen with Bea.
“He's a beautiful man,” Carter said. He let me go and grabbed everyone a fresh beer from the fridge, accidentally dropping one. It shattered and sprayed brown ale all over my and Talia's legs.
Talia snapped. “Carter, you are shitting the bed right now. Do you hear me? We have something important to do. Im-por-tant. Get the broom and some paper towels, and clean that up. Go.”
Carter’s smile faded. Then it reappeared. “Thas Hurricane Carter,” he said, pointing at the beer pooled on the floor.
***
A while later a delivery guy from Pizza My Heart showed up at our door. Jay and Carter had ordered a double-XL pepperoni and olives while I was in the bathroom reading about weight loss on my phone. I tried to restrain myself, because the article I was reading said that eating carb-heavy foods late at night is a major reason most people gain weight, but when my friends got down to the last few pieces, Carter finally wore me down.
"Does anyone want the rest of this? Drew? C’mon, buddy. I know you love pizza.”
Natalia chuckled, hiding her mouth with a fragment of crust.
What the hell is that supposed to mean? Wait, don’t tell me. I get it. You want me to stay a virgin my whole life. Go ahead and feed the fat ass.
Of course he asks me to play cleanup. They all know I’ll just eat the leftovers once everyone’s asleep.
I took the slice anyway, hating myself, and hating all of them a little, too.
***
The Housecleaning started in our living room at five past midnight.
My expectations of a cheesy ceremony with Ouija boards and a somber communion with the spirits complete with chanting and hand-holding were dashed when Natalia said, “Hey Carter, make yourself useful and play us some music.”
“Guitar. Ohfasho,” Carter mumbled.
“Wait,” Bea said. “I want a picture.”
Bea lifted her camera to her face, but it was out of film.
“Allow me,” I said.
I groped my pockets for my iPhone. It wasn’t there, so I went to my room and found the empty cord hanging next to the nightstand. I must’ve left it in the bathroom, I thought.
My eyes fell on the Polaroid camera shoved half-under my bed.
"Fuck it," I said aloud. After seeing the pictures change, I was hesitant to use the camera again, but I was drunk, and, as usual, my curiosity got the better of me.
I made everyone stand together in front of the fireplace, a very reluctant Bea on the left, then Jay (and Popeye), Carter, and Natalia. Carter cheesed and flexed his arms like the Neanderthals who posed on the cover of that Muscle & Fitness garbage he always read. Jesus Carter, we get it, you’re jacked. Surprised he eats anything besides those disgusting protein shakes. God forbid his muscles atrophy from a goddamned burrito.
“Where the hell did you get a Polaroid camera?” Natalia said.
I stabilized my image in the viewfinder.
“Found it in the basement. There were some fresh photo slides still in it. So, I figured we might as well put them to good use.”
“What if it's, like, haunted?” Natalia said.
“That's what I said,” Bea muttered.
I scratched my trigger finger gently on the shutter button. “A haunted camera? That's retarded,” I said with a false bravado that clashed with the apprehension I felt inside. “Like something out of a Goosebumps book. What would it do? Trap your soul? Keep you imprisoned in the picture for eternity? Curse you to die? Oooooh, spooky!” I fried my voice a little at the end, like the M.C. of a haunted house theme park ride.
