Angst

by Victoria Sawyer

  “Yeah, I want to try,” I declare, smiling back at Seth, trying to hold back a laugh, finally getting up the nerve to try something new. Andy shows me how to hold the pipe, light the bowl and inhale all at the same time.

  “Hold it in your lungs as long as you can,” he instructs, as I try and fail miserably, my lungs expelling the toxic, yet sweet smelling smoke almost as soon as it enters. “Takes some practice,” says Andy as I cough and cough, smiling suddenly as the sensations hit me almost immediately. I have never felt like this before. It’s like consciousness expanding, almost dizzy but in a good way. I ponder these new feelings for a moment and realize that I’m light headed, sort of blurred at the edges.

  Hannah decides she wants to try too, and after everyone has a smoke, even Jared, Andy gets up and puts a movie into the DVD player and we all sit back to watch Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. The movie is very funny. In fact, everything is hilarious to me and I find myself laughing out loud at funny parts of the movie along with everyone else. Suddenly out of the blue, hunger grips me.

  “I’m hungry,” I say to Jared with a smile. Somehow the ice has melted between us now that we’re high and we’ve talked back and forth as part of the group. So I’m taking a bold step, talking to him directly again, hoping that things can somehow be normal despite our weird start at the frat.

  “What’ve you got to snack on?” I ask loudly as he smiles at me. Andy and Seth laugh, trading glances.

  “Classic symptoms,” says Andy with a huge smirk. “The munchies! I hope asshole has something good in his fridge!” Jared looks over at his brother, casually giving him the middle finger before getting up off the couch to lope to the kitchen and see what he has around for “the munchies.” I follow him in, eager to see what he might dig up.

  “OK,” he says after a few minutes of rummaging through fridge and cabinets, “all I’ve got is a few oranges, some microwave popcorn and more beer. Whaddya want?” he asks, laughing as Seth and Andy come sweeping into the room, their socks slipping over the linoleum floor.

  “Popcorn, NOW!” demands Andy, grabbing the bag that is dangling out of Jared’s fingers and popping it into the microwave all in one smooth move. I laugh at their antics. Somehow everything is funnier. Seth pulls a face, grabbing an orange off the counter, handing it to me.

  “For you, my lady,” he murmurs in a low voice, pretending to sweep off some kind of invisible hat from his head.

  “Thank you,” I say graciously, trying not to giggle. I feel so funny. I don’t feel like panicking at all, I feel free of that kind of worry. The movie is still playing in the background as we make our way back to our seats. I start to peel the orange, my fingers moving slowly over the rind to reveal the juicy fruit inside. It smells fragrant, sweet and acidic and the first piece I pop into my mouth is delicious, a sensual overload of juicy, tangy and sugary. I swear I have never tasted anything so good in my entire life.

  “This is wicked good,” I say, pulling off a wedge and handing it to Jared on the couch. He smiles at me, popping the piece in his mouth.

  “Oh man, that is good,” he agrees, “Give me more of that, woman,” he demands, putting his hand out to me, wiggling his fingers.

  I laugh, pulling the orange close to my body to protect it. “Get your own, punk,” I say, giving him a studied glare. He laughs and jumps up from his seat, hyper-active child style, hilarious for a guy his size. I laugh even harder, leaning back in my seat, the orange clutched close, getting sticky juice all over my fingers.

  “Give it, I don’t want to peel my own,” he says, bending over me, reaching out to grab it from my fingers.

  “No!” I say back to him, still laughing, batting his hands away with my free arm. He reaches over me, grabbing, grasping, still unable to quite get the orange away. He backs off for a moment, looking down at me with an evil glint in his eyes and then before I even know what’s happened, he’s squeezed down next to me in the chair.

  “You get outta here, beat it,” I say, holding the orange away from me now on the opposite side from where he’s sitting. He struggles to get it, tickling me on my side with one hand while the other finally grabs the orange out of my hand. Now that he’s got it, he’s hoarding it. I slump for a moment after he steals it and then realize that I am sitting in a fairly small chair with him. His body is warm and inviting, snuggle worthy and he’s to-die-for good looking.

  “Give it back, you big bully,” I say, turning toward him, laying down several solid punches on his hard chest. It hurts my hand more than it hurts him because he’s laughing, holding my orange up with one hand while feeding himself a wedge with his other. Clearly getting me to stop punching him is not on his agenda right now. “Bastard!” I say, punching a bit harder, laughing, until he pops a slice of orange into my mouth to shut me up. Surprised I stop, chew my orange slice and think about getting up to see if he has any more. But sitting with him is too nice and I really don’t want it to end. I need this orange to last forever because it seems like we’re finally over the awkwardness hump. I settle down next to him and he hands me another slice of orange, while we watch the movie.

  It’s the strangest thing because pretty soon I’m dozing off a bit, cuddled up next to him. I can’t believe I could ever feel this comfortable around him. But I am comfortable. High as a kite and a drunk on wine and I feel warm and cozy.

  “Hey, sleepyhead, it’s still early,” he says finally and I feel the rumble in his chest, more than I hear the words. I crack open my eyes and notice that the movie is off and music is playing and everyone is smoking another bowl. Jared’s asking me if I want more and I nod yes and take the bowl from his hand. I sit up straighter, take my hit and suddenly get a new dose of energy. I pass the bowl along to the next person and lean back against Jared again. It seems too right, I don’t want to get up.

  “So,” he says casually as I turn to look at him, “What’s your story, Victoria? You got a major here?”

  “Yea…I’m straight up English,” I say with a grin.

  “Straight up, huh?” he says, quirking an eyebrow at me.

  “Yeah I like my English straight up, I don’t mess around with this shit,” I say with a smile. He laughs. “Well, what the hell are you studying, Mr. Perfect?” Me? his eyes seem to say as he grins.

  “Mr. Perfect is studying civil engineering. He’s a Goddamned genius and obviously highly good looking as well. He’s got it all,” he says, trying to be totally serious. I roll my eyes.

  “Sure, and Mr. Perfect is highly conceited and needs to be brought down a peg or two,” I reply, giving him another quick punch in the chest.

  “Oww, Vicky, that hurts, in here,” he says, all seriousness, holding his hand over his heart.

  “Haha, funny man. Who gave you leave to call me by my ‘Christian’ name, Sir?” I ask in a fake British accent. Now he rolls his eyes and smirks.

  “Don’t pull any of that English major crap on me. It won’t work. I’ve met your kind before,” he says, pretend glaring at me.

  “My kind? My kind? What the hell does that mean? Discrimination! I call discrimination!” I say in a loud voice, poking at him. He laughs.

  “Discrimination my Dear Watson?” says Andy in his own British accent, jumping up from the couch next to us in one quick movement, suddenly listening in on our conversation. “I do declare that if discrimination is in the air, it is time to….DANCE!” he says, smiling at me and Jared like a lunatic and walking purposefully over to the computer. “Hannah will you join me?” he asks, putting on loud pulsating dance music and beginning to shuffle his feet, arms windmilling in some kind of ridiculous dance. After a few moments of this he kicks out each leg in turn and finally stops in front of Hannah. Hannah laughs shaking her head no. “Come come, woman, I must have you dance with me,” he says, kick dancing in front of the couch, grabbing her hand. Hannah laughs harder as he pulls her up and forces her arms to windmill. Seth gets up too and joins in on the dancing, striking out on his own into some kind of crazy tr
aditional German dancing.

  “Is Andy always like this?” I ask Jared.

  “Yes, he’s always crazy. It’s his way. I’ve grown used to it over the years,” he says seriously and then continues on with, “Ready to join? It’s necessary to join the crazy people or else we’ll look like outsiders and be shunned.”

  “Whaaaat! I don’t want to be an outcast of this society,” I reply in utter seriousness. We join the others, dancing around the room and now everyone joins in, doing the stupidest dances we can think of. And it doesn’t matter that we look dumb. The dumber the better, in fact, topping each other with the most ridiculous moves we can think of. High, drunk, stupid and yet having the best time. I’m out of breath, laughing at Andy as he does a crazy version of the “Stayin Alive” dance.

  I’m fairly certain that this would look entirely insane to anyone outside our drugged confines. But no one here seems to care. Andy is quite drunk now and starting to get even more comical. I’m slowly learning that he’s the funniest guy ever when he’s tanked. Hannah and I are doing the Macarena when he dances up to us, pretending to move his hips like we are, his expression trying to be sexy, his lips pursed.

  “Stop it!” says Hannah with a laugh as Andy grabs her waist, pulling her in close, grinding his hips on her as I laugh and Samantha joins me. He pulls back for a moment and does a little dance, half robot and half something else, his feet moving everywhere at once, his arms windmilling around wildly. Finally he stops and just stands there, grinning at us.

  “Nailed it,” he says, nodding his head, like he’s accomplished some fantastic feat of dancing precision. “Totally fuckin…nailed the triple axel.”

  “Be our clown Andy!” I say, trying to fight the smile that is threatening to take over my face. “Dance, fool, make us laugh!” Andy fake frowns, the corners of his mouth turned down, totally overstated.

  “I’m not your clown, how dare you!” he says doing a jig, kicking his legs out, making a complete fool of himself. “Oh, Hannah,” he says, coming up close, grinding himself on her with an outrageous raunchy look, “I’ve got some good news and some bad news, which do you want first?”

  “The bad news, you sexy beast,” says Hannah with a grin, running her hands up and down his sides, pretending to be taken in by his sexy dancing.

  “The bad news is that I’m a hyperactive son of a bitch who is going to get trashed tonight and you, my sweet, are my guest here. Can you handle it? Can you?!”

  Hannah laughs, “Gonna get trashed? This isn’t trashed?”

  Andy looks at her in complete seriousness, his eyes focused on her face. “Courage, I tell you! Courage!!!” he suddenly states loudly, pumping his fist in the air.

  “Now the good news, tell me you baa-stard!” she says, dancing with him now, both of them silly.

  “The good news is coming at you in 3 parts,” he says, his hips continuing to move to the pumping music, holding up three fingers, “Number one is brought to you by the letter J. I brought Jello shots and then later we can go out somewhere else on campus!” Then his voice changes to a whisper and he looks at Jared next to me and says, “Don’t tell Jared, he’s an asshole.” Jared, hearing this, glares at him and he sobers and then continues on with a very straight face. “Number two is brought to you by the letter A cause we gonna play some Asshole! And number three is R for getting recrunkulated bitches! Let’s get hiiiiggghhhhhh!! Or shall I say…let’s get even MORE high!!!” We laugh as Andy makes ridiculous faces, drawing out his words in a high pitched funny voice.

  “Wait a minute, you brought recrunkulator?! What the hell, jerk,” says Jared with fake anger.

  “Yes, I did Sir. I couldn’t leave him at home, he’d get so lonely and jealous of all my other smoking devices. We cannot have that because then he might refuse to perform up to par. Oh and the best part, is what I brought for the Asshole to wear. Oh man, it’s gonna be so wicked sweeeeettt!!”

  “You rowdy Mo’Fo’, where’d you put my cards the last time you played Asshole,” says Jared rolling his eyes at Andy’s antics. Andy jets off to the other room and we can hear him rummaging around in different drawers, slamming cabinets, things spilling on the floor and Jared rolls his eyes again and finally Andy’s back.

  “Beer soaked cards! Jello shots! Recrunkulatorrrrr the glass bong!” he sings loudly, displaying a nice tray of Jello shots in small white cups, a deck of warped beer soaked and then dried cards and finally a large glass bong. “Ok and one final thing….the costume for the asshole, to make him feel at home,” he says with an evil little smile, plunking down the bong, cards and tray of Jello shots on Jared’s messy coffee table. He grabs a bag full of something from behind Jared’s couch and leaves the room, telling us he’ll be right back, in full asshole regalia.

  Ian leans back on the couch and pulls out his cell phone, punching at the keys, while Samantha, Hannah, Jared and I start talking.

  “You got a problem there, Ian?” asks Jared as Ian’s key punching gets more and more erratic. He looks over at me and smiles, pointing to Ian’s bowed head, mouthing, “He’s an animal with these things!”

  “Who makes these shoddy-ass telephones?” Ian asks, clearly outraged, “I mean seriously, this thing is a POS,” he says, slamming his phone down on the coffee table. We laugh as Ian continues.

  “I mean really, the keys are tiny, I can barely type on this fricken thing, the battery keeps dying. Who makes this shoddy-ass stuff?” he says, grabbing Jared by the lapels of his shirt, “You know what I’m saying, you fuck?” he asks with a crazy smile, laughing.

  “Maybe if you weren’t a total caveman you wouldn’t have a problem,” says Jared with a grin, pushing Ian away with a little shove. Jared picks up Ian’s phone, miming a monkey complete with hoots and under arm scratching, typing onto the tiny keys with huge fat fingers. Samantha and I start smirking, trying to hold back laugher. Ian glares.

  “Hahaha, ab-so-lutely fuckin hilarious,” says Ian, punching Jared in the leg. “Charlie horse, you fucka!”

  “Wait, everyone shut up for a minute,” says Jared, leaning in conspiratorially, rubbing his now wounded thigh. “We gotta get Andy. If that kid passes out after he smokes, or sometime later tonight we have to initiate some kind of classic shaming. That kid always passes out after he’s hyper. Tonight is a perfect example.” Ian chortles gleefully, slapping Jared on the back, clearly liking his idea.

  “Hell yes!” he says, grinning, “remember that time that we drew a huge penis that curved up from his cheek to his forehead and wrote ‘I masturbate more than anyone on the planet’ on the other side of his forehead back in high school? That shit was hilarious.” Jared laughs and then gets serious and I look between the two of them imagining all the wicked funny stories they might have to tell. I turn inside for a moment, one of the first times I’ve thought about me in hours. Wow, it’s incredible to not be my normal quivery self. God that’s sad. Luckily they’re still talking so I don’t focus for long.

  “No, I’m talking a new kind of shaming, something really good. Maybe stacking shit on top of his head. You know how hard it is to wake that kid up once he’s passed out. We can have a contest and see how many things we can stack on him, then take a picture and then wake him up with that stupid annoying boombazala he bought me for Christmas last year.”

  “What the H is a boombazala?” I ask, trying to peer into the corner of the room to see what Jared is talking about.

  “It’s that stupid long plastic horn thing over there. It’s so fricken loud. He’ll wake up and knock all that shit off himself. It’ll be classic,” he says with a laugh, slapping his knee. We all nod, definitely in on this plot. The bong is being passed around and finally it’s my turn to take a hit, Jared showing me how, pulling in with my lungs, holding it in as long as possible. Just as I exhale, coughing, Andy walks back into the room.

  “Well hello, smart-ass,” he says, strolling into the room casually, as if nothing out of the ordinary were going on, a large fake mustache adorning
his upper lip and a fedora on his head. I can’t help but burst out laughing at how he’s walking, slinking in, his mouth below the mustache in a huge white sleazy smirk, a blazer of some kind thrown over one shoulder.

  “Oh my God,” says Hannah, putting her hand over her mouth, stifling a giggle. “You look like a Goddamned 70’s porn star,” she says with hoot of laughter.

  “He’s just trying to impress you, Hannah,” Jared says with a grin, “Honestly, the kid still thinks he’s in elementary school. These are his lady killing techniques.”

  Andy ignores all this and bows to us, “Good day ladies and gentlemen, please recrunkulate the recrunkulator. Ian, I am ready for my toke.” We all laugh, as Andy sits down in all seriousness, pulling the just repacked bong over to his side of the table. His expression is classic, definitely playing the part, serious as ever.

  “What, may I ask, is so damn funny?” he drawls, his face schooled into a solemn questioning look, his lips pursed with the thick black mustache riding above, grabbing a lighter from the top of the messy table. We laugh harder, clutching our bellies.

  “My dear sirs, what may I ask is all this drug paraphernalia?” he asks, gesturing at the table, then looking at Jared with a raised eyebrow. When no one answers he shrugs his shoulders, putting his luxuriously mustached mouth against the pipe to pull in a hit of smoke. I can’t stop laughing. Drunk fun, holy shit…I don’t think I’ve had this much fun in a long time. And I’m not afraid. I’m not sick. And the best part… I’m spending this time with Jared and his friends. Whoa.

  After Andy takes a hit, choking on the smoke as it exits his lungs, he leans back, twirling the edge of his mustache between two fingers.

  “I say, let’s play Asshole, assholes,” he says.

  “What are you some kind of British porn star from the 1800’s or something?” Jared asks, pushing Andy in the chest.

  “You coarse bastard,” says Andy, his hand to his chest in affront, acting shocked. “How dare you! Just wait until you have to wear this mustache. If I trust history, I know you’ll be Asshole soon!” Jared glares at him and Andy shrugs again. “I speak the truth!”