Otto colocó los shocks. Rodolfo mostró los ojos con horror: dos globos rojos, torvos, con poco fósforo como bolsos fofos; combó los hombros, sollozó: "No doctor, no... loco no..." Sor Socorro lo frotó con yodo: "Pon flojos los codos -rogó-, ponlos como yo. Nosotros no somos ogros." Sor Flor tomó los mohosos polos color corcho ocroso; con gozo comprobó los shocks con los focos: los tronó, brotó polvo con ozono. Rodolfo oró, lloró con dolor: "No doctor Otto, shocks no..." Sor Socorro con monótono rostro colocó los pomos: ocho con formol, dos con bromo, otros con cloro. Rodolfo los nombró doctos, colosos, con dolorosos tonos los honró. Como no los colmó, los provocó: "Son sólo orcos, zorros, lobos. ¡Monos roñosos!" Sor Flor, con frondoso dorso, lo tomó por los hombros; sor Socorro lo coronó como robot con hosco gorro con plomos. Rodolfo con fogoso horror dobló los codos, forzó todos los poros, chocó con los pomos, los volcó; soltó tosco trompón, sor Socorro rodó como tronco. "¡Pronto, doctor Otto! -convocó sor Flor-. ¡Pronto con cloroformo! ¡Yo lo cojo!..." Rodolfo, lloroso con mocos, los confrontó como toro bronco; tomó rojo pomo, gordo como porrón. Sor Flor sonó como gong, rodó como trompo, zozobró.
Otto, solo con Rodolfo, rogó como follón, rogó con dolo: "Rodolfo... don Rodolfo, yo lo conozco... como doctor no gozo con los shocks; son lo forzoso. Los propongo con hondo dolor... Yo lloro por todos los locos, con shocks los compongo...
-No, doctor. No -sopló ronco Rodolfo-. Los shocks no son modos. Los locos no somos pollos. Los shocks son como hornos; son potros con motor, sonoros como coros o como cornos... No, doctor Otto, los shocks no son forzosos, son sólo poco costosos, son lo cómodo, lo no moroso, lo pronto... Doctor, los locos sólo somos otro cosmos, con otros otoños, con otro sol. No somos lo morboso; sólo somos lo otro, lo no ortodoxo. Otro horóscopo nos tocó, otro polvo nos formó los ojos, como formó los olmos o los osos o los chopos o los hongos. Todos somos colonos, sólo colonos. Nosotros somos los locos, otros son loros, otros, topos o zoólogos o, como vosotros, ontólogos. Yo no los compongo con shocks, no los troncho, no los rompo, no los normo...
Rodolfo monologó con honroso modo: probó, comprobó, cómo los locos sólo son lo otro. Otto, sordo como todo ortodoxo, no lo oyó, lo tomó por tonto; trocó todos los pros, los borró; sólo lo soportó por follón: obró con dolo. Rodolfo no lo notó. Otto rondó los pomos, tomó dos con cloroformo, como molotovs los botó. Rodolfo con los ojos rotos mostró los rojos hombros; notó poco dolor, borrosos los contornos, gordos los codos; flotó. Con horroroso torzón rodó con hondo sopor. Rodolfo soñó. Soñó con rocs, con blondos gnomos, con pomposos tronos, con pozos con oro, con foros boscosos con olorosos lotos. Todo lo tocó: los olmos con cocos, los conos con oporto rojo, los bongós con tonos como Fox Trot.
Otto lo forró con tosco cordón, lo sofocó. Rodolfo sólo roncó. Sor Socorro tornó con poco color. Sor Flor con bochorno tomó ron: "Oh, doctor -lloró-, oh, oh, nos dobló con sonoro trompón." Otto contó cómo lo controló.
-Otto, pospón los shocks -rogó sor Socorro.
-No, no los pospongo. Loco o no, yo lo jodo. No soporto los rollos... Pronto, ponlo con gorro. -¿Cómo, doctor -notó sor Flor-, ocho volts?
-No, no sólo ocho. ¡Todos los volts! Yo no sólo drogo, yo domo... Lo domo o lo corrompo como bonzo.
-¡Oh no, doctor Otto!, como bonzo no.
-¡Cómo no, sor Socorro! Nosotros no somos tórtolos o mocosos; somos los doctos... ¡Ojo, sor Socorro! No soporto los complots...
Otto con morbo soltó todos los volts, los prolongó con gozo. Sor Socorro con sonrojo sollozó. Sor Flor oró por Rodolfo. Rodolfo roló como mono, tronó como mosco. Otto lo nombró: "Don gorgojo", "loco roñoso", "golfo". Rodolfo zozobró con sonso momo. Otto cortó los shocks.
So I took a complete cup, and in my decision to be cool and drink for the first time, I stood up and saw all the bottles, with all the brands and all the half empty sodas. I was truly clueless about what should one do. But then CIA Steven came into rescue, took the cup “Gosh, this freshmen, they don’t even know how to pour a drink. I’m telling you, each year they make them dumber” he said, actually thinking I was a freshman, when in fact I was a junior, and he a sophomore, but it was all about not tagging that night.
So after he gave me the cup with less than 3/4 of the content, I sipped. Maybe it was because my first experience with alcohol was when my grandpa gave me eggnog and hours later I puked, or it was the fact that it was a solution with more ethanol than carbonated water; but regardless of the reason, I spat. It just felt like a deep hit of bitterness and antibacterial, with a hint of lemon. The unavoidable reaction was laughter from the others, that damned peer pressure, not even Pascal could have imagined its power.
So, in a turning of events, an act of boldness, and perhaps stupidity—okay, very certainly stupidity—I tried to drink more, with long and bitter mouthfuls, I held my breath and prayed there wasn’t instant liver damage. At the end three guys were staring kind of impressed, I was feeling sick already, and the cup was empty. I didn’t spat, but I was two mental please don’t puke away from showing everyone my lunch.
“Woah!, and here was I thinking you were just another pathetic freshman” said Steven, perhaps not seeing my disgust face please don’t puke, “You had me fooled with the not drinking act” he said, thinking I was cool, I was please don’t puke. “I mean, seriously, someone who doesn’t drink couldn’t have had a whole cup of tequila with lime soda in one shot” please don’t puke. It really didn’t help that I had memorized all consequences in short and long term of alcohol for biology class or something, the point was that I was feeling kind of dizzy. Please don’t puke.
“I think I’ll go to the rest room” I said, with the little air left in my throat. So I ran to the restroom and without even closing the door I reached the toilet and put my head inside. While I was there thinking about life and how sanitary was this, when I pitied myself about puking with one single drink, I was seriously not made for this. Then, when I was done emptying my whole self, I heard the door slam closed, maybe people weren’t up for such a show. I stood up and went to the mirror, it was dark and I couldn’t really see myself, yet I stared at it, while trying to wash my hands.
Just when I was about to open the door I heard some yelling, they weren’t OMG-this-party-is-so-great screams, they were I’m-freaking-pissed yelling. So for some reason my instincts triggered to open the door instead of hiding, or just doing anything, Darwin would have been so disappointed. And in front of me was a girl yelling something like “Even you drama fairies are pigs!” and then doing something like slapping or pushing or something the guy in front of her. But I couldn’t really bet on any of that, I had just seen this morning’s food along with my dignity flushing down the toilet.
“The problem is that I’m a guy right? Seriously I can fix that for you” said the drama-fairy who is a pig. Then the room went silent as if that was one of those Oh-no-he-didn’t moments. It was in fact, since the girl came back fast and said—now this I remember well for the events to proceed—“I do dig guys, just real ones” she said, with a bitchy attitude that was another oh-no-she-didn’t moment. And then, just to prove her point, or sent by God/Newton’s ghost/A parallel universe, she turned around saw me, grabbed me by the jaws and approached her lips to mine.
I still had the puke taste in my mouth, the whole room was watching, tomorrow she wouldn’t remember or want to remember anything, probably the drama fairy was gonna beat the hell crap out of me, yet, it was the greatest moment in my life. No that was selfish, that was the greatest moment in all human history, it would be spoken of for centuries and… two seconds later it was over.
She turned around again and walked straight to the door and left, along with my pituitary hormones, mixed with testosterone and a bit of estrogen, commonly known as heart. The whole thing had happened in slow motion, yet was so fast. In matter of seconds the party went back to the inaudible noise and chaos. After such an event the whole universe must have been going into Entropy faster.
“Dude what the hell was that?” asked Aiden, who had appeared out of nowhere. “Do you know that girl?” he said, again something I couldn’t answer “I just expected you to talk to a few people, but I got to recognize, you’re a fast dog bro” said Aiden, laughing, hard. I knew he kind of meant it in a funny way, but it was right then I couldn’t tell a dead thread form a joke. Then Steven, who had probably wished for that same event happening to him for years, came along.
“Who is that?” I asked. Then, as if I had asked him if Santa wasn’t real he shook his head in sympathy. “She’s Amy Lowry, but she’s a lost cause dude, don’t even get excited” he said, turning into the dragon guarding my princess’ castle. I had read too much fairy tales. “What? Why?” I asked, in confusion. He was wrong, she loved me she really did, or she could… maybe. “I’m sorry dude. She’s this really hot pink-haired girl who makes us guys think she’s available. But she isn’t, you see, like two summers ago she went to some weird music camp, and there were a lot of people from the school, yet almost no one knew her. The point is that one night she was caught making out with her roommate, who happened to be a girl” he said, terminating all my sudden illusions of romantic sunsets. Alcohol made me so common.
“So what? You mean she’s gay?” I asked, later thinking if that was a political correct term. “Hey, you can’t jump into conclusions, maybe she was just…” said Aiden, probably wanting to cheer me up, he was so nice. “What? Experiment? Maybe, but ever since people talk about her and guys hit on her a lot. What happens is that she seduces them, gives them hope, just to later on crush them and storm out” said Steven, with such a feeling as if he was talking out of experience, which he wasn’t. “Maybe it’s just that she has had only bad guys” I said, trying not to extinguish the hope flame. “Nope, sorry, that’s what she does. She attracts you in and then kicks you in the balls and runs away” said Steven, being crudely honest, evaporating all the oxygen from my flame.
“You know, it is you who warms the blanket, not otherwise” I said, feeling all wise and informative
“Damn, you’re nerdy even when you’re drunk” some voice near me said. And that’s what I last recall of the whole thing, of the so called “party” which involved pre-adults consuming lots of –barely processed—alcohol. And lots of not so decent girls, doing not so decent things, to not so decent people; you get the idea. But there was also a lot of talking involved, more like ranting, but talking still.
As any readable narration I should probably begin from when I was conscious, but let’s just forget the definition of conscious as when someone deliberately makes a firm decision or something, for the sake of my good name –embrace the sarcasm—.
It was 8 p.m. and I had quit my idea of ditching Aiden, still not knowing why, still not convinced about the plan. But hey, if Sir Isaac hadn’t gone out to get hit by an apple what would be of today’s classic physics? (Probably a guy from a patent office would have stolen someone else’s idea of it). So I arrived at the park where Mr. California was already waiting, with bags. Bags with bottles. Bottles didn’t contain Minute Maid.
“I thought you were not coming” Aiden grinned, just making lousy chit chat; he knew I couldn’t resist the curiosity of observing.
“Well, how else would I have gotten your Carny’s perfect machine shirt?” I said, not realizing it had sounded kind of dirty.
“So we’re moving that fast? Sorry, I got nothing for you, honey cheeks.” He laughed, now walking. Without a word I followed him. Since I had never gone to this Kelly Green-whatever-‘s house, or ever walked around the neighborhood, I was pretty damned lost after a few turns. And then I saw us. Out of me us, walking down the lane going to a party, as good old American teenagers. I felt normal, as if this was what I did regularly, “hang out with my dog A, getting some pussy.”How common.
“ So…Aiden, bro.. you know where this girl’s house is, right?” I asked, when I noticed an orange house with small circled windows everywhere started looking familiar, after the fourth time passing next to it. It was almost nine thirty, I guess they call it fashionably late…
“Sure, she lives in this street, or so I understood” He said, rising his brows trying to remember the name “This is St. Mary street right?” he asked, looking for a sign, somewhere.
“Yes, yes it is. It actually is St. Mary here, and for the next, like twenty more miles.” I said, kind of yelling a huge I told you so to myself. But Aiden seemed to be immune to my deathly stinky eye and instead started looking at the road. I wondered if he was looking some sort of huge big sign with leds and neon lights, reading Kelly’s party of sin and profanity .But instead, he was in fact, looking at the road, as in looking at the cars. The boy was a genius, we just had to follow the first tiny old car crowded with more than seven dudes, going at a hurried pace, their veins wanted the –OH.
The entrance was a bit awkward, because for one I didn’t know anyone, and second, I tripped as soon as I arrived. Now, people normally trip, it is a common thing that happens when you’re not aware of the floor. But it’s not the same tripping to a rock in the middle of the park and just say it was an accident, than tripping with the sound system of a multitude that, because they never had anything good to say, they needed a very loud rapper repeating the same phrase forty seven times (without including the chorus). Talk about glamorous entrances.
“Damn my parents are so killing me if they find the stereo is braken” said a tiny blond girl, who apparently was Kelly Green-whatever. Then the angry—and drunk—crowd started making noises that sounded like complains. And sure her fears had bases, her stereo might have never worked again, it had plugged out.
“It just plugged out…” I said, thinking I was saying something obvious, perhaps I should have went through my technical assistance notes, so I could deliver a formal report.
“Oh my god, is that fixable?” asked the girl, I really couldn’t believe that she didn’t knew the term; it almost sounded like a poor accident of bad fiction, or a very drunk girl. So I bended over, took the short cord and directed it to the two rectangular holes, and then music was made.
“You fixs it, you’re my hero” said the blond, forgetting I was the one who broke it in the first place. Then the tumultuous group hailed the music giver and cheered for it, and also because the song changed, and because some girl called Tina came out for the restroom, what can I say, they were enthusiastic.
“So what does it feel to almost ruin your first party?” asked Aiden, putting the not-Minute Maid-bottles in the table. “This is not my first party” I answered, a bit ashamed. “Okay, your first party without bouncy castles” he said, grinning at my lack of sociability. “Well, I haven’t been missing out much” said my lack of sociability, she always had an excuse.
I tried to proceed with the ceremony’s traditions, so I followed Blondie to the living room which was filled with silly people (I don’t want to exploit the word drunk). And then we just watched and talked about really nothing and then some silly people talked to us, and then people actually laughed at my jokes, they were really silly. And it didn’t felt that bad. Moday’s mourning I was going to be the nerd who sits at the back of the room again, but right there I was funny-bespectacled-guy who said funny words. Yet I didn’t belong.
“Aiden” I said, after half of the guys were passed out (it is important to note that it was not even passed twelve a.m.)
“Yes?”
“Why are you nice to me?”
“I’m not”
“No, seriously, I don’t understand. Is this some sort of Cool eye for the geek guy realty show I’m not aware of?”
“It’s funny you say that, but no, I can swear there are no cameras following you, you’re not that photogenic”
“So what is it? Are you a magical guide and after the whole school is my friend you will leave flying in your surf board” that image was actually funny
“I just got you into a freaking party, it’s not like I’m doing you a makeover. I don’t know why you have to analyze things so much ” he said, he bothered, not pissed, not sad, bothered.
“But..” I insisted, then I was interrupted by Steven, who I had never met before.
“Hi man!” he said lifting his hand in some sort of greeting ritual I tried to imitate. I wasn’t good for this.
“Hi… how’ve you been?” I asked, trying to sound sarcastically, but it just doesn’t work for silly guys these days.
“Fine, bro, thanks. So are you liking the party?” He was holding a holed plastic cup, he hadn’t noticed.
“Well, sure” I said, then Aiden saw that for some reason, as the perfect moment to ditch me and he went to the other room, the kitchen I guessed.
“Have you set your eye in any of the chicks here?” Chicks, how nineties. But yea, I had seen a couple of girls who I wouldn’t have mind striping and performing nasty things to, a nerd, nevertheless a man.
“Nope, actually I haven’t looked around” I answered, pretending to actually look around.
“Do you see that babe over there?” he said, pointing at a fairly well endowed Asian girl with tiny little shorts. “She’s Lisa Smith” and one would think foreign looking people would have foreign sounding names. “I know what you’re wondering, shouldn’t she have a name like Lee Wong or something? That’s ‘cause she’s adopted” he said.
“Are you friends or something?” I asked, since that is not information you just tell some guy at some party; I guessed.
“Oh no, she won’t talk to me, not after… never mind, I just know every name of every hot chick here dude, that’s how cool I am.” And then they go around saying I have no life.
“Really? So what’s that girl’s name?” I tried to put in doubt his skills. The freaking CIA would be embarrassed next to this guy
“Her name is Megan Irving, her puppy died a year ago, and she was so devastated she went out with three guys at the same time, poor little thing” I didn’t knew who did he mean by thing.
Twenty minutes later I knew the name and interesting fact of almost every slutty looking girl in the room. And it wasn’t that they weren’t pretty or that they weren’t attractive (they all had boobs), but there was something about shallow girls that I just couldn’t deal with. But well, you don’t go to a car sale to buy books do you?
“Man I haven’t seen you with a drink in the whole night, are you sick or something?” asked Steven, who somewhere along the way said his name, or at least so I understood.
“I don’t really drink…” I confessed, perhaps coming out with a crappy excuse would have been better.
“What the…wait, that wasn’t a joke was it?” He asked, really thinking it was not a possibility. Not drinking underaged. “Dude you seriously have to be kidding”
“ I’m not” I said, taking a long pause, just maybe he would forget. Then he stared at me, unbelieving, as if I had just stated the Earth goes round in times pre-Galileo. “But there’s a first time for everything right?” I was already there; not performing the whole ritual would have been a waste. Little did I knew.
[Okay, no this is not a whole chapter, I haven't finished, but I thought I would have been too much. Yes now I'm making it a novel. Sort of. And yes I know it looks YA and shallow and plane, I just need to get rid of some YA demons]
Some weeks passed and Aiden was still talking to me, actually it was a daily thing. And since we ate together, talked in and out of class we could have been categorized as friends, but I tought he was just taking a step into the social stairs. In this case someone had lied to him awfully, there’s not climbing while tagging along with the geeks. And the first evidence of my so called hypothesis was brought the second week of class
“So you don’t really go out much like the rest of the kids right?” Aiden asked while eating his shiny apple.—No pun intended—
“What do you mean, didn’t you noticed how three girls invited me to their my-parents-went-in-a-cruise party?” I asked, the only way I knew how to use rhetoric, sarcastically.
“So don’t you go out at all?” he asked, looking actually complex by the fact.
“I mean, I do come to school, it can be a very wild party sometimes. Just the other day Agnes –the (imaginary) librarian—, a couple of peers and I got the radio on some good tunes and danced the twist” I said, trying to make my best 50s American value film imitation.
“Yeah… well Agnes is a hot chick huh?” Aide said back, perfectly knowing that the actual librarian was a thirty-four-year-old man named Raj, he was actually cool, couldn’t dance twist though. He was halfway through his shiny apple
“Well, you’ve been here for two weeks, haven’t your jock charms gotten any invitations?” I asked, turning my failure into his. Yet geeks will be geeks and jocks will be jocks.
“Actually I’ve gotten plenty, but I just don’t feel like going” he said, kind of wanting to change the subject. People like me don’t change the subject at this point.
“Are you afraid it won’t turn out as in California where you had your kind-of-little-kind-of-funny-yet-not-funny-looking group of friends and were all popular and loved?” I said, still trying to read retired from prom king jock Aiden. If only I had known then. There was no longer a shinny apple
“You know, your observations always turn out to be more about yourself than of your subject. But that’s not my fear. What about you? Are you worried that if you lower your “I’m a helpless antisocial” barrier and open up yourself to people they won’t like what they see and so you finally see what a real outcast you are?” ouch, that guy knew where it hurt
“I don’t think anyone really makes a protect-me-from-having-friends barrier” I said to myself, trying to really think about it
“Greg… that’s the only barrier there exists.” He said, and just as the good mystery he had became for me, he took his Physics book and took off, leaving behind only an itchy thought in my head (and his physics homework.)
-----------------------------------
“Hey Carny” said Aiden coming to me, yet I didn’t reacted; it usually happens when I’m not called by my common nomenclature, damned automatic responses, they have us so trained.
“Maybe it was too soon for a nick name” Aiden said, while looking at me, as if trying to find a better nick name to fit me. Modern society, names are no longer satisfying the need of belonging.
“Carny what kind of name is that, even more, now we have nicknames? Should I make us T-shirts with matching fonts and colors so we can wear then to special occasions?” I said, all –falsely— eager.
“Carny, as in Carnot, never mind. The thing is that I got us into a party” he said, sounding like if he had found a deal for some red Mustang 68 we had been looking for, for years.
“So are you an M or an S?” I kept on
“It’s at this Kelly Greenstone’s, apparently her parents are in the cruise too” he said, not sure of the name, as it was common around parties, I guessed.
“I guess the colors should be blue and orange, blue kind of compliments my sharp face” I answered as I pulled a blue notebook near my face so he could embrace the sharpness.
“It should be fun, I mean, there will be people you have never talked to—which wasn’t hard to find—so you you get a fresh start into this hominid rituals” he said, the boy had spent too much time around me, he was now using words such as “hominid” and “ritual” in his common jargon. Damn, I always screw up people.
“Maybe they would be in italics, so they’re sober yet stylish” I went on.
“So, I’ll meet you around the park at like 8?” he said, obviously giving me a I-still-don’t-know-why-I’m-doing-this-for-you look
“So S blue it is” we concluded. Now I had to prepare myself for something I hadn’t signed up for. And disappoint myself by the fact I wouldn’t really have that S blue T-shirt saying Carny. We were both idealists, although I didn’t believe in the perfect machine, just the perfect universe.
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