Moths

What a blunder

I got a late invite to your pool party. You said come along, my workmates are alright, don’t be chicken. I said sure. I had worked all summer as a school groundskeeper: earning sunburns, chopping my shins up with a weed whacker, and hearing the same three Ed Sheeran songs play on every radio station. My only coworker was sixty and judged me for wearing a mask while we mixed cement. So a chance to hang around other fresh high school graduates? It sounded great. 

Music was already echoing around the cul-de-sac by the time I arrived. We obliterated ourselves on spirits a million times during our tenure at the local high school for idiot athletes, but to your pool party, I bought a box of just 12 beers: a fair number for one night. Yet cases of 16 and 24 littered the path to your backyard. Their owners had already prized open the flaps. A gallon of urine would hit the grass before dawn. And because this was back when we still played beer pong with beer, not water, there’d be sticky fingers, sticky tables, sticky weatherboards—and spit shared between everyone.

On the rear deck of your house, I shook hands with familiar types of guys: an Aloof Vape Addict, a Masochistic Beer Guzzler, and—the horniest of the lot—a Sober Shot Pourer. Then there were the girls: all Seltzer Sippers. Nothing unusual for a New Zealand shindig. The night started with the Beer Guzzler challenging the Vape Addict in beer pong, while you, me, and the Sippers watched. I never understood Sippers. They flocked to every party, but never drank enough to enjoy themselves. They checked Snapchat every minute, Instagram every other. Their less popular friends, who weren’t invited, picked them up around eleven. The most interesting thing Seltzer Sippers ever did was disappear—maybe around the back, maybe the corner of the garden, to chat with me or one of my mates for a while. Sometimes as long as an hour. Nothing would happen, except maybe french. And if this happened at three parties in a row, give or take, it transitioned to sobriety, or at least daylight hours. For most of my mates, this entailed a quick hangout, then humping in the backseat. For the shy, like myself, it was always instead an aimless date, followed by maybe another, rather than just doing the appropriate thing: sticking pelvises together in the backseat.

With a lucky throw, the Guzzler won the match and, thumping his singlet, demanded another contestant. Moths formed a cloud under the outdoor lights. The neighbor’s aluminium shed sounded like a machine gun; partiers were splashing it from the edge of your parents’ lawn-top pool. You went to tell them to be quieter, and you returned with a sheila in tow. She had dark eyes, lashes, and eye-shadow—everything was dark. Her name was Penny, I think. You had mentioned her to me. The point of her, in your words, was Experience.

Experience was urgent. Soon you were heading to university in Otago, the degenerate-student mecca where, you believed, awaited your first 10/10 fuck, and perhaps even your future bride. You needed enough Experience to be ready for either. You couldn’t risk being dismissed as a rookie, or disappointing someone in the sack. Losing your virginity last year was insufficient preparation, even though it put you way ahead of me. I still hadn’t caught up. But here I was, at your pool party, with your co-workers—maybe I could get zapped by lightning, have my neurons re-arranged, and turn into a person who has the common decency to ask a chick if she wants to romp, instead of wasting everyone’s time by being a sook.

In the first game of doubles, you and your sheila took on the Beer Guzzler. When he lost, the Beer Guzzler slammed the table and went off for a ciggy. You called me up for the next game. Clothes rustled as spectators rearranged themselves, static between the short shorts, cropped shirts, shaved legs. Your sheila’s friend, lucky to be invited, volunteered to be my teammate. Soon it was my turn to throw. People breathed in one-at-a-time as they remembered how they knew me—not a co-worker, just a guy they shook hands with earlier. Under the pale-blue, moth-peppered light, I saw your sheila directly, not just through the warped glass of my IPAs, and I was so distracted I flung the ball right at her, and it got lodged in the lip of her shirt. You laughed at me, rightfully. I couldn’t afford any more mistakes, not with my teammate’s tosses shanking to the right, so I dialled-in and sunk the ball into a few cups. The rim of my bottle grazed my teeth as I drank and threw, drank and threw, while my enamel decayed and pressure built inside my bladder. 

My teeth had started overlapping the previous year. I blamed the booze. I also blamed the booze on my hair getting thinner, my gut stretching. I felt as though I was stealing the Beer Guzzler’s body, who, as we continued our tight-game, in his boredom, had climbed the fence and begun shouting. You had to leave temporarily to straighten him out, or the neighbors would ring the cops, like they did at your last shindig.

Left with your sheila and your sheila’s friend, I buried the ball into another cup. Your sheila tried to blow it out, couldn’t, and, fishing the ball out, downed the froth and lager. She spat out a moth that had kamikazed inside. I continued the dull work of chatting up your sheila’s friend—not because I wanted to talk with her around the back and start a whole thing, but to make clear to your sheila and the Seltzer Sippers that the previous mishap was a fluke; that I wasn’t craving Experience. Though it confused me how you had laughed it off. Maybe you wouldn’t mind me having Experience, too, which was strange—I couldn’t imagine being so casual about something I myself wanted, let alone share it. Then again, I had never humped in the backseat, only date-date-date. Third dates, when it still hadn’t gotten to the point, the fizzle suffocated, like a moth beating its sodden wings plip-plip-plip in a plastic cup. I would have been a delayed reward, which was really no good, unless someone was hankering for a boyfriend. Then they could just go hook an older guy with a real job and multiple Experiences, or hold on for university, where everyone seemed destined. Meanwhile, I would be riding a lawnmower across a school footy-field, then sixty and sniffing cement fumes. 

Four cups remained on either side. Your sheila asked for a diamond-formation. Kiss the cups, she yelled, and I made sure they were kissing. Back from straightening out the Guzzler, you threw. Your shot bounced once and went in, which equals two cups. My teammate and I drank one each, then she shanked another toss to milk some laughter. I was sick of pinching the ball out of the cobwebs underneath the table, but I couldn’t bring myself to say AIM LEFT; CORRECT. Clearly she just wanted to be invited to more things.

A splash—not of my partner finally hitting a cup. Instead, someone had dunked themselves into the pool. You had to shoot off again to make sure the dunker could swim, yada yada. Elbow straight like a darts-professional, keeping my eyes on the cups—not getting sucked into the dark eyes across the table—I looped the ball into one of your cups. No partner to take the punishment instead, your sheila skulled her fifth cup of lager, mixing with seltzer inside her. Her eyes were slipping around like shoes on ice. I couldn’t tell if she was about to yell or yak. A brunette strand of hair rolled down her forehead and covered one of her pupils. Maybe it was beer-goggles but I wanted to take her for a chat around the back. I couldn’t tell whether you’d be bothered. 

The Sober Shot Pourer emerged onto the deck, the first time I had seen him since the party had divided between beer pong and the pool. He, shirtless, fixing his hair, was as loud as the Guzzler, but his gab was more intentional. Within a second of being on the deck he got up close to one of the Seltzer Sippers and basically stuck his nose in her ear, shouting when he could’ve just whispered. But she giggled. Then he poured her a shot of the Jack Daniels he was nursing. No around-the-back-chat, though. Maybe your workmates were all clued into the Shot Pourer’s hoaxes: 1) getting his shirt wet, so he had to take it off, and 2) slurring a bit, and stumbling, just to inspire his sex-prospects to get shit-faced. Meanwhile, he was pretty much sober—so that, if he got lucky, he could rise to the occasion. He wrapped his arms around the necks of a few Seltzer Sippers and pretended to spectate for a minute, but quickly morphed into the referee. ELBOW OVER THE LINE. ELBOWS! ELBOWS! As if we all weren’t already drunk and throwing haphazard shots. 

Somewhere between checking on the pool and getting back to the beer pong game, you had landed yourself in trouble. I noticed you on all-fours on the lawn, spasming like a cat yakking up a furball, with a crowd of Seltzer Sippers watching you. I realized maybe you weren’t that close with these people. I expected forty hours a week at Maccas, flipping beef-patties and boiling patches of skin in frying oil, would make people pretty close. Your parents were away, of course, so I was the only line of defence between you and yourself. I rushed over, grabbed under your arm, got you through the sliding door, took you to the kitchen sink, and ran the tap as you filled the sink with vomit, similar to you babying me on many drunk nights. I closed the curtains on the murmuring Seltzer Sippers. Your sheila slipped inside and asked how you were doing. I said you had drank too much, but I’d look after you, and she slipped back out. People had moved to the pool, and you kept saying you needed to check on the pool, needed to check on the pool, check on the pool, make sure nobody was drowning. But you were spewing every minute so it couldn’t be done, not by you. I got the Aloof Vaper, sitting alone on the couch in the living room, vaping, to go outside and watch the pool. You vom’d a few more times then didn’t for about 18 minutes. I gave you three glasses of water. After the second, you announced that you were going to lie down. 

You went off and your sheila came back in. Over the booming bluetooth speaker, I told her you had gone to your room, and she said she’d go check on you. I said, fine, and, as she stroked the brunette strand away from her pupil, I said, YOU GUYS SEEM LIKE A REALLY GOOD PAIR. She yelled, What? so I repeated, YOU GUYS ARE A GOOD MATCH. She went to your room. I dragged my box of twelve into the house. Three left. Grabbing chips from your pantry, I opened my bottle on the edge of your countertop, leaving a foolish gash, and I started to drink. I was disrupted by a Seltzer Sipper telling me the cops had arrived. I went out front and received a yellow Noise Complaint slip. I figured it wasn’t valid unless I gave it to you, so, bidding goodbye to the peeved officers, I scrunched up the slip and tossed it into the recycling to get buried under empty bottles. Back inside the house, I noticed the bare, goosebumped-back of the Shot Pourer, who was walking up and down the corridor, shouting your name. I knew you were either sleeping or romping. I said, HEY, LEAVE HIM ALONE, HE’S TOO DRUNK. The Shot Pourer laughed. HE’S NOT TOO DRUNK, he said, WHAT WOULD YOU KNOW ABOUT BEING DRUNK? HE HAS SOME HEINEKENS FOR ME. HE SAID I COULD HAVE THEM. 

Okay, I replied, they’ll be in the fridge. Take your beers and fuck off.

WHAT? 

I said, take the beers and go. 

FINE.

He went around to the fridge, clunked the contents, brandished two green bottles, looked back into the dark corridor, glanced at me, brushed past my shoulder, went through the sliding door, and slammed it shut. The house rocked again. I settled my quivering empty bottle on the carpet. Drawing the curtain open, I slid the sliding door and said, HEY I WOULD BEAT THE SHIT OUT OF YOU.

WHAT? WHY YOU LITTLE–  

I shut the sliding door and clicked the lock. Returning to the kitchen, beside the sink of undrained vomit, I reached for the last beer in my box and wondered what I had done. Then I heard the living room outside-door open, the one that’s like the door of a vault, that the Aloof Vaper must have fiddled with and managed to unlock when I sent him to the pool. Realizing my catastrophic blunder, I clunked my beer down on the newly-chipped countertop. In seconds, the Shot Pourer was in my face, feet basically on my feet, legs in my legs, making me lean back over the countertop, looking down on me, red-rimmed eyes, a finger pointing down my throat. 

PICK FIGHTS THEN RUN OFF, AY? REALLY THINK YOU COULD BEAT THE SHIT OUT OF ME? MATE, I WOULD BEAT THE SHIT OUT OF YOU. WHAT COULD YOU DO TO ME? YOU WANT TO FIGHT? RIGHT NOW?

His breath was like a gale. I shook my head. No, no, no. I was just angry. 

NOT SO TOUGH NOW, ARE YOU?

I was just looking out for my friend, because he’s too drunk.

WELL MAYBE DON’T ACT SO TOUGH.

Alright. Understood.

Then the Shot Pourer let me free, went outside in a self-satisfied huff, and closed the sliding-door quietly. I burped and continued my final beer. You entered the kitchen from the bathroom fully recovered, no limp, no hunch. You stopped in front of the counter and sneered at the vomit in the sink. I should have taken you to the bathroom, to throw up in the toilet. Keeping that implicit, you instead asked me, why did you say that to her? 

I replied, what? 

About being a good-match, and stuff? That’s strange to say. That made things a bit strange. Now she has the wrong idea.

Oh, I said, is everything okay between you two?

Yeah, you said. 

You had fixed it: sex in the bathroom. But I knew I had still muddied the Experience. Now it couldn’t just be a Thing. You guys had to think about what It was, and had to consciously resist making It something other than a Thing, and I knew how much you just wanted It to be a Thing, nothing more: just a Thing for Experience. You got concerned about the pool again, and weren’t thrilled I had left the Aloof Vaper in charge. You went outside to the pool, probably about to hear about my other blunder from the horse’s mouth. I stayed in the kitchen, pushing your warm vomit into the InSinkErator, trying to get it all gurgled down. It was yellow and orange: mashed potatoes and boiled carrots. While I did, your sheila came out of the bathroom, looking more sober too, with her eyes no longer slipping all over the place, and the brunette strand tucked. Her cheeks were red, but overall, her face was much more pale, and I thought about asking her what was wrong, but it was none of my business, and she wasn’t mine. And I had already said enough. She said hello, went to the sliding door, realized it was locked, glanced at me, smiled again, figured out how to unlock it, unlocked it, and slipped out into the crowd of Seltzer Sippers. Meanwhile, I think I was shivering.

I took myself to the bathroom and pissed for a year. Despite not having fought, I expected to piss blood. Instead, just yellow, yellow ale, frothing in the toilet, while moths invaded through the gap in the window, flapping their wings on my face, wip-wip-wip, like a thousand unwanted kisses. I flushed and left.