angelamaryclaire

I had to submit it to uni unedited and I still haven’t got around to fixing it, and I probably never will so here it is in full unedited glory.

Chucking Empty Longnecks
Well the house party was Saturday night. I thought it was Friday and nearly showed up a day early, luckily I ran into Ewan in the mall and he worded me up. Pretty happy that I didn’t trek all the way there, drunk, on the wrong night. I’d already been to a going away party and a sixties theme night at Craft earlier in the night so you can imagine the state I was in. Actually, I should give myself more credit, I wasn’t that bad. I went with the B’s, Bobby, Bron and Brad. We took a bottle of scotch and some beers but I kept losing the bottle so didn’t end up getting much of it. Anyway, this is all beside the point because I’m supposed to be telling you about her and not rabbiting on about scotch and beers. You’d like her, I’m sure. I like her and you like me so it’s pretty logical you’d like her too, right? Anyway, I thought she might be at Craft earlier in the night, that’s the only real reason I went. When she wasn’t there we flagged a cab and I made the others get in so we could race over to the party.

You remember that day that we went to that restaurant, Beef or Lamb or whatever it was called, that was ages away and when we got there it was closed? Well I was all prepared for that feeling, only worse because if she hadn’t been there and we’d gone all that way I just would have been flattened. I was just drunk enough for it have really bothered me and I would have bullied the others into going back to Craft, for sure. Anyway, she was there looking like the main character in an Elvis Costello song. She was talking to that douche Dusty when we I walked in and she gave me a little tilted-head smile and said “help me” with her eyes so I went and rescued her. That moron was talking about his new album which I’m pretty sure will be just as gross as the last one and he had the cheek to look all wounded when she wanted to go outside and smoke cigarettes with me instead of listening to him bang on about the production of the record. Maybe he would actually get some people to his crappy bands gigs if he didn’t corner people at parties and rant on about them.

She came outside and we lit out cigarettes off the bonfire. She thought she’d caught her hair on fire and squealed but she hadn’t and she got all embarrassed. I told her not setting her hair on fire was better than setting her hair on fire, squeal or no squeal. She smiled and said thanks but I couldn’t quite figure out what until I realised she was thanking me for the scotch I’d handed her. When she took a sip she scrunched up her nose and her eyes watered a bit but she played it down pretended she didn’t. I think she was trying to impress me but I was pretty wasted so maybe she’s been drinking straight scotch out of plastic cups for years and it really didn’t bother her. Maybe the eye watering thing was from the fire. It reminded me of that day that my little sister won that award at school any my eyes started watering like mad and I had to lie and tell everyone it was allergies but really it was pride and that’s an embarrassing thing to have your eyes watering over when you’re in high school. I thought about telling her about that day but then I couldn’t remember what the award even was and it seemed like an important detail at the time so I didn’t tell her.

She pulled a bag of chocolate raspberries out of nowhere and offered me one. I ate it and it was so chewy that I couldn’t talk for ages and I felt like a dick while we sat there in the almost silence with my chewing the soundtrack to our cigarettes. I was wearing that old army coat from the surplus store and I wanted to put it over both our shoulders because she looked so small and vulnerable. I didn’t though and it didn’t matter anyway because it was just after that she went back inside. She said she needed her coat but she didn’t come back for ages so I went inside and she was dancing with her friends. She shouted over that they had trapped her on the dance floor and all her friends laughed. They all looked like they were having a pretty good time with their girl dancing, you know the kind, hair flying, jewelry being whipped around like little bullets. I wasn’t dancing for anyone so I went in search of the scotch. We’d hidden it on top of the fridge but I think some other people must have found it because the tide mark was pretty low and we hadn’t been there that long. Well, actually I thought that until I saw Brad and Bobby and they were both wasted with the most awful scotch breath so maybe it was them. Actually, it was definitely them. Bobby still drinks til he falls down then waits til he can stand and does it all again. Like that time he fell asleep in front of the bar at ICQ and we just left him there, then picked him up when he finally regained consciousness? That was pretty shit by us I guess but it was funny and I reminded him about it Saturday.  Anyway, I was dealing with them when she came in to get a drink. I gave her the rest of the scotch but this time put it on ice so she wouldn’t do the face and her eyes wouldn’t water and I wouldn’t have to wonder whether or not to tell the story about my sisters award.

A bunch of people were outside riding an old bath down the hill into a couple of bushes so we went to check it out. When we got out there, the bath had tipped over halfway down the hill and Tim had blood spitting out of a cut above his eye. I figured they were going to abandon the whole bath idea and suggested we go back inside but she wanted to stay and watch and she was right because they dragged this big bath back up to the top of the hill and everyone jumped in again. I gave it a kick for them and they went flying back down the hill. There were four of them in this bath by then, even Tim had gotten back in with the blood still coming out of his face. This time the stupid bath got caught in a bush and no-one had the strength or coordination to pull it out again so that’s where it stayed and the four of them started burning things in the fire instead. Someone must have cleaned up Tim because I saw him again later and he had a bandage on his head. Not just a bandaid, but a full on bandage wrapped around his head like he was a mummy or some shit. She saw him later and doubled over laughing. I went and stood in front of her while she was giggling because you could see straight down her top and Dusty was staring at her tits. He was probably wondering if she would pose for an album cover or something equally a-sexual. I hate that guy. I don’t think she likes him but she’s too nice to say anything and if he talks to her she always talks back then he talks back because she’s talking and it’s just like some hellish infinite loop of bad conversation that if you listen too closely will cause your brain to melt out of your ears.

I sat on one of those massive chairs that they have in their living room. Ewan said they came from the Tip Shop or something and they damn well smell like it. They smell like wet dogs and old people. I think they dragged them down the hill from the shop on an old shopping trolley or something and they looked like they’d fallen off a few times. Anyway, she came and sat on my lap. She was pretty wasted by now but she sat on my lap and had her arms round my neck like she was holding on to the mast of a boat. I was drinking longnecks straight out of the bottle by then. She told me this story about how when she was about 15 her and her friends went out and prowled around town drinking longnecks which they left at all these places around the city then they chucked a couple at a school chapel and had to leg it after the cops turned up. Then she looked at me and giggled like crazy because she couldn’t remember the point of the story and after that I stopped worrying about my stories because she had gone and forgotten the ending of one of hers.

She was wearing these little shorts and I stuck my hand in her pocket. That made her smile so I figured I just go ahead and kiss her. She looked at me and it was definitely the “kiss me now” look so I did and she kissed me back for about .03 of a second then she freaked out and jumped up. She didn’t leave, but she wasn’t sitting on my lap anymore and she did it so quickly I cant even picture it happening. I don’t understand girls man, it was all come on, come on, come on, on DON’T EVEN! I just felt like a super dick and she was smirking and her friends were laughing.   It was all a bit hazy because those beers were going down too easy. I gave her a drink and she smiled but she was still smirking and I was trying to make her laugh but I was too drunk to remember the point of any of my stories or the punchline of any of my jokes and was just making a total mess of it because I’d just given up trying to impress her by then.

About three minutes later Ewan came over and another minute after that he was being sick into his own hands while he was sitting next to me so I had to deal with him for a while, like clean him up and stick him in bed. I don’t really know what I would have done with him if it wasn’t his house. Left him on the couch covered in his own sick probably.  He would do the same to me so I don’t even have to feel bad about that, but as it was I stuck him in bed, gave him a bucket, a towel and a glass of water and then walked about for a bit feeling superior to everyone that hadn’t helped.

I looked around for her again but the room was swaying and I couldn’t see her anyway. Bobby was asleep on the couch and Bron had left ages ago with this guy she goes to art school with. She’s going to wake up in the morning and chew her own arm off before she wakes him up. I hope she goes to his gaff or else she’s going to call me in the morning and make me go round to get rid of him. Brad was sitting out near the fire on his own so I went out to get him and called a cab. He said he’d seen her leaving with her friends. She’d said to say goodbye but she didn’t come and find me to say it herself so I don’t think that counts. I wonder if she knows that I helped out Ewan. Maybe she knew he’d been spewing and didn’t want to come near me incase it was on me. It probably was on me now I think about it. That would account for the weird smell in my room today. Anyway she’d gone without saying goodbye so I was all shitty at myself for stuffing it up so bad.

I made the cab driver stop at the Food Stop on the way home so I could get some potato cakes. Remember that time we went past there after that party at Sarah’s and that guy was peeling all the batter off his dim sim and sticking it on the window? I still don’t get that, the batter is the only part worth eating. It’s the identifiable part. Anyway, I ate one of my potato cakes but it just tasted like scotch and regret so I threw them out the car window and the cabbie saw me and chucked us out so we had to walk home. Brad wasn’t happy and he didn’t talk to me til we got to his place where he just grunted a goodnight and went inside. I don’t remember the rest of the walk but I must have gotten home somehow because I woke up there the next day with no shoes and a text from her saying she was happy I helped out Ewan and did I want to chuck empty longnecks at a school chapel sometime.