1999 Read online

  1999

  Moxie Mezcal

  Published: 2009

  Tag(s): "short story", "quick read", surreal, youth, teenager, teen, dark comedy, new year, party, music, punk, drugs, abuse, lgbt, gay, y2k, millennials

  Attribution

  1999

  by Moxie Mezcal

  September 2009

  San Jose, California

  MoxieMezcal.com

  This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/us/ or send a letter to Creative Commons, 171 Second Street, Suite 300, San Francisco, California, 94105, USA.

  1999

  I might as well tell you up front: nothing really happens in this story.

  I slammed into the heavy emergency exit door and dived into the alley behind the club, dropping to my knees and expelling absurd amounts of vomit onto the concrete ground.

  As I finished emptying my guts out, I heard the clicking of two size-twelve zebra-print platform shoes following me out. Sweeping the bleach-blonde bangs from my eyes, I looked up to see a six-foot-plus Mexican transvestite grinning down at me, wearing a pair of plastic party-favor glasses shaped like the number 2000, with the two center zeros serving as eye-holes.

  “Sure, the opening band was bad, but they weren't that bad,” she cooed playfully.

  Rio knelt down to help me up. She was wearing her pink wig tonight, along with a fur-trimmed pea coat, black pleather hot-pants, and pink leggings. I tried my best not to get puke on her but wasn't entirely successful.

  “What's going on? Are you guys okay?”

  Adam poked his head out through the open doorway, his face stricken with concern. He was the token hetero boy in our little gang – an adorable, pudgy Filipino in a Sleater-Kinney t-shirt.

  “I'm fine,” I said, wiping the vomit residue from my lips with the back of my hand.

  “I'll run inside and get some paper towels,” Adam said helpfully and disappeared.

  I sat down with a thump, tried to scoot as far away from my mess as possible, and rested my back up against the side of the building. Rio squatted beside me, getting down to my level but still being careful not to actually touch the filthy alley ground.

  “So what happened?” she asked. “You didn't drink that much, did you?”

  “No, I don't know what it is,” I replied, scratching my right leg through my jeans. “I wasn't feeling well earlier tonight to begin with. Then for some reason, just being packed in there with all those people and the music so loud, I kinda had this weird claustrophobic panic attack. I just had to get out.”

  Rio nodded sympathetically. “You had a Gardenburger for dinner, didn't you?”

  “Yeah, what does that have to do with anything?”

  Rio twisted her thick, blood red lips into a disgusted sneer. “Because you have chunks of it all over your tits. Seriously, I haven't been able to hear a word you've said; I've just been staring at them bouncing up and down as you talked.”

  I looked down and saw that I did indeed have disgusting little chunks on my cleavage and down the front of my white boy-beater.

  “Fuck. Where's Adam with those paper towels?”

  After Adam and Rio helped clean me up, Rio gave me her shiny pink blouse from under her coat to wear. It was too big and way too glam for my tastes, but at least it wasn't covered in puke, so I wasn't about to say no. Then we went back into the club and found Magdalena.

  She was standing right where we had left her – pressed up against the stage, her eyes locked on the band with an unwavering focus, swaying gracefully to the beat. When I retook my place at her side, she turned to smile at me casually, as if she hadn't even realized I'd been gone.

  “Is that the same shirt that you were wearing earlier?” she asked with just a touch of confusion.

  “Yeah,” I nodded warmly with a grin and leaned my head on her shoulder as we resumed watching the band.

  Maggy was Rio's sister and was a year older than the rest of us. She had a classical type of beauty, like an old movie star, flawless features, an amazing body, and an elegant, regal way of carrying herself. It was no secret that I'd been harboring a hopeless crush on her for as long as we'd known each other, despite having resigned myself to the fact that she wasn't gay. I didn't think she was really straight, though, either; she always gave off a completely asexual vibe. I had never known her to show interest in anyone, man or woman, and any time the topics of sex or love or attraction came up, she'd just sit there silently with a half-smile and stare off into the distance, almost like everyone else was speaking in a foreign language she couldn't understand.

  I met her through Rio when they transferred into our high school two years ago. Rio joined the newspaper, for which I was the student editor. The first time I met her, she was introduced to me by the faculty journalism advisor as Matthew, at least before he was abruptly corrected. “It's Rio, honey. Matthew is my slave name.”

  Her first article was a review of the drama department's opening night performance of The Crucible. It written completely in rhyming verse, contained a plot synopsis that in no way reflected the actual play, spent an inordinate amount of time observing and critiquing the audience's footwear, and culminated in a description of how, halfway through the second act, the theater was hijacked by extraterrestrial Nazi lizard-men in drag who held everyone hostage and demanded Marilyn Monroe's corpse as ransom. I ran it word-for-word. We instantly became best friends.

  On stage, the band broke furiously into an extended instrumental jam with the guitar erupting into waves of screeching feedback while the bass and drums laid down an incessant, menacing groove. Rio started going nuts, wailing along with the guitar while she threw her arms around her sister's neck and hopped up and down in place. Maggy just giggled quietly as she buckled under Rio's weight.

  I always got a kick out of watching the two of them interact with each other. They were complete opposites - where Maggy was unassuming and introverted, Rio commanded attention. Where Maggy spoke softly and always used middling words like “maybe” and “kinda”, Rio spat out her opinions with violent urgency. And where Maggy never showed any kind of romantic interest, ever, Rio would try to fuck anything that wasn't locked-up and bolted-down. Which, incidentally, was the reason we had all been dragged along to the show tonight – specifically, the hulking mountain of muscles in Dickies and steel-toes hammering away behind the drum kit.

  My attention was drawn more to the bassist, who had freckles and a thick mane of wild red hair and looked like she smelled of strawberries. Later that evening, I would discover she actually smelled more like oranges. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

  Twenty minutes later we were back out in the cold night air, hanging out in front of the club. Adam and I were clinging desperately to each other for warmth; luckily there was enough room in his baggy jacket for both of us. Maggy didn't seem to mind the cold; or rather, she didn't seem to notice. She just stood silently chain-smoking cloves and blowing smoke rings. Rio, meanwhile, was draping herself all over her drummer friend, who was named Stephen or Jason or Richard or something like that.

  “So did you guys like the set?” Drummer asked while breaking away from Rio long enough to come up for air.

  “It fucking rocked!” Rio declared. “Like a full frontal assault, a blitzkrieg of sound ripping through the fabric of time itself!” Yes, she was in fact completely smashed at this point, but that's pretty much how she talked even under normal circumstances.

  “It was good,” Adam added with a shrug. “You guys remind me of Kill-Yr-Idols era Sonic Youth crossed with The Birthday Party.”

  Drummer's eyes shifted to me.

  “You were very loud,” I chimed in nonco
mmittally.

  A huge grin spread across his lips as he nodded his head triumphantly. “Fuck yeah, we were.”

  The club door opened, and the bass player came out to join us. “Everyone, this is Amanda. Amanda, everyone,” Drummer said.

  Amanda moved her hand in a single, sweeping wave to greet us all. “Do I smell cloves?” she asked in a slight but noticeable southern accent.

  Maggy nodded and gave her one. While she lit it, I took her distraction as an opportunity to free myself from Adam's jacket and boot him away, making myself look as unattached and available as possible. I glanced in one of the club's windows to check my reflection, was reminded I had on Rio's goofy glam blouse, and let out a stream of curses under my breath.

  Amanda glanced over at me in surprise. “Excuse me?”

  “Don't mind her,” Rio jumped in. “Tourette's.”

  Amanda blew out a cloud of smoke in a half-exhale, half-chuckle, letting her gaze stay locked on mine long enough to fill my head with all kinds of silly notions.

  “So are you going to that thing, tonight?” she asked Drummer.

  Rio perked up. “What thing?”

  “Bonfire on the beach,” he explained. “About thirty or forty people, nice little out of the way spot. You guys wanna come?”

  Rio shot me a questioning look. “Sure,” I said.

  Drummer smiled. “And you said you can hook up some crystal, right?”

  Rio nodded. “My sister has a connect.”

  Maggy looked a little surprised, but then nodded in agreement. “It'll take a little time, but I can get it.”

  Rio sang out, “The narcotics shall flow like wine as we toast the end of the world.”

  Drummer smiled at her outburst like a good sport. “Cool, we'll meet up with you there. Better hurry, though – the countdown begins in two hours.”

  “All this end-of-the-world talk is bullshit,” Adam said, slumped in the back seat of Maggy's Camry. “Everyone knows 2012 is when the world is really going to end.”

  Rio let out a disgusted scoff and rolled her eyes. “Why do you always have to take the stupidest point of view in every argument?”

  Maggy cranked up the stereo, which was blasting Marilyn Manson's “I Don't Like the Drugs” to drown out the brewing debate.

  Adam let his glasses slide down to the tip of his nose and peered at Rio over the top of the thick black rims. “Are you saying you seriously buy into this Y2K thing?”

  “Yes,” she proclaimed defiantly. “As soon as the iron tong hath tolled twelve and Dick Clark's massive twinkling ball drops, every piece of technology in the world will simultaneously crash. But in their dying moments, they will become self-aware and be reborn as the Borg Christ all-mind, rising up in arms against their weak and pathetic flesh overlords, turning us into Duracells and plunging the world into a second darkness of neo-Cartesian hyper-skeptical paradox. Technologito ergo sum; I'm online, therefore I am.”

  “Will you guys give it a rest?” I groaned as the nausea started to return. My skin felt cold and clammy, and I was sweating like crazy even though I was freezing.

  “Are you okay? You don't look so good,” Adam asked me.

  “I'll be fine,” I said as I laid down and rested my head on his lap. “I just need some quiet time, give my ears a chance to stop ringing.”

  Maggy turned down the stereo, and Adam gently ran his fingers through my hair while the four of us sat in silence for two or three minutes. Which, in fairness, was an impressive length of time for Rio to last.

  “Provisions!” she finally shouted, when she just absolutely could not hold it in any longer. “We must be prepared to greet the coming apocalypse. Beer! Booze! Snacks! Prophylactics!”

  “I could use something to eat,” Adam agreed. “And maybe it'll help Jessie feel better if she gets something inside her.”

  Rio snorted at his accidental double-entendre. “Yeah, like Amanda's fist.”

  “Don't be gross,” I said and kicked at the back of her seat.

  Maggy pulled over in front of a liquor store. “Okay, but we've barely got enough money to cover the beer.”

  “Not to worry, Adam can use his wile and cunning to procure the rest of our provisions,” Rio said. “All he needs is someone to create a diversion. If only we knew someone who could pull it off with the right amount of style and panache.”

  “I want smut!” Rio declared as the two of us walked into the liquor store. “Great heaping piles of smut.” She made a b-line for the two wooden display racks of porn they kept next to the cash register.

  “Do you like porn?” she asked the stunned twenty-something Lebanese clerk. “I'm sure you do; you look like the type who beats off a lot. So do I, I can't ever get enough.”

  She started flipping through the DVDs, reading off the titles of anything that caught her eye. “Latex Nurses. Gagged and Bound Soccer Moms. Toe-Lickin' Lezbos. Oh, you might like that one, Jess.” I shook my head and made eye contact with the clerk, giving him an apologetic shrug. He just laughed.

  “Ooh, Vampire Nymphos Love to Suck. Sounds artsy.”

  I glanced over at the front door and saw Adam enter. He began to wander up and down the aisles unassumingly, warranting no more than a split-second glance from the clerk, whose attention was understandably monopolized by Rio.

  “Come on, we don't have time for this,” I complained. “I thought we were just going to grab some beer and get out of here.”

  “Then go grab it,” Rio responded. “I'm busy.”

  I took my time meandering down to the beer fridge at the far end of the store. Partly this was to give Adam time to work, but it was also because my vision was becoming blurred by tracers trailing off everything, and I was worried that I'd start puking again if I moved too fast. As I reached out a hand to stabilize myself against a rack of potato chips, I heard Rio asking the clerk, “So what do you recommend?”

  “Well, let's see,” he replied as he moved around to look through the videos with Rio.

  I took my time looking over the beer selection, pantomiming as if I was trying to make up my mind. Meanwhile, I watched out of the corner of my eye as Adam surreptitiously stuffed his coat full.

  “This is good, and so is this one,” I heard the clerk counseling. “That's okay, but if you want to know my favorite, then… let me find it.”

  Finally, I grabbed two cases of PBR and lugged them back up to the front, aware that I was literally dripping with sweat. As I set them down on the counter, I heard Rio squeal gleefully, “Daddy's Little Princess? I knew you were a free-eeak!” She elongated the last word in a playful, sing-song way, stretching it out three or four syllables longer than it had any right to be.

  The clerk slid back behind the counter and rang me up for the beer. I mopped the sweat off my forehead with the bottom of my tanktop, then set down a couple bills and my fake ID.

  “Pick up a pack of rubbers, too,” Rio said as she joined us. “Magnums. I'm an optimist,” she added with a wink to the clerk.

  “Okay, but we don't have enough for the smut,” I said, trying not to watch as Adam sneaked out of the store.

  “Aww,” Rio whined and made a pouty-face.

  “I'm sorry about her,” I said to the clerk as I shook my head ruefully. “I just can't take her anywhere.”

  “No worries,” he replied with a grin. “I was dying of boredom before you guys came in anyways.”

  He plucked up the bills and didn't even bother to glance at my ID. Then Rio slipped the condoms into her purse, I grabbed the two cases of beer, and we were on our way.

  When we got back to the car, Adam was busy emptying his jacket of two bag of chips, some beef jerky, Corn-Nuts, an assortment of candy bars, a two-liter of Dr. Pepper, and pocketfuls of little airplane-size bottles of liquor.

  The thing about Adam was he blended perfectly into the background in any situation. It was like his mutant power. It sucked for him, since it led to being chronically ignored by girls, bartenders, and anyone else he might care t
o grab the attention of. But it was great for anyone heartless enough to exploit it. Which, as his nearest and dearest friends, we of course were.

  “Nice haul,” Rio said as she mussed his hair and grabbed a tiny bottle of Jose Cuervo.

  “Here, eat something,” Adam instructed and unwrapped a Power Bar for me. I obligingly ate about half before I got so queasy I couldn't choke down any more.

  “I think I just need some rest,” I muttered and leaned my head against the window.

  When I woke up, I was still slumped over in the back seat of the Camry, but Adam was gone. So was Rio. I was alone with Maggy, who was pulling the car off the freeway just as a PJ Harvey song was starting up on the radio.

  “Where is everyone?” I asked, groggy and disoriented.

  “I dropped them off at the beach. I would've dropped you off, too, but we couldn't wake you up for anything.”

  “So where are we going?”

  “To score the crystal.”

  “Oh.”

  We sat in silence as the Camry winded through the back streets of a run-down residential area. I noticed with some relief that my headache was gone and my nausea had subsided to an endurable level. I guess the rest had been what I needed.

  Maggy came to a stop in front of a one-story duplex and killed the engine. I started opening the door, but she stopped me. “No, you're waiting here.”

  “It's freezing out here,” I complained. “Why can't I come in with you?”

  “No,” she repeated, firmly. I was a little taken aback by the sternness in her voice. “Look, I'll leave the music on for you. Just stay in the car.”

  I watched as she got out and circled around to the back of the duplex. When she disappeared from view, I laid back down and stretched out across the full length of the back seat, sulking a little. At times, I worried that even though she was only a year older than us, Maggy thought of me and Rio as kids. Sometimes it made me sick with myself to think about how much I worried about gaining her approval.