Nothing Ever Happens on St. Practice Day Except to DJ Fingerblast
By the time we get back, Liza only has a couple of minutes to get ready. Liza finds this blue bathing suit top that matches well with her costume idea. She’s walking around without a shirt and asking Dave if she looks alright.
“Of course, but won’t you be cold?”
I look at him, “Here, why don’t you let me loan you a tank. A white tank top or something? Then, you can still see through it. I’ll just bring all my tanks down.”
I gather up my tank tops, striped ones, white ones, blue ones. I’m thinking that Dave gave her a ‘good boyfriend response.’ He told her to wear something else without making her feel unattractive. He’s smart.
I go to give her the tank top and she tells me to go chill because she’s gotta change. She says she’s gotta get naked. Dave goes in her room. I go wait in the living room on the couch. I don’t know what to do so I drink a beer. Then, I paint my nails. Byron comes home with one of his friends and I realize that we have to go because I have to go to two parties that night.
We walk out the door and I mutter things about “social obligations.”
We drive to Dave’s house and walk in on one of his roommates on a date. It’s someone I used to date. They’re drinking wine and the house smells like smoked salmon. I find their conversation cloyingly coquettish. Dave unloads the groceries in a painfully slow style.
I look at a Peter Max book with lots of day-glo colors to amuse myself. “Liza, can we go in the kitchen and do some shots?”
We do shots to the sounds of laughter in the living room then leave.
On the way over to Adrienne’s, we talk about the embarrassing, sexual things we know about other people who will be there. I head inside and the place smells like sweat and densely packed bodies. I remember when I lived there and used to do the parties. A couple kegs gets you a couple hundred 19-22 year olds, a noise violation, whatever type of cool you’re going for and a lot of morning party trash.
I’m familiar with this scene, yet I feel so distinctly that it has passed me, though some people recognize me. I talk to small groups of 3-5 people for a couple of minutes before leaving and making some excuses. I cite “social obligations” again. I’m pretty drunk and plug the address into my phone. The screen looks blurry; either that, or it’s drunk vision. I follow the little blue dot radiating on the GPS on the screen. That’s me, the little blue dot. I watch it until my phone dies. I watch people walking around near one of the dorms.
“Fuck. At least, I know it’s on this street somewhere.”
What did people do before smart phones, I think. I feel incredulous that I have to read signs. I feel incredulous that I feel incredulous that I have to read signs. I feel like it’s strange that I have to look at the things around me instead of the interface on my phone. I feel like that feeling probably means something’s fucked.
I walk past a house that’s overflowing with a giant crowd. I walk up to some kid and ask him, “Is this where the K9Sniffles are playing?”
He looks somewhere past me. “I don’t know.”
I ask him again, “Uh, was there a DJ?”
He goes, “I don’t know.”
Luckily, someone recognizes me. It’s a group of my friends who played at the house party. We sit on the porch for awhile and talk about the mating patterns of drunk kids.
I ask some guy I met a couple months ago, “How did the K9Sniffles do?
“It’s the K9Sniffies.”
“Ha, oh, uh can I have a beer… thanks… gimme claw.”
One of my other friends comes out and leans against the door. “Where’s the bathroom?” People are threading in and out of this house. One of the Telephone Callers is reeling drunk and getting ready to pee on the side of the house.
Inside, Byron’s DJing and two girls come up to him. The house is packed and everyone’s covered in sweat. These babes come up to him and one starts jerking him off and the other starts grabbing his ass. They say, “Do you like Nicki Minaj? Will you play Nicki Minaj?” The other girl starts fingerblasting his asshole. The first one stops and he says “I didn’t say to stop.”
I go upstairs to the bathroom with this girl. I talk about moving and my friend tells me that I need to do what’s right for me. She tells me to stop thinking about all the depressing reasons why I’m still in town. I say what about my heart. The conversation devolves at that point into a joke for the sake of maintaining a party mood. I get a ride home and pass out in my clothing. Some people would think it was fun.
The next morning people are chatting on Facebook and someone brings up the term St. Practice Day. They say St. Practice Day is what people mean when they need an excuse to get shit-faced and it’s not St. Patty’s Day. I wonder when people have ever needed a name for that.