Clay's Way (6 page)

             
 
We go inside the trashed house.  There are lots of couches, extension cords everywhere, empty beer bottles all over the floor, and a pile of skateboards by the front door.  Huge speakers scream out NOFX and Rancid and all the music I really like. Surf posters cover the walls and a goat skull hangs above the stereo system, which looks like the most expensive thing in the room.  Groups of shorthaired, tanned, skinny, muscular dudes walk in wearing skateboard T-shirts and cut-off cargo pants.  Girls with dyed black hair hang out and laugh.  They all seem cool, but intimidating, partly because they’re all older than me. 

             
 
I look like I live with my overly-protective parents.  I sit on the couch, which is coated with dog hair. 

             
 
Clay flops down on a chair across from me, right next to the keg.  He nods to the music and bangs the drumbeat on the arm of the chair.  “Better than middle school birthday parties, eh,
 
brah?”  He looks fucked-up.  His pupils are huge and he has a grin that’s halfway between scared and ecstatic. 

             
 
I get up for a beer.  “I’m 16, dude.”  I punch him lightly on the arm. 
 
Too lightly.  I hope I didn’t seem like I just wanted to touch him.

             
 
“I
 
know
,
 
brah. 
 
Just playing with you.”  He pumps the air pressure thing on the keg for me while I fill my plastic cup.

             
 
I’m being too literal.  This always happens to me when I get nervous and feel like I have to prove myself. 

             
 
A guy walks into the room. 

             
 
Clay jumps up. 
 
“Franky-boy! 
 
Howzit?”  They hug each other,
 
then
 
Clay looks at me.  “Franky, this is Sam.  He looks like he could use some weed.”

             
 
I smile.  “Hey.”  I’m buzzed already.  I hope I don’t end up puking tonight. 

             
 
Frank hands me some pot and papers.  “Roll one,
 
brah?” 

             
 
“Uh, sure.”  I can’t believe how cool this world is.  Guys hug each other.  People just hand you pot.  Everyone’s drunk and cool and old enough to do what they want to do.  I
 
wanna
 
grow up so bad.  “Smells like good shit.”  I hope they think I know what I’m talking about.   

             
 
Clay smiles approvingly and goes off upstairs with Frank, to do more coke, I think.

             
 
I sit down and try to seem high and out of it, so I don’t have to talk to any strangers.  I’m horrible at it.  I lose my personality completely when I’m forced to be entertaining or interesting.  I don’t think these dudes, except for Clay, would like me if they really knew me.  I write haiku.  I don’t surf.  I hate the sun. 

             
 
They think I’m like Clay because he brought me.  They think guys who think like I do are fags.   

             
 
“Little Sammy turned into a joint-rolling slave,” a girl’s voice says.  Someone taps my shoulder. 

             
 
I flinch and look up.

             
 
It’s Kendra.  Jared’s sister.  She looks older and cool, sort of relaxed in a totally mellow way. 

             
 
Instantly, I remember lip-synching fake Joni Mitchell concerts in her bedroom, baking cookies with rum and vodka and anything else we could find to put in them.  One New Year’s Eve, when we stole liquor from her parents, we shot off a huge M-80 Super-Rocket
 
and it misfired and burnt down her shed.  They’re all embarrassing things in the context being at this party. 
 
Majorly lightweight shit.  I smile.  My stomach’s flying. 

             
 
She leans down to hug me but someone calls her to the kitchen.  “Hold on, Sammy.  I really want to talk to you.”  Her hair tickles my face. 

             
 
Her gardenia perfume brings back another time like magic.

             
 
I was waiting for Jared in his room.  He was in his family’s living room, being yelled at by his parents.  We’d made too much noise the night before camping in a tent in his backyard.  We were playing strip poker with this weird girl, Lisa, from down the street.  I was getting pretty turned on or whatever the day before because Jared had this calendar with surfers on it up on the wall and I couldn’t stop looking at it as we were watching horror movies and talking about where to get pot or beer.  When he left the room, I locked the door and found this movie I knew called
 
Space Camp
.  I fast-forwarded to this part I like, with this boy in one of the bunk beds at the camp.  I
 
paused
 
the tape at the moment when he sort of sat up, shirtless, to turn his light out.  I got a boner and started to jerk off.  Just as I was getting really into it and concentrating, I heard a bump and the door flew open. 

             
 
Kendra stood there, tall in the doorway, and looked between me and the TV screen.  She quickly turned away, like she accidentally walked into the wrong room and she didn’t even notice me. 

             
 
I freaked out and escaped through Jared’s window, which was the first time I used a window as a door. The next day when I saw him at school, I told him I felt sick and had to go.  I don’t think Kendra ever told him, but since then I’ve only seen her from a distance.  I was 14-and-a-half and I’ve avoided her since.  

             
 
She walks back in.  I’m freaked out now, thinking about her expression that day.  She sits on the arm of my chair and puts her legs up on top of me. 

             
 
I jerk away as she puts her hand on my shoulder. 

             
 
“Oh, my God, Sammy, relax.  Are you OK?”  She laughs.

             
 
“Uhh... no… fucked up.”  That sounded stupid and I can’t get this
 
joint
 
to resemble a joint.

             
 
“Me, too.  Let me help you with that.”  She takes the pot and the papers.  “God, I haven’t seen you in like two years.  You haven’t changed a bit.  Well, except you’re taller, and your hair is... purple?”  She laughs.  “What are you doing here?”

             
 
“You know Clay?”

             
 
“Oh, yeah.”  She’s saying something about him with her tone and I don’t like it.  Did they fuck or something? 

             
 
“We’re friends.  He brought me.”

             
 
“He’s cute, don’t you think?”  She nudges my side, like she’s kidding me.

             
 
“Whatever.”

             
 
“He won’t even talk to me.  Not nearly the gentleman you are, Sammy.”  She makes me feel too handsome and polite.  “Jared was talking about you the other day.  I asked about you.  You guys need to come over to my apartment and hang out.  I’ll buy you beer. 
 
Gotta
 
girlfriend, Sammy?”  

             
 
“Uh... no, not now.  I was going out with Cynthia for a while.”  I shouldn’t have lied.

             
 
“Swinging bachelor.”

             
 
I smile, but inside I’m grossed out at being thought of as a bachelor. 

             
 
Is Kendra a spy?  She rubs my head.  “You’ve got a beautiful head.  Are you coked up?  You’re grinding your teeth like crazy.” She finishes the joint with a lick. Her tongue’s moist and plump.

             
 
“Yeah, sure am. 
 
Me
 
and Clay did some on the way over.”

             
 
“Never thought I’d see you on coke.”
 
She lights up the joint and takes a big hit.  She makes it look elegant.

             
 
“Wow, I feel old.  You did it with Clay?”

             
 
I wish, meaning, did it, like sex.

She hands me the joint.  “He turns wild on that shit.”  She tilts her head at me, like she just remembered what I said about doing it with Clay. She looks out the front door.  “Fuck!” 

             
 
I lean forward on the couch to see what she’s looking at.  A couple guys are re-lighting the burnt-up mattress.  The flames grow huge in seconds.

             
 
She gets up and runs to the front door and I follow her.  “You guys!  The cops are
 
gonna
 
come and take our keg away!”

             
 
I lean out the front door.  A guy with a Mohawk lies on the grass looking at the sky and a blond guy with no shirt on jumps up and down smoking a joint on one end of the burning mattress, which is only, like, a foot from the front porch.  A girl tries to melt a beer can on a fire in the barbecue.  Dogs are everywhere running and play-fighting.  It’s like a whole new society with no rules.  I
 
wanna
 
go wild.  I
 
wanna
 
strip my clothes off and run around the yard.  

             
 
Everyone starts to pour beer on the fire.  White smoke flies up into the night sky.

             
 
We walk back inside and Kendra starts talking to a big dude with tattoos, the guy who gave me the pot and papers. It seems like she wants to fuck him.  She looks really pretty.  Her red hair is long and tied back.  Her skin is smooth and shiny, and she’s still wearing all black like I remember. 

             
 
The pot guy looks at me.  “Where’s my joint, dude?”

             
 
Me?
  I look down and notice the half-smoked joint in my hand.  I’d forgotten about it.  “Here, thanks.” 

             
 
“Wanna
 
go upstairs, or take a walk or something?” the guy asks Kendra.  He looks away, trying to seem aloof.

             
 
“I don’t think so, Mark.” 

             
 
Mark reaches down the front of his jeans and Kendra rolls her eyes. 
 
             

             
 
“Quit scratching your balls.  It’s gross.”

             
 
“Know where the bathroom is?”  I get up, embarrassed to watch Kendra with this dude.  “I have to piss super-bad.” 

             
 
“Yeah, I think there’s one upstairs.”

             
 
“OK, cool seeing you.”

             
 
“OK, Sammy.”  She pinches my cheek.  “You look happier, or something.  I knew my mom was wrong about you. 
 
Just kidding.”  She rubs my head.  “Give me a kiss, cutie.  I’m in a little argument with my boyfriend.  Come save me later.” 

             
 
I kiss her and smile.  I
 
wanna
 
find Clay.  I walk off, trying to act like I don’t have to piss worse than I ever have.  I climb the stairs.  The carpet’s destroyed and has burn holes all over it.  I spot the bathroom ahead.  The door’s open.

             
 
I hear someone taking a shower--the sound of water hitting a plastic curtain.  I’m not sure if I should go in.  I stand in the doorway. 
 
Fuck it,
 
I tell myself
.  It’s cool.  This party’s pretty mellow like that.
  I walk in and take a deep breath.  I hold my dick out over the dirty toilet and piss. 
 
Relief.

             
 
“Franky?” Clay screams from the shower.

             
 
“No, it’s Sam.”  I’m jealous.  Why would Frank be in the bathroom when Clay’s taking a shower?

             
 
“Oh, Sam, hey.  Can you close the door,
 
brah?  It’s cold.”

             
 
I look in the mirror to make sure I look OK,
 
then
 
peek around the corner.  I see his shoulder, his calf, and his hip—all flush up against the clear plastic curtain.             

“You still in here?”

             
 
“Yeah. 
 
Why’re
 
you taking a shower?”

             
 
“I don’t know.  Felt like it.  Where have you been?”

             
 
“Talking to that Kendra girl.”

             
 
“Think she’s hot?”