Chapter 12
Hypothetical Friends and Relentless Shakespeare Quoting
Jem
"Shit," I swore faintly, unconsciously verbal. An upsurge of uncontrollable panic swelled in my chest. What has that boy got himself into this time?
She blinked at me and scanned the whole room for the sudden commotion. "What happened?"
"That idiot was born."
As if summoned, a shout rose from the kitchen and there was a scuffle of something smashing into the contact of a hard item. The crowd surged back, straying from the fight but their eyes never lost sight. All around cheers were given, gasps and laughs were voiced.
"Fuck," I swore with all the necessary connotations.
Ellis and I circled over to the kitchen where I found my best friend floored with too many narcotics in his system, molesting an innocent pretty fourteen-year-old freshman who looked too afraid and too polite to make him stop. A hulking footballer, whom I recognized was Jason Kellington, a fellow teammate on my football team as well as my highest competitor for Quarterback, threw a punch towards Heath and Caleb had wedged himself in between Heath and Jason, trying to pull Jason's bulky frame from ending the life of my asshat of a best friend.
"This again," I sighed, stepping over to the scene.
Jason glared at my arrival, his bloodshot eyes were bulging out of his sockets to the point of comical, and his whole attention was abruptly diverted from Heath towards me. The crowds were streaming in as my intervention was some holy grail of their captivation. They barricaded Jason and me so that this was entirely inescapable.
Ellis and Caleb helped escort Heath out of harm's way, dragging his flailing body over to the couches.
"What the fuck you want, Leighton?" spat Jason, "This isn't your fucking problem so be careful with what business you meddle in."
"Look, first of all: I just want a peaceful party without any blood or cops. And second, Heath's my best friend so it's very well my fucking problem. Third, there's one of you and Caleb's ready to back me up so that means it's two against one. Maybe you should be the careful one here, Bricks."
Jason was flabbergasted. "Bricks?"
I nodded, "Yes, you're Bricks. New nickname, Jason. It's what I've decided to call you. Mainly because you've shared many characteristics of a brick; you see you're both inarticulate, non-sentient and associated with being heavy."
"Jem," beseeched Caleb warily.
"Oh shh, Caleb. Don't take the fun out of anything."
"He's trying not to let Jason have an excuse for taking your head off," muttered a disgruntled Ellis but was too late. Jason growled and aimed for my head, his fist barrelling towards me as I ducked his lunge.
Excited whoops came from the crowd as the chant began: Fight! Fight! Fight! Jason, having missed the first, tried again...and failed. "Get here, you little fucker," snarled Jason, crunching his knuckles as I was light on my feet. Jason was definitely fifty pounds heavier than me and if we were to punch each other, his would definitely be a world of hurt. But the reason why Coach made me the Quarterback was simply because I had the ability swerve and run like my little runty ass was on fire. I was faster than Jason. Much faster.
At the corner of my eye, I saw Ellis grimly watching, hand over her mouth like she expected the gore to start spilling in like one was watching a car crash before its eyes. I managed to locate a white-girl wasted Heath, who had escaped out of Ellis' fleeting notice, climbed up into the kitchen sink and decided to sleep in it (Seriously? I thought, how does the boy even end up in these places?), with Jason's freshmen girl's hot pink bra tied over his forehead as well as lipstick marks smeared all over his chin. Because the world was a cruel place and I ought not to, despite appearances, allow Heath to become the newest social media joke on Instagram, I needed to find a safe bedroom for him to crash.
"You know what?" I said diplomatically, recovering into a casual stance. "I can't be fucked to deal with this, Bricks. I just want to have a good time and clearly, you can't make that happen. I'm going to have to ask you to leave."
"This isn't your house, Leighton."
"Yeah, but it's my fuckin' party." There was a stare down. Jason's steel orbs boring into mine and behind his skull, his set of teeth ground.
"Fine," he relented, slouching off with his freshmen. The crowd murmured in disappointment at a lack of a show, dispersing and returning to whatever they were doing; the hazy memory of the altercation was all that it was: a hazy memory.
"Dude," I shook Heath's shoulder and he moaned, "Wake the fuck up."
His eyes flew open and he yawned, a breath full of alcohol hit me in the face and I gagged. "I...don't wanna."
"You better. You owe me. I stopped Jason Kellington from killing you. And you know better than to flirt with his girl. The last dude who tried ended up in a coma."
"But she's, like, so pretty," enunciated Heath slowly, giggling as he reached out to play with my strands of ruffled brown hair.
"She's passable. You're not just drunk, are you?" I rolled his eyes. "You're stoned too."
"Like a whore condemned for adultery."
"And so it makes racist jokes," I inched away from him. "Don't throw up on me."
"That was one time, you lil' fucker."
"Come on," I told Ellis who was standing by the sidelines and hauled Heath up by looping his arm around my neck, "Let's get this bastard into a room upstairs. Can you help me carry him back into the room so he wouldn't perform any more sexual acts on innocent fourteen year-olds?"
Ellis, who was still kind of thunderstruck by what happened and feeling rather the altruist, she responded rather jokingly: "Sure, I must think of all those fourteen-year-olds."
Simultaneously, she wrapped her arm around Heath's tall body, her 4'9 figure kind of a joke compared to his 6'2, and helped me drag a stumbling Heath across the mass parade of drunk adolescents towards the stairs. They were all dancing or shamelessly making out with each other, displaying the ungodly scene very sufficiently in front of our eyes, and we had to circle around to avoid the people passed out on the several of the weirdest positions.
There was a crew of boys and girls were out of the house by the backyard, just like I knew they would be. Someone had lit a mattress on fire- which I grimaced at because some poor bastard was going to be stuck with cleaning the mess up- and everybody was poking at it with dead branches, throwing gasoline in and basically having a bonfire night. The flames radiated throughout the night, casting an ember-red glow onto the wild crowd. The smoke smelled faintly of wood and burned liquor.
I high-fived several people on the way over with Heath around me, which was not an unusual sight. There were an abundance of 'Hey Jem, ready to party this bitch?' from left and right. Someone asked me if I plan on chucking the burned mattress onto the ceiling so it would alert authorities and trick them into thinking the house was on fire.
I waved him off. "Been there, done that."
At the beer pong table, the four guys saluted me. And I gave them a thumbs-up before we travelled up the stairs and pulled Heath into one of the rooms in his house, which hasn't been occupied by a couple going at it. We switched on the lights, which flickered and filled the bedroom with yellow lights, and we trudged a few more metres forward, sagging under Heath's weight who was totally conked out, his head lolling askew.
Unanimously, we dumped him onto the bed and collapsed onto the foot of the bed, exhausted from towing Heath through the two flights of stairs. I laughed at Heath, who began drooling on the pillow, fully asleep, and kept laughing at the whole given situation, while Ellis continued to give me weird looks.
Once I had recollected myself together, I ran his hand through my hair. "Sorry about that, Porcey," I sounded genuinely apologetic. "Your first party experience should've been a whole lot better than hauling a stoned and drunk Heath."
"It's okay," she shrugged. "I mean, the party wasn't that bad."
"You're lying; it was fantastic."
"Because everybody wants to spend their night taking care of Heath," she supplied sarcastically, "By the way, I barely felt that shot. I'm not even the slightest bit drunk."
"Bet I can change that, Porcey." I winked at her and stood up, then dropped onto the floor to search for Heath's private collection of Jack Daniels he always stored beneath his bed so he could drink whenever he felt like it. I rummaged around until I felt a cold bottle, gripped it and yanked it out. I shimmied the bottle at Ellis. "Come on, let's go make our own party."
I bounced over to the window, unlocked it and slid it open. I clambered halfway through, sat on the windowsill ledge with one foot on the roof and the other out, halfway there as I turned to find Ellis gaping at me, open mouthed. "What are you doing?"
"Uh, what does it looks like I'm doing?"
"Suicide?" she offered, shoving her hands into her pockets.
"Magnificent guess but no. I'm going to sit outside on the roof under the splendid sky of stars and listen to my drunk classmates sing as they camp out by the makeshift bonfire, of which they've constructed out of gasoline, a flammable bed mattress and dead sticks. Care to join?"
"Um, I'd like to keep all two hundred and six bones of mine intact so no thanks," she emphasised the last three words rather snobbishly but I didn't think she meant to come off as arrogant. She was just being sarcastic.
"God, I love it when you use Science as a comeback. But c'mon," I spread out my hands, "Live a little. Besides, I have the booze."
"But what if I fall?" she focused at the roof, trying to decide how stable the structure was.
"I'll catch you. I'll hold your hand if you want me to," I joked teasingly.
"You're catching me, Superman," she warned, jabbing a finger at my chest as she approached the window and her nail sank considerably into my shirt. "But I ain't holding your hand."
I helped her up onto the roof and folded my legs as we comfortably set ourselves onto the bricked red roof, extending over the mossy lawns of Heath's house and we were faced with the Philadelphia woods, it's shadowy figures for trees looming over us. She exhaled loudly, the misty fog was like sparkling cobwebs in the late February night. I lit up a cigarette but she doesn't even lecture me or look at me disapprovingly with lucid disappointment. We stayed silent for a while to enjoy the skies.
Tonight was beautiful. Really. A dark blue-black canvas dotted with startling bright white diamonds embedded within the blankets of velvety black, like a painting but better. "Damn," I mumbled.
"You got that right," she pulled her bangs away from her face. I uncorked the Jack Daniels with a much too loud, deafening pop! and swallowed the first swig. I passed it to her and she took it reluctantly, wearily eyed it before finally drinking it. "I can't believe I'm doing this." She stuck out her tongue as the fiery acid glided down her throat. After another momentary silence: "I don't get you."
"Hmm?"
"You," she said like it was the most frustrating syllable in the world. She gulped down some more whisky, winced again, made a face and handed it to me. Over and over again, like a repeated routine, a broken record. "One minute, you're an asshole-"
"Thanks."
"You don't even know what I'm going to say," she huffed, glaring at me but her jaw loosens up occasionally like a smile was tugging at its corners. She reached for the whisky. "Anyway, the next minute you're nice. One minute, you're hot. The other you're cold."
"I disagree," I smirked with full confidence, grabbing the Jack Daniels from her. "I'm always hot, Porcey."
She scowled, any trace of doubt on my predisposition has vanquished. "And then...there's that godforsaken nickname you insist on calling me." Now she had inevitably shattered, her curiosity winning over, kerbing her pride just like it was precedented: "What does it even mean?"
I knew she couldn't resist the temptation, she couldn't stop to linger and dwell the hidden nickname. But I wouldn't give it to her that easily- her intellectuals were far more superior for that like she had often claimed.
"That is for me to know and you to find out," I paused, sporadically blowing puffs of smoke into the air. "Besides, there's an air of mystery around it. Some things are better left as mysteries. What did they say about the better part of valour is discretion?"
"Are you quoting Shakespeare against me?" she prompted, discharging with enough fire to warm the winter of our discontent, "How dare you!"
To infuriate her a little more, I decided to flesh out more Shakespearean quotes: "What is it they say about brevity and wit, Porcey? Not everything's about you."
It was too goddamn fun pissing her off.
"Again, with the nickname! I'm going to figure it out. Porcey," she mused, starting to become a little tipsy, "Hmm....Porcey...." I could see the gears of her brains clicking, spinning, her mind working a million miles an hour, "Porcey...Porce...Porcelain. China." A slow grin spread across my lips. I knew she would eventually figure it out. She pointed to herself, "Chinese. Porcey."
"Bravo," I clapped for her, not sarcastically, though.
"Working out the recesses isn't too difficult," noted Ellis, faux sweet, dripping in saccharine. "I've should've known it included bigoted racism."
"You wound me, Porcey!" I clutched my chest, mocking scandalization. "It's not being racist...just pointing out a distinction that makes you unique from everyone else."
Red blooms appeared on her cheeks or maybe it was just the alcohol making her face warm. "Uh...thanks..." Then she daggered me with a frowning scowl, glowering with incandescent frustration. What did I do now? "See? This is why you're confusing. You're an arrogant asshole, you play that stupid fish fetish rumour...and then you say that."
"I'm not just one person, Porcey. Yeah, I'm an asshole but I can be nice when I want to. It's just like you. Sure, you're an uptight know-it-all and nobody really likes you-"
"Do you want to die, Leighton?" She held out her hand like she was about to push me down the roof.
I smirked at her, "I'll just pull you down with me. That way, we go down together."
"EW!"
"Anyway, my point being is that yeah you're an uptight know-it-all but you also have the ability to loosen up and have fun. No one is ever one thing, no one is designated to one characteristic and one personality or even one stereotype. There are multiple layers to somebody. What a treacherous thing to believe someone is less than what they actually are- a person."
Now people were chucking random things like empty bottles and empty bags of chips into the fire, the heat was encasing, diminishing the biting cold. In the faint firelight, she had an earthy glow cast on her and my mind flashed back to the Shakespearean text we were currently studying, Othello, and the part when Othello was on the verge of killing his wife, Desdemona, due to his assumptions and unwitting conclusions on her unfaithfulness: Nor scar that whiter skin of hers than snow/ And smooth as monumental alabaster.
Below our feet, insects chirped, their cricket voices resounding through the din. It was shockingly tranquil, as they seemed unaffected by the urban dim roar of blasting party music and laughter.
Ellis considered what I've spoken for a very long time, processing it, dissecting it and maybe the comprehension was starting to dawn on her that I was not the arrogant bastard she made me out to be. "Yeah," she agreed languidly, "I guess...you're right. I kind of judge you. For, like, the past five years. But it's not like you made it hard for me think you're a son of a bitch. You were mean to me."
"Half the time, you knew I was joking!"
"Still!"
"God, you're insensitive," I said, "But fine, I'm sorry for all the mean things I said and did to you."
"Apology accepted," she replied primly.
"Now it's your turn." I cocked my head sideways. Oh, how I'm going to make this so painful for her. "What's the magic word?"
"I'm....sorry," she choked out the word resentfully, looking away to avoid the nauseating smugness written all over my face. "But this doesn't mean we're friends."
"No, I think not."
"Are we?" wondered Ellis, the question more rhetorical and directed towards herself. "I mean, what are we doing?"
I finished the last of the whisky and licked my lips. "Eh, drinking? Talking on the roof of my unconscious friend?"
"I meant we're not killing each other. We haven't really been at each other's throat for the past, like, six hours," she summarised lamely. "Do you, uh, have more?" she guiltily gestured to the empty bottle on my lap.
"Sure." I quickly dashed back into the room, searched for the bottom of Heath's secret liquor stash and dug out more bottles before returning.
She continued after I popped open the two bottles: "Anyway, I was saying that maybe we could be friends and you're-" she sighed and began admitting it: "-not that bad of a person; you can be bizarrely decent at brief periods of times...and you're actually not that stupid of a company considering your pretentious affinities for quoting Shakespeare. I guess I kind of forgive you for Brooklyn and the fish thing. Also, I don't feel the urge to kick you that bad anymore," she added hastily: "Hypothetically."
"Yeah. Hypothetically," I acquiesced as the breeze whistled in my ears gently.
"So could we be friends?"
"I guess we can."
"Good."
Momentary pause. Punctuated by my relentless schedule of smoking. I finished the cigarette and stabbed the cherry tip with the heel of my Chuck Taylors. Just as swiftly, I whipped out another cigarette and made a mental note to take a trip down to the store for more cigarettes.
I announced after lighting it: "Let's toast to being friends. Make it permanent, make a mark."
"You know when humans make a mark," she rubbed her hands together, "they're usually scars."
"'He jests at scars that never felt a wound'," I quoted aptly and guzzled down a good abundance of whisky, feeling the rush go into my head. "Shakespeare. Again. The Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet; even though it's not my favourite play. As You Like It is miles better."
"You-" Ellis wagged her finger at me suspiciously at me, "have a problem. An addiction."
"Yes, yes, it is increasingly fatal. I should join a support group."
"The Shakespeare Addiction Recovery Support Group," she giggled in a manner I've never seen her giggled before. "Oh my God. I'm going to make that a real thing. For short: SARSG."
"That should be the nickname of our quintessential duo," I proclaimed at the top of my lungs, probably because I was already half way to stumbling off the room and resulting in my fast death. "We're the SARSG. Also known as Serjeant. Brains and looks. I mostly composed of the brains and the looks. You're kind of a quarter of brains..."
"What happen to not saying mean things to me?"
"Um...not saying mean things starting now!"
She rolled her eyes and shook her head as if to scoff whatever. She raised her whisky bottle. "To hypothetical friends."
"Hypothetical friends." And our bottles connected with each other, the clink echoing profoundly and we settled into a relative conversation.
So basically we have a Jem-Ellis friendship going on! Yay. :) Porcey and Jem finally bury the hatchet. Vote. Comment. Tell me what you think. And until next time...