All characters and accounts in the following short story are fictitious and should they bear any resemblance to real persons or events it is unintentional. Bah, who am I kidding? You can't write if you don't live it. Enjoy. It is fictional though.
You are a young single man with aspirations a plenty and prospects none. You’re not fully introverted, but you cherish time alone with a keyboard and some thoughts. You even write poetry from time to time. You might even write something like this on a lazy Friday afternoon:
Beautiful as a Word is about as stale as
A pretzel stick in an open bowl by the
End of a twenty-first birthday party.
The word spoken,
The pretzel eaten,
And for the same
Old stupid reason.
You don’t know it, but you’re friend is about to walk through the open door to your dorm room and invite you to a twenty-first birthday party. You might think about the startling literary coincidence, but you might think about what you’re going to wear to the party instead. She says to wear something black so that the “bouncer” will let you in without a hassle. You quickly weigh the options (even though a large proportion of your wardrobe consists of black t-shirts) and you decide it’s time to bring that black cowboy hat you purchased from a street vender in Cancun out of retirement. Your friend says she’ll see you at ten, but you opt to keep the cowboy hat a secret for now. You hope it will be worth at a least a dozen laughs after beer number three. You think about a joke regarding a beer-to-laugh ratio. You remember that you’re not a stand-up comedian.
* * *
You show up at the front door around ten fifteen and the “bouncer” guides you down a narrow hallway toward a beer pong table and a freshly tapped keg. Actually, the “bouncer” is your friend Jack in a black golf shirt that has “Security” screened across the chest that he purchased at the Army-Navy Store on Newbury Street. You gleefully fork over five bucks to a tall blond you recognize from a statistics course you took last semester. You remember you secretly wished she needed a study buddy, but she didn’t follow the stereotype. You fill the red plastic cup with golden liquid courage and it’s surprisingly refreshingly cold. You down it quickly and get your free refill while the line at the keg consists only of that guy Sam who stands by the keg all night manning the pump. You joke to yourself that latter that night Sam will be your temporary best friend in the whole wide world.
You scan the small rooms jutting off of the cramped hallway and you see your permanent best friend in the room with the TV permanently tuned into ESPN. It’s on mute with closed-captioning on so as not to interfere with thump-boom-thump of the subwoofer blaring something similar to music or perhaps the sound a rabid fox makes when a crazy man fends it off by smacking it with a loaf of Wonderbread. You nod at your friend Ted and exchange the customary “What ups.” You notice your friend Chrissana and you realize you forgot your cowboy hat back at the dorm. You think about the seemingly random way the mind surfaces thoughts and you think it’s time that Ted and you get your names on the beer pong list. You call shotgun for the next available game only to find there is actually a piece of paper taped on the wall titled “Beer Pong List.” You realize these guys take this drinking game perhaps a bit too seriously when you see that the table they’re using is an “Officially Certified Beer Pong Association” table according to the seal of approval running along the table’s border. You wager that your team’s number won’t be called for a solid hour or two and you detect the red cup in your hand is too light. You gander on over to the now six-partygoer deep line meandered around the keg and down the narrow hallway. You wait your turn and eventually Sam fills your cup mostly with foam. Your judgment in tact, you tell yourself this is probably for the best since you should slow down.
You finish your foamy beverage while mingling with a group of friends. The birthday girl struts in the front door bombarded by a cluster of her girlfriends wishing to give her a hug while a sarcastic cheer of “surprise” rings out amongst the thirty or so of us crammed into this party shack. You give her a nod as she walks by and she says “thanks for coming” as another two of her girlfriends tackle her for a hug. You notice for the first time the balloons that are falling from the top of the walls since they were poorly scotchtaped into place. You kick one up into the air and yell “keep it up” (Ted yells “that’s what she said”) and you feel that your bladder is about to pull a Hindenburg. You squeeze your way toward the bathroom only to find a line longer than the one at the keg. You throw your cup to Ted and ask him to watch it for you while you run across the street to your dorm to take a leak.
As you’re running you notice the first snow of the new winter on the ground. Barely a dusting, but slippery as baby oil on cellophane to your Vans. You suavely squeeze passed security and into the bathroom without a hitch and think to yourself, “crisis averted.” You remember your cowboy hat sitting on your bedpost up in your room. You run up and get it justifying your decision with a “it’s cold outside.”
* * *
Your opponents missed their opening shots and it’s time for you to show your meddle. You’re drunk, but tell yourself that you’re not that drunk yet and that your hearty Irish constitution will prove a valuable ally in this beer pong match to end all beer pong matches. You look straight into your opponents’ eyes and throw the ball somehow sinking your first shot without gazing intently at the target as most others would do. You hope your opponents fail to ascertain that this was a fluke. You lack hand-eye coordination and alcohol surprisingly tends not to enhance that that ability.
And then She walks up and coyly whispers in your ear, “Cowboy, I like your hat.”
You don’t know where she came from. As far as you recall, no one introduced her to you. A form-fitting black dress clings to her soft body and her breath smells of peppermint schnapps. She wore black to get past the “bouncer,” but you know Jack would let this girl in even if she donned a potato sack.
Wasting all your inebriated mental energy trying to figure out how this mysterious girl got into the party even though the birthday girl probably invited her, you finally speak up after an unacceptable gap in conversation. You say the simplest response available. You say, “Thank you.”
You immediately wish you spent more time formulating a better response. You smack your thigh when it clicks that you should have fired a sincere, yet witty compliment right back. To your surprise, she leans in and she whispers, “You’re welcome, Cowboy” and she smacks her forehead against the brim of that damn black hat. You nervously apologize and she laughs it off with a “Not a problem!” You quickly take your next shot since your concentration now lies with this mysterious girl. Her black dress reveals enough cleavage to leave you contently curious. It is cut just high enough above the knee to satisfy your not terribly secret preferences. You are a stereotypical legs man.
She is laughing at you. You assume it’s the hat. “What’s so funny about my hat?” you remark with slight sarcasm. She bursts out into a full belly roar. “It’s not your hat! It’s that shot you just took! You fell short by a foot!”
Even with your ego popped like the latex balloon you just accidentally stepped on, you can’t help but agree with this mysterious stranger. That shot was terribly funny. You both laugh at the situation and exchange a warm smile between your eyes. You wonder if this is actually happening.
She loiters around your half of the table like your own personal cheerleader. Before your next shot she leans in closely again and gives you advice: “Just concentrate on the cup.” You think this is the wisest advice anyone has ever given you. You throw the ping-pong ball directly into your opponent’s crotch. You both continue to laugh hysterically.
You continue playing until this mysterious stranger asks you to look up at the beer pong waiting list to see where she stands in line. You tell her you don’t know her name. She laughs and says her name is…something. You ask her again (this time a bit louder since you must attempt to drown out the sound of a dozen rabid foxes being beaten by a dozen loaves of Wonderbread.) She says her name is Sarah with an “H.” You say, “Oh, you mean Hara?” She laughs as if she’s never heard that one before.
You look up and find her on the list. You tell her she’s the next in line, but you ask her why her partner’s name is heavily crossed out. She says her partner left for another party. Just then this Rico Suave-Casanova walks into your conversation and asks to replace her wayward cohort. You tense up with jealousy, but the beer and the atmosphere convince you that you’ve had your turn. Besides, you can hang around her half of the table like her own personal cheerleader.
The only ball you sink the entire match is the first one you sank without looking. Ted fails to countermand your awfulness and you lose embarrassingly to the reigning champs. Apparently it wasn’t the beer pong match to end all beer pong matches.
You finish your last sip of beer left over from the game and slam the cup down like an emptied shot glass on the officially licensed beer pong table. Sarah surveys the tiny party mansion with a puzzled face. You ascertain she needs some beer to fill the ten emptied cups to the customary level. You offer to correct the situation and in a jiffy return with three foam-topped plastic cups. You told Sam at the keg they were for the game and he let you cut the line. Of course the third cup existed for your own consumption only. You consider it a miracle when you return to the table by navigating the crowds in the narrow hallway without spilling more than an ounce or two.
Sarah thanks you for the beer and distributes it imprudently without much concern for an equal allotment of resources. You chuckle way back in your throat to avoid an awkward “what are you laughing at?” The game commences and all four players miss their respective first shots.
After a few rounds you discern Sarah lacks hand-eye coordination too. Before her next shot, you lean in closely and whisper in her ear, “Just concentrate on the cup.” But before she shoots you place your cowboy hat on her head resulting her calling you an “a*****e” with a non-malevolent and charming inflection. She also hurls at you a large black object. You react in just enough time. You catch the hat by its brim and quickly place it back on your own noggin like a gunslinger placing his revolver back in its holster. Sarah makes her next shot, but you’re not sure whether it was luck caused by her unremitting giggling or the advice you just rendered her.
The game crawls on with both teams missing every shot round after round. The fun hasn’t stopped though and the golden liquid courage begins to speak for itself. You bravely lean in next to her ear and you try to sound sophisticated and compassionate. Your pick-up line turns out to be a weak groveling plea for her number. You admit you don’t ask girls for their numbers often. Actually, you clarify this telling her this is the first time you’ve ever asked for a girl’s number. You neglect to tell her the only other number you ever actually received came from a girl offering it to you after some deep drunken philosophical banter regarding turkeys or T-Rexes or some such thing.
She verbally whaps you off guard.
She asks approvingly, “Why do you want my number, Cowboy?”
The centripetal force of thoughts swirling like blades on an industrial fan leaves you split-secondly stupefied and you know you cannot ponder this question too long without jeopardizing the integrity of your answer. You blurt out your answer and as soon as it leaves your voice box, it fizzes like a Pop Rock on the tip of your tongue:
“Sarah, you’re beautiful.”
You gulp in horror. Out of all the thoughts flung about in the whirlwind of your mind, you told this girl she was beautiful. She said she was hungry and you offered her a stale pretzel. You could have said something a bit more constructive like how you adored the way she made you laugh or you could have said something a bit more seductive like how you hoped getting to know her better without the hampering effects of alcohol would prove your guess that her personality would match the startling sexy sophistication of her dress or you could have said something a bit more playfully derisive like you really wanted to talk to her at a better time about how she could save fifteen percent or more by switching to Geico.
She interrupts your internal peril. She says, “You really think so?”
You say, “Yes, of course.”
She asks you for your cell phone and she somehow punches her number in with graceful ease.
The next day you give Sarah a call and set up a cliché dinner-and-a-movie date.
* * *
You are a young single man with aspirations a plenty and prospects one. You’re not fully introverted and you’re working on shedding that shell. You even write poetry from time to time and go back and edit that poetry when one night changes your fragile understanding of a word:
Beautiful as a Word is about as stale as
A pretzel stick in an open bowl by the
End of a twenty-first birthday party.
The word spoken,
The pretzel eaten,
And for the same
Old necessary reason.
When hungry,
One must choose
To eat or whither.
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