Nineteen Seventy Three

Cinco de Mayo

During the late evening on the fifth of May, 1973, I decided to go to her party. After contemplating for about an hour, I decided I should go. I promised her anyways, besides shes pretty damn gorgeous. I originally decided on going when my friend Tom called me and blatantly told me that he was bored out of his f*****g skull. I told him I had a solution.

On the drive over to her house I had to drive through the thick woods of Northern Washington. The road was so narrow and the trees to the side of the car were like tall, motionless people staring at you. It was an oddly uncomfortable feeling. As the radio played loud in the car I thought of the telephone call I made to her before I left. I was about to hang up when she answered on the seventh ring.

“Hello?”

“Victoria, hey its me.”

There were audible murmurs of loud conversation in the background.

“Hey whats up?” her words were laced with laughter.

“Whats your street address?”

“You've decided to come?” 

“Yeah,” My voice came out a pathetic mumble.

“Great!” Her voice sounded cheery yet inebriated. “I live off of Road 17. The last street at the end of it turn left down Benicia Drive and you'll see the fire.”

“Cool.” I tried to sound like the word. “I'll leave soon. Is it okay if I bring a friend”

“Yeah sure, there's like ten people here so bring more people.”

“Ha-ha, alright, then, Victoria. I'll see you soon.”

“Goodbye, Isaac.”

Her voice had a seductive tone within it. Even with the sounds of the party blending in with the sound of her soft voice, it was quite obvious that she was interested in me. Its a little odd though, her being a freshman and me a senior.

I stopped at my friend Toms house, who lived near Victoria's house. I walked right into his house without knocking and went and knocked on his bedroom door. He opened the door and blew marijuana smoke in my face, smiling, and grabbed my shoulder. He offered me a rip off of his bong  but I declined. He turned the television on and we watched the news, trying to decide when we should leave. He showed me his cannabis plants he had growing in his back yard, which completely fascinated me. The thought of my friend growing an illegal plant in his back yard interested me in both a comical way and a concerning way.

We left after I saw the plants, and we drove around trying to find the damn road her house was on. After about twenty minutes we found her house, and I drove the car up the long driveway, passing a fence with a couple horses standing motionless behind it.

“Oh no, horse people.” Tom said sarcastically. “I'm scared, Isaac.”

“Ha-ha oh s**t.”

I parked the car, and the headlights shone like the sun in the dark night. I saw her walk alone towards my car in the glare of the headlights. Tom and I slipped out of the car and breathed in the cold air. Victoria walked up to me and her small, attractive body embraced mine. I introduced her to Tom, for they had never met previously.

We continued to walk to her back yard blindly until we came upon the bonfire. There were about five people sitting in chairs, smoking a joint. We introduced ourselves to everyone, and stood awkwardly, for there were no chairs for us to sit in. Victoria, obviously being stoned or drunk, forgot to give us chairs. After a couple minutes she stood up from her chair, apologized and walked off to find some chairs for me and Tom. I followed her.

As I appeared beside her she put her arm around me and I swung mine around her shoulder. We grabbed a couple of chairs and walked back. Seated now in front of the bonfire, the uncomfortable silence began. The fire burned slow, and the smoke was blowing directly into my face. My eyes burned and I coughed. Victoria sat across from me, next to some guys I've never seen before. 

Then the smoking began. I wasn't a smoker,  but the occasion did strike me. The smoke was slightly harsh in my throat, but I didn't cough. I passed the joint to Tom and he eagerly took it, smiling as he put it to his lips. The fire burned. The people talked to themselves quietly and often laughter erupted from them. Me and Tom shared glances at each other, noticing that our glazed eyes were wincing the night away. 

The person with the marijuana revealed a plastic bag and started rolling another joint. Me and Tom were already pretty high, baked, stoned, whatever you want to call it. Laughter issued between us as Tom shared an anecdote of when his parents found his cannabis plants. Tom was a natural orator, so conversing with strangers was easy, and when he was stoned it spilled out of him uncontrollably.

“So when I walked in the back yard to go water my plants, my Dad was standing there looking down at it, with his hands on his hips, his head shaking disapprovingly. I see him standing there and immediately turn around, but I drop my bucket of water, and my dad turns around and sees me.” Everyone is looking at Tom, their gaze transfixed, mouths open. Even Victoria is intrigued, her eyes lit in the glare of the fire.

“My dad sees me, then he sees the spilled bucket of water, and he looks back at me. And I'm standing there about to s**t my pants, and he walks over to me, with this look in his eyes that says, You really have some f*****g balls to be doing this in the backyard.”  Everyone laughs. “But he doesn't say that. He doesn't.”

Someone passes the joint to Tom and he stops talking and takes a drag, blowing the smoke up at the moon. He takes another hit and then passes it to me.  Everyone has their eyes glued on Tom, and I just hold the joint, staring at him myself, even though I've heard this story a dozen times.

“You know what he says?”

Someone mumbles What?

“He says, 'Well I guess I'll just have to let it grow.'”

Everybody laughs. Smoke bellows out of my face as I hold in the laughter, and it comes before I can exhale the smoke and it makes me incredibly lightheaded.

This went on for about another hour. By now I was very, tremendously baked. The silhouettes of the trees in the background appeared to be standing behind each other, secretly watching us, shifting back and forth in the wind. I stared off at the tree's when I realized nobody was talking. I couldn't make myself look at any of the other people. I hardly knew any of these people, except for Victoria, but even then we were just barely friends, we only saw each other once a day and even then it was only for a limited amount of time.

I looked away from the darkness, and into Victoria's eyes. She was looking right at me, directly into my eyes, blankly. The fire was dancing in her eyes, consuming all the oxygen, and right then I found it hard to breathe. I looked away and reached for the joint as the person next to me lit another one up. Blowing the smoke out, my eyes made their way back to hers. She had the same expression shining in her eyes. The people next to her were having their own side conversations, and I realized Tom was as well. She didn't even blink.

Then the silence was born yet again and lingered in the air; nobody breathed, and the fire burned.

The silence was broken when Victoria started to laugh. After a minute of her nonstop laughter, everyone began to laugh. She stopped. They stopped. It was contagious. What the hell was she laughing at? Evidently shes baked out of her mind, along with everyone else. 

Joint after joint was rolled and passed, and the moon stayed in its luminous position, radiating fresh, pale lunar light around us. The fire glowed on our stoned faces, dreaming; the harsh smoke brushing against our cheeks, wanting to be sucked into our lungs, jealous of the cannabis smoke. The wind gently wafting the smoke into a tornado of brush and cannabis smoke. Smoke laced in the air. Cool wind blowing it away, the fire issuing more warm smoke into the air, people next to me blowing smoke in my face. I closed my eyes and closed off the smoke

I believe now, that I am unconscious.

Someone got up and threw some small sticks on the fire, and the smoke grew in envy of the marijuana. The Fire saw the smoke bellow out of our faces, as if we were setting our soul on fire, igniting our spirit and letting it slowly dissipate out of our orifice, out of the chasms of our nostrils, rushing out in clouds from the depths of our throats. The Fire watched and burned in envy.

No, I am totally aware, completely conscious. Look, people are leaving.

It was true. I opened my eyes and saw their shadows dance across my body sprawled in the chair, my body unable to acknowledge everything else, my body slowly shutting down, muscles loosening, the grass around my feet was a pillow. The grass was a softer that a f*****g pillow.

“Hey, it was nice meeting you.”

Someone stuck out their hand, put it right in front of my face, and burst my bubble. I looked up into the dark face, shuffled in my chair and stuck out my hand, mumbling a reply. I fell back into the euphoric comfort of the chair and noticed that most of the chairs were empty, vacant like the moon, looking me right in the eye, the moonlight shining down into the pit of my pupil, the moon's way of communication. Well I see you moon, I hear you. Everyone else doesn't but I see you.

“What did  you say?”

I sat up in my chair, the curious voice startled me. 

“What?” This word forms in my throat, completely on its own, as if the word itself was trying to escape me and join the rest of the words.

“What did you say about the moon?”

“I don't remember.”

Victoria's face appears, her face ablaze. She sits down in the chair next to mine and shes breathing words into my ear, vibrating my eardrum, her soft voice a chorus of angels in heaven singing their beautiful naked bodies up to mine, the warmth of her voice coincides with the warmth of the fire, and her hair brushes against my cheek and there's a growing pressure in my body.

I turn my face and look at her, for the first time all night I actually look at her face, up close, every detail forcing itself into my awareness. Her eyes, green, with shards of broken blue glass around the black hole of her pupil. Her curly dark hair diving out of her scalp and swimming around the ocean of her eyes. Her eyebrows, accentuating the entire portrait of her old fashioned face, her chin a fine point, her jaw perfectly shaped into this impossible beauty.

My hand found that it had its own free will and made its way to her face, brushing the dark tides of her hair away from her flawless pale face, the moon painting its lunar make-up around her eyes, the black hole of her pupil sucking me in, my soul is being consumed, my body floating its way up the course of heaven, my lips finding their match, finding their cosmic destination, a warm, moist oasis of comfort, security, and pure, untainted, free love.

As soon as it happened it ended.

I look around, and everyone is gone, even Tom.

“Where did everyone go?”

“Everyone left.”

“Even my friend?”

“He said he forgot about something at his house, and someone gave him a ride home.”

“Someone, something, pretty vague are we?”

Her reply was a kiss.

She leaned back in her chair and touched her lips with a finger, and she looked at me. She bit her lip and the brights of her teeth flashed on my face, too bright. No, I'm just too stoned. Overwhelmingly inebriated. She touched my arm and leaned closer to me. 

My mind raced. I was mentally drained, the marijuana emptied my brain, I was completely, horribly confused, but at the same time everything made perfect sense, as if my whole entire life was built up to this one point in time. I exist for this night. For the moon. For the fire. For Victoria.