Last Night of Youth

I felt myself shiver. Jesus, is summer over already? A cool breeze forced its way into my t-shirt. The pavement beneath me felt damp it was so cold. My favorite tree had turned red like blood. I felt as though I wanted to cry, but couldn't. Is it really over already?
This was more than summer. This was the beginning of the end of my youth. I could feel it. My brain screamed at me louder every minute for letting time continue moving forward. I was terrified of my future life and the promises of years of stress and money problems.
I tried to shake the thoughts away and focus instead on the beer can in my hand. I was having trouble drinking. Damn. I tossed the liquid back against my throat and started chugging it. I always forget how stressed I am when I drink. When I'm drunk.
“There ya' go, man,” Ben said, planting himself down on the curb next to me. “Just chug it and you won't even have a problem.”
I couldn't respond, I was still drinking. It was going down slow. Its not that it tasted unusually bad, it was just that I didn't seem to want it very much. Was I dehydrated? I started thinking about water to see if it would make me thirsty. Nothing. I crushed the empty can in my hand.
“I don't know, man. I just can't drink tonight.”
“Well, you better get over it bitch, because I leave for school tomorrow. We gotta do this as big as possible tonight.” Ben stood up and threw his empty beer can into the open grass of the Elementary School baseball diamond. “We're going over to Kate's.”
I didn't respond. I didn't want to go, but the circumstances obligated me.
“Her parents are out of town. She says she's not having a lot of people over, but you know how her house gets.”
I did know, and it was for that very reason that I didn't want to go. “Yeah.”
“I just hope Kenny and Brian aren't gonna be there,” Ben said, reaching into his pocket for the next beer.
“Yeah, man, I know what you mean. She's not still friends with them is she?” He tossed the beer into my lap. I hesitated for only a second before picking it up and cracking it open.
“Nah, I don't think so.”
I knew she was. He knew she was. He was just trying to make me feel better about going over there. I get uncomfortable at parties really easily. He knew that, too.
“Good,” I said, pretending I believed him. The faint white blur of the Sun could be seen masked behind a thousand gray clouds above us. And the sun is so far away.
I took a sip from the newly opened can. At forty cents a can, I didn't expect much as far as taste goes, but I also didn't want to cringe with every sip. I suddenly found myself chugging again.
“I hope Stacey's up there. When we were over at Heidi's a couple weeks ago, I'm pretty sure I coulda beat.”
This time I spoke up. “Yeah, right, man. You say that every time you're around Stacey.”
“That's 'cause I'm pretty sure I can beat every time.”
“Then why haven't you?”
“Just keep getting cock blocked man!” he crushed his newly emptied can and threw it off in the direction of his last. “Gotta keep that grass littered, man.”
“Someone has to do it,” I said dryly. Fuck what is wrong with me tonight?
“When do you want to go over there?” Ben asked me, trying to find words to fill this silence.
“Well,” I said, putting my beer down, “It's four thirty right now. I don't think we're in any kind of a rush.”
“True,” he said. He spat on the ground in front of us. “What do you wanna do til then?”
“Fuck it, man, drink.” I knew it was what he wanted to hear. I saw him hold back a smile.
“Call Paul up, man.” he said, trying to regain his composure.
“You call him.”
“No way, man, I don't have any minutes.” He never had any minutes.
“Fine. But let's walk down to the bridge, man.”
“Alright.”
I got to my feet and pulled out my phone while Ben went to his car to grab the remnants of the twelve pack we had been drinking. It was a small park where the kids would play after school. Where I had played when I went to this school. There was a path that led down into the woods and out to a field where everyone would come to walk their dogs on nice days. This wasn't a nice day.
Most of the trees here still bore their summer colors, unadulterated by winter's coming force. Between the parking lot and the small wooden bridge over an even small stream, I convinced our lazy friend Paul to come to meet us. “He's coming,” I said, flipping my phone closed again. We were on the pale wooden boards of the bridge now. I could see on the side banister the place where I had scratched my name into with a pocket knife when I was twelve. It was worn now, and the sharpness of its lines had been softened by the years of rain and snow, but it was still visible. Is this like me?
I spat into the river. Water levels were high. It had been raining all week. A line of rocks stuck out over the top of the moving water. Rocks that my friends and I had placed there when I was ten. A bridge to the only section of the entire forest we had never explored. And our bridge was still there. Of course, the gap between one side and the other looks much smaller now, but then again, so does the whole forest. Experience has ruined my sense of awe.
I tossed more beer into the back of my throat.
“When's he coming?” Ben asked, picking up a stick he found on the other side of the real bridge.
“Dude, I don't know, it's Paul.”
“Good point.” There was a brief silence. “We're going to need more beer.”
“Yeah.”
“You got money?”
“Yeah.”
“Okay, what do you want to get?”
“I don't know man, we'll worry about it later. Plus we'll have to call Kate and see if she needs anything.”
“True.” Another small silence. “Wait, when did you say Paul was going to get here?”
Fuck you, Ben. I know you remember the fucking answer. “I don't know.”
“Oh yeah. You remember building that bridge?”
“Yeah, I was just thinking about that,” I answered truthfully.
“How long do you think we spent on it?”
“A couple of weeks probably.”
“Hm...” The sound was more of a grunt. “Seems like longer than that.”
“Any longer than a couple of weeks to throw some rocks into a stream and I'd be ashamed of myself.”
Ben gave a short laugh of agreement. “Yeah.”
There's that damn silence again.
The wind grabbed my body again, and trees shook at their impending change. Leaves fell. Not now, not now.
“I can't believe I'm leaving tomorrow.” Ben said, still staring down at the moving water.
“I know, man. It sucks.” That was the truth. Tomorrow marked the beginning of the end. The final days of care free life. Somehow fate had led me back to being stuck here. Stuck at home even after I'd flown away. Two years since I'd left for college, here I was not joining the leaving crowd for the third time out. In all likeliness, most of these people wouldn't be back next summer.
Ben and Paul and Jim and Kate and Ryan. They all had apartments at their respective schools now. With year long leases. But me? I've experienced the real world. I know what the future has in store for me. One year off in New York City trying to pay my own way and go to school at the same time, and I am absolutely terrified of leaving home again. I don't want to grow up. The very thought paralyzes me with fear. And it'll probably work out for all of them.
I realized I was holding an empty can. I crushed it and set it down on the wide wooden railing. “I need another.”
“It's about time, pussy. I'm on number six. What's that for you? Three?”
“Four. I don't know what's wrong, man. I just can't drink. Probably if I just stomach through a couple more it'll start going down like water.” I reached into the opened box at our feet and pulled out my fifth beer.
“Chug that bitch,” Ben said. “I'll do it with you man. But hang on, let me finish this one first.” He threw his head back and finished what was left in his can. He dropped it on the ground and stepped on it, then kicked it into the grass.
Don't you even care that this is our home? You're littering in our own neighborhood. Have a sense of fucking pride.
He reached into the box and pulled out a beer. “Ready? First one to finish gets to hit the other one.” It was obvious he was getting drunk. “One, two, thr-” He cracked his can open and threw it back against his face. Without hesitating, I followed suit, knowing full well I was going to lose.
In what seemed like no more than five seconds, Ben's can was empty and lying in the grass on the opposite side of the stream. My eyes were watering and my stomach hurt. Fuck. Hours passed. Days maybe. When the beer finally ended, I felt ready to fall over. I leaned over and put my hands on my thighs to keep my balance. “Damn, dude, you are a pussy.”
I gave him the finger before letting out a long burp. Better. Much better. “Oh man, I hope it gets easier.”
“What's wrong with you man. You used to drink like a champ. You were like the high school drinking team mascot. Where's that gone?”
“I also used to get laid in high school. Looks like things change.” I wiped the water out of my eyes.
“Dude, you could still get laid if you actually tried. I know tons of other gay guys who would do you.”
“Fuck you, asshole.” Oh, nice comeback.
“But seriously, man. What about Jenifer and Haley. Both of them wanted you this summer, and both times you didn't do it.”
“Man, we've been over this. I'm not gonna fuck some girl knowing full well that she's expecting more out of it. It's... wrong.” Silently, I wondered where in the passed two years this attitude had appeared. Things like that had never stopped me before.
“You're a pussy.”
“And you're a dick.”
“Guess we're made for each other, then!”
My phone rang. I picked it up with one hand, and with the other held up that same middle finger to Ben. I flipped the phone open and put it to my ear. “Yo. Yeah we're just down at the bridge. Alright.” Short and sweet. I hate when people try to stay on the phone after the business they called for is taken care of. Its not that I think of the phone as being too impersonal, after all, I've never minded talking to people online. Its just annoying. I'm pretty sure if I had to hold a keyboard up to my ear when I talked online, I wouldn't like to do that either.
“Was that Paul?”
“Yeah, he just got here.”
“Hey Paul, you faggot!” Ben yelled up the empty path. “Get the fuck down here and drink some beer!”
Moments later, Paul's slender figure appeared making its way down toward us.
“Hey, man,” I said, reaching down to grab him a beer.
“What's up,” he responded, taking the can from my hand. “How long ya'll been out here?”
“About an hour,” I said.
“What? It's been an hour?! Dude what time is it?” Ben took out his phone to check for himself. “Oh shit, man. I was supposed to meet up with Kevin at five at the mall.”
“Meet him where?” Paul asked.
“I mean, I was supposed to pick him up! Oh shit, I have like six missed calls. Yo, call Kevin for me.”
“God dammit, Ben.” I took out my phone again and found Kevin in my phone. “Hey, man. Yeah he's here. He's kinda drunk though-”
“I'm not drunk you fuckin homo!”
“Okay, he's not drunk,” I lied, “You still need a ride home? Okay, we'll be there in like, ten minutes.” I hung up the phone. “Ben you're an idiot. Paul you're giving us a ride to the mall.”
“Why me?”
“Because you're the only one here who hasn't been drinking.”
“God dammit. Fine. Ben, don't drink in my car.”
“Alright I won't.” Ben said. We all knew he was lying.
The drive to the mall was short, no more then ten minutes. The turns on the road didn't seem to do much for Ben's deteriorating sobriety. When we parked, he tried to get out of the car with his seatbelt on. “Man, I hate these fucking things!” he said, unbuckling it and hopping out. “Lets go.”
“Alright, Ben, now that we have your permission, let's go,” Paul said sarcastically.
“Fuck you.”
Years ago, we had reluctantly made the mall our sort of center. Where we went when there was absolutely nothing else to do. Where we would eat when we scrounged some money together. Where we shopped when we went through our punk phase. Years ago. Recently, though, it had become the very place where we came to scrounge money. And scrounge was the right word for it, as none of the jobs we ever got here paid much money. But we were teenagers, and we were willing to settle. We were teenagers.
The very thought still felt odd to me. Except for the fact that I still have to run when the cops come if I'm drinking, I was officially an adult now. I burped again.
“Hey you think Ashley's gonna be in there?” Ashley worked with Kevin as a retailer, and Ben had always had a crush on her. You couldn't blame him, though, she was pretty much the crush of the entire mall.
“Maybe, man. Why, ya gonna 'beat' her, too?” I said, mocking his earlier choice of words.
“She wants it.” Ben said, half seriously.
“Everyone wants it in your eyes, man,” Paul said.
“If you believe it to be so, then it will be so,” Ben responded, mimicking the voice of an imaginary Sensei.
“You're retarded,” Paul said.
“No, you're just sober!” Ben laughed back.
I looked at Ben with a quiet sense of envy. His life seemed stable. He knew what he was doing. An engineer in the works. And he still had it in him to act the way we did in high school. Me? I just pretended. Of course, it became a lot more real when I got drunk, but what do you expect from something that completely desensitizes you?
It wasn't maturity, I knew that much. He wasn't still able to be happy as the retarded drunk kid from high school because he had never matured, because he had. In almost every other sense of who Ben is, he was 'mature'. He had his life together. He knew what he wanted, where he wanted to go.
Me? I was a tornado of ideas, all of them being thrown violently against each other before crashing to the ground fruitlessly. That was me. Not a weather worn post. Not my bridge of rocks. But something violent and terrible and chaotic. Time doesn't tickle me the way it softens the edges of a rock or the lines of an engraving. It twists me and turns me and pulls me. And I fight it.
We walked through the mall doors and found our way into a video game store next to the escalators. There was Kevin in his corporate little costume of blue and green, forcing the ugliest smile we'd ever seen as he waved a pair of customers off. When his eyes caught a hold of us, the hideousness of the feigned smile had been replaced by one of genuine happiness.
“Jesus,” he called out across the small store, “You're finally here. You pricks took forever.”
“Yeah, you can thank Ben for that,” Paul said, giving him a slight push as he spoke.
“It's not my fault your dumb ass doesn't have a car, Kevin!” came Ben's well thought out rebuttal.
“I do have a car, it's just broken, and you can't curse here, man. Corporate doesn't allow it.”
“Fuck corporate!” Another Nobel Prize winning response from Ben.
“Dude why are you working anyway? I thought you got off like.. an hour ago,” I said to Kevin.
“Yeah, well, I figured if I'm here, I might as well be getting paid for it, right?”
“True, that. Well punch out mother fucker. Let's go!” I guess this is where the alcohol had begun to enter my brain.
“God, dude, seriously, you can't curse, this store's not that big, my manager is right behind that door.”
“Yeah whatever, pussy. Let's go.” Paul's word, in this rare case, was final.
Kevin disappeared behind the door behind him and reappeared a moment later with a sour look on his face. “Man, my manager just yelled at me because you guys were cursing.”
Ben didn't waste a second to answer this invite. “Fuck, shit ass, cunt, sweat-”
“Sweat?” Dude, that's not a curse word.” Kevin said it, but we were all thinking it.
“Fuck you.”
“Whatever, let's go.” Paul led the way back out of the mall, through the parking lot, and into his now fully packed car.
Chiming in with the sound of the last door closing came the metallic crack of a beer can being cracked open. Ben, to my right in the back seat, had decided not to waste the time putting his seat belt on and gone right into putting a beer to his mouth. “Give me one.” I said, suddenly eying the blue can with a newfound thirst. Ben reached around to the trunk without removing the can from his face and pulled another can out for me from the now nearly empty box.
Somehow, it was still cold, and before it was opened I could practically taste its dull watery flavor. I could see a distorted image of myself reflected on the shining surface of the aluminum container. I felt the movement of the car push me back against the seat. I opened my beer, took a sip, and looked out the window to watch the trees pass me by.