Cereal 9: Surfin' Safari

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Nine: Surfin’ Safari

Paul was hangin’ on the porch with several dozen of his closest friends. It was time to hang ten; Time to porch surf. He was all liquored up and ready to go, in that perfect state between absolute recklessness and large motor skill deficiency that favored bar fights. He straddled the rail, and slowly tried to stand, sticking his tongue out in order to better concentrate on the task at hand. He stood. He was supercool, he was superman. The porch, which was not concentrating, gave way almost immediately. He fell face first into the beer line.

"Hi," said Paul to the person he landed on. He didn’t know who it was. His eyes were closed; he figured if he didn’t see himself being a dumbass, he’d feel less like one.

"Mmmph," said the person Paul fell on. "Paul, is that you, you bastard?"

"Motherfucker… sorry, out of it. Hope you’re OK… Saved my fucking life, et cetera et cetera." He felt around. "Cynthia? Is that you?" He felt around some more. Definitely Cynthia. "Have you lost weight?"

"Paul get your hands off my tits before I kick your ass."

Paul did as he was told, cracking his eyelids open to survey the damage.

"You wrecked my tights you asshole."

Paul blinked.

"Get OFF me."

Blink blink. "You smell really good."

She flipped him with an ease that told Paul that she had taken Women’s self defense classes since they had last tangled. Paul was pinned to the ground with Cynthia atop him.

"Did I tell you how good you smell? You smell damn good." He batted his eyelashes.

"Do you have something in your eye?"

"Paul, what the HELL do you think you’re doing? I’m glad to see that you could make it to your own birthday party." Sloane whipped the pliers out of her dreads and yanked Paul out from under Cynthia by the roots of his bedheadded hair.

"OW. I live here. There’s a party? Is it my birthday? I thought my birthday was in the spring."

"Jesus," said Sloane and Cynthia simultaneously, rolling their eyes.

"JINX! Buy me a Coke!" said Paul.

"They must’ve put some extra special dope in you birthday boy, ‘cause you’re almost never THIS stupid," Cynthia muttered.

"Come on moron. We have a party to play." Sloane yanked on Paul’s hair for added emphasis.

Paul noticed for the first time that he, Cynthia, and Sloane were in the middle of what appeared to be a beer line in front of the Firetrap.

"It’s a party. I LIKE parties," said Paul, brightly. "Oh, hi Sloane, hi Cynthia, when did you get here?"

Sloane was fuming. "Cynthia, do you think you could walk him around for a while?" I need to help set up."

"Fuck that shit. I’ve been in line for twenty minutes. I want a beer."

Sloane released Paul’s hair and grabbed the scruff of his black polyester shirt with her pliers, yanking him up the front steps and inside the house.

"Are we going somewhere?"

"HEY LESLIE!"

"What Sloane"

"Could you set up for me?"

"Only if you give me some gas money?"

"Sure fine."

"Paul, where’s your bass?"

"Bass all gone."

"What?" She dropped her pliers and started scrambling for them. Clearly she wasn’t prepared for this eventuality.

"It wasn’t my fault, It was my evil ex-roommate. I swear. You can ask anyone who lives on campus. Big fire, no more bass." Sloane was wielding the pliers again. Paul cringed. "You won’t hurt me?"

"Can you, like, sing or something?"

"Tone deaf."

"Do you have any other musical talent whatsoever?"

"Uh, I can make a kazoo out of a comb and a piece of wax paper," offered Paul hopefully.

Sloane sighed. "I suppose I don’t really have much of a choice. Either I could kick your ass or let you play kazoo. If it wasn’t your birthday, I’d kick your ass. Keep that in mind." She tucked the pliers back into her hair and pulled out a comb.

"Yay!"

Sloane grabbed Paul’s hand and yanked him into the kitchen.

"Must be a good party. The floor is all sticky," said Paul. He started weaving and waving at partygoers. "Glad you could make it." "Nice to see you here." "Keep up the good work." They gave him a special half smiling, half disapproving look that said "I’m glad I’m not as fucked up as you are."

Sloane started digging through the kitchen drawers, one by one.

"Sloane, why are you looking through kitchen drawers? There’s no beer in them. The beer is outside. We should be outside, with the beer."

"Paul," she said sweetly, obviously wanting to kick his ass, "Where is the wax paper?"

"It’s in the freezer."

"You’re kidding."

"No." He opened the freezer. It held a couple of lidless, half-eaten pints of Ben and Jerry’s, about two dozen copies of the Fortean Times, and a squished roll of wax paper. "See, there it is, under the stack of Fortean Timeses."