When we were still in high school, Paul Benson always had parties in the woods behind his house. Any given weekend, if the weather was good, you could drive up to the Fifth Avenue Bank parking lot which bordered on the back side of Paul’s property. There would always be a line of junky cars parked near the trail which led up about a quarter of a mile to the sand pit where we used to set up camp. Years before, they used to be two-track trails and once in a while, some interloper would get in his head that he could drive up the trail to cut out on the walking distance. We used to laugh when they got stuck in a washed out portion of the one big uphill spot. If they left their truck there overnight, people would always chuck empty bottles at the vehicle. Sometimes they would break windows but mostly the glass that littered the ground was from broken containers. I never took part in the action. I’ve never been much into committing random acts of destruction.
One night I took my mom’s car out and told her that I was going to meet up with my friend Stephen who worked at the movie theater. They used to have employee preview nights where they show a new film to the crew as a midnight showing. She told me to be home by 2 a.m. and I told her that I would unless the movie ran a little long.
At the bank lot, I parked next to Jake Shamlin’s car. He and Paul were standing there smoking a joint. We generally kept a low profile when we hung around back there. We never worried too much though because where we parked was a part of the lot a developer had paved for a medical complex whose construction never came to fruition. So our spot was far enough back from the road where no passers by could see.
I asked Paul what they were waiting around down here for. We got a few girls coming around who have never partied here before, Paul said. Plus we didn’t want to pass this good stuff around to all the fuckers up there, Jake added. I reached out to take a drag myself, but Jake rebuffed me saying- if we wouldn’t share with the fuckers up there, what makes you think we’d share with one down here? Screw you guys, I said. Then Jake did pass it to me because I guess he was really just kidding. We finished the joint and then I walked solo up the trail towards the bonfire.
If you hung out and drank with Paul often enough you were able to take advantage of certain benefits. One of them was that you got your own designated lawn chair to store with a motley collection of others in the back of the abandoned van we used for storage. Nobody of deficient status messed with anything in the van. Paul made sure of that. If anyone broke the code and scavenged something they did not have rights to, they would be party to wither a scream-down from Paul, or a knock-down from Paul. Either response was determined by his mood on that night. His temper was legendary and his vengeance was swift and mostly irrevocable. He was the kind of guy you always needed to have on your side.
I was sitting in my own red and yellow cross woven folding chair when Paul and Jake came up out of the woods with the girls following behind them. There were five of them and I remember thinking that their drive here must have been cramped and overly chatty. Four of them were bouncing around like excited molecules over a burner. The fifth one stayed behind them a bit nursing a bottle of tequila. She seemed to be taking everything in. Not just the general atmosphere of the party, but every individual face, comment, and motion given off into the dark air. I tried not to move, to be subtle while I stared at her face. My subterfuge was hopeless. She locked eyes with me and caused me to awkwardly shift back to my conversation with the guy sitting next to me. I think I made some offhand comment praising Paul for bringing some diversity to the night’s events.
A while later, I ended up talking to the girl with the tequila. She asked me if I came here often and I replied that I was here often enough to have my own chair in the van. I was still a little bit stoned from the joint we smoked earlier so I think I forgot to explain to her the significance of that fact. What do you think about Paul, I asked, he’s pretty crazy huh? I don’t really know him, she said, but he seems like he’s kind of a loser. I never should have asked her to go down to the parking lot to smoke with me, but I did, and she said she would, so I guess things had to happen the way they did.
We decided to sit and smoke in the back of Paul’s Jeep because I wanted to have no trace odors left in my mom’s sedan. Plus, Paul never locked his Jeep. Back then I could not roll a joint to save my life, so I always carried around a glass pipe. When she saw my piece she became fascinated by it and took it from my hands with a subtle brush from her fingertips. She admired it in the glow of the dome light like it was an exquisite piece of jewelery. I was so distracted by her fingers running up and down the smooth length of the pipe I forgot that I was supposed to be breaking up one of the buds. Thankfully, she handed it back to me saying that she thought it was beautiful. I packed the bowl and we turned the dome light off to smoke.
Once we finished, I began putting my paraphernalia away in my backpack. I sensed her watching me, paying rapt attention to what I was doing. I would look up and meet her gaze for a second and smile. She would just hold my eyes captive and give off that same knowing and amused expression she had worn for most of the night. I have no idea whether it was just the weed or the truly hypnotic effect of her doe eyes staring through me in the dark, but I knew I wanted her very badly. The next time I looked up at her I said something very uncouth like: I think I really like you. Then she leaned in and kissed me once. It was not a quick peck, nor was it a sloppy open mouth affair, but rather a full bodied supple two-second smooch. I went hard immediately, but there would be no reprieve until after I got home. She simply leaned back in her seat and said, that was nice.
We got out of the car and walked back up to the sand pit. Me with my backpack held low in front of me and her floating on ahead singing snippets of the Rolling Stones. It’s just a shout away, it’s just a kiss away.
After that night I tried to find out who she was. Paul claimed to not even remember her at all. Like she was just an apparition passing in the night. I pressed him to give me one of her friends’ phone numbers, but he muttered something about how he could not have me calling them because something had gone weird with one of them that night.
Sorry man, but don’t worry about it too much, those Rockport girls are just a bunch of sluts anyways. That was his final word on the matter.
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Good writing, but I had trouble connecting with the protagonist and agreed with Paul that the “Rockport girls are just…sluts anyways.” There is lots of detail about everything around the protagonist, but not that much about him. If that character was developed more this would be a much more interesting read.d
“before, they used” – there used
“no passers by” – no passer by (no is singular)
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Dude… Here I am sitting at my desk, Why? is pouring out of the speakers on my iPod, and all I’m thinking about is how this feels like you’re telling the story to a few close friends over a case of cheap domestic beer by a fire pit in someone’s backyard.
Definately a talent worth shaping. Now just cultivate it.
This was a very interesting beginning, and I stress beginning because I wanted it to go further and for something to actually happen. This is really just a picture you’ve painted (a very good one) with some interesting and well-drawn characters but not really a story. I think you need to make it twice as long – who is the mystery girl? Does Paul try to take her from the narrator? Does something disrupt the parties and end them? Does the real or adult world intrude? I would suggest you don’t make it a murder or horror story though.
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It was a little difficult to read due to dialog errors. For example:
We got a few girls coming … needs quotation marks
Plus we didn’t want …also, needs quotations as well as new paragraph since it is a new speaker
The story seems straightforward enough, but could use a bit of character development. Your narrator to be specific. He seems flat. You spend a lot of time referring to Paul, but it doesn’t seem to go anywhere.
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