The Poet : Chapter 19 (The Party)

 

NINETEEN

(The Party)

 

Too many of us were packed into Larissa’s little living room. It felt more like a campus takeover than a holiday party. People were cramped into corners. Nude “art” photo poetess from the Demon Phone reading had a closet door open and was sitting inside of it reading poetry of all fucking things. I was sweating up a storm. The goddamned heater was on even though it was in the sixties outside. The knob on the thing was stuck, and no one could get it to budge. We had the windows open, letting the noise from the BQE mix with the shitty poetry and shitty music playing on a retro turntable. Outside the Flaming Red Dragons were playing kickball or committing murder, or doing whatever gangs of similarly clad teenagers did in the void of the week between Christmas and New Year’s. Their exuberant voices mixed with ours and added a certain deviant element to the night.

            I was feeling low. I always felt low at the end of the year. But I shouldn’t have been feeling low. I had a kinky girlfriend and I could pay my bills on time. I’d had worse years. The writing still wasn’t coming. I was stuck on that opening phrase and had little else to go on Goddamn Carolina and her novel! The poetry rags had all decided en masse to send rejection emails to yours truly. One editor called me Bukowski-light and another rejected my poems because I had poems previously published in a journal that he found problematic. So therefore, I was problematic. And I found another stack of my poems at work; this time in the staff room just sitting there for all to read at our Christmas party. Everyone but Willy who’d called off three days straight. Thankfully, I got them before anyone else had a look. Aside from all else, the orange-faced billionaire seemed to hover over everything like a polluted cloud. Apparently once elected his first act was to make us all say Merry Christmas to each other. Hazel was in bliss.

            “Do I look like a boss to you?” I asked Gigi.

            “I’m surprised you have a job most days,” she said. Gigi was wearing a black Christmas sweater with Rudolph’s big drunken deer nose on it. The party was supposed to be one of those ugly Holiday sweater parties. Everyone was in one but Killian, Jackson and me. Half the people in the place looked ready to pass out from the heat. Even Gigi was turning pink behind her usually porcelain veneer.

             Larissa looked over from her gaggle of assorted hipsters, just as I killed vodka and club soda numero tres. She was in some kind of winter solstice sweater. “What are you two talking about?”

            Gigi rolled her eyes. “Rand is concerned he’s becoming corporate.”

            “Oh, Rand, not Willy again.”

            “Yes, Willy again,” I said. “The man accused me of not being a man of the people.”

            “You don’t even like people, Wyndham,” Jackson said.

            “You accused me of the same thing.”

            “You called me poor little rich boy…and you keep calling me Reggie Jackson.”

            “Your inability to recognize your birthright will be your undoing,” I said.

            “And why are you even worried about this guy?” Larissa asked. She left her fan club to come over and sit with me near that nefarious radiator and the constant cackling and wails from the gang members outside.

            “I’m not worried about him,” I said. “At least not really. I’m worried about me. If I’m not a man of the people what in the hell am I? I could teach a course on harassing bosses. I could write novels. I could…”

            “Why don’t you then, pal?” Killian asked. “Write a novel.”

            ‘I’m stuck on a line.”

            “And the dog across the street,” Gigi said. “And the fornicating couple upstairs. And the guy who plays 1980s music to drown them out.”

            “You try being creative with She’s Like the Wind consistently stuck in your head.”

            “Excuses, excuses, Wyndham,” Jackson said.

I left those dime-store critics to refill my drink. The narrow hallway and kitchen were just as packed. People were in Larissa’s and Millicent’s bedrooms and a whole load of them were in the kitchen surrounding the shitty vegan food and cooler full of burnt-toast tasting beer. Todd-de-de-de was wearing a red and green sweater with a sown-on cat that said “meowy Christmas.” He was still doing the robot and people were still filming him. How in the hell did they know this many people? Who would want to? But Larissa seemed to collect them as she moved along her day. Artists and assorted hipsters everywhere…but not a drop to drink.

            “Little Bukowski,” Fidel said. His sweater was black and gray and had the words “single and ready to jingle” on it.

            “It’s Bukowski-light now. And where’s my fucking book, man?” I said. As always, he had a group of angelic poetesses hanging around him, all in the same pink sweaters that had a T-Rex on it with a green Santa hat, holding a present. Some men had it and others took the bus home at the end of the night. “I’m serious here…or at least I’m thinking about being serious here. You can’t just pay me off with a picture of my cover in my email. We’re going on over a year here now, Pinochet. You’re lucky I haven’t sought out the big presses, made me some Godfrey Whitt money.”

            “Has it really bee…,” Fidel looked at his watch. “Man…time is just so fucking nuts.”

            “I’m at low ebb,” I said. “I need validation.”

            “Why don’t you look in the mirror,” Millicent Xiao said, from her own gaggle of assorted hipsters who were all wearing fucking snowcaps indoors. She was doing her usual morose bit, being all dressed in black. Her Christmas sweater had Santa Clause hung by a noose. “Oh wait you said validation not depression.”

            I took a look at all of the snowflakes that she’d cut and hung from the ceiling, at the wicker candles she’d made. “Or I can just stand here and look at your shitty art.”

            “Ha.” Millicent spoke it instead of actual laughing. “Like I’m so done being offended by your white, male patriarchy. I’ll remember your insults the next time I pay for my groceries with my art.”

            “Capitalist.”

            “Pat-ri-archy, ya’lls!” Todd-de-de-de shouted.

            “Speaking of that,” I said. “Do I look like a boss to you?”

            “I could see a sexual harassment charge in your future,” Millicent said.

            “You see I got this guy at work and…”

            “I know all about him.” Millicent had some wine and kept her eyes on me. “Larissa speaks of you when you’re not around. It’s irritating. Not only do I have to deal with my own problems and hear about hers…but now I have to make mental space for your little trivialities.”

            Fidel held up his phone. “Little Bukowski I just downloaded a new PDF of your book right now.”

I took my drink and headed back toward the living room. Fuck PDFs. There was a brouhaha over by the living room windows. Larissa was pressed against one screen and yelling, and Gigi and Jackson were pressed against the other doing the same. Assorted hipsters were milling about in their Christmas sweaters, sucking on the last dregs of pumpkin ale and spiced lager, looking like someone had spoiled their good time. Even the shitty music had stopped on the stereo, the only sound being naked “art” photo poetess reading her verse. Her holiday sweater was white with red trim, and had two candy canes tied together with a bow. I could hear voices from the street. Taunting voices. Then something white came up and hit the screen.

Larissa backed away. “Perverts!”

“Show us your titties, Mamacita!” called a voice from down below.

            “Do I even want to know,” I said to Killian.

            “It’s the kids in the street,” he said. “They started throwing something at the window.”

            “Wiffleball,” Jackson said.

            “A wifflebalzzzz ya’lls?” Todd-de-de-de shouted from the archway. “We needs ta winterize this bee-atch. Them cats shouldn’t be playin’ no wiffleball on Santy Clawzes time.”           

“It’s gonna get colder,” Jackson said, and then went back to yelling at the Flaming Red Dragons below.

            Larissa looked out the window then shouted down. “Little punks who think it’s cute to tell women how big their breasts are when they’re just trying to come home from work!”

            “Titties!” Voices called up in unison. Then the white ball went blurring by again.

            I went over to Larissa and we looked down to the street. There were about four of them, all dressed in their little satin red jackets with their little red bandanas on. I opened the screen and stuck my head out just as another wiffleball came sailing by. “Don’t make me come down there,” I shouted down to the little punks. “I got a whole bag of nonsensical, misdirected, pent-up white, male aggression that needs to be emptied on someone.”

            “Fuck you, you drunk bum,” one of the gang members said. Then they all started chanting: Drunk Bum! Drunk Bum!

            “Wow,” Gigi said. “It’s like the drunkard just oozes off of you.”

I killed vodka cuatro and made for the door. “What are you doing?” Larissa asked.

“Kicking ass and taking names,” I said. “At least one of them has to be eighteen, and if I can’t hit Willy Abelman I can at least punch one of those Flaming Red Dragons in the mouth.”

“Violence is always your solution,” Millicent called from the other room.

“Rand, you’re going to get your ass kicked,” Larissa said.

“He’s probably so drunk he won’t feel it,” Gigi said.

“Regardless, I still have to live in this neighborhood.”

“I shan’t be but a moment,” I said.

“Killian,” Larissa said.

“I’ll go with him,” he said.

“I guess I’ll go too,” Jackson said.

“See,” I said, as we made for the door. “Power in numbers.”

“What about me yo?” Todd-de-de-de asked.

“We got it from here, man. Thanks for the service.”

“Witness the patriarchy at work!” Millicent shouted on our way out. “Witness the…”

The Flaming Red Dragons were sitting on the dilapidated brick of the building next door. They were all playing on their gadgets, and fucking with a lawn ornament Santa Claus. One of them was pretending old St. Nick was giving him head. Then they started trying to act tough when me, Killian and Jackson came outside. They got up in unison and started that whole shuffling and bobbing around their shoulders like they were gearing up for a street fight, instead of simulating blow jobs from magical elves. What a bunch of poseurs. They were worse than retail managers and blonde memoirists with ten thousand Twitter followers.

“You fuckers got a problem?” I asked.

            “The fuck you say, dude?” one of the Dragons said. He started walking toward me.

            “Wait. You got any kind of firearm? This is America so I feel compelled to ask. You never know where disciples of the NRA are lurking.”

            “Mom won’t let me carry one…yet.”

Then he stopped. He couldn’t have been more than thirteen. In fact, all of them looked young….and multicultural. There was a Hispanic dragon. There was a black Flaming Red Dragon and an Asian one. The white one was the one in corn rows and thick gold chains, playing irritatingly poppy rap out of his phone. “This some sort of urban gang diversity movement? I’ll have you know I’m steering clear of identity politics until the New Year.”

But then Hispanic Dragon pointed down at my feet. “Look, dude’s wearing combat boots.”

            The other Dragons laughed. So much for intellectual discourse. They put away their gadgets and started chanting. “Combat Boots!  Combat Boots!” 

            I hadn’t knowingly been made fun of by teenagers in twenty years. As I remembered it, it was a helpless, miserable feeling. I was glad to not be a teenager in the era of social networking. I would’ve been one of the suicide statistics. I didn’t even like it when someone called me a Bukowski rip-off in rejection letters and the comments section of some online rag. The shitty black boots were the outcome of a shopping spree in Union Square with Larissa. Fucking Sketchers Megastore. Fucking urban gentrification.

I looked at Killian and Jackson. They frowned. They wanted to be back inside with pumpkin ales and spiced beer. A part of me already missed the vodka bottle. “I don’t like you assholes harassing the ladies on this street,” I said.

            “Fuck you, nigga,” The White Dragon said.

“Ni…? I looked at the wiffleball paraphernalia on the street and then at the Flaming Red Dragons. “I have a proposition for you.”

“You some kind of fag?” The Black Dragon asked.

            “We play you in wiffleball. We win you leave the ladies on this street alone. No asking them to show their titties. No more comments about asses.”

             The Flaming Red Dragons started chanting and yelling. Titties! Titties! It was enough for some of the good neighbors to look outside their windows and doors. But I didn’t give a shit. I didn’t like neighbors, even ones that weren’t mine. I especially hated neighbors when the fucking hypocrites decorated for Christmas; all that glittery plastic and fake sentiment from plastic people who’d narc you out to the landlord or cops in a New York minute if you so much as drank a beer in the laundry room before noon while waiting for your boxers to dry. Trust me, I knew.

“Um, I haven’t played wiffleball in over twenty years,” Killian said.

             “And I was picked last for it in gym class,” Jackson added. “I really don’t feel like reliving that drama with these little assholes.”

            “Guess you know what tomorrow morning’s poem is, Reggie Jackson.”

            “Yeah, Drunken Asshole in the Twilight of the Last American Year, inspired by Rand Wyndham.”

“Yo combat boots, we playin’ this shit or what?” White Flaming Red Dragon shouted. He held that narrow, yellow wiffleball bat menacingly in his hands. All hail the holy terror of the cultural appropriator.

“Of course, we’re playing this shit, piss ants,” I said.

“That’s good, Wyndham,” Jackson said. “Make them angrier.”

“I suppose it’s not too late to buy Larissa and Millicent that Christmas bottle of pepper spray,” Killian said.

On cue Larissa’s screen opened. “Rand, what in the hell are you doing?” She shouted.

            “Wyndham has no clue what he’s doing,” Jackson answered.

            I had sort of a clue what I was doing. Those little gangsters had suddenly become my enemies. They weren’t Flaming Red Dragons with their little satin jackets anymore. They’d morphed into the years and years of kids picking on yours truly in school. They were whatever asshole at work was printing my poems. Or Willy making me feel like shit. They were a succession of my own shitty bosses. Those Flaming Red Dragons were bill collectors, chatty jerks in the bar, bartenders who never gave a guy a buyback; the orange-faced asshole running for president on his xenophobic, sexist, bigoted platform. They were future date-rapists. It was time to settle the score.

“Batter up, Combat Boots,” Black Dragon said. He took the bat from White Dragon and kicked it toward me. Then they took the field with the Asian one pitching.

I tried giving the bat to Jackson but he wouldn’t take it. “I ain’t battin’ first.”

“I’m giving you carte blanche as lead-off man,” I said. “If by some Christmas miracle you get on base, Killian or I can knock you home.”

“This is a dumb idea.”

“Unless you’re Einstein or the person who invented the microwave and air conditioning, most ideas are dumb.” I leaned over and put a hand on Jackson’s shoulder. Another bonding moment. “This is you standing up for yourself and don’t you forget it. This is your golden moment. This is you claiming your name and telling all those bullies and small press editors of the world who forced the nom de plume Urban upon you that you aren’t taking any more of their shit.”

“Your breath stinks,” Jackson said. “Use mouthwash before you kiss Larissa next time.” He took the bat from me and started slowly walking toward the rock the Flaming Red Dragons put down to signify home plate. “This is me going to make an ass out of myself.”

“At least you’re not reading poetry, Reg.”

Jackson struck out in the three pitches. Of course, he did. The first two were high and tight, and I guess he swung because he thought Asian Dragon was going to hit him. The third pitch was lobbed in underhanded just to dig the knife in deeper. Jackson slammed the wiffle bat down and then slumped onto a stoop to play on his phone while the Dragons all laughed.

“Guess it’s my turn to play the fool,” Killian said.

“Pretend these little pricks are stealing graphic novels from you,” I said.

“I don’t have a graphic novel section anymore, but thanks for the advice coach.”

Killian went down on three pitches and then joined Jackson on our cracked concrete dugout. It was my turn to bat. I did so to a chorus of Combat Boots!  Combat Boots! Even Gigi, Millicent and Todd-de-de-de were shouting it from the window. I thought for sure I’d get a pitch and ram it right down the White Dragon’s throat. But I whiffed on the first two pitches. On the third I swung and my ankle gave because of those fucking boots, and maybe the four double vodkas.

“Ouchtown, bra,” I heard Todd-de-de-de shout, as I fell to the ground in blinding pain.

I wanted to roll on my side and die. But I couldn’t show weakness, so I crawled away as we changed sides. Somehow, I managed to get back up on two feet, no thanks to Jackson or Killian, who had taken the field like two petulant children.

            “Did you have a nice trip in the fall, Combat Boots,” Hispanic Dragon said to me.

            “Seriously, kid, go buy an insult book or something,” I said. “Your jokes are as old as the cobwebs inside your mother’s hole.”

            He concurred by giving me the finger.

            “Obviously we’re not the ’27 Yankees,” I said to the guys, as I limped to the pitcher’s mound. I walked around to try and get my ankle straight. But the fucker was killing me to no end. It would be worse when the booze numbness wore off. “I’m going to throw them some smoke.”

            “Or fall on your face again,” Jackson said. He put his head down.

            It was then that Larissa, Gigi, Millicent, and a pack of assorted hipster types came out of the building and huddled on the sidewalk in their Christmas sweaters. I looked at Larissa and shrugged. She frowned. We’d only been together what? Two months? And already I was getting frowns. 

“Why are you doing this tonight, Rand?”  She finally asked.

            “Because someone ate all the pizza squares,” I said. “They were my only source of sustenance with all that vegan food. I’m hangry, as the kids say these days.”

            “But the party…”

            “Parties take a back seat to sexism and hunger.”

            “Since when do you care about sexism?” Millicent said.

            “Since some shitty artist harassed me about the patriarchy….and ate all the pizza squares instead of her precious vegan food.”

            “Honey, you don’t have to do this if you don’t want to,” Gigi said to Jackson.

            “I’m just here to see if Wyndham has a heart attack,” he said. “Dude is sweating up a storm.”

            “We playin’ ball or what?” Black Dragon yelled. He was batting lead-off.

            “Keep your pants on, Mary,” I said.

            “Yo, put me in coach,” Todd-de-de-de said.

            “Why is that man even here this evening?” I said to no one.

            Larissa walked over to me. It bought the ankle time. But in that moment, I might’ve realized how dumb I was being…about all of it. “Rand, what are you going to do after this? Escort me home every night? Challenge the guys that harass me on the subway to an arm-wrestling match? Troll all the tough guy, dude-bro poets who call me a cunt on Twitter? Why don’t you come to my next yoga class and challenge the guy who’s secretly taking photos of my ass to a duel.”

            “I...”

            “This is a losing battle. We’ll all still wake up in the same shitty world tomorrow with the orange-faced billionaire calling us all bimbos and whores, some guy on the bus telling me that I’m much prettier when I smile, and those little pricks telling every woman on this street to show their tits because that’s what their daddies did before them.”

            “I had a guy call me a tramp today on the F train for wearing fishnets,” one of the assorted hipsters said. “

“And those Twitter and Facebook trolls?” Gigi said. “I didn’t know there were like so many ways for guys to call me a slut or a whore because I stated an opinion about a Batgirl comic.”

 “Like assholes telling me how pretty I am or trying to touch me,” Larissa added.

“On trains, on the street, in bars, in restaurants, in bookstores, in….” Millicent started.

“Or worse, another assorted hipster girl started. “Like when a guy hits on me and I don’t respond. Suddenly I’m a cunt or a bitch, or they simply don’t get it, or I have to tell them that I have boyfriend, or have one of my male friends pretend that he’s, my boyfriend.”

“I pretends,” Todd-de-de-de said. “Sos the harassment ends.”

            Everyone got silent. “Titties bitch,” White Dragon finally shouted.

“Then I’m not just doing this for you guy, but for all of the women out there,” I said. I wiped my brow. Christ I really was sweating. My heart was thumping too. Jackson might’ve been right about that impending heart attack. And here I thought I’d always die on the shitter at the job. “I’m doing this for the women getting harassed by Flaming Red Dragons and other assorted misogynistic pricks. I’m doing it for the women getting beat up by the government. The ones whose poetry books are sitting in limbo, while novels about them are being written. Ma, wherever they’s a cop beatin’ up a guy I’ll be…”

            “I’m too tired for Steinbeck tonight.” Larissa sighed. “Just please stop this. Please stop pissing off the world and come back inside.”

            “Play…Ball…Combat Boots!” Asian Dragon yelled.

            Larissa looked down at my shoes. “They’re fashion boots,” she snapped back.

            “Duty calls,” I said.

            Larissa put her hands up and backed away. She went back to the hipster huddle and started kvetching loudly with Gigi. It would be an awkward and lonely night for Randall E. Wyndham if I didn’t deliver. Maybe even if I did. She was right about all of it. One little wiffleball game to stave off hundreds of years of the patriarchy, pitched by a hapless patriarch himself. But what to do? Flashes went off. People were filming, their ubiquitous cell phone lights illuminating the street like we were at a Springsteen show. Todd-de-de-de tried to start the wave. Our fans. I went back to the mound. I could tell that the ankle was swelling. I wouldn’t have as much on the ball as I’d like, but judging by those Dragons a little heat could go a long way. Or so I thought.

Black Dragon took my first pitch and knocked it under a silver Ford Focus parked across the street. It was a ground rule double because Killian had to get on all fours to retrieve the ball. His long legs squirming as he tried getting underneath. The Flaming Red Dragons all laughed. Not an auspicious start. The next batter, White Dragon, drilled one that Jackson misplayed at second. There were two on, no out, and Hispanic Dragon coming to bat.

            I hobbled over to Jackson. “Next time use your hands and not your face,” I said.

            “You might suck worse than I do,” he said. “Couldn’t we, like, pay these little fuckers off or something?”

            “You don’t have enough money,” Black Dragon said from his perch on second.

“I’m having high school PTSD,” Killian said.

            “And this whole night is like a trigger warning for not hanging out with you, Wyndham,” Jackson said.

            “Rand, what’s wrong with your ankle?” Larissa shouted. When had she looked up from her cell phone?

            “Fashion boot war injury, dear,” I said, using the only pet name that I could come up with.

I went back to the mound. I got into one of those bent over and pensive stances. I stared down Hispanic Dragon. Then I leaned back and let a slippery one go.  The kid missed it. I breathed a sigh of relief. I looked over at our fans and I winked. Larissa gave a half-hearted fist pump. Gigi rolled her eyes and went back to playing on her phone. At least some of the hipsters had stopped filming us, and went back to filming Todd-de-de-de as he tried to moonwalk. If I got fifteen minutes of fame I sure as fuck didn’t want it to be this.

            “Throw some heat, oligarch!” Millicent shouted.

I turned to the guys to let them know we had this. Jackson was still standing there with his arms crossed, but Killian’s head had perked up a little on that pitch. He got into a stance, which could’ve been good, except Hispanic Dragon knocked the next pitch right up his nose. The ball smacked off Killian’s face. He spun and danced like Mike Tyson had drilled him. Millicent acted like Tyson had. Larissa had to hold her from running into the street. Had I been missing something between the two of them? Soon Killian shook it off. But I felt him seething.  Everyone was safe. The bases were loaded with no outs for Asian Dragon. Random laughter echoed up and down the street.

            “You sure you played this game before, Combat Boots?” Asian Dragon said, swinging away like he thought he was Babe Ruth or something. “I’m so gonna jerk off to your bitch tonight, dude.”

            “What did he say?” Larissa shouted.

I got Asian Dragon with a high and tight fast ball. I got him with a second high and tight fastball, and the goon looked like he was going to cry. Let him jerk off to his own sister. Three men on and no outs was obviously too much pressure for him. My ankle felt like it had a ton of steel resting on the flesh and bone. I couldn’t keep throwing the heat. So, I figured I’d throw a change-up and be done with this little shit.

I leaned in. It was just me and Asian Dragon in the moment. I eyed the douche bag and he eyed me. I needed to bring the heat. I did… and he drove that pitch so far down the street that it seemed destined to take up residence in the Gowanus Canal. Jackson stopped running for it after he looked back and noticed that all four Dragons were celebrating at home plate.

            “Four to nothing, Combat Boots!” Black Dragon said.

            “I can count,” I said. I was officially at wit’s end.

It took Jackson forever to bring me the ball. “Just letting you know, Wyndham,” he said. “I’m getting about done with this shit. I’m giving you a few more minutes then I’m going inside, getting a glass of wine, snuggling up with Gee and putting on some Anthony Hamilton.”

            “I second Jackson,” Killian said. “Especially about the Anthony Hamilton.”

            “Come on,” I said. “Are we not men?”

            “I already went through this phase of my life. So, what if they threw a wiffleball at the window. If we hadn’t come out here, they would’ve forgotten about us by now.”

            “Oh, so it’s okay that Larissa…that Millicent…gets called names on the way home to her own damned apartment…or that Gigi gets harassed online by Sci-fi nerds.”

            “That’s not what Killian means, Wyndham,” Jackson said.

            “Then play ball.”

Things didn’t go much better for us. I managed to strike Black Dragon out, the only bright spot of the game, in retrospect.  After that it was three singles in a row. Then it was back to Black Dragon, and he pelted one down the street. Jackson didn’t even attempt to chase it. He played on his phone. In no time it was Flaming Red Dragons, eight, and team poets with a big old goose egg. The crowd of hipsters had gone back to filming us for posterity or for ironic merriment.

            “You give up yet?” Asian Dragon asked.

            “Did Custer?”

            “Custer died, nigga,” White Dragon added.

            “What street corner did you learn that on?” I said.

            “History class, asshole.”

            Then it was just me and White Dragon for the second or third time that inning. It was me and my throbbing, swollen ankle. It was Carolina’s novel one day being read in libraries all over America. It was The Asshole at the End of the Bar being perpetually in PDF pre-publication, and me stuck on the line I had a sick feeling in my stomach. It was Larissa wanting to fuck while I was too busy making love to vodka and then unable to perform. It was me getting red faced at being Willy’s asshole. It was me ruining parties and poetry readings. It was Millicent looking at me like I was a piece of patriarchal garbage.

It was me against the world, baby. 

            I threw the heat. When White Dragon belted a double underneath that ever-loving Focus, even I wanted to quit. I wanted to do as Jackson said, and pay the little gangsters off and just have that be that. I figured they could stop by monthly for the bribe money or I’d have my wages garnished. Larissa was right. You couldn’t win with sexual harassers or with bullies, even if you tried to do it honestly, just like you couldn’t win with bosses or the asshole on the bus playing his music too loud. Ignorance and hate was inbred in this patriarchal American culture. It was running for the highest office in the land now. There’d be no changing it. Only burning it all to the ground and starting this experiment over would work.

            “Winning run at the plate, Combat Boots,” White Dragon said.

            “Winning run, my ass,” I said.

            “They both score and we ten-run rule you,” Asian Dragon said. He was sitting on a neighbor’s garbage can, putting key scratches in their plastic Rudolph lawn ornament. “And I go home and jerk it to your girl. Bitch is gonna do shit in my head you ain’t ever dreamed of doing.”

            “I will seriously hit a child,” Larissa said.

            I tossed the last bit of spin I had at Hispanic Dragon. The little shit managed to get a bit on the wiffleball. It came right at me. My equilibrium was off. I stumbled toward the ball. My ankle cried out in pain. Then I lost my balance and started toward the concrete. I hit it hard, twisting the other motherfucking ankle. I laid there in blind, shattering pain as Flaming Red Dragons screamed and shouted and circled the bases. When I came to Millicent, Gigi and Larissa, hell, Todd-de-de-de and all the assorted hipsters in bad Christmas sweaters, were shouting and jumping and filming, and Jackson had the ball in his hands. He tossed it at Hispanic Dragon as he rounded third. The ball missed and sailed into a gutter. He scored and the Dragons had us eleven to nothing.

“Game over, Combat Boots,” Asian Dragon said. He took a picture of me writhing on the ground, probably for his Snapchat or Instagram. He began to lead his pack down our street. They stopped before Larissa. He winked at her. I think he snapped another photo. “See you in my dreams.”

            “As if,” was all she could say.

            “I’ll call your school, you sexist fascists!” Millicent shouted at them. “I’ll call your parents, you brainwashed, cis-gendered monsters!”

            But the Flaming Red Dragons didn’t care. They were above principals and parents and gender fluidity. They sauntered down the street like the big champions that they were. They chanted Combat Boots! Combat Boots! and Titties! Titties! until they were out of sight.

            “We’ll play them again tomorrow,” I said to Killian and Jackson. I was still on the concrete, but I’d managed to roll on my side into a soft pile of leaves.

            “Tomorrow, I have store to run, Rand,” Killian said.

            “Yeah, and don’t call my ass either,” Jackson added.

Jackson and Killian glared at me and then headed for the apartment building. Neither of them helped me up.

“Typical, Rand,” Gigi said, from the hallway. Then Millicent slammed the door pretty hard. 

            Larissa came over to me. “I feel like maybe you were right about not coming to the party being the best idea.”

“I told you I’m bad at these things,” I said. I reached for her hand. “A little help here.”

“Just a sec, Mr. Feminist.”

Then I lay on the street as Larissa finished her text. I lay there thinking. Not about much. Just about life and things like that, like if I could use these injuries to call off the job. I wondered what in the world I was doing in that moment. I was forty-two years old and laying on the cold, wet concrete of a cul-de-sac, with two sprained ankles, my chest thumping and in a cold sweat, having probably made life worse for women in this neighborhood, all while my emo/goth/whatever girlfriend was more occupied with the world online than with me.

I looked at Larissa. She was still thumb-humping away at her machine. All of the people she knew in this world were at her party, yet there was always someone out there in internet-land to talk to. She knew about the ankles, right? Fuck it, I thought. I started crawling back toward the apartment. That woke Larissa out of her digital revelry. She leaned over to help me, but it was a too little too late for the day. By the grace of Allah, I got to my feet. The pain was immaculate. I felt holy. I felt like the Buddha of Brooklyn.

I was having that fifth double vodka for sure.