“Please don't. I must get on a bus.”
Amanda yelled at me, “Calm down, we'll get you on that fucking bus.”
“I don't believe you. You're never on time for anything.”
“Don't judge me when I'm drunk.”
“I'm not judging you, I'm stating facts. Judging is like saying you're a bad person.”
“No, you're judging. I feel judged.”
Joseph yelled, “Judge not, lest he be judged.”
Amanda said, “Did you hear that, don't judge.”
“I'm not judging; I'm stating empirical evidence on why I'm worried that I won't be there. I'm so drunk.”
Monica rubbed my hair with her little half-Italian hand and said, “Don't worry. They'll get you there. Calm down.”
“I believe you, whatever. Have we started playing Monopoly yet?”
We pulled into Monica's driveway. She lived in a house that was divided up into three apartments. When the steel mills closed, there were 500 thousand people living in the area. 300 thousand left. It left a lot of big nice houses. Slum lords bought them in the 80s and converted them into apartments. Monica lived in one.
We went into the apartment. It was a sad little place. It had white walls painted with the cheapest paint possible. A couple of couches she got from relatives for free or maybe from a thrift store; a small television; a kitchen that hadn't been remodeled since the 80s, and a bedroom with a nice double bed. I walked around the apartment imagining her sleeping alone at night. Nobody around to hold her. Monica would wake up and go piss alone. She would sing country music to herself when she was pissing in the early morning. Then she would go to the kitchen and cry singing country music making herself scrambled eggs with bacon. She didn't drink coffee. She would drink orange juice bought from the dollar store. She would sit at her kitchen table text messaging her love in Columbus and eating scrambled eggs. Her mother would call. She hated answering her mother's number but she would anyway because she would feel guilty if she didn't. Her mother would bitch at her about things that didn't matter and had no relevance to anyone's life. Monica would listen and bitch back. She would tell her mother she was going to take a shower and hang up. She wouldn't take a shower. She went to the living room. Laid down on one of the used couches and watched television.
I laid on Monica's bed and Monica laid next to me. Amanda was sitting on the edge of the bed. Monica got on top of me. I put my hands on her thighs. She giggled and laughed, then kissed Amanda. They made out. Their tongues in each other's mouths. They always kissed when they were drunk. I knew very few women that did not show bisexual behavior. Pretty much every woman I knew would make out with a girl when she was drunk. No one considered that homosexuality. No one mentioned it as anything sociological. It was just what women were like now. They were bisexual. Of course a lot of men would give each other blow jobs in porn stores and truck stops. The mainstream media never mentioned all the homosexuality taking place. It was obvious to everyone that America had become a bisexual nation. But America still wanted to pretend that everyone was living in beautiful houses having nice straight sex getting married and having children that would one day grow up to use crystal meth or go to Harvard.
I looked up at Monica and said, “I like you on top of me.”
Monica giggled.
Marissa arrived and so did the bartender Tom.
Monica jumped off me. I watched her walk away from me. She didn't want anyone thinking she was cheating on her boyfriend. She knew that everyone loved drama and somebody would email her boyfriend down in Columbus. She had already got in trouble for cheating on her boyfriend with a guy named Buddy. Buddy was a small man. He was five foot five inches tall. He weighed 130 pounds and was covered in really dumb tattoos. Things like dragons, snakes, and skulls spitting fire. Brandon found out of course and punched a hole in the wall. The hole was still there. I looked at it and giggled to my drunken self. Her boyfriend of course broke up with her. They weren't swingers. They were people that liked to play ownership games. Having a relationship creates a game. A court with rules, regulations, and privileges. And one of those regulations is no cheating. But she got drunk and cheated. She knew better. But she wanted drama. Her parents were divorced and she was afraid of commitment. Her boyfriend left and went back to Columbus. Monica was left to eat scrambled eggs alone. She called him when he was down in Columbus and fell in love again. Why he would expect her to stay faithful I didn't know.
Tom had stopped crying. But he did seem emotionally disenfranchised. Tom was a sad person. Sarah said he was bipolar. I personally had never seen him walking around happy and perky. If he was ever manic it never happened around me.
Marissa was drunk. But she was sober enough to play Monopoly. Everyone was excited about Monopoly. They kept talking about past games of Monopoly. Who beat who and how they beat them. Everyone had a philosophy on Monopoly. I had never played Monopoly. I was scared.
The board was put out on the floor. Everyone gathered around the board like Navajos in a sweat lodge. Like students gathered around Socrates and disciples gathered around Jesus. They herded together in a little group, with pagan idols as game pieces to match wits. To own spaces on a board. To play capitalist. To become the owners of large corporations determined to reap profits by searching the earth for the cheapest labor possible. They purchased real estate charging high rents, finding poor folk to share crop their land. Sending slave ships to Africa to pick their cotton. Sending boats to Southern Italy and Greece to work in their steel mills. Building a shoe factory in China, a shirt factory in Brazil. It was The Dream. And they were living it.
I was presented the dog piece. I looked down at the dog piece and felt wary. I was drunk. Too drunk to play Monopoly; too drunk to care about a dog piece.
We started playing.
Marissa and Joseph were Monopoly Nazis.
They had very serious expressions of determination and capitalistic ambition.
Couldn't handle all that ambition and left the room without saying anything.
Walked into Monica's room.
Saw her bed.
It looked soft and polite.
I laid down.
The room was dark and everyone was yelling and screaming in the other room.
Monica came in and said, “You okay?”
“Your bed is nice.”
“Do you want any McDonalds? Tom is going.”
“No thank you. Tell Amanda we need to get up early and get on that bus. I'm going to NYC.”
“Okay, whatever. I'll tell her.”
Eight
I woke up.
Looked around.
I was in a room I could not identify immediately.
It was Monica's room.
I looked around the bed and wondered where Monica was. I was hoping I would wake up next to Monica's cute little body. But she chose to sleep somewhere else in the apartment.
I was still drunk.
Then I realized I needed to get on a bus in downtown Youngstown.
I went to the bathroom and pissed.
Then went to the living room and saw bodies sprawled everywhere under cheap blankets.
Surveyed the room to find Amanda and Joseph.
I needed a cigarette. So I picked up Monica's pack of Newports off the coffee table and stole two cigarettes. I lit one. The cigarette made me feel better.
I tapped Joseph on the shoulder till he woke up. He didn't seem happy about having to get up. But he was a responsible person and Protestant so he stood up without complaint.
I kicked Amanda to wake up. She was pissed. She wasn't as Protestant as Joseph. Waking up was hard for her.
Monica yelled from underneath a blanket, “What the fuck are you doing? It's like 7 in the morning?”
“I need to get on a bus.”