Читать книгу Rat Medicine & Other Unlikely Curatives - Lauren B. Davis - Страница 4

When I was thirteen, I went to a party at Barbara’s house. Which was a pretty big deal for me. I wasn’t a weirdo or anything, not in any specific way. Medium height, medium weight, medium face, medium bright, but I just couldn’t seem to fit. I wasn’t part of the group. Any group. Not that I hadn’t tried enough of them.

I was the kid who ended up shuffling around hanging on the edge of things. Often on the receiving end of some stupid prank. Cayenne pepper up the nose (Come on, just smell this!), tent caterpillars down the blouse, or demands I do something outrageous to prove my worthiness. Eat worms or cover my shoes in dog shit. Good for a laugh but not on the ‘A’ list as far as party invitations went.

Barbara lived a couple of streets over from me in the subdivision that had replaced the farmer’s fields of a few years before. Barbara’s group were new-neighbourhood kids who hadn’t yet discovered my reputation for being a fifth wheel.

Barbara’s parents were out for the evening and the house was filled with maybe ten or twelve teenagers. The house was awash in the too bright light specific to suburban houses of the 1960s. White walls with prints of wide-eyed children, pale blue shag carpeting, a sterility of taste. There was a crocheted dog covering the extra roll of toilet paper in the bathroom, orange and brown flowered wall-paper in the kitchen, glass topped coffee tables with chrome legs and Lazy-Boy chairs with TV trays in front of them in the ‘rec’ room.

We were listening to records and smoking cigarettes. I was feeling faintly nauseous. Cigarettes always made me feel like that and it took years of near puking to get me successfully addicted.

I didn’t know this group well, and I didn’t think I’d be hanging out with them for long. They seemed immature. A polished facade of maturity was my first line of defence if I sensed I’d soon be on my way out of any particular group.

Steve was a slimy little bastard. But there was a sort of salty, crusty, dick-in-your-face sex vibe coming from him. He was the kid who’d pinch your boob, or stretch out his open palm, one finger sticking up, on the seat of your chair as you sat down. Then smirk knowingly at his buddies when you shot up, shrieking. He talked, quite loudly, about getting a ‘woody’. He was slightly feral, ferrety, weasely, and seemed always to be in total, swaggering control. He wore net T-shirts to show off what he considered impressive pecs. He seemed completely oblivious to what seemed obvious to me. He was born to end up in a checkerboard suit selling used pintos.

Lee-Anne, on the flip side, the pack leader of the girls, had her own brand of charisma. She was tough, a tomboy, and reckless. She came from a wealthy family who lived in a big old lake front house with acres of garden all around. None of the prissy-clean rich girl ways for Lee-Anne though. Tight corduroy pants, running shoes, sweatshirts and stringy hair were her style. She was strong and athletic and swore like a stevedore, even though she went to St. Etienne Catholic School, where the nuns, she told everybody, were afraid of her. I learned a lot of great cussing from Lee-Anne.

It was Steve who suggested the vodka. Barbara balked at first, but Lee-Anne, not to be outdone in daring-do by Weasel Boy, took the suggestion to heart and basically bullied Barbara into acquiescence. This raiding of the parent’s liquor cache was a new thing for me and behind what I hoped was a steel cool exterior, sat a bowl of lime green Jell-O. With the music of The Rolling Stones playing on the family hi-fi, out came the 40oz., springwater-clear bottle of vodka. Blue plastic glasses were proffered to each of us, with the same inferred threats no doubt later used by Jim Jones handing out glasses of spiked Kool-Aid. Not all of us fell sway to the dark influence, but I, in spite of the vague cigarette nausea, managed a healthy searing gulp.

The circle of glasses was quickly empty and I was wondering how I was going to get out of doing this again. I didn’t think my stomach was going to handle another shot. Relief came when somebody asked if there was any beer. The refrigerator, kept especially for this purpose in the basement, was checked. Sure enough, it was full of Labatt’s 50. Bottles were handed out. I took one, saying I liked beer better than vodka, more flavour. Right. Actually, I figured I could just nurse the bottle and nobody would be the wiser. The boys began passing the bottle of Vodka back and forth, then offered it to one of the girls who had declined beer. She took a tiny lady-like swallow and passed it back to Steve.

“You call that a drink?” Steve challenged. “Typical fucking girls. Girls just can’t drink like men.”

“Yeah, man,” said one of the Weasel Boy’s pals. “Girls shouldn’t even drink. Only sluts drink.” This brought a round of solid agreement from the male chorus.

Lee-Anne, slouched in the bean bag char, couldn’t let it pass.

“Go to Hell,” she countered. “You wouldn’t know what to do with a slut if you found one. And since when do you consider yourself a man, Steve?” Laughter from the girls.

“You think you can drink?” said Steve, standing in front of Lee-Anne’s chair, drawn up to his full height of 5’4”.

“I can drink as much as you, asshole.”

“Prove it.”

Lee-Anne stood up slowly; she was at least two inches taller than Steve. She folded her arms across her chest.

“No problem. Go ahead. Drink up.”

Had this been the Wild West of the late 1800s, no tenser stand off could be imagined. The gunslingers squared off. The barroom went dead quiet. Somewhere in the distance a dog barked. We mere townsfolk stepped back to give ‘em room.

“Ladies first,” said the Testosterone Kid.

“Tell you what, you do your best, and I’ll drink anything you can’t finish.” The bottle, it should be noted, untouched a mere twenty minutes ago, was still three-quarters full. Steve paused, eyeing the level of vodka. For the first time, he seemed unsure.

“Then I guess it’s half each.”

“Guess so.”

“Go on, Steve!” “She’s bluffing!” “She can’t handle it,” came the encouragement of Kid’s gang. The girls remained silent.

“I don’t know about this,” Barbara ventured.

“Be cool,” Lee-Anne growled, “Yeah, Stevie, half each, if you can handle it. Go on.”

Steve looked like his mouth may have written a check his body couldn’t cash. I actually felt pity for him. I’d been there, one foot off the gangplank and no where to go but down. Best to retain some dignity and put on a brave face.

He put the bottle to his lips and drank, and drank, and drank some more. Then he started to cough. He turned a quite beautiful crimson shade, his eyes watered and his nose ran and he gagged. I was sure it was all going to come right back up. Everybody was laughing at him, Lee-Anne loudest of all. Somehow he managed to keep the vodka from coming out his nose. He sneezed three times. Slowly he regained his lost composure. He looked at the remaining booze in the bottle. Not even close to half gone, but still, he’d consumed a sizeable whack of alcohol. He looked woozy. He looked the colour of sea kelp. But he was on his feet.

“Shut up, you guys. She’ll never beat that. Your turn.” He passed the bottle to Lee-Anne.

Lee-Anne smiled and I knew just from looking at that smile there was no way she was going to be outdone. She wasn’t doing it for womankind though, she was doing it for herself, for the hell of it, for the sheer pleasure of making him look like a dickless idiot. I didn’t have a good feeling about this.

“That’s it, Stevie? Can’t even finish your half? Guess I’ll have to drink yours too.”

“Lee-Anne, you don’t have to do this.” She looked over at me, almost as surprised to hear me speak as I was.

“What do you have to do with this Rose? Stay out of it.”

She was right of course. I had nothing to do with it. I was a visitor to the party. My rank did not include permission to interfere in hierarchy rituals. People glanced over at me. I shrugged, feigning nonchalance, but they’d turned away by then. I was not noteworthy.

“Bottoms up.” Lee-Anne toasted the room. She raised the bottle to her mouth and poured it in. She was not so much taking swallows as just letting it flow down her throat. From the level of expertise, I was betting she’d done this before. The chanting started.

“Chug, chug, chug, ...”

I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. The level of the bottle of harmless looking, water- coloured liquid was rapidly lowering. It was as though someone had pulled the plug in a bathtub. It slid down her gullet smooth as rain through a tin trough. I was impressed.

Chug, chug, chug,......”

There rose a mighty cheer, as the last drops of vodka disappeared. Lee-Anne raised her hands, one clasping the bottle, high over her head in victory. Even Weasel Boy was impressed.

“Shit,” he muttered, eyes wide.

Lee-Anne bowed to the crowd, and promptly flopped down in the beanbag chair. She accepted the congratulations of her followers with all the self-contained grace of Queen Victoria. I raised my beer bottle in recognition of the powers of a superior human being. Then I noticed the look on her face. The fighting colours were all fading away. Something was drastically amiss here.

Nobody else seemed to notice. The main event of the evening being over, kids returned to the record player and some were starting to dance. Steve, slightly wobbly, was trying to feel up some girl in a corner and she was giggling. Barbara was trying to stop people taking any more beers and asking anybody who’d listen how she was going to explain the missing bottle of vodka to her parents.

I kept watching Lee-Anne. She tried talking to somebody now and then, trying to laugh and pretend nothing was wrong, but I could tell. The colours were just dripping out of her, leaving her ashen, beyond pale. She tried to stand up but couldn’t make it and fell back into the chair. A couple of buttons popped open on her shirt. She fumbled with them, trying to get her fingers to work. She gave up. Maybe ten minutes went by before her head lolled back. Lee-Anne just lay there, her left breast showing through the opening in her blouse. The girl was gone, long gone. Passed out cold. Steve, unmistakably snozzled himself, must have had some sort of internal boob radar.

“Titties!” He cried and stumbled over to Lee-Anne’s prone form.

“Oh God,” whimpered Barbara, “What’s wrong with her?”

“What’d ya thick?” Steve replied. “She can’t liquor her handle.” His hand moved forward in the general direction of Sleeping Beauty’s breast. Barbara slapped his hand away.

“Piss off! You’re such a pig! Somebody help me with her.”

A couple of girls went over and tried to rouse Lee-Anne. There wasn’t a chance in Hell she was coming around any time soon. Stevie-boy threw his arms around two of the other boys and, from the sound of the snickers, made some rather crude remarks. The girls got Lee-Anne’s blouse done up again but the Leader of the Pack was down for the count. The girls wandered off and left her, half disgusted, and half admiring her nerve. I just watched. Nobody made any particular motions to include me in the little groups that were forming, but I didn’t mind. At least the evening’s entertainment hadn’t been at my expense. I just hung around, taking the occasional sip from my Labatt’s bottle and watched Lee-Anne.

The more I watched, the more concerned I got. She was so colourless she was practically transparent. Her eyes had sunk back into her skull and she was motionless. I saw a bubble form on her lips and as she breathed it sucked back in again. A little saliva dripped out of the corner of her mouth. Ah shit, I thought, she’s going to puke.

Now, I did not want to be anywhere near our Legless Leader when this event occurred. I have a weak stomach. The second I even hear anybody making even a gagging noise, it’s a race to the bathroom. I stood up, planning to walk inconspicuously onto the patio.

As I strolled past the bean bag chair I glanced down at Lee-Anne. Her head was thrown way back, her mouth open. I could actually see inside her mouth. There were bits of creamy coloured stuff in there. I could hear her breathing. I hadn’t been able to hear it over the sound of the music when I was sitting across the room, but now close to her, I could. It wasn’t good. She was gurgling.

I did some baby-sitting for a little girl who had seizures. Her mother told me right off that if she ever took a seizure she could vomit and I had to make sure she was lying face down so she wouldn’t choke on the stuff. The little kid had never vomited under my care and for this I was profoundly grateful. Unfortunately, it looked as if the information was not going to be wasted.

“Barbara,” I called, “I think we’ve got a problem.”

“What?”

“I think Lee-Anne’s sick.”

“She’s not sick, she’s just passed out. Leave her alone.”

Ah, double shit. I’d like to say the thought to just leave her there to her fate didn’t even cross my mind, but it did. I wanted to just shrug my shoulders and be uninvolved. I hadn’t even been hanging with this group for a month yet, and my status was still way too tenuous to be drawing any undue attention. I still had time to blend. Lee-Anne gurgled again. More bubbles. Triple shit.

I knelt down beside the chair, put one leg up on the beanbag to steady myself and the other leg on the floor. I drew a big breath. I heard someone call out.

“Rose, Jesus, what the fuck are you doing!?”

I grappled with Lee-Anne’s inert form, hoping I would not soon be covered in bits of undigested macaroni and cheese. I held my breath. I hauled her over my leg.

Lee-Anne spewed.

The vodka ran out of her much the same way it had run it, a solid stream. A stream? Hell. This was a river, and in the river was contained, like so much flotsam, the remains of Lee-Anne’s dinner. It looked like macaroni and cheese, with Spam.

“Oh, gross!”

“What the fuck......!”

“My mother’s new carpet!” wailed Barbara.

The carpet, I must admit, did look spectacularly revolting. Even more revolting than pale blue shag carpeting usually looks.

“She was choking,” I said.

“You couldn’t get a bucket first?!? What are you, nuts?! Jesus, I’m gonna get killed,” said Barbara.

Lee-Anne seemed to be finished spouting vodka now and moaned. Her hands went up to her face and tried to wipe away the last of the vomit.

“Rose, you have to clean this up!”

And you know, I might have cleaned it up, if she hadn’t ordered me. I surely would have helped her clean it up. But I just didn’t want to be told to clean it up, as though I personally had puked.

“Barbara, I am not going to clean up Lee-Anne’s barf. It’s your house, you clean it up. I didn’t barf on your carpet! She did! Christ, she could have died!”

“Don’t be ridiculous! You’re such a fucking drama queen! Clean it up!” Barbara stamped her foot. She actually stamped her foot.

“Fush off,” said Lee-Anne, to no one in particular.

“No,” I said, to Barbara.

Well, I figured right then and there that I had worn out my welcome with my companions of recent weeks.

“Get out,” said Barbara, “You bitch, get out! Nobody wants you here.” And as no one spoke up to deny this, I assumed it to be true.

So, leaving them to clean up, I went home. And yes, I cried. But it was as much out of a sense of terrible injustice as hurt.

I saw Lee-Anne hanging around outside our school a couple of days later. She skipped out of her school a lot and would stand around chain smoking in our parking lot. I never could figure out why that was better than staying at the Catholic school. I half expected her to say thanks, or at least acknowledge what had happened. It was just the two of us, after all, with no one else to hear.

She stared at me.

“I hear you made me puke the other night.”

“You were choking,” I said.

“Lighten up, for Christ sake.” She snorted out a cloud of smoke.

For the tiniest, briefest nano-second, I thought I saw Lee-Anne’s eyes flick down to the ground. Just for a second, I thought I saw her drop her eyes. Then she raised her head and spit through her teeth. The slimy oyster wad landed on the hood of Miss Craig, the Phys. Ed. teacher’s, turd brown hatch back.

“Poor old Rose, you just don’t get it, do you?”

“Nope, I guess I just don’t get it.”

“Live fast, die young, and leave a good looking corpse behind. Words of wisdom, kiddo.” She put her cigarette back in her mouth and let in dangle from her chapped lower lip. She pushed her red gloveless hands into the pockets of her imitation leather jacket and stared at the leaf-bare trees, wind tears forming in the corners of her eyes.

I turned and went back into class, leaving Lee-Anne leaning up against the side of the red brick building. She blew smoke rings. Caught by the wind gusts, they blew apart to nothing in the cold November air.