Alpha to Omega

I’m fourteen and I’ve just started to need people. What I mean by that is, I’ve always been a loner, but when I reached the age of fourteen it became apparent that I need people with whom to associate so that I don’t delve into permanent weirdness. What I mean by this is that the marketing got to me.

I’m trying be cool. I’m trying to want to be cool, but I just can’t do it. I have geek blood and that makes me awkward as hell around anyone who is overly concerned with appearances and stuff. I’ve cut my losses and just accepted that my friends are going to have to be losers.

And they are. They aren’t losers because they are socially awkward and would rather read books and listen to good music and go over plots for future novels with themselves out loud than explore that vacancy that is teenage society, they’re losers because they think that stuff matters and they’re losers because they pretended to themselves that they could have a notable place within it.

One such friend, Alicia, is especially bad for this. She likes to pretend that she’s devastatingly attractive and claims that she constantly has twenty somethings pulling over in their “hot” cars to talk to her. There are always stories of her exploits at the mall and with her older sister (who is attractive, but who only gets the attention she does by virtue of being the biggest and youngest slut I’ve ever met) and with her neighbours, exploits I pretend to be impressed by and then have to pretend not to be disgusted by when I get personally introduced to a zitty faced mormon kid or a very zitty faced D and D geek boy. Of course, there is the bad music too—a combination of commercial rap and Mariah Carey—and this has lead my friends to a fetish for bling, weed, black guys and cars, all things I can’t understand. So, maybe it’s easier to begin developing such an opposed personality in this context. Or, maybe it isn’t—I’m sure it’s fairly hard for anyone to do much of anything besides wish they were 18 at this age.

Alicia has decided that we need to branch out, meet more people. She has arranged for our attendance at a get-together in her neighbourhood. Alicia has hook-ups, you see. She notes my eye-rolling and counters it by telling me that the zitty-faced kids aren’t invited. This is serious. In fact, Josh is going to be there. Josh? Is there a more white-trash name, (well, besides Jeb)? Shutup, Josh is cool—he drives a red sports car and he’s seventeen. Apparently it hasn’t occurred to Alicia that seventeen year olds who hang out with fourteen year olds are probably not very cool, in fact, will probably get arrested for possession of kiddie porn one day. That doesn’t matter, we’re still cool because we’re going to the party.

So we go to the party. It’s in a trashy duplex down the hill in the crappy part of the neighbourhood. There’s an old barbeque on the weed-ridden lawn along with some sexy lawn ornaments. The rest of the party is in the basement; they sit on a makeshift floor of mismatched carpet remnants and a fuzzy flower-print sofa that appears to be collapsing in on itself. There is rap music playing on the stereo—the only thing in the room in any condition worth mentioning, including the people. Everyone appears to be high, except for the people who are trying to appear to be straight and hard, whose heads bounce in tune to the music and whose eyes scan everyone in the room as if able to detect the social status of each person who enters. I guess they aren’t drunk enough to be rowdy yet. It’s one of those situations where everyone sits around in small groups talking about inconsequential tripe and wondering how to infiltrate one of the other groups on the other side of the room and eventually score a “hook-up”. Alicia immediately infiltrates Josh’s group, the largest in the room and we are offered a bottle of Crown Royal and cigarettes. Josh is white, but you wouldn’t know this if you were to encounter him on the phone or in a very dark room. Josh forces me into interaction as soon as he exchanges greetings with Alicia.
He juts his chin out at me “Yo”
“Hi”
“Josh”
“(You don’t really think I’m going to tell you my real name do you?)”
I wonder for a brief moment if shaking hands with someone in this situation is appropriate. No, probably better to just straight face it.

Nothing of consequence happens. People talk about silly things and attempt to outdo each other with their stories. They get drunker and louder. I sit back and watch, amused and stoned for the first time ever and drunk for the third. Josh’s brother arrives, the highlight of everyone’s night because he is eighteen and wears a wife-beater shirt that shows off his hot bod. He also has greasy hair, dirty jeans and a face that looks like it was crushed in a vice, but no one seems to notice this, except me of course, but I’ve always been a stickler for details. They gather around him like he is Jesus. I’m confused.

The highlight of my night, is when Josh begins hitting on me whilst we all sit around in a circle discussing, of all things, the boy’s bad-ass “blades”. I assume Josh has voiced his intent towards me at some point to his loser friend because the friend suddenly has an overwhelming urge to help him impress me.
“Hey,” he says “Josh, show her your blade—“ and then to me “it’s so cool.”
Josh does pull out his blade, stuffed in his white tube sock, of all places and presents it to me for my approval—a big fat meat cleaver, not unlike something a cartoon chef would wield, stolen from his mommy’s kitchen, all for me and my approval.

Needless to say, Josh and I didn’t “hook up”. Sorry Josh, I don’t do white trash.