Because You Love to Hate Me(81)

Amanda and Denic got pizza and sat on the couch. I, the statue of an idiot kid in mismatched, saggy socks and pajamas with trucks on them, stood in the middle of the floor, uncertain I would ever move again.

Kathryn Huxley had her phone out. She was texting something, possibly begging for anyone she knew to rescue her from the hell of pizza and video games with that kid who had been handcuffed in his briefs for six hours to a drinking fountain in the park.

The Ealing newspaper ran photos of it.

And did Steven Kemple die?

No. No, he did not.

But what Kathryn Huxley was actually texting, I came to realize later, was the address of my house. She was texting it to pretty much the entire student body of Herbert Hoover High School.

Because this was where the party was.

STEVEN KEMPLE RUINS MY PARTY (WHICH IS MAJOR FORESHADOWING)

So that was how my dorky party, which was just supposed to be me (in my pajamas with trucks on them) and my best friend, Denic (who was dressed like a model in the “Teens of Style” section of the JCPenney catalog), blew up.

Once Kathryn Huxley sent out her text message, there was no stopping it.

I learned a lot of things I never really wanted to know about real teenager parties that night—like, for example, how once it’s been confirmed there are no adults hiding out, random strangers between the ages of, like, twelve and eighteen simply let themselves inside your house from any available unlocked door or possibly window.

Denic, nicely dressed and eating pizza on the couch with Kathryn and Amanda, was teaching the girls how to play Battle Quest: Take No Prisoners while I, still standing like an idiot in the middle of the living room, was having an internal argument about whether I should excuse myself and change into some tenth grader clothes, or maybe at least get a robe.

Denic sat between the girls, who laughed and bounced, their legs pressed up against Denic like he was trapped in a place where you could die the most blissful death. I’ll admit it: I was jealous.

I sat down beside Kathryn, but not close enough to touch her, since I was only wearing pajamas and that would have probably given me an aneurysm. I tried to will myself to relax and just have fun like the other kids were doing, but that was exactly when the first of what would turn out to be more than one hundred unexpected guests simply opened the front door without knocking and let himself in.

It was Steven Kemple.

It was Steven Kemple carrying a twelve-pack of beer.

“Where’s the fridge?” Steven Kemple said.

“You can’t bring that in my house,” I said, but what I actually thought was, Why won’t you die, Steven Kemple?

“Ha-ha,” Steven Kemple laughed.

Then he tore open the top of the twelve-pack and handed cans of beer to the girls. He held one out for Denic, who looked at me. I could tell Denic wanted a beer, too, but I was relieved when he said “No, thanks.”

“Hey! Stan’s!” Steven Kemple swooped over to the pizza boxes.

I stood up, fully prepared to at least attempt to throw Steven Kemple out of my house. Kathryn Huxley and Amanda Flores were already drinking beer.

And Steven Kemple pointed the bottom of his beer can at me and said, “What are you? All ready for bedtime, Powell?”

I hated Steven Kemple so much.

Then the door opened again, and at least a dozen kids I recognized from Hoover High let themselves in. They were juniors or seniors, and I was instantly terrified. Two of the boys in front of the pack had wispy beards. They carried a beer keg between them.

“Hey, Pajama Boy!” one of the Beer Keg Dudes said. “Which way to the backyard?”

And I thought, You can’t call me Pajama Boy, Stupid Beard Beer Keg Dude. (Ball return machine, Ealing 24-Hour Bowl-O-Rama.) It was already too late to stop it, which is more foreshadowing than you need at this point.

It was all a blur. Within half an hour, my house was full of kids. Someone had commandeered my parents’ entertainment system. Music blared. The living room became a dance club; the sofa, where I should have been playing video games alone with my best friend, some kind of no-limits hookup station. The entire house reeked of booze and cigarettes and vape mist.

I lost Denic when I went outside, which was even worse than inside. The backyard was jammed with kids. There was a funnel connected to a hose, and kids were using it to down entire cans of beer in single gulps. Everywhere kids were smoking pot, too. My yard smelled like the boys’ locker room at Hoover. At least six boys were peeing on our back fence, which had turned into some massive public urinal.

A kid who had just disconnected from the funnel-hose beer contraption sprayed vomit toward a group of boys and girls who were smoking pot. They scattered frantically. It looked like the running of the bulls, except it was Iowa and not Spain, with barf instead of bulls.

I felt dizzy. Also, my socks were wet. I hoped it was only beer, but it probably wasn’t.

“Hey. Kid. Your turn.” Skinny Super-White Hairless Senior Dude Who Apparently Didn’t Know How to Button His Fucking Dress Shirt So He Could Show Off His Actual Tattoo to Eighth-Grade Girls held the mouth end of the beer funnel-hose out for me. (Fell asleep inside the cardboard baler at the Hy-Vee.) “No, thanks.”

I decided I was going to call the cops on myself.

I waded through the sea of idiots and pushed my way back inside the house.

Seven kids were playing strip poker at the same dinner table where we have Christmas and Thanksgiving. I wanted to scream, but I was momentarily mesmerized by Amanda Flores’s see-through bra. I had never seen an actual girl in an actual bra.