The Weapon of Young Gods #9: Jeopardy On Crack

We had a wild time at New Year’s. Olivia’s parents had made the glaringly obvious mistake of leaving their seventeen-year-old daughter home alone while they rang it in from Tahoe. When Nadia and I arrived at around ten, we discovered exactly how much she had taken advantage of the situation. Something like sixty people, most underage and many half-naked in swimsuits, had jammed themselves inside, behind fake crime scene tape and multi-hued streamers.

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Our hostess was also selectively clothed in a bikini top and towel, and welcomed us with a peck each and a “Happy New Year” for dessert. She led a circuitous path through the living room, stopping frequently to introduce Nadia and I to people I’d forgotten from high school. Names and greetings were lost amid the ubiquitous G-funk booming from the stereo, so I played dumb and passively absorbed the wealth and variety of surrounding nubility.

“The booze is out back,” said Olivia eventually, taking my hand, “and you two are at least an hour behind everyone else with less than two hours to go, so get your shit together.” Olivia’s thick black hair whipped around, she let me go, and as we walked toward the sliding door she began to catalogue her devious brilliance. I followed both pairs of hips outside, one mechanically precise, the other sauntering with regal authority.

“I pulled it off!” she said as she plucked us two blue plastic cups out of thin air. “No parents, no siblings, no shit from the neighbors, and if everyone stays cool, probably no cops. Took some work- I cleaned, like, everything, and even moved the Christmas tree into my dad’s office!” The backyard air was welcoming and cool after the hormonal press inside. The spa burbled away, immersing a few bodies in warmth, and the dim porch light barely defined any shadows.

“Roy, where’s your trunks, sweetie?” Olivia asked imperiously, but I wasn’t really inclined to join the undressed, so I ducked the question. “Nadia didn’t say it would be that kind of party.”

“Yes, that,” said Nadia curtly over her shoulder, “and the fact that I don’t wish to destroy everyone’s self-esteem with my own radiant perfection.” She winked theatrically at Olivia and didn’t seem to care when I swallowed my drink immediately. She turned back, saw the empty cup, and shrugged ‘why not?’

“Of course,” said Olivia. Her green eyes sparkled beneath damp dark hair. “Those of us who are not limber little gymnasts should remember our place.” Nadia smirked, but Olivia smiled wide and turned back to me. “Things have been so boring since you ran away to college, Roy.” We returned inside and she scanned the room. “Oh, looks like my cousin brought his cards.”

That sounded good, so we settled at a coffee table in the den that was encircled by a dozen people playing drinking games. Olivia maneuvered to the least-populated side and introduced me to more people I promptly forgot, except for her cousin Chris Addison, who looked vaguely familar. Apparently he was twenty-two and the father of tonight’s liquid feast. His eyes glowed with the manic energy of artificial stimulants as he gave me a quick shake.

“What’s up, man,” he said, now scanning the mess of cards covering the tabletop. “It’s Kings- want in?” All three of us sat down to watch a few rounds, Olivia with her eye down the hall on traffic around the front door. Chris held court like Caligula, tyrannically ripping random kids apart as they tried and failed to keep up with the game’s constantly rotating rules. Periodically I’d shoot a look at Olivia to see if she’d stop him from, say, viciously forcing someone to drink for swearing or for using his name. There was even a rule that mandated everyone speak in a Scottish accent (“He loves Braveheart,” Olivia whispered indulgently). She never interfered, though, instead joining Nadia and everyone else in busting the balls of whomever Chris decided to torment. Inevitably he turned to me. “Okay dude,” he sneered, “you’re in. Liv, get Reed here another beer and let’s see how much he’s really learned after three months in Isla Vista.”

Olivia didn’t seem to like being ordered around, but she suddenly giggled, said “About time,” and was off. Nadia’s eyes followed her pensively, but my girlfriend quickly prodded me into the hot seat. “Come on,” she smiled at me, “show the guy form Scummy Thrills what you can do, Roy.”

“Sunny Hills, babe,” Chris shot back, leering with glee. “Class of ’92 and proud of it. So Roy, ready to take it like a man?”

Shit, I thought. I didn’t feel like doing the alpha-male thing with some asshole from Fullerton, especially since I was now off the wagon again. As Olivia returned with my cup, I said “Just make sure he plays nice,” and everyone laughed. I took a quick swig and braced myself, but I shouldn’t have worried; within three rounds I was running the table with those lightweight teenagers, mostly thanks to a previously useless command of trivia.

All those nights reading the Britannica as a kid finally paid off as I became a wasted Moses, laying down law after law requiring everyone to drink if they couldn’t answer random geography questions faster than I could. Bored indifference  gave way to grumbling frustration around the table as I dragged everybody through five continents worth of national capitals, plus half the U.S., before any of those sloshed dolts knew what hit them. In no time they were all hanging on for dear life, with only Chris refusing to give up. “You fucker,” he snarled, “we’ve blown through half the shit here on this game and it’s already too late to go out for any more.”

“Hey man,” I said, cracking my knuckles pompously, “it’s not my fault if everybody’s as dumb as you look.” Nadia stiffened, Olivia groaned, and all eyes swiveled toward me, but Chris kept his cool like a pro. “Okay Roy,” he said smoothly, “then answer this one, genius. What’s the capital of whatever chickenshit commie backwater tossed your girlfriend out on her bony ass?”

It happened so fast that even I was surprised. Within seconds Chris was pinned to the wall, his silk shirt crumpling in my fists. He didn’t even fight back; he was petrified, and now much closer to sober than I was. Everything was gloriously silent. Taking advantage of the best timing I’d ever had in my life, I gently pushed Christian’s face to my right. His right ear was in chomping range, but all I did was simply whisper “Kiev” into it and then let him go. He stayed still as I wobbled back to my seat. I expected, wanted retaliation, but Olivia destroyed any further escalation with a compound seizure of raucous laughter.

“Oh Chris, I’m so sorry,” she tittered, “but I think things are getting messy enough without more booze, and as for this one,” she continued, flagrantly ruffling my hair, “you’re lucky it wasn’t worse.” Christian slumped back into his chair, ignored me, and composed himself. “What do you mean by that, Cuz?” He stared at Olivia intently, but she stayed calm, deliberately willing the universe to stabilize. “Well, generally speaking, my parents’ house is slowly being taken apart tonight, which will ultimately be my fault, but I think you’re better off without more Jeopardy-on-crack from Roy.” She pointed at me with her free hand, but didn’t stop at that; her fingernail quickly dug itself into my shoulder.

“Whatever,” grunted Christian, non-plussed. “But hey, if you don’t mind running out of alcohol on New Year’s fucking Eve, Liv, I can take my legal drinking age somewhere else. You all can watch Roy here go crazy all night. I don’t really care.” Olivia smirked again and Nadia grimaced. I was a few fathoms down by now, but I could tell she had been getting over this party even before I got violent, and I decided to defend myself. “It’s too bad your cousin’s not here,” I blurted at Chris. “She’d definitely appreciate my freaky shit.” Olivia raised one of her perfect eyebrows at me.

“Not you,” I explained. “I meant Lisa. Your sister was a senior in Trig with me my junior year, and I was in way over my head and barely paid attention, so I doodled all over my notebook and shit, drawing all these lame maps and stuff- they weren’t to scale or anything and so kinda sucked- I filled almost the whole damn book with ’em, and she sat next to me, see, and every once in a while she’d look over and say, ‘so Roy, where’re you at right now?’ and I’d say, um, ‘India’ or whatever country I was doodling. I totally bombed that class, too- got a D and couldn’t get into Calculus as a senior with everyone else, so I ended up in remedial math. Woulda totally been wasting my time if Lisa hadn’t liked it. Hey, where is she tonight? How’s she doing these days, I haven’t heard any-”

“Roy,” Olivia interrupted me. I blinked, coming back to myself, and noticed everyone had shut up again. The first pair of eyes I saw, however, was not Olivia’s, but her cousin’s. Christian’s gaze on me was absolute, and his flushed face was set. “Lisa’s sick,” he said. “You didn’t know that?” PJ Harvey’s voice floated in from the living room stereo, singing that one about drowning her baby. “She’s been in rehab since August, dude- she went nuts up at school.” I gaped like an idiot, but Olivia rescued me again. “Lisa didn’t go crazy at all,” she said repressively. “She just made a…a few bad decisions, okay? Now she’s dealing with them.”

“Bad decisions?” I asked. “Like what?” Nadia squeezed my hand. I thought maybe she wanted to leave, but I was drunk and curious despite blundering into a minefield, so I squeezed back and looked up at Olivia expectantly, but Chris answered first. “Ask your buddy Derek, man.” Chris’ tone was angry but he smiled menacingly. “Heard from his ass lately, Reed?” I almost said “no,” but Olivia interrupted again. “No one knows that for sure, Chris,” she said quietly. “Lisa wouldn’t tell anyone.”

“Oh bull fucking shit!” exploded Christian. The speeding bastard had gone from zero to nuclear in a split second, and no one but Olivia seemed to have any idea why. Conversations in adjoining rooms ceased as unseen partiers strained to hear. “It was Haynes, it was totally fucking Haynes, Liv- who the fuck else could it be?”

“Anyone,” she began, but he cut her off again.

“No,” he said, a little calmer now; maybe like me he sensed things lurching off the rails again. “No, Liv, it was Derek. Had to be- remember how he fucking called her and harassed her all summer? She even moved in with me and Justin for a while to keep that guy off her back. Hell, my ex-girlfriend fucking loves everybody, but even she couldn’t stand Lisa. Why do you think Haynes hasn’t showed up around here for months, huh? Where the fuck has he been?”

Olivia said nothing, but threw a balefully stentorian stare at her cousin. For an eternity of seconds the silence was almost unbearable. Dropping poor Lisa like a cluster bomb into an already-volatile situation was a new personal record- to my knowledge I’d ruined a party once, but never twice. Luckily most people ended up too drunk, bored, or tired to stay interested. Chris cooled off a little more, ditching his own drinking game to jump in the pool and then the spa, while everyone else slowly brought things back up to speed.

By then it was around 11:30, and though Olivia tried her best to get Nadia and I to stick around, my girlfriend was playing all her jealousy cards, and  became less and less patient with my intoxication, which she seemed to now regret abetting. I felt stupid, blaming myself for spreading bad vibes and killing everybody’s buzz, just like I ended up doing at all those UCSB parties last quarter. I used similar social ineptitude to make excuses for Nadia and myself, and was eventually able to stumble out to meet her in the car. I smiled weakly, but she only rolled her eyes, shifted the Altima into drive, and slid us into the night.