I was at a party, hosted by a sociology grad student named Walter, A.K.A Mr. Outrageous, who was naked save for a yellow poncho, brandishing a hockey stick and beating the hell out of an inflated Budweiser blimp. "I fuckin' hate this thing. Every day I gotta see it!" and gives it a few more whacks. He's been drinking since 2:00pm. He called to tell Andrea this, satisfied with his progress I suppose. He puts on a pair of swimmers' goggles, and takes a back-flip off his fence. An approaching elderly Chinese lady is trying her best to avoid the ruckus along the narrow path squeezed between these townhouses. Walter, with the best of intentions, tries to invite her to the party. She sneers at him.
Inside is nothing but graduate students from the College and University of Nouvelle Territory, a few new ones who just got here for their first year. Everyone is feeling very sorry for them, because clearly they haven't got the slightest clue as to what hell they have signed themselves up for. The most backward, dysfunctional department in all of Canada runs our sociology program. A tight Old Boys Network is at the helm trying to make themselves look important enough in the eyes of external evaluators, who have even less of a clue than these newbies, in the hopes of getting a PHD program up and running. To do this, they have invited a few dozen new people in with a total disregard for whether or not there are the funds to actually pay them or set them up with a supervisor. Funny thing is, what money does exist is dumped on to Walter's lap because he happens to be somewhat of an idiot savant, and the Old Boys Club is rearing him as their prodigy. Someone will have to take over the little evil empire that no authority in Nouvelle seems to be able to reprimand.
Believe me, Andrea has tried. She went into the Graduate Studies Assistant Dean's office with my MP3 recorder and we tried to get something incriminating on tape. No luck. She told tales of systemic racism, sexism, and abject poverty, the bulk of it stemming from three professors in particular. In return, the Assistant Dean tried relentlessly to force a confession from Andrea or some kind of sexual grudge she must have had against a professor. Never mind that this has no basis in reality, the wisdom here is that it would be much easier to prosecute. After all, you can't nail an entire department to the wall for being basically, well, shitty. The good news is, I managed to talk Andrea out of setting the building on fire.
* * *
So there I sat, in Walter's tiny suburban backyard area, in a corduroy jacket, a glass of Canadian Club, and my hair in a pony-tail (It was a costume party, and I was dressed as the Dean's illegitimate son, the one who gets the shut-up money and a chair on a committee). There are a few preppy-looking people who have no idea how they got here, or who they know. They look rather misplaced and frightened. Then a couple of 13-year old boys wander in.
"How'd you guys get here?" I asked.
"The naked guy in the poncho pulled us in. We were here before but some asshole told us 'shouldn't you be in bed drinking juice.'" These were corrupted youth, it was written all over them. In other words, average 13 year olds. Inviting them in here was extremely irresponsible, not because they would see anything they weren't already acquainted with, but because everyone else here will ignore and alienate them. So we got to talking. It didn't take long to establish the facts. They listened to old-school hip-hop, hating the new stuff for good reasons, which immediately put them on my good side. The kids were stoned and drunk an hour before getting here. I offered them some whiskey as a gesture of peace. I was quickly on their good side as well.
"Ya, my Dad makes vodka in the tub," the blond one with glasses says.
"Wait a minute. Does this involve copper tubing?"
"Ya," he confirms. Jebus! His dad's got a still! Suburban moonshine. Satellite City Banana Beer. I had to know more. "So you just dip your glass in, eh?"
"Well, no, but I can get anything I want from my Uncle."
"You mean weed?"
"I've been smoking since I was ten. I've done crystal meth, acid. Kinda boring, didn't like it. No E though, I hate E-heads. There are no E-heads here, are there? I hate it when the get out the glow-sticks, start knocking shit over."
"I know what you mean, no Ecstasy people here" I reassure him. Andrea adds, "Trust me, this is a house filled with graduate students. I can guarantee you two have more of life than anyone else here." We all share a good laugh. Meanwhile, one of the preppy guys is listening to this and he seems to be getting himself all worked up. Clearly, he's out of his element. "Lord, take me back to the club" he must be thinking while he nervously caresses his Smirnoff Ice. Just then, Walter motions his hockey stick to launch a beer can into the crowd, and it is threatening to smack Smirnoff Boy right in the kisser. I notice and yell a warning, "That's a good idea Walter! This man is filled with good ideas!" The can is launched and lands against the back fence within an inch of Smirnoff Boy's face, who chooses this moment to begin a reprimand against me for corrupting the Youth of Tomorrow. The boys, however, don't need me to defend them.
"Oh, as if we need corrupting" the dark-haired kid mouths back at him. I back him up, "c'mon buddy, open your eyes. These are the Children of the Corn!"
Somehow Smirnoff Boy starts going on about school and the importance of good grades, that sort of thing. Andrea ignores him, interjecting "All you need is grade 12. All they'll look at is grade 12, the Universities. Everyone will try to convince you that every grade is critical and it's simply not true." Smirnoff Boy is flabbergasted. The kids are amused.
"Screw it," I decide, "all anyone has to do in first year University is un-learn everything they were taught up to that point. Remember this and you will be ahead of the game." The Smirnoff Boy is now in a panic.
"Don't listen to them, don't take their advice! They're bad." Thus corrected, he exits back into the house. Andrea leans towards the boys and clarifies, "you know, he's a high school drop out."
"Good gravy," I chimed in.
"So there we have it I guess," Andrea concludes, "everyone who hasn't been to University is ready to claim its vital significance to the Grand Scheme of Things, but nobody who is in grad school will do that. Not in a million years."
* * *
There are a couple of things I remember about adolescence. On the positive side, I remember being able to spot a condescending attitude at 1000 paces. On the negative side, I remember having a real bad grasp on sarcasm. Smirnoff Boy's buddy, White Sweater Guy, just came out back to join us, possibly sent out to censor the situation. He has an air of authority about him, and he is drinking a can of Bud. The boy with the glasses asks him, "So you going to share that or what?" and giggles. He doesn't mean to be rude, he's 13. His frontal lobe hasn't developed to the point where he can make sarcasm work but of course that doesn't stop him from trying, like a toddler learning to walk and falling on his ass. The guy looks back at him quizzically. There is a slight pause, and I break the silence. "The kids want a beer" I say, matter-of-fact.
"The-kids-want-a-beer" he repeats slowly, "yah, well, maybe if I had more I'd share one" White Sweater Guy lies.
"Jeez, Walter, help the corrupted youth out, will you?"
"Sure thing," and Walter grabs a bottle of something I can't identify, and dishes out two shots. He's now dressed in nothing but boxer shorts, and he's managed to recruit a few more girls into the place. He was just finishing explaining to them the "philosophy" of his party, which was barely coherent.
"This party has a philosophy?" I ask.
"Hey, this is Pat, he's the only one who understands. Pat, touch my penis," and takes my hand forcefully. I'm screaming in horror, the new girls are enjoying the show, and Andrea is trying to break up Walter's grip. Walter's a strong guy. Relinquishing my hand, his expression turns whimsical on us, and he addresses the kids,
"Listen…your time, I want to talk to you two about your time" he says in his trademark Saskatoon accent. "Your time" he emphasizes. "You still have a degree of flexibility to be irreverent, to flaunt social norms, to make mistakes and expect more forgiveness than you'll get later on. So what you need to do, with these years, with your time, is…" and by this point Walter has everyone's attention, so he pauses for either dramatic effect or to catch up to himself. "What you need to do with your time is to love, and to fuck, and to DESTROY."
"Right on! Jebus Christ! Did anyone get that on tape?" I ask.
* * *
Andrea dragged me out of the party kicking and screaming to catch the 11:30 bus, and God bless her for that. What a mess. We were in a bad shape, the kind where you become convinced that 7-11 nachos are a good idea. We seem to have the 7-11 nacho problem often. We were scarfing them down, seated in the middle of a parking lot. We had a 30 minute walk in front of us because we were joined on the bus by Smirnoff Boy, White Sweater Guy, and White Sweater Guy's supposed "sister" (they were not behaving like siblings, or maybe they really were from Alberta?). They were all still sizing us up. We felt their fear and made a quick exit half-way along the route. Granted, Andrea and I may have been mouthing off that there was never any shortage of lumps to be taken from people like the White Sweater Guys of the world, who pluck the heads of younger people and twist their minds into thinking that the beatings are for their own good. "If the alienation is bad enough, and if the White Sweater Guys are vicious enough, another Columbine happens" Andrea comments. Maybe that was a stretch, but maybe not. In any event, we were rather sauced and had forgotten the Men of the Hour were within an earshot. Andrea cursed at them as she exited the bus. Restrain her with nachos was my thought.
Sitting in a parking lot, eating corn chips with edible cheese-flavored latex, I suddenly had remembered that the kids excused themselves half-way into the night, to check in with a relative on the other side of the townhouse complex. They came back not five minutes later with full blessings from their guardian. They were pretty smart, had good taste in music, which in my mind is an indicator of one's capacity to think critically about popular culture. They managed to hold their own in that place, in a sea of "isn't it your bedtime?"
We were not any worse at that age, though the popularity of the drugs tends shift and change. Part of it was the excitement of hiding your activities from your parents, like domesticated housecats on patrol at night, stalking and killing, only to turn up clean as a whistle in the morning. Now, at 27, Andrea and I were getting straight-edge, more or less bored of booze and parties and the like. We only turned up for this one to greet the newbies. In actual fact, we want rid of academia, rid of these gatherings, rid of our environment and settle into some foreign groove again. While the kids were probably back at Walter's draining the remnant liquids from empty beer bottles, and will likely be up to similar mayhem the weekend after, we licked our own chops and set out for home, satisfied that we had clawed enough at the night to last us another good few weeks.
