An Unnamed Tale
by Jonathan Penton

Well, it's 3:30 in the afternoon, February 2, and once again I have nothing to say. This is probably because I'm a largely pretty shallow person; I put out this magazine in the hopes that other people's profundity will rub off on me, but it never really does. So here I am, desperate for some idea for my February article. Derick's got one; he's recapped 2001, which is a good subject, but I wasn't really awake for much of last year. Sub-Commandante X lucked out. He found a joint at his corporate headquarters; that's always a good cause for a rant. I don't even remember the last time I smoked pot.

No, wait, yes I do. Hey, it was kinda funny too. OK, that will be my rant for this month: The Last Time I Smoked Pot.

So my ex-girlfriend's brother throws a yearly Twelfth Night party. I don't know why, he's not Orthodox or anything, he just throws an annual Twelfth Night party. So my ex-girlfriend starts bugging me to go. I don't know why, but I would like to interject here that neither my ex-girlfriend nor her brother smoked pot on the night of the party. There are other pot-smokers in this story, but they are all non-specific entities who will have silly pseudonyms. I am hopefully the only person I will incriminate with this story, and my bitch of an ex-wife has already used web sites to incriminate me to such a degree that I no longer really care what she's reading.

So my ex-girlfriend wants me to go to my brother's party. Her brother's party. God, I have the worst time with pronouns. Anyway, the party. I tell her I'm not really interested, but I'll take my housemates if they want to go, and they do. "Yippie," she says. "OK, I'll see you there," I says.

So the party is fine, I talk to my ex for a little while, and then she gets distracted by a friend of her family. So I'm hanging out, rubbing on the drag queen, and a mutual friend (of me and my ex, we'll call her Desdemona) steps over and asks me if I want to go to another, smaller party afterwards. I say sure, correctly assuming that my ex will be there. So that's cool, more of what passes for conversation with the drag queen, some conversation with some guy I didn't know who seemed pretty interesting as I slowly got blitzed. That guy won't feature in this story any further, but we'll give him a name anyway: Tybalt the Furious.

So I tell my housemates I'm leaving separately, and I wait for my ex to be ready to go. And I wait and I wait. When Desdemona and her husband, Shazam, are ready to leave, my ex shows no sign of being ready any time soon. So I leave with Desdemona and Shazam instead.

So Desdemona and Shazam tell me that D's nephew, or stepnephew, or some shit like that, is staying with them. The nephew, whom we'll call Pleadies, has had some trouble with his father and moved in with D. and S. He's 22, and is reputedly a source for, in the vernacular of the kids these days, killer bud.

We get home, and Pleadies is throwing a small party. He's there with his brother Ben, his friend Jerry, and a girl named Lynn Varley (10 points if you're geeky enough to get that one). As far as I can tell, Ben, Jerry and Lynn Varley are all in their teens. OK, whatever.

I put my arm around Pleadies and say, "Hey man, your aunt tells me that you have, in the vernacular of the kids these days, killer bud."

He looked at me like I was mad, and said, "Yeah, sure. Right here."

So Pleadies, Ben, Jerry, Lynn Varley, Desdemona and I all smoke some killer bud. Shazam doesn't, because that shit makes him too paranoid. We sat for a little while in S. and D.'s backyard, feeding their little wood stove, until my ex and her niece arrived. (My ex's niece is a good bit older than 22, and frequently hangs with her at parties. She, like her aunt, gets no funny name.) At that point, Shazam, who owns a hot tub, decided to get naked and get in the hot tub, which is what he always does at his parties. After a few minutes, I got naked and joined him in the hot tub, and we communed, in the limited way that a pothead and a guy who doesn't do that shit because it makes him too paranoid can commune.

After a little while, Desdemona came over and says, "You guys, I think I'm going to put on a bathing suit."

"Desdemona," said Shazam, "That's ridiculous."

"No, seriously, this is my nephew or stepnephew or some shit like that. I don't feel comfortable. I'm going to go change."

"Desdemona," said Shazam, "That's ridiculous."

"These people are family, though."

"So?"

"I feel weird."

"So overcome."

"Don't you think they'll feel weird?"

"I think that's exactly the point. They need an education."

"This is Q's son over here."

"My point exactly."

"OK, well, I'm putting on a robe at least."

"OK," said Shazam.

"Man, you guys are HILARIOUS!" I said.

Desdemona goes in side, and soon comes out in a robe. She ditches it and climbs in. My ex and her niece promptly follows suit. Within ten seconds, Pleadies, Ben, Jerry, and Lynn Varley disappear. They were perfectly comfortable hanging around naked guys, but when three naked women showed up, they were history.

So the five of us chatted in the tub for a while, then the women got bored, got dressed, and went upstairs. A little while later, I followed them. When I got upstairs, D. told me,

"Jonathan, you can crash right here on the couch."

"OK," I said.

"Do you have to go home tomorrow?"

"No, I'm hanging out with a friend, Hugger Mugger."

"Where's that?"

"About five miles up on I-85."

"What time are you meeting him?"

"Noon."

"OK, I'll give you a ride in the morning."

"Thanks."

"We're about to head out," said my ex.

"OK," I said.

She gave me a kiss. "Bye," she said.

"Bye," I said.

My ex looked at her niece, shrugged awkwardly, and said, "Huh. OK."

Now, for those of you who are unfamiliar with the gestures of my ex-girlfriend (hopefully that's all of you), here's what happened:

My ex invited me to her brother's party for the purpose of having sex with me later on that night. Although she was enthusiastic about my going, she failed to express her intentions by either body or verbal language at either of the two parties. When I failed to recognize this and invite myself to go home with her, she got pissed off.

And, as far as I can tell, she's still pissed off. Weeks later. Oh well. Being single means never having to figure out if you're supposed to say you're sorry.

So my ex and her niece go home, and Desdemona and Shazam talk to me for a little longer, read the paper, hang out, then go to bed. So, I get out a blanket and lie down. My friends are all sleeping; I'm done for the evening.

Unfortunately, for reasons I don't understand and don't care about, this offends Ben.

So he's staring at me. In the dark. And eventually he goes upstairs (from the upstairs where I'm at), where his brother's party is now taking place. And I hear them upstairs:

Lynn Varney, very sarcastically: "But he's TIRED!"

Ben: "I don't care!"

Ben then storms downstairs and asks me, "Are you OK MAN?"

"Uh, yeah," I say.

"Is there anything I CAN GET FOR YOU?"

"No, thanks," I say.

He storms upstairs, storms back downstairs, we repeat the dialogue, and he storms back upstairs again.

From a certain adolescent perspective, he was right to be annoyed with me. After all, I was not simply tired, though I was that, and I did have to go somewhere tomorrow. I was going to bed because all my friends were in bed, and I had absolutely no interest in the conversation of Pleadies, Ben, Jerry, and Lynn Varney, nor was I interested in anything they might be doing. So from that perspective, my going to sleep could be considered rude.

It's just that, on the one hand, I didn't know them and they didn't know me, and on the other hand, I don't really mind being rude.

So I went to sleep, and woke back up as they all filed into the kitchen, looking for munchies. Hey, I'm all about the 6am munchies, and got up and entered the kitchen with them.

"Hey man, did we wake you?" Ben asked me in a conciliatory tone.

"Where's the cheese?" asked Jerry of no one in particular.

Ben invited me back into the fold with more ganja, which I sucked down greedily. One thing about Pleadies, he has lots of killer bud, and he shares readily. Jerry looked for cheese, Pleadies and Lynn Varney made some enchiladas, and Ben asked me,

"So what's your favorite band man?"

"I'm into Leonard Cohen and Suzanne Vega," I said.

Confusion passed over Ben's face for a bit, and he said, "So what's your favorite band man?"

I tried something a bit simpler. "Lately, I've been listening to a lot of Nine Inch Nails and Tom Petty."

"Oh, cool, cool," he said. "Do you like Phish?"

"Uh, not really," I said.

"Oh man," he said, backed me into a corner, and proceeded to spend the next half hour explaining to me why Phish was the greatest band in human history.

I responded by sucking down more ganja.

Eventually he left me alone, and began talking to Jerry, who had given up his quest for cheese. Jerry was about to look for work as a waiter.

"Go to Backstreet," said Ben. Backstreet is Atlanta's most famous drag entertainment club.

"No way," said Jerry.

"Man, you can make a lot of money at Backstreet," said Ben.

"I don't like gays," said Jerry.

"Neither do I, said Ben."

How did I get stuck in a kitchen smoking pot with two guys who don't like gays? I asked myself. I decided to avoid pondering the issue and responded by sucking down more ganga.

Time passed, largely unnoticed by me, and soon only Ben and I were in the kitchen. Jerry re-entered the room and said, "Hey man, the door to the bedroom is locked."

"What do you mean?" said Ben.

"Pleadies and Lynn Varney are in there, and locked us out."

"No way."

I responded to this by going to sleep.

Jonathan Penton is the overworked editor and publisher of Unlikely Stories. Check out his literary works at this site.