By Michael Tyler
And it’s another grey night and another grey party and my jeans are torn and t-shirt disheveled and yet I will most likely be among the best dressed as I stumble barefoot forward, ever forward …
“Big Brother and the Holding Company” blare from dorm windows and Joplin shrieks orgasmic crescendo that rings most true as a guy fingers a girl on the grass embankment, it is barely dark but I suppose it’s all in the eye of the beholder and the oh-so-horny.
As I enter the elevator a dreadlocked rasta-faux-arian exits, left hand in rear pocket of a fake blonde in slippers. As I rise a sweat rises alongside and I find myself wiping my upper lip and Nixon-like I exit the elevator with twelve o clock shadow and sweaty brow. The mob raises the temperature and so I turn to a known dealer and tell him I’ll swap him my shirt for a joint. It’s a ‘Hell’s Angel’ rip off and he readily, perhaps over eagerly, agrees and I stuff the joint in a pocket and head down the hall past dancers, wall leaners, shufflers and a crop cut face down on the floor arms outspread crucifix style.
I enter Charlie’s dorm to spy her cross legged on her bed handing out pills and I take a seat and accept and swallow as her dorm mate hastily rearranges her posters. “Someone give me a boost, ‘Che’ should be higher, much higher!” She exclaims and a wrestler gladly lifts her by the hips and holds her just that moment too long as she descends and admires ‘Che’s’ new location.
Al joins Charlie and I on the bed, shirtless also and I note with slight satisfaction that I have the better body as he begins a diatribe against the politicization of the media and we’ve heard it all before and I can almost pinpoint the moment at which he will mention Postman and all but name drop Chomsky and I cannot help but recall the evening last fall when I burst into his room to find him mid masturbation with an index finger up his ass. And Al is waving his hands and I note the smallest of white smudges beneath a nostril as I excuse myself to use the bathroom.
A girl sits alone in the corridor quietly sobbing and I just know she will be there when I return. The stalls in the bathroom are busy but the pill has kicked in and I feel no discomfort at the urinal and somewhat proud of my strong steady flow. I rinse my hands and dry them on my jeans as I stare into the mirror and wonder if I’m a little too tan, the wrestler shoves past me and unzips with a groan of satisfaction.
The crying girl remains as I make way back down the corridor and I stroke her hair as I pass and mumble “It’ll be alright in the end”, and I am sweating once more as the fluorescent bulbs light the way back to Charlie and Al.
“Hi, I’m Sue,” says the suspiciously cheerful dorm mate who has finished with her posters and asks if I want to help color co-ordinate her books. I smile and shrug and this seems answer enough as she begins alone and I lay next to Charlie who raises an eyebrow and mentions Al has fled to score more coke.
And the room is empty apart from Sue, and Charlie’s eyes are glowing now as her lips part, forehead moist while her blonde hair is stroked continuously through the fingers of one hand while the other rests delicately on an ever increasing heartbeat. “I see the party’s begun,” she says with a smile and I place a finger beneath her chin and bring her closer as we kiss and Joplin screams and Sue closes the door behind her and Charlie’s waist is slender and her tongue so tempting and she asks if I’ve got a condom and I reply “fuck” and she whispers “it’s ok” and outside a cheer is raised as I enter and she bites my lip and flips me over and leans back and moans as she rides and Joplin screams once more and I close my eyes to moans and screams and oh so many colors.
Michael Tyler has been published by Takahe, Bravado, Adelaide Literary, PIF, Daily Love, Danse Macabre, Apocrypha and Abstractions, Dash, The Fictional Café, Potato Soup Journal, Fleas On The Dog, Cardinal Sins, and Mystery Tribune. Michael writes from a shack overlooking the ocean just south of the edge of the world. He has been published in several literary magazines and plans a short story collection sometime before the Andromeda Galaxy collides with ours and …
Northwest Indiana Literary Journal 