Inebriated B-stards

Kagoatweed’s Rant: R&R and be inspired, but please don’t steal ideas!

The music pounded, pulsed, and rocked. The person in the corner, neither boy nor man, threw his head about in reckless abandon, his mass of hair constantly suspended in space. His arms braced him against the ground, but did not stop him from slowly turning as his spasms shook him. Occasionally, his arms would leave the ground and flail in time with the steady beat of the vocalist’s screaming.

Two girls sat on a couch not far from him, laughing shamelessly at his wholehearted antics. One black, one white, they could find no end to the hilarity of the man-child who was going to have a massive headache at any moment. Two purses were lazing around on the couch with them. The purse beside the black girl clinked when moved, the disgustingly warm beers singing when they touched. The other purse was slightly less surreptitious being as it both made the clinking sound, and had the slender neck of a liquor bottle protruding from the bag. , Both had a short fat beer bottle in her respective hand and both were jabbering to each other in a foreign language only barely understood by the others in the room.

Sitting on the armrest of the couch was another girl who was staring at the other guests in sober disbelief. She didn’t speak much, her thoughts touched by neither the warm tendrils of alcohol nor the cool caresses of any of the other drugs that were being passed under tables.

In the corner opposite the shadow of hair and limbs were three more boys. Sedated, they lay sprawled across a battered love seat and the matching overstuffed chair. A few more beer bottles were half hidden between the couch cushions, temporarily abandoned, but impossible to forget. The mumbled to each other in hushed tones, not because they did not want others to hear, but because they did not have the energy to speak any louder.

As predicted, the boy in the corner abruptly stopped thrashing during the chorus of the song, only to clumsily pull himself up and toss himself onto the abandoned couch nearest to him. He landed with his feet propped up and his hands immediately came down over his forehead, trying to soothe the hammering in his temples.

A chorus of laughter echoed up from the girls on the couch, beer sloshing in the bottles that shook with them. As soon as the laughter had begun to subside, a new boy came running into the room brandishing a broomstick. The girl with the schnapps bottle tensed as the boy swung the broom around. It was inevitable that the boy would knock over one of the candles that illuminated the room, and she didn’t want to be hit by hot wax. The other girl just laughed, and took a swig of her beer.

The broomstick brandishing boy used his weapon in every way possible. At first it was the micstand and he was the singer of the song, and when the chorus died out he became the guitarist. It only took a few moments for the other boys to get involved, energy renewed and flowing. Jumping around with him, stealing his microphone and his hat, they grasped his shoulders and made him dance - not that he minded. He was grinning the whole time, ecstatic at the attention he was receiving. The broom was flying around the room, held by the end by the boy who was probably the most drunk of all the people in the room. He shook off the other guys to harass the shadow on the couch who was nursing his headache. To the music, he brushed the shadow’s leg until an arm came flying out to send him away. Unfazed by this, the brushing continued until the shadow shot off the couch, knocking a beer off the table in front of him as he rushed to another room to expel the contents of his stomach.

The room was in hysterics. The boys had doubled over, clutching their stomachs as they laughed. A few ran back to their beers to swallow an acidic mouthful as they mused. The girls on the couch had kicked up their heels, feet narrowly avoiding the candles on the table. The sober child resting where an arm should lie even had given in to the laughter and was politely covering her mouth as she giggled.

Having the most fun, though, was the boy with the broom. He had fallen to the floor laughing, taking his broom with him, but soon forgot that he was supposed to be laughing! Rolling around on the floor with his wooden lover, he knocked his head into the table a few times before he realized that he had hurt himself. At that point, he deserted his weaponry to lie still on the floor.

Quickly glancing at one another, the two girls on the couch rose as one to stand on either side of him, offering their hands. Comically, over dramatically, he took their hands and pulled himself up. Clasping their hands together to finish the circle, the two females began to dance with him, the broom long forgotten.

The room flickered in the low candlelight, and the occupants drowned in heavy base and guitar riffs. Speaking with hips and smiles the dancing troupe grew silently, everyone lost in a world of beer, liquor, sexuality, and just one heartbeat.