Berg Speaks

This is a chapter from "Faded Green" the novel I wrote for my Master's Thesis.

I was feeling much better by the time I got to Athena’s house.  I didn’t even feel particularly nervous until Mrs. Murphy opened the door.  “Ben, come in,” she said.  “Did you run all the way here?  You’re beet-red and dripping.”

“No,” I said.  “I guess I was just walking fast.”

She kind of scrunched up her nose at this and said, “Well, come in the kitchen and have something to drink.  Athena is in the backyard barbecuing.”

I followed Mrs. Murphy down the hall, past the living room, and into the kitchen.  The kitchen was a marvel of cleanliness.  The counters and cabinets, the floor, and the refrigerator were all unblemished white.  The only colors in the room came from the pattern in the wallpaper and from the bottles of soda lined up on the kitchen table, which was, in fact, an unscarred duplicate of the one in my house.  Clear plastic cups stood stacked alongside the soda bottles.  Mrs. Murphy said, “Help yourself.  I’ll get you some ice.”  She opened one of the cabinets above the stove and took down a plastic ice-bucket and filled it with ice, while I poured myself some warm coke.

I watched Mrs. Murphy reach up for the ice-bucket.  She was wearing a green blouse and a pair of Calvin Klein jeans that hugged her buttocks and hips nicely.  Unlike Athena, Mrs. Murphy didn’t go for the baggy look.  Although I preferred Athena’s style, her mother’s mode of dress was not entirely without charm.  There is something to be said for flesh in definite quantities.  It was nice to be able to follow a curve into a shadow and lose it at the last possible moment.  Athena’s were less explicit curves, both hinted at and obscured b y the shifting folds of her garments.  But anything more explicit would have been too much for me.

Mrs. Murphy set the ice-bucket down on the table, next to the soda bottles, and again said, “Help yourself.”  I carefully eased an ice cube into my glass and began drinking my coke.  I could hear Athena in the backyard, but didn’t know how to escape Mrs. Murphy gracefully.  She was watching me sort of expectantly.  She startled me when she said, “Athena tells me you’re an avid reader.  Who’s your favorite author?”

My favorite author was J.R.R. Tolkien.  I’d gotten The Hobbit for a birthday present when I was eight and had been a Tolkien fanatic ever since.  But I didn’t think it sounded impressive enough, so I said, “Tolstoy,” of whose work I had read very little.

“Really?  I love Tolstoy.  What do you like better, War and Peace or Anna Karenina?”

Somehow, I felt I was being tested.  I was going to say War and Peace because I had read it and had not read Anna Karenina, but I figured I was, after all, not even sixteen years old yet and she couldn’t expect me to have read everything, so I told her I hadn’t read Anna Karenina yet.

“No?”  She shook her head.  “You really must.  Ever since Athena was thirteen, her father and I have assigned her a book a week to read in addition to her regular schoolwork.  The public school system neglects so many great books.”

I didn’t really know what kind of response she expected — my intellectual development was rather unguided and random — but luckily the doorbell rang before I began to stammer something nonsensical.  She went to answer it, and I poured myself another glass of coke, uncertain if I should wait for her to return or go out into the backyard.  The kitchen windows were fogged, so I couldn’t make out who was outside, although I thought I heard Athena loudly ask, “Who wants a hamburger and who’d rather have a weeny?”

Mrs. Murphy returned followed by a thin, unsmiling woman in a black dress.  “Ben, this is Jean Schultz.  Jean, this is Athena’s friend, Ben Green.”  I smiled at Jean Schultz, and she nodded at me coldly.  Mrs. Murphy continued, “Athena has made it clear that I’m not welcome at this shindig, so Jean and I are going out for the evening.  Ben would you do me a favor?  Go outside and tell Athena that I’m leaving.”

“Sure,” I said enthusiastically, opening the back door.

“Thanks, Ben.  I enjoyed talking with you,” Mrs. Murphy said.  “Have a good time tonight.”

There were about fifteen people in the backyard when I went outside.  Athena was standing alone at the barbecue, turning over enormous hamburgers with a spatula.  I went over to her and said, “Hi.”

“Ben!  I’m so glad you came.”  She turned from the barbecue and flung her arms around me, pressing her breasts against me and the butt-end of the spatula into my back.  My heartbeat soared as blood surged into my face and my penis simultaneously.  I hugged her back awkwardly, wanting to squeeze her tightly against me and enfold her in my flesh, to crush our bodies together until they merged, but instead I pressed my palms lightly against her spine as if she were porcelain, while every muscle in my body clenched with restraint.  “I was starting to think you’d bagged us,” she went on.  We separated, and she said, “I’m glad you didn’t.  How do you like you hamburger?”

“Medium.  But your mother asked me to tell you she’s leaving.”

“Oh.  OK.  I better go inside and say goodbye.”  She handed me the spatula and said, “Take over for a me for a minute.”

Her fingers brushed against mine as she handed me the spatula, and a chill ran through me.  I watched her run toward the house, copper hair bouncing against her back, black satin shorts caressing her derriere, pale legs gleaming in the yellow porch-light, and I shivered at the thought that I was really there and that she really wanted me there.  Despite the smoke from the barbecue I could still smell her.  I had been too overwhelmed by the suddenness of her embrace to breathe her in, but her scent — sharper tonight, like cinnamon – clung to me.  When the door closed behind her as she entered the kitchen, I still felt connected to her and prayed agnostically she would return before the feeling faded.

I hadn’t yet noticed any of the other guests; for those few seconds, the world had consisted only of Athena and myself, as if we were obscured in an impenetrable mist.  But in her absence the mist faded, and I realized there were other people in the yard.  Most were people I recognized from school, but I didn’t see anyone whom I considered a friend.  Phil Weissman, who was in my trigonometry class the previous year, was standing at the wooden barbecue table talking to two girls who looked familiar, but whose names I didn’t know.  I felt strong antipathy for Phil.  I didn’t hate him — because he had never done anything to me personally to cause me to hate him — but he was a type of which I disapproved on principle.  He didn’t have a job as far as I knew, yet he drove a 1983 Iroc and always had money on him.  He was also a self-proclaimed ladies’ man.  He sat next tome in trig and often described his exploits.  “You know Mina Walsh.  She blew me last night.  A mouth like wet velvet.”  I never quite knew whether to believe these accounts, but he was  a good-looking guy, built out of marble, so I thought they could just possibly be true, and in so thinking came a hair closer to actually hating him.  The fact that he took trig as a senior while I took it as a sophomore further enabled  me to justify my disdain.

Phil, of all people, approached me as I turned the hamburgers.  “Benny Green, how the hell are ya?”  He clapped me on the back as if I were a good buddy whom hadn’t seen in years.

I turned to the grill and checked the burgers.  “Fine, Phil.  How about you?  You want a burger?”

“Yeah.  Any of them look well-done?  I’m good.  I’m good.  Finally out of that damn school.  On to bigger and better things.  Going to Albany.  I’m leaving Sunday.  Boy, it’ll be nice to see some new faces this year instead of those same butt-ugly teachers, huh?  I bet you can’t wait to get your wings.  What have you got, one or two years left?”

“You want your bun toasted or not toasted?”

“Toasted.  Toasted.  I like warm buns.  So what have you got, one year left?”

I took a bun out of the package sitting atop the small table next to the grill and put it on the barbecue.  “No,” I said, “I’m a junior this year.”

“You’re only a junior.  I though you were a senior.  Boy, you must be good at math.  How’d you do on that trig final by the way?”

I’d gotten a hundred on the final, but I knew that wouldn’t be cool.  Phil would go on and on about how he could never get a hundred in trig and wouldn’t want to, people think  you’re a geek if you get a hundred in something as boring as trig, and they’re probably right, you probably are a geek, but that’s OK, the world needs geeks, and you’re cool anyway, even though you probably spend too much time studying to even think about getting laid.  So I just said, “I got a ninety-four.”

“Mazzini figured you must have gotten a hundred because it wasn’t him and you were the two best at trig.  Maybe Semmel did something weird with the curve.”

I grabbed a plate off the table and handed it to Phil.  “You like you bun hot or just warm?” I asked.

“Buns only need to be warm.  Once you slip the meat between them, everything heats up.”  He laughed.  “Yo, that was good.  C’mon, man, that was good.”

I gave him my biggest boy-I-wish-I-could-be-you grin.  “That was good, Phil.  But seriously, is this good enough for you?”  He nodded, and I dropped the bun on his plate and asked, “Which burger do you want?  These three look well-done.”

“Give me that big one,” he said.  “I’m pretty hungry.”

At that moment, the back door opened, and Athena stepped out, carrying a package of hot dogs and a six-pack of Budweiser.  Three or four guys rushed over to her and tried to take the beer.  “Wait a minute,” she said.  “There’s more in the house.  Just let me put these down.”  She put the beer on the barbecue table and brought the hot dogs over to the grill.  “Ben, how are things going?  Can you hang on for just  couple minutes more, while I bring a few more things outside.”

“Sure,” I said.  I was actually enjoying my role as chef; it gave me an excuse not to mingle.

Phil asked Athena, “Do you need a hand with anything?”

“Yes, Phil, thanks.  You can carry the cooler.”

“Anything you want,” he said, “as long as you’re willing to hold my meat.”

Athena snickered.  “Phil, that’s disgusting.  Leave your meat out here.  Ben will watch it for you.”

He put his plate down on the table and winked at me.  “Be right back.  Don’t let anyone touch my meat.”

My pulse quickened, and my skin turned clammy as they entered the house together.  I hoped Mrs. Murphy had not left yet.  I wondered how I could poison Phil’s burger.  I wondered why he was even here; he didn’t seem like the type of person Athena would like.  He was vulgar, shallow, unintelligent — albeit handsome and rich — not at all Athena’s type.  Certainly she couldn’t have been attracted to him, and there didn’t seem to be much of a basis for friendship.

Debbie Rosen, a slightly chunky girl with blond hair cut Dutch-boy fashion and faux tortoise-shell glasses, approached me.  She also worked at the library.  Usually, he and I didn’t work on the same days, but we knew each other from school.  She was a grade ahead of me, but we had a few classes together.  “Hi, Benny,” she said.  “Athena put you in charge of the grill, huh?”

“Just till she comes back,” I said.  “Do you wants something?  A couple of the hamburgers look ready.”

“No.  I ate already.  Maybe some of the guys want them.”

“Well, I’m going to take them off before they get burned.  Hand me one of those plates over there.”

She got me a plastic plate from the table, and I piled the burgers onto it, my hand shaking slightly as I lifted each one with the spatula.  Debbie didn’t seem to notice, but I didn’t care either way.  My mind was burdened with a thousand horrors; each second that Athena and Phil remained together in the house fueled my imagination.  How long could it take to get a cooler?  They must  be fooling around.  I pictured Phil’s hands groping Athena’s breasts, her hand on his crotch.  It wasn’t fair: a buffoon like him didn’t deserve her.

“Have you had any yet?” Debbie asked.

At first I didn’t understand what she was talking about, but then I realized that I hadn’t eaten.  My stomach had been doing so many flip-flops since I walked outside that I hadn’t even noticed I was hungry.  As a matter of fact, I was starved.  My gut felt like an abyss which nothing could fill.  I could almost hear my pounding heart echoing in its emptiness.  “No, I haven’t,” I told her.  I took a bun out of the package and put one of the hamburgers on it, while Debbie held the plate.  Something had to fill me.

I started to eat, and Debbie said, “I’ll go see whether anybody wants these.”

I watched the house as I ate.  It seemed forever since Athena and Phil went inside.  It could have been me but for my repulsive exterior.  The hamburger began to taste fetid in my mouth.  I exhaled heavily and felt my flesh sag limply around my frame.  Sometimes I felt protected by my rolls of fat, as if I were wearing dark sunglasses that prevented people from knowing where I was looking, as if my blubber disguised me, presented me to the world as just a harmless fat kid — no mind, no soul, just a body — but other times it felt less like protective insulation and more like a barrier, a cage through whose bars I could see but never touch the outside world.  But still I continued devouring the hamburger.

Debbie came back without the plate.  She looked at the remaining burgers and dogs sizzling on the grill.  “Those things have a few minutes.  Why don’t you come and sit with us?”  She indicated the three girls sitting at the barbecue table.  Two were seniors, Lauren D’Napoli and Sharon Katz, and the third was Lisa Weinstein, whom I had  a crush on in fifth grade.  Looking at Lisa now, I couldn’t understand why I had ever considered her beautiful.  She was flat-chested and short, and her hair was big frizz cottonball glued to her head.  She was not my type at all.

I said to Debbie, “Maybe I should go inside and see if Phil and Athena need any help.  They’ve been gone awhile.”

Debbie nonchalantly ripped my heart out and trod it underfoot.  “They’re probably just fooling around.  She’s had a crush on him for a long time, and he just broke up with Michelle Brooks.”

My tongue crumbled to dust.  Suddenly there was no air.  I couldn’t breathe.  It was like two giant hands squeezed the air out of my lungs and held me that way, compressed, unable to refill.  The hands suddenly released, and I gasped for breath around a large bit of hamburger and choked on it.  I coughed, and part of the hamburger flew out of my mouth, landing on Debbie’s white shirt.  She jumped back and flicked it off disgustedly.  Her nostrils flared and the corners of her mouth turned down like she was smelling shit, but then she realized that I was still choking and said, “Benny, are you all right?”  She clapped me on the back a few times to clear my wind pipe, but I was still gagging.  I retched once or twice and nearly threw up.  Debbie grabbed my arm and led me toward the house, saying, “We better get you some water.”

I had stopped choking by the time we reached the kitchen door, but my head was reeling from lack of oxygen.  Nevertheless, I paused at the door, not sure I wanted to go in and see Athena and Phil doing whatever they were doing.  But I also wanted to see, to know for certain, and moreover, by my presence, to stop them.  Debbie left me no choice; she opened the door.

Phil was leaning against the kitchen table swigging a Bud from the can.  Athena wasn’t even in the room.  I could see the telephone cord stretching into the hallway.  Athena said, “No, Daddy, I promise, the party won’t get out of hand.  Yes, I’ll tell Mother.  I love you, too, Daddy.  OK.  OK.  Bye, Daddy.”  She came back into the kitchen and hung up the phone.  She put a hand on Phil’s shoulder and said, “Sorry about that.  My mother told him about the party last time he called, and he had to call just to make sure everything was under control.”  I stood there mutely, while Debbie filled a plastic cup with water.  Athena noticed us and said, “Oh, hi.  What’s up?”

Debbie handed me the cup of water, and I sipped it.  “Benny choked on a piece of hamburger,” she said.  “We’re just getting him some water.”

“Oh, Ben, are you OK?”  She nudged Phil away from the table, and pulled out a chair he had been blocking.  “Here, sit down a minute.  Catch your breath.”  I collapsed ponderously onto the chair.  Athena ran a hand along the nape of my neck and patted me gently between the shoulder blades.  “Is anyone watching the grill?” she asked.

“No,” I said with exaggerated hoarseness.  I stood up.  “I better get back, there are a few things on it that might burn.”

Athena and Debbie both said, “Sit down,” and the gentle pressure of Athena’s had on my shoulder compelled me to resume my seat.  “Phil, would you watch the grill for a few minutes?” she asked.

“Sure,” he said.  He grabbed his beer and went out into the backyard.

Debbie took my cup and refilled it.  “You OK now?”

I nodded.  “Thanks,” I said.  “It was scary for a minute?  I really couldn’t breathe.”

Athena asked us, “Do you know the Heimlich Maneuver?”  Debbie admitted that she didn’t, so Athena proceeded to give a lesson.  “Ben are you all right now?  Let me use you to show Debbie how it works.”  I stood up, and Athena got behind me.  She reached around me, barely — it seemed to me — able to get her arms around my girth.  She narrated her movements for Debbie’s sake, but I didn’t hear her.  I was imagining she had her arms wrapped around me for entirely different reasons.  My whole consciousness was focused on my skin.  My back tingled.  I imagined that, both our shirts and her bra notwithstanding, I could feel the two points of her nipples against my back.  Her thighs brushed against the backs of mine, and I could feel their firm cool smoothness through the denim of my jeans.  Her arms encircled me, and her voice hummed softly in my ear, and her breath was hot against my neck.  Suddenly her grasp changed and the smooth, supple arms that had rested against my rolls of flesh clenched, and the tightly balled fist, poised against my soft belly, plunged into my gut with unexpected force, and my breath once again fled.

I hadn’t prepared myself for Athena’s execution of the maneuver and was momentarily stunned when she pushed against my diaphragm.  It wasn’t as bad as the choking scene of a few minutes before because I was able to inhale right away and my trachea was unobstructed.  Athena, realized she had caught me off guard, said, “Ben, oh my God, are you all right?  I thought you were ready for it.  I’m so sorry.”

“I’m OK.  Really.  I was just exaggerating.”  I turned to Debbie.  “You want to try it now?  We can put a ping-pong ball in my mouth and see who can shoot it the farthest.”  Neither Debbie nor Athena laughed.  “OK.  Only kidding.  Let’s bring the rest of the stuff outside.”

Athena said, “The cooler’s in the garage.  Ben, come help me with that.  Debbie, would you mind bringing the rest of the soda outside?”

I followed Athena to the garage, heart beating fast once again, as I realized that I was for the first time along with her.  Was now the moment?  Would I ever have this opportunity again to tell her how I felt about her?  I didn’t think I would, but I nonetheless hesitated.  She was leaving, and whether I loved her secretly or openly, this night wa probably our last together.  Better to revel in this time, simply wallow in her proximity and familiarity, than to try to make it more and force her to reject me.  The garage was dark when she opened the door, and we stepped through, and before she turned on the light, I brushed against her, the back of my hand grazing her buttocks, sliding slightly the satin fabric of her shorts against her taut, cotton-covered gluteus.  O that I were a glove upon my hand, that I might touch that cheek.

I mumbled an apology.

Facing me, feeling the wall for the light-switch, she said, “It’s OK.”  Her breath was warm against my face and smelled of onion dip.  She was close enough to kiss.  I sucked my own tongue, tasting the onion dip on hers, caressed the inside of my mouth gently, and imagined it was Athena’s mouth that I was exploring.

The light came on, and she was still close enough to kiss, still facing me.  My tongue ceased its movement; my mouth was once again my own.  If I wanted to explore Athena’s mouth, there in front of me was its reality, lips moist and relaxed, ready to be parted by the gentle pressure of my invading lingual muscle.  I looked at her eyes, for a moment glimpsed my own moon face reflected off her enormous black pupils.  I watched her darkness-dilated pupils constrict, trapping my reflection behind her shining green irises.  And she stood there, unblinking, seeing I know not what in my own eyes.

“Wow,” I said, “that was cool, the way your pupils constrict in the light.”

“Yours are still pretty dilated.”

“All the better to see you with, my dear.”

“No, seriously Ben, are you all right?  My mother said you looked upset when you came in?”

“No,” I said, “I’m fine.”

“My mother said you looked like you’d been crying.”  She picked up my right hand, the one which was still vibrating with the tactile memory of her buttocks, and held it.  “You don’t have to tell me.  But I want you to know that I”m always there whenever you want to talk.”  She sounded so sincere that at first I couldn’t believe she was being earnest; the words themselves sounded like soap-opera dialogue.

She leaned in and kissed my cheek, and I didn’t care whether she was motivated by a flare for melodrama or genuine emotion.  I wanted to tell her everything about Harry and my mother, about moving to Commack, about my father being killed, and most of all about her, about my undying, ridiculous, overwhelming adoration and lust.  But I didn’t know where to begin, how to sort through the feelings and make a coherent narrative of them.  She wanted me to tell her what was on my mind, but my tongue could only handle one thing at a time, and there was too much to say.  If there were tears in my eyes when I said, “Maybe later,” she ignored them.

“OK,” she said, dropping my hand.  “The cooler’s on that shelf over there.  Can you reach it, or should I find something for you to stand on?”

I got it down, and we brought it into the kitchen and filled it with cans of beer.  Athena took at ten pound bag of ice out of the freezer, put it on the floor and pounded it a few times with a hammer to break it up.  Then she dumped the ice on top of the beer, and we brought the cooler outside.

The party had picked up a little during our absence.  There were a few more people, and a boom-box was blasting Heat of the Moment by Asia.  A few kids were dancing spastically on the grass back beyond the barbecue, girls outnumbering the guys at least two to one.  A clump of guys, Phil included, talking loudly over by the pool gate.  All of them held either a beer or some other drink.  The bottles of soda were lined up on the barbecue table, but along with them now were a bottle of Bacardi 151, a bottle of Smirnoff, and a bottle of Jack Daniels.  The same three girls were sitting at the table, each holding a drink.  Debbie was standing by the grill talking to Marty Silverstein, another Phil Weissman type who’d just graduated.  She waved to us as Athena and I put the cooler down next to the barbecue table.

Lisa Weinstein said, “Benny, are you OK?  We saw you choking before?”

I shook my head.  “I’m fine.  Piece of hamburger went down the wrong way.”

Athena asked, “Ben, you want a beer?”

I hadn’t had a beer since my father died.  He used to let me have a sip or two of his, but I never really liked it; I just wanted to drink what he was drinking.  “No,” I said, “what else do you recommend?”

Athena said, popping her own Budweiser, “I’d offer you a screwdriver, but I don’t think there’s enough orange juice left.”

Sharon Katz chimed in with, “Give him a rum and coke.”

“You want a rum and coke?” Athena asked.  I shrugged, so she made me the drink, using the Bacardi 151.  I didn’t know 151 was the proof.

The first sip warmed my throat pleasantly, but felt hot and burning in my stomach.  I could barely taste the coke, although the drink looked no different from an ordinary glass of soda.  The sweetness of the soda was overpowered by a slightly medicinal taste, bitter, pungent, a little like I imagined turpentine would taste after smoking a cigarette.  I felt the color rise in my cheeks, and took another sip to cool my burning throat.

Lauren D’Napoli smiled and said, “Mikey likes it.”

Athena almost snorted beer through her nose.  The rest of them guffawed.  Smiling, I took another sip, getting used to it, liking its warmth.

Athena said, “I’ll be right back,” and headed over to Phil and his group of guys.  I heard Phil say, “Hey, Babe,” as she approached, and I took another sip of my drink.

I was sort of stuck where I was.  As hostess, Athena could roam around at will, but I couldn’t follow her like a lost puppy.  I looked around the yard, as if I was casing the joint, weighing the merits of this party relative to the many others I’d been to.  I sipped steadily at my drink, listening to Lauren and Sharon’s conversation, waiting for an opening, something about which I could make an intelligent comment.  When they finally fell silent for longer then ten seconds, I said, “So, you guys are friends with Athena?”

Quick-witted Sharon said, “No, we hate her fucking guts.  That’s why she invited us to this party.”

I took another sip of my drink and searched the crowd for friendly faces.  I didn’t see any, so I guzzled the drink and made myself another.

Waves of people kept crowding around the make-shift bar, and I was gradually forced away from the Sharon-Lauren-Lisa clique.  The world was slowing down a bit.  Like a satellite searching for an orbit, I made my way back to the grill.  Debbie was still there, talking to Marty.  I smiled dumbly at them.  “Hi,” I said.

“How you doing, Benny?” Marty asked.  “Debbie says you had a choking fit before.  Be careful, buddy, there are better ways to die.”

“Are there any hamburgers left,” I asked.

“Sure,” Debbie said.  She put one on a bun and gave it to me.

“Me,” Marty went on, “if I knew I was gonna die, I’d want to do something first.  Make it meaningful, you know.  Like, if I found out I only had a week to live, I’d probably go to Russia and try to kill Andropov or some other Russian bigshot.”

“Oh, yeah?” Debbie challenged.  “How are you going to get al the papers you need to go to Russia in only a week?”

“OK, so maybe it’d have to be six months or something,” Marty conceded.  “But it’s the idea that counts.  I’m talking about making death meaningful.”

It was just my luck to be catching a buzz and be privy to a conversation where I thought I had something to offer.  “Death is always meaningless.  Only life can be meaningful, and you’re assuming your life is meaningless now,” I said.  Looking back, I figure Marty’s assumption that his life was meaningless was a pretty good one, but I was feeling argumentative.

Marty bristled.  “What do you mean?”

“I mean, you sound like the only way to make your life meaningful is to kill Andropov.  What if you  got hit by a car tonight and died?  Would your whole life have been meaningless?”

Debbie interceded, “No, Benny, I think Marty means he would do something important if he knew he was going to die.”

“Yeah.  Instead of just dying in bed, I’d want to do it with flare,” Marty argued.  “Maybe take someone evil with me.”

I took another sip of my drink.  My face felt warm.  I said, “Well, I’ve got news for you Marty.  You are going to die.”  I turned to Debbie and said, “So are you.  So am I.  We’re all terminal.”

My peripheral vision was narrowing, but I could still make out Athena and Phil approaching us from the pool gate.

Marty laughed.  “I don’t know about you Green, but I’m not dying right away.  I’m eighteen years old.  It’s a pretty safe bet that I’ve got a few years left.”  Marty turned to Phil, who had just joined our group.  “Green is worried about dying.”

“Well,” Phil responded, “if he’s gonna inhale his food instead of chewing it, he’s got something to worry about.”

Athena elbowed Phil in the side.  “Phil, that wasn’t nice.”

“Sorry, Ben,” he said, “I’m only kidding.”

I gulped down the rest of my drink.  “All I’m saying is, none of us know when we’re going to die.  You can’t say you’re going to die a meaningful death.  They’re all meaningless.”

Phil’s face clouded with anger, his voice thickened.  “My grandfather died during World War Two fighting the fucking Nazis.  You’re not going to tell me that was meaningless.  Cause if it wasn’t for him, you might not even be here fatso.”

“Phil,” Athena whispered, “you’re such an asshole.  Go change the tape or something.”

“No,” he said.  “This kid doesn’t know what he’s talking about.  Bullshit.”

I smiled and sipped at my empty cup.  “Phil, let’s pretend you have a cranial capacity larger than a rat’s.”  I think I wanted him to hit me.  I didn’t know what button I had pushed, but it seemed to me that Phil was overreacting.  “Listen.  I said all deaths are meaningless.  That has nothing to do with how somebody lives.  Fighting for a cause is a meaningful thing.  But death doesn’t make you a hero, what you do while you’re alive does.  Would your grandfather have been less heroic if he had survived the battle and died of cancer?”

Marty, Debbie, and Athena all had semi-stunned looks on their faces.  Other people were starting to come around us now, drawn by the loud voices.  Phil glared at me.  I don’t think he heard anything after the word “rat.”  He stepped towards me and leaned in.  Athena stepped between us.  She held Phil back as he yelled, “Who the hell are you Green?  Pathetic, fat, little sixteen year old.  Who the hell are you to tell me about my grandfather?”

Who the hell was I?  I didn’t know.  Maybe if I was a little drunker I would have just said, “Benny Green, a fat, pathetic, sixteen year old, whose I.Q. is more than your body-weight.”  But I knew for certain that, with regard to this argument, my defining characteristics were more than my intellect and my obesity.  I shouted at Phil, “I’m the kid whose father was shot and killed meaninglessly by scumbuckets with guns.  He didn’t try to stop them.  He gave them the money, and they killed him anyway.  He died for no purpose.  He was forty-two years old, and he went to work that day without any idea that he was going to die.  There was nobody in the store to protect, so he couldn’t be a hero.  All he could do was get shot in the chest.”  He stared at me in silence and finally raised his middle finger with deliberate slowness.  I roared, “I’ll rip your fucking heart out,” and lunged for him.

Debbie and Marty held me back.  “Easy, Benny,” she said.  Athena had pulled Phil aside and was talking to him.  His face was red still, and he was staring at the ground.  Debbie held my arm.  “It’s OK,” she said.  “Phil was just being an asshole.”

Marty, putting a hand on my shoulder, said, “Yo, Benny, ease up.  Phil can kick your ass.”

“Drop it, Marty,” Debbie commanded.  “Come on, Benny, are you ready for another drink?”

I nodded and headed for the barbecue table, and Debbie followed.  A cacophony of voices swelled around me.  Who is that kid?  Is he crazy, starting with Phil?  Yeah, it’s true.  His father was killed like five or six years ago.  He used to live a couple of blocks from here.  My parents used to be friends with his parents.  Is he friends with anybody here?  Phil better watch out or he’ll sit on him.

I filled my cup about a third of the way with rum and added coke.  Debbie took a beer out of the cooler.  Again, the warmth of the rum and coke rushed through me, warmed my whole body the same way a chocolate shake cooled me and soothed me.  I said to Debbie, “Phil doesn’t get it.  I wasn’t saying his grandfather didn’t live heroically, I was saying that all deaths are the same.  You end up just dead, not there anymore.”

Debbie said, “Let’s not talk about it anymore.  Phil’s a schmuck.”

Athena and Phil were still talking in the middle of the yard.  The two of them were whispering to each other.  Athena’s brows knitted in anger.  Phil stood there, staring at his feet, every now and then looking up at Athena and saing something.  Now and again, I would catch Phil looking in my direction, glaring at me.  Athena had her back to me.

The music suddenly changed.  Someone had put in a Billy Joel tape.  A whole bunch of graduated seniors gathered in the middle of the yard, linked arms and started singing I’ve Loved These Days.  Swaying back and forth, they sang, “We dress our days in silken robes.  The money comes, the money goes…We know it’s all a passing phase.”  Athena and Phil stopped arguing and went to join the group.  Debbie and I and the few others who hadn’t just graduated congregated by the barbecue table.  I sipped steadily at my drink, watching them all sway, arm in arm.  Athena and Phil were both smiling now, their disagreement forgotten for the moment.  Athena saw us standing by the barbecue table and waved the rest of us over.  Nobody moved at first, but her waving became more urgent, and little by little we all went over and joined the swaying mass of bodies.

There were about twenty of us, arms linked, rocking from side to side.  Half of us didn’t know the words or were too drunk to sing on key.  The rocking ad our melancholy droning were completely asynchronous.  I felt awkward, for even though I was on the perimeter, every time the group leaned in my direction someone would press against my flabby sides.  For a moment the words became distinct, “And so we end (and then begin) — We’ll drink a toast to how it’s been.”  At this point we all raised our cups and drank.  I finished mine, and finally the song ended.

Some of us continued to sway for a few minutes and sing along to Miami 2017, but the group gradually melted away until it was only a few of us, and I drifted back to the barbecue table.  Lauren D’Napoli was there.  She said to me, “You’re lucky Athena likes you.  Phil would’ve kicked your ass.”

My tongue felt thick and the words sounded blurry when I said, “Why would he want to kick my ass?”

“You called him stupid.”

“Why should that make him angry?  I’m sure he knows he’s stupid by now.”

She walked off, leaving me by the barbecue table.  I went to make myself another drink, but there was no Bacardi left.  The bottle of Smirnoff was empty as well.  I poured the little that was left of the Jack Daniels into my cup, but the smell was so vile that I couldn’t drink any.  I looked around for familiar faces, but there weren’t many at this point.  Athena was standing by the pool gate talking to people I didn’t know.  I went over to the boom-box to see what tapes were available.  Billy Joel had ended and nobody had put on anything new.  As I was shuffling through the tapes, a guy ran up and screamed, “It’s Hard, It’s Hard.”  He picked up a few of the tapes that were scattered around and found It’s Hard by The Who and played it.

I put the tapes down and meandered in Athena’s direction.  Most of the dancing had stopped.  Marty and Debbie ahd found each other again and had moved toward the back of the yard to make out in the shadows.  I tried not to notice as Marty slid his hands down Debbie’s back and firmly clenched her rear.

Phil came running over to the pool gate with the empty bottle of Bacardi.  Athena opened the gate and most of the party moved onto the concrete deck.  I followed.  Two guys brought over the cooler.  I had gotten rid of the Jack Daniels, so I took a beer out of the cooler.

“All right,” Phil announced, “these are the rules.  You either play or you leave.  No spectators.  The game is strip spin-the-bottle.”  My mind flared with possibilities.  To kiss Athena under cover of a game.  Strip: to see her naked, but also, potentially, to remove my own clothes.  I took another pull on my beer and listened.  “It’s just like regular spin-the-bottle.  You spin the bottle, and if it point to someone of the opposite sex, you have to kiss the person it points to.  With tongues.  But, if it points to someone of the same sex, you’ve got to either kiss that person or take off an article of clothing.  Jewelry doesn’t count.”  I looked at Athena: she was wearing (not counting underwear) shorts, a T-shirt, and sneakers, no socks.  I myself was wearing jeans, a polo shirt, sneakers, with socks.  I was one up on her, tow if socks counted separately.  In theory, she would be down to bra and panties before I had to take off my shirt or pants.  Phil went on, “If the bottle points to the spinner, that person must remove an article of clothing and lick the area it covered.  Groans from the gallery.

“Phil, that’s gross,” Athena said.

He continued, “The person the bottle points to spins next.  Everybody in?”

I swigged more beer.  There was some arguing about the licking rule, and Phil finally agreed to drop it.  Athena said, “Phil, people shouldn’t have to leave if they don’t want to play.”

“We can’t let people stand around and watch,” he said.  “If you get to see someone take their clothes off, you have to be willing to take your own clothes off.”  He looked at me when he said this.  I felt as if it were a direct challenge.  Phil was probably the best built guy at the party.  He seemed anxious to take his clothes off.  I weighed two-hundred pounds and was only five-foot-eight.  It was unthinkable that I would willingly disrobe in public.  But the chance to see Athena, the chance to kiss Athena was worth almost any risk.  It was not as if my clothing masked my obesity.  No one would be shocked by the sight of white, pasty rolls of fat; repulsed maybe, but certainly not surprised.

Athena said, “Phil, no.  It’s my party.  Nobody has to leave and nobody has to play.”  Athena looked at me, searched my face.

I said, “Phil’s right, we can’t let people stand around and watch.  Anybody who doesn’t want to play shouldn’t be allowed in the pool area.”

Athena continued to stare at me.  “OK,” she said.  “That’s fair.”

A few people moved outside the pool area and congregated around the table.  Most of them were girls.  There were six boys and four girls left on the pool deck.  I saw about one hundred sixty degrees away from Athena.  I was afraid that I would stare continually if I saw directly opposite her, but I didn’t want to have to crane my neck either.

Athena picked up the bottle and said, “As hostess, I claim the right to spin first.”  She put the bottle in the center and spun it.  It clinked against the concrete.  My heart pounded as it spun; each time the bottle neck slipped past me I thought my heart would explode.  It approached me slowly on the third rotation, and I nearly screamed out with excitement, but it went past me and stopped on the guy next to me.  O, if I were only fatter.  She said, “Well, Mike, looks like you’re the first victim.  Meet me half way?”

“Sure,” he said.

Kneeling, they both leaned into the circle.  Athena’s breasts swung forward and rested heavily against her shirt.  I wanted to close my eyes.  My hear thumped, and my mouth dried, and my bowels nearly mutinied.  Lips parted, heads tilted, they brought their mouths together.  Endlessly, eternally, eyes closed, mouths open, they kissed, and I died again each second.  At last they parted, and Athena licked their mixed saliva from her lips.  She and Mike smiled at each other.  It could have been me: a four inch shifting of positions, (a twenty pound weight gain), a modicum less force in the spin, and it would have been me, my saliva and my tongue.  I would have tasted her, and I could have remembered her flavor forever.

Mike spun, and this time it did point to me.  He said, “Should I kiss him?”  Everyone laughed.  Mike pulled a sneaker off and threw it aside.

I picked up the bottle and gauged its weight, trying to determine exactly how much force I would have to use to get it to point to Athena.  I tried to look nonchalant as I spun.  It whizzed around the first time, then slowed, but passed Athena nonetheless.  It pointed directly opposite me, directly at Lauren D’Napoli.  She groaned audibly.  Athena shot her a dirty look.  I was at least as disappointed as she was, but I maintained my cool.  She asked, “Do I have to kiss him?  Couldn’t I just take my sneaker off?”  Big laugh.

I looked at Lauren.  She wasn’t Athena, but she was still fairly attractive.  She had smooth, olive skin and dark brown hair; her lips were thin, and her eyes were narrow, squinty.  Her face was sharply angled, large nose, high cheekbones, prominent jaw-line.  Her ample chest hung forward, and I could see right down her blouse as she leaned toward me.  I closed my eyes just before our lips met, and our tongues caressed one another, smooth and soft, her teeth sharp and slick, glossy, thick wetness and the taste of orange juice over a dusky, dusty-grey flavor of cigarettes, eyes open and hers deep, near black, blink and I blink.  They are not eyes I’ve dreamed of, and we both sit back.  She wipes her mouth with the back of her hand, and I lick the inside of mine secretly.

I had tasted.

Each time the bottle passed to a boy, I willed it away from Athena, and each time it passed to Athena I willed it to myself, and each time it passed to a girl I willed it to another girl, so that they would remove their clothing.  Yet despite the fierceness with which I exerted my will, the boys were removing their clothing faster.  Since there were more guys than girls, this was understandable, though nonetheless frustrating.  I had my sneakers and both socks off, and Athena and I had still not kissed.  All the girls had both shoes off; most of the guys were beyond that.  Phil had nothing but his shorts left, but he hadn’t kissed Athena either.  Finally, Athena got the bottle again, after kissing Terry O’Grady.

I stared at the bottle concentrating all the force of my will, directing it to stop on me alone.  She spun it, and I held my breath.  It went around exactly twice, stopping on Athena.  She had no choice but to remove an article of clothing, and she only had her shirt and shorts left.  She stood up, and I held my breath again, anticipating the removal of her shirt.  She slipped an arm into her shirt and, after some contortions, held her bra in her hand, without ever having exposed flesh.  She stepped into the center of the circle and dangled the bra in front of each of the boys.  “What am I offered for this fine article of lingerie?” she asked.  I would have given my soul.

Phil reached for his wallet, and everyone laughed, and Athena sat down to spin again.  I couldn’t watch the bottle.  Athena’s breasts were there, bare and unbound, beneath a thin piece of cotton fabric.  The points of her nipples were clearly visible.  I listened to the glass scraping the concrete as the bottle spun.  It stopped and there was a great, “Whoa-hoa.”  The bottle was pointing directly at me.

Athena said, “I’ll meet you half way.”  But I was too shocked to respond.  I was paralyzed.  She leaned into the circle, and her unrestrained breasts fell heavily against her shirt, clearly delineating their every contour, then her hair dropped in front of her shoulders, obscuring them.  I struggled against my numbness.  My lips felt dry and chapped.  I licked them with my cottony tongue.  Resting on her hands, Athena awaited my kiss, eyes closed, lips slightly parted, the same as I watched her kiss the others.  I leaned in, and just as I was about to kiss her I recognized the song that was playing in the background.  The Who sang, “Athena, all I ever want to do is please her.  My life has been so settled and she’s the reason.  Just one word from her and my troubles are long gone.”

I said, “They’re playing your song.”

She opened her eyes and said, “Ben, just kiss me.”

I did.  I kissed her.  She kissed me back.  I wanted to swallow her.  Or let her swallow me.  At first, the dryness of my lips and the numbing effect of the alcohol made the sensation uncertain.  But then the gentle probing of her tongue moistened the contact, allowing the electricity to flow.  Her tongue entered my mouth, gently, curiously seeking mine, coaxing it to life, lubricating it with her saliva, and urging it to its own exploration, her firm malleability pressing against my teeth, searching prodding looking, and her hot moist breath against my cheek.  It seemed an eternity that we explored each other, yet I had not taken a second breath before she began to playfully nibble my tongue and suck my lower lips, pulling out and away, parting, cool air, rushing over moistened mouths, and it was over.  It was the best thing that had ever happened to me.

But it seemed all too brief.  The kiss ended, and it was my turn to spin, and I prayed I would get Athena once again.  I spun, and the bottle pointed to Phil.  My dream had become a nightmare.  I had to remove either my shirt or my pants.  Phil puckered his lips at me and made kissed sounds, indicating my one other choice.  At least I had kissed Athena before I would repulse her.  I looked at her; she didn’t meet my gaze.  I guzzled whatever was left in my beer can and stood up to take off my shirt, expose the white blubber to the pointed barbs.  I gripped the bottom of my shirt, and Athena suddenly said, “Don’t fall,” and pushed me backward into the pool.  I came up sputtering.  My shirt billowed out around me, and air bubbles wriggled out of my jeans, seeking the surface.

Athena yelled, “Take your shoes off before you go in,” then leapt into the pool.  She landed in front of me, and her splash washed into my open mouth.  She came up, wet T-shirt clinging to her, hiding nothing, but I looked into her eyes, trying to fathom what she had done.  Roger Daltrey was bellowing, “Athena, my heart felt like a shattered glass in an acid vat.”  Other people were tearing off their shoes and their shirts and thier shorts and jumping into the water around us.  A splash hit Athena in the face, and she blew water out of her mouth and laughed.

She threw her arms around me and squeezed me.  I squeezed her back, not like she would break, but like I meant it.