Inhibitors

I'm surrounded by Chuck's Rhode Island friends. Robert is a future political hopeful, and I'm intimidated because I couldn't tell you who the secretary of state is, or even the vice president, who I think is named for a game bird. Newspapers are boring, and I'd rather spend my time memorizing lyrics to my favorite country songs. He looks at me as if he were standing upon a rampart and I were a peasant with a grievance for the king.

I'm different than most people, I say as if to explain--perhaps to apologize.

We are lounging about in the sparse living room. Robert is sitting on the floor across the room from me. Chuck and Tracy are on the couch. I don't remember the names of the other two. I could care less. They are a couple with strange ideas. The man has curly black mop like a Brillo pad. He's short and hairy and reminds me of a Gibbon. He's fasting to purge himself of carcinogens. She thinks I'm an apathetic scumbag for not caring about the plight of peoples on the other side of the globe. She waxes poetic on serotonin and neuro-inhibitors.

Here's a funny story, I inject when the opportunity presents itself.

***

I called Dad a half hour later than I should have.

"Where the fuck are you," he politely asked. I could almost smell the alcohol on his breath. His words were slurred.

"I'm over at Mikes. Can I stay longer?"

"I want the fucking car, and you were supposed to be home an hour ago."

I knew better than to argue. "So I'll just come home now then." I said this almost like a question, splattered with guilt, just in case there was a slight chance.

"Get your ass home, now."

We rented the upper half of a split level duplex. I wasn't particularly quiet about coming through the front door, but ever since I read the Lord of the Rings, I had developed a habit of walking silently like Aragorn. My feet made no sound on the carpeted stairs as I climbed. I rounded the corner at the top and froze like a bank teller at a hold up.

My step mother used to be a dancer in Vegas. She had long brown hair with blonde highlights, and a voluptuous body reminiscent of the Marilyn Monroe era. She and dad must have had a fight one night, because she was on the couch the next morning. Her flannel shirt was unbuttoned. One side hung open and hugged the contour of her breast, exposing her stomach and the narrow valley between her breasts. I must have stared for five minutes, toying with the idea of helping it the rest of the way open, simultaneously disgusted with myself for such a thought, yet ionized by hormones I was only beginning to understand.

Standing atop the stairs, I saw her once again in a compromising position, this time on the floor of my living room, with Dad on top of her, his big white ass moving slowly up and down in the valley of her open legs. Neither was aware of me. He was mumbling and she was moaning. I turned around and hid at the bottom of the stairs, cursing myself for not going to my room. I toyed with the idea of leaving, but my dad would kill me. In the end, I tiptoed back upstairs, risked another look, then went to my room.

They never saw me.

***

Robert is staring at me with amusement. You're right Scott. You are different.

They're all laughing at me now. Cruel faces. Even Chuck and Tracy, who are my friends, are enjoying my humiliation. Their eyes are searching my reaction, which is cold appraisal. They are wondering whose side to be on. I know now that I don't have a friend in the room.