"You should have bought more kegs." Charles laughed.

"Leo only gave us money for one."

"Idiot." Indeed he was. And standing there on Leo's patio, watching a mosh pit of people push and shove for those last cups of suds, hearing the sound of glass breaking inside as drunks dropped tumblers and bottles of wine on the tile I couldn't help thinking he deserved everything he was getting. From the horrible bad trip he was suffering to his parents throwing him out of the house when they came home and saw the damage, Leo'd earned it all. He'd made an ass of himself, buckling under peer pressure, thinking he could buy status with beer. Everything about the spectacle was embarrassing... That he wanted to be liked so badly and actually thought it would work -- that the people drinking on his patio weren't just using him for his huge empty house.

I remember being confused when Nolan had told me earlier in the week that Leo wanted to throw a keg party, wondering why. "He lives on one of those estates in the country, right? Why not just get a few cases of beer and some bottles of vodka? We could hang out in his pad with some chicks."

"I don't know. He said he wants to throw a keg party."

It didn't make any sense to me. Leo didn't have enough friends for a keg party, and if he thought it would gain him some he couldn't have been more deluded. Our high school was a vicious social hierarchy. It was private and small and the forces that kept the pecking order controlled it with a vengeance. There were the twenty or so hyper-cool kids at the top, the usual prom court and varsity lettermen types. Below them you had The Middle - "acceptable" people in varying grades of popularity. Some of them were social climbers, fawning over the coolest people in the place like a fan club or a pack of Hollywood assistants, trying to punch through to the higher echelon. Some were like me - passive surfers, latching onto the parts of the scene that interested them from time to time, letting go when it wasn't fun anymore.

Managing your slot in the social structure full time seemed an awful lot of work, major effort for a thin, fleeting payoff. It would have been nice to be quarterback, nail all the cheerleaders and have your ass kissed around the school, but as the old Zimmerman song goes, "that was [not] my fate." I wasn't at the top of the pyramid, and that was alright. The way I saw it, as long as I got laid, loaded and got into a decent college where I could get laid and loaded some more, I was doing fine. Really, what else matters between sixteen and eighteen?¹

But that's easy for me to say. I wasn't like Leo. He was at the bottom, a classic American dork - short and skinny and acned, crippled with a litany of nervous social tics. He even spoke with this strange affectation, like he was gnawing on pistachio shells or just left a dental appointment with a tongue full of Novocain. In the easiest, kindest terms, Leo wasn't ripe. He looked like he was still in junior high, waiting for that final push out of puberty... A lousy place in high school, where the women and the alpha males all look twenty-four at seventeen.

Leo'd never be a player in that world, and it looked weak to try - a craven, desperate move... nakedly ambitious. The people he wanted to impress would only respect him less; resent him for thinking he could buy their affections. Leo was stuck in his caste and that wasn't changing no matter how many parties he threw.

Leo didn't see that, of course. All he knew was he wanted a keg, a party, and I had a connection. "Sure. We can get that done." I promised him a keg of Busch, the usual swill. "We'll get it to your place on Friday night, around eight." Who was I to fuck with his dream?

The plan fell through on Friday afternoon, as they always did. Nolan and I drove to the home of our "connection," an alcoholic named Kenny who bought us all of our alcohol. Nobody was home. Just a sign on the door - "Gone up North." The son of a bitch was on a fishing trip. Over the course of the week Leo'd told everyone he saw that he was having a party. The word spread like flu. By Friday afternoon, friends from other high schools were calling me about the thing. I estimated there were at least a hundred people on the way, and now we had no beer.

"Can I borrow your guy?" I called my friend, Melissa and started begging. "The keg for Leo's fell through." I knew she had a wino in one of the housing projects who bought her booze.

"You have to pick me up. He freaks out if he sees strange people." An hour later Nolan, Melissa and I were trolling through the projects, looking for "Carl E.," a middle-aged cirrhotic who fancied himself a player.

"If he talks about being a pimp, humor him." Melissa warned. "He gets mad real easy."

"What's the 'E' stand for?"

"Who cares?"

An hour later I was getting out of my car in a parking lot next to a beer distributor, handing the wheel to a low rent Dolomite reeking of Wild Irish Rose. "Okay. It's all there." He laughed and counted our money. "Now give me your number."

"Excuse me?"

"Give me your telephone number." He barked as he adjusted the rear view mirror in my car. "I have to give them a number when I buy kegs. And make sure it's real. They won't sell to me no more if I give them fakes. I need to buy my own beer in this place, for all my parties, you understand?" Melissa was right - Carl E. got agitated in a hurry. I froze in panic and gave him my home number.

"Michelob..." Carl scribbled the number on an old receipt. "Now that's good fucking beer."

"We just want Busch."

"I know that. I'm talking about my beer. I don't drink fucking Busch. I drink Michelob."

"Sorry. My bad."

Thankfully, blessedly, ten minutes later and one keg heavier we were dropping Carl E. off in the projects, mission accomplished. "This is fine right here." He started opening the door before the car stopped moving. "I got to see a woman in that building over there."

"Thanks, Carl."

"Don't lose that keg." He snapped as he got out. "That's worth good money."

"We won't." Whatever... Just get the fuck out of my car.

An hour later we were in horse country, tapping the keg at Leo's house. An hour after that the place was filled with carloads of high school kids, half of them already loaded on booze they'd stolen from their parents' liquor cabinets. People were all over the house and property, running through the garage and the stable and disappearing into empty rooms to fuck. Some were chugging beers and vomiting, others passing out on couches in the library and lawn furniture on the patios. The place was littered with every rotten stereotype of the hopeless high school drunk - Exhibit "A" in support of the twenty-one year old drinking age.

Charles introduced me to the girl we eventually called "Tinkertoy" in the hallway. She was a friend of a girl named Maria that he'd been fucking for a couple weeks. I say "fucking" instead of "dating" because that was all they seemed to do. Which wasn't unusual. Maria was a farm girl from of desolate part of the county, the sort of place where there isn't any other entertainment. Her friend didn't know anyone at the party and had been steadily curing her lack of comfort with wine coolers and beer. Basically, it was a set-up. Charles put us together then announced that he and Maria were heading "upstairs for a while." After twenty or so minutes of mindless drunk talk, Tinkertoy and I started groping one another. After a few minutes of playing with her breasts in a mud room off the hall, feeling her scratch the back of my neck and grind on my thigh, it was obvious we had to go upstairs as well.

Goddamnit. Is anything going to go right today? I didn't realize until she was on the floor, moaning "fuck me" that I'd forgotten to grab a condom from Charles. I never carried them, mostly out of fear I'd lose one in the house and have my mother find the thing. That and I hung out with Charles, who always carried extras - Army issue Trojans, with no lubrication ("If you can't get her wet enough, you shouldn't be fucking").²

Well, it's probably for the best anyway. The more the girl slurred and begged me to fuck her, the more I realized she wasn't just loaded. The chick was blind drunk, probably blacked out - barely a clue where she was, let alone what she was doing. It wasn't a tough decision. There are a thousand reasons not to fuck an eighteen-year-old in that condition. A million when you don't have a condom. That's when I looked around the room, saw the scattered children's toys on the floor and picked up the Tinkertoy.

The minute I put it inside her she started screaming, bucking, squeezing her breasts and throwing her pelvis in the air. I crossed my legs and sat on the floor, sipping a Tupperware pitcher of beer with my loose hand, watching the show. Damn that's a huge bush. Guess they don't shave much on the farm.

Then I heard Leo knocking at the door...

----------

It took me a while after I'd gone downstairs, but eventually I made my way through the crush of bodies on the patio and down a brick path to the front of the house. That's where I found Nolan, leaning on the front of an old Mercedes convertible in the driveway.

"Nice ride."

"Here." He held out a decanter and filled a champagne flute with whiskey.

"Dude, don't break any crystal. That shit's expensive."

"Break it? I'm guarding this with my life. This is the last liquor I could find in the fucking house!"

"I guess someone located the bar."

"And a fine bar it was." As he pushed the shot in my face I noticed half the people in the driveway were holding whiskey bottles, flutes and assorted bar glasses in their hands. I also noticed a line of people heading for the barn and stable.

"What are they doing back there?"

"Beats me." Nolan put the decanter in the seat of the convertible and lit a cigarette. "This is a great car, isn't it?"

"Whose is it?"

"Leo's, I think."

"How'd it get out here? I don't remember this being here when we arrived."

"I don't know. Somebody must have moved it."

"'Somebody,' really?"

"I didn't drive it out here if that's what you're think--." Before he could finish I heard a crash on the deck and hollering in the background. The keg had finally kicked, the beer drunks were pissed and fights were starting.

"Someone has to stop this." I saw Leo running toward us out of the corner of my eye as I watched a pair of mungheads shove each other down the patio stairs. "I want it all to stop."

"Hey, can I get a ride home with you?" Charles appeared to my left. "Maria's taking care of her friend. She's puking everywhere upstairs."

"Where?" Leo dropped his cigarette.

"Don't worry." Charles assured him. "Maria's cleaning it up."

"Who's fighting over there, Charles?" I strained to make out the faces of the meatheads who were now wrestling in the grass.

"I don't know about that, but the one in the kitchen's a cat fight. A couple pussies from Eastern..."³

"I told you to buy two kegs." Nolan pointed at Leo.

"There's another?" The poor son of bitch looked like he was about to cry.

"No. That's the problem."

"Beer's kicked!" Charles screamed at a pickup full of new arrivals wheeling through the grass toward the stable.

"Fuck you, asshole!" A fat kid in a backward baseball hat flipped him off.

"Christ, how many schools did you invite, Leo?"

"I don't know, but it has to stop." He grabbed my shoulder and dug his fingers in like claws. "Now. Right now."

"You should have some whiskey." Charles picked up the decanter and poured him a shot. "It's the only way..."

"Where did you get that bottle? And those glasses!?"

"You mind if I take the car for a ride?" Nolan grabbed Leo's shirt sleeve.

"What car?"

"This one - the convertible... Just around the neighborhood."

"No! No! No! Everyone has to leave! Everyone has to go!" Leo sprinted toward the garage, bellowing into the wind, and that was the last we saw of him for the night.

"That kid's fucking retarded." I turned to Nolan and Charles as we backed through a pile of tire ruts in the grass to get onto the driveway.

"Technically, you're considered insane on acid."

"Don't be an ass, Nolan... You know what I mean." I didn't have to explain. The point was obvious. Leo was an imbecile. If he'd had any brains, he would have just hung at his house while his folks were away, tripping, fucking his goofy girlfriend - being a happy, rich dork. Nothing wrong with that. No shame in it... Most people would kill for that life. So he was a high school geek. So what? Who isn't on some level? And when you think about it, who'd want to be anything else? If you're peaking at that stage, you're probably peaking too early, and it's a long road down from there.

"So what did you do with Maria's friend?" Charles pressed stop on the tape deck.

I didn't know where to start. "What do you call those toys you put together to build things, like the framework of a building or something?"

"Legos?"

"No, they're like girders, with connector things. Like miniature scaffolding."

"Lincoln Logs?"

"No, it's-- Shit... I know the name, but I can't think of it." I started running through the alphabet in my head, to jar the name from my memory. A... B... C...

"They actually keep horses here?" Nolan interrupted the thought.

"What are you talking about?"

"Look left." Nolan leaned in from the back seat. A pony was trotting from the stable with a handful of drunks in tow, running after the beast, screaming in its direction.

"Is one of them carrying a saddle?" Charles squinted out the window.

That can't be good. I punched the gas and aimed for the gate out of the property.

I didn't think about the party again until Monday, when I got back from school. "Who's Carl 'E.'?" My mother cross examined me as soon as I walked in the door.

"I don't know any Carl."

"Well a man named 'Carl E.' has been calling here for you."

Fuck... You dumb-ass. I realized my folly in an instant. Carl E. had gotten me nervous on purpose, so I'd panic and give him my actual home number. He didn't need to give it to the beer distributor. He wanted it for himself, so he could badger me to bring him the empty keg to cash in for the deposit. If I didn't bring him the keg all he had to do was call my house and freak out my parents until I brought him the value in cash. It was blackmail, plain and simple... I'd been played like a fiddle, baited and bagged by a housing project hustler.

"Must be a wrong number."

"This Mr. 'E' says it's urgent - that you have something of his. Some sort of deposit."

"Probably one of Nolan's friends calling here by accident."

"Oh, I spoke with the gentleman. He specifically asked for you."

"Really?" I could see her straining to stick with sarcasm, to keep from firing off the usual accusations... Why can't you be like the Henderson's son?⁴ I saw him at the golf course and he was so polite, so mature for his age. Did you know he's pre-med? At Vanderbilt... He's building a bridge with a volunteer group in Peru this summer. Why can't you achieve something, do something positive like that?

I was lucky for the respite. She'd have hated the only honest response - Let's just say I know my limitations.

* * *

The last correspondence I received on the Statcorp case came from opposing counsel, two or three weeks after their negotiations with Ellis had degraded to a standoff. It was a one sentence fax, addressed to every lawyer in the firm working on the case:

Dear _______:

Statcorp hereby withdraws its settlement offer.

What the fuck? I couldn't say I was shocked. More confused, wondering why, how? Maybe it was a bluff - a shot across the bow to wake Ellis up, scare us back to the table. Maybe not. I had to know, so I called opposing counsel.

"I just got your fax. I was wondering, uh..." I waited for him to fill in the blanks.

"The offer's rescinded."

"Can I ask why?"

"Yes..."

"Okay... Why?"

"The appellate court issued a ruling yesterday on a case involving contract language almost identical to the provision at issue in our case. It supports our claim and cuts against your defense."

"I didn't know there was an appellate ruling on point coming down."

"We did. Would you like a citation?"

"Thank you." I wrote the cite on a legal pad as he spoke, half paying attention, half running a postmortem in my head. We'd had the case settled for nothing and now the deal was gone... All because Ellis had to press - put it all on the line for that extra little vig... Win every zero sum game, every battle of egos.

The minute I got off the phone I looked up a copy of the appellate ruling on the internet, grabbed the fax and ran down to Ellis' office. "Have you seen this?"

"Uh, huh." He turned from his computer and picked up a copy from his desk.

"They're claiming a new appellate ruling screws our defense." I handed him a paper with a link to the citation.

"Thanks."

"What do we do now? You think we can put it back together?" I wanted to be mad, but Ellis looked like hell. He'd been beaten, whipped, bet like a fool and been burned. I could have gloated, I guess, but I didn't. It would have only cheapened the moment, blunted the pain... Made me a target for deflection, something Ellis could attack. The better course was silence. Leave him to think, to wallow... The sharpest point of regret is that gnawing, ceaseless clarity... The endless instant replay... Knowing you had it and blew it and there was no one to blame but yourself.

"I don't know. Depends..." He frowned at the fax and looked out the window. "I guess we stuck with those demands a little too long..." I wasn't surprised at the sudden introspection. Everybody's remorseful in the dock, even a lawyer. "We probably pushed too hard, went over the line."

Yeah... That tends to happen when you don't know where the fuck it is.

----------
¹ What else matters at thirty, forty or seventy?

² Charles was a sick bastard, but you had to admire his purist streak.

³ The prissy public school in the area.

⁴ Local Stepford family with hyper-successful children.

Posted by PhilaLawyer at 5:27 PM

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