Something More Weekly

#77 Flashback

The first big party that I ever went to was out at some girl’s parents’ house in the middle of nowhere. My friend’s dad had to drive us out through the countryside to the house. It was cool though, with a pool and a massive garden. Hard to believe her parents were letting her have free reign. They weren't coming back 'til later. To be honest, I was nervous on the drive up there. This wasn’t some gathering of close friends in my bedroom. It was a proper party with tons of the coolest and baddest people from the local comprehensive, hot girls and big, pint cans of beer. My friend and I had cautiously taken six packs of half pint cans. At the risk of looking sad, we didn’t dare to walk around drinking pints. We were still young and had no real idea of how much we could handle. This didn’t stop some of the other guests.

It was 10pm and Dan Bryant was staggering around with a large can of lager in his hand. He spotted my tiny little half-cans and sniggered as he passed me. Dan was one of the stockier guys in our year. He had a rough edge, on account of being raised in a pub. Another consequence of this was his diet. It wasn’t uncommon for Dan to get through three packs of crisps in a day. Apparently he once managed a dozen packs. I cheekily suggested that his beer can was the same one that he’d been carrying around since the party started several hours ago. He sternly denied it and trotted off down the garden. I think I’d hurt his feelings or something.

Back in one of the tents, one girl was in a bad way. She’d necked part or all of a small bottle of neat vodka and had started throwing up. When I heard this, I strolled over to see what was going on. I found her lying on her side, practically unconscious, except that she vomited out a small amount of hard, yellow goo. It looked like dough or something. One of the guests called for an ambulance, which eventually came and took the girl away to have her stomach pumped. Why was Ben laughing? It didn’t seem the most appropriate time. I asked him this question. He just looked at me and laughed. I asked him if he was drunk, which he obviously was. He just carried on laughing. I grabbed one of my friends and brought him over. “Hey look at Ben. He’s just sitting around laughing at everything”. Ben looked at me, smiling. Then he looked over at my friend. Then he looked back at me. Then back over at my friend. Then he just burst into another fit of laughter. We couldn’t get a word out of him. I’d never seen anyone enjoy a party so much.

The party girl’s parents didn’t have much more luck in getting Ben to talk at the end of the night. They’d arrived home to find their garden messed up, an ambulance parked in their driveway and some half cans of beer spilling out into the pool as they slowly bobbed up and down on the surface of the water. “Ben, what’s your parents’ phone number?” “0…” Ben replied, paralytic. “We’re gonna need more than that fella” they urged. “0…” he replied, eyes closed as he lay in the deckchair with his arms down by his side. “0…”. They never got it out of him and had to wait until Ben’s parents’ car pulled up at around midnight.