House Party

In high school, EngineerBrother was the brother everybody called 'the good one.' He was quiet and unsuspecting.  However, he used to wait until our parents went out of town to throw wild house parties. This particular party during his Senior year's spring break, in 1998, the booze was flowing and later the vomit too.

I am in college. The next day I have a midterm that I actually prepare to take. Although at 2am I do not have a particular interest in waking up for my 7:30am class, I certainly enjoy uninterrupted sleep. I am especially not happy when some big-headed kid is waking me up by calling dinosaurs, "RAWRRRRR!!!" 

The sound is projectile vomit flying across my entire bathroom. It is not the shared bathroom, it is my private bathroom! The bathroom I scrub once a week; we ritualistically complete cleaning chores every Friday.

I run to the bathroom and catch him spewing his guts all over my mirror, vanity, counter top, walls, baseboards, throw rug, and tile floor in an attempt to make it to the toilet.

"What are you doing?" I scream in disbelief and horror.

I am going to make sure he learns his lesson. No, not a lesson in controlling his alcohol. I am going to teach him a lesson in waking me up and one hell of a payback for vomiting all over my clean bathroom. 

I scream some choice words at this high school kid. I march into the storeroom to gather the cleaning bucket and a rag. I come back to the bathroom and pull the Windex, paper towels, and Comet from under the sink. 

I stand over the drunko-barfo kid as I give him instructions to clean my bathroom. He collapses on the cold, bathroom floor in the middle of puke-splatter, surrounded by cleaning products. The Comet makes a blurry, light green, chalk outline of his passed out body. He could be mistaken as having passed out while attempting to snort powder disinfectant like a cocaine substitute had I not been here to witness the entire incident. 

Big-Head is on a mission to settle in for the night. He is searching for warmth that cannot be found from wrapping himself up in the vomit-covered throw rug. He army-crawls from the bathroom into my walk-in closet. Big-Head curls up and begins snoring on the carpet, his head is nestling into and surrounded by neatly organized shoe racks full of high heels and platforms. 

I am beyond pissed-off! I give up on making the kid clean my bathroom to storm upstairs. I walk in to the kitchen where my brother's friend, the Police Captain's son, is pouring out shots of pilfered, clear liquor that he liberated from his father's bar, "AVERILL!!! Just in time for shots!"

The whole room erupts in cheers of my name, "AVERILL!!!"

I locate my brother and in front of a good portion of his friends and track teammates I fire at him in the form of cursing, "Since your stupid, drunk, big-headed, a-hole friend puked all over my f*cking bathroom you are going to clean that shit up so I can use my bathroom and go to bed!" I am red in the face and holding my arms at my sides while clenching my hands in tight fists. I am hysterical as I manage to screech, "AND he's PASSED OUT in MY closet!!!" 

Reflecting on this incident now, I can see where I might have slightly over reacted. But, I am the big sister and can get away with being b*tchy sometimes. Besides, I used to be super high strung. What can I say? I do not like messes or stupidity and I certainly do not deal well with people's insides that refuse to remain on the interior. 

The whole party yells, nearly in unison, "Chris!!!" 

Others are exclaiming, "Chris lost the bet!" 

High fives are being exchanged to a chorus of hearty laughter.

I hear someone else, "That b*tch is always the first to go!"

Trey rushes downstairs to the basement, my area of the house. He cleans up the mess and ushers Chris to the living room. Before I shut and lock both of my bedroom doors and go to sleep I warn Trey, "Don't let anymore of your stupid friends puke in the house. They can go outside so it doesn't have to be cleaned up. And that sh*t stinks! You know Mom's gonna go ballistic if it gets on her white carpets."

Mom did not exactly have white carpets. The entire house is carpeted in light grey carpet that shows every misstep or dropped object. There are two number one rules in our household; one, no shoes are ever to be worn on the carpet, and one, no food or beverages outside of the kitchen. If anything is steadfast and true it is these rules. 

The next morning I wake up for class to find another kid passed out on the floor in the living room. I do not think anything about it, I have a midterm to attend.

I come home and Trey is leaning over the spot where his second friend was sleeping. He is furiously scrubbing the carpet. 

"What happened there?"

"Seth's stupid-ass f*cking puked a red pile of kool-aid and liquor concoction."

My eyes are wide.  My Mom's pristine carpet! The Silver Fox is going to murder my brother. The whole house of light grey carpet and it is only stained in this one spot.

"It was nice knowing you. But, you have to fix this. I'm not getting in-trouble for your stupid friend at your party. I didn't even attend it."

I skip out of the house. This does not concern me, let 'the good one' fix his own problem. 

He fixes it all right. He immediately calls The Silver Fox, who is on vacation, to tell her about the puke.  The story goes like this, "I went for a long run. When I got home I was overheated and cramping. I could not make it to the back patio." He apologizes to Mom for accidentally puking on the carpet. 

She buys it! Can you believe she buys that crap?? He gets away with it, all of it: the party, the liquor, the friends, and the puke. In disbelief and amazement I murmur, "All of it."

It is not until years later when we are all adults and reminiscing about our childhoods after Thanksgiving dinner that Trey is found out. Trey is married and has children of his own, what can The Silver Fox do now? 

She did the only thing she can, she grills us on what else we got away with, "What were the round, greasy spots on the painted walls in the basement?"

The answer to that is another story. 

This Tuesday night, I come home to an empty house. I thought my parents were picking up MarineBrother at the base for his leave and coming right home; a 36 hour drive lickety-split. 

I text my Dad, "When will you be home from vacation?"

He responds. 

I text back:

When they get home I guarantee she'll be stepping lightly, looking for any evidence of a wild, rap-star style house party on these light salmony-pink carpets of hers. Good luck with that! I'm taking my cues from 'the good one.'