I:V

I woke up the next morning with dew on my face. People were passed out all over the place. This is one of those times when one thinks to oneself “Jeeze, we definitely partied too hard last night.” Erick was asleep on the longest couch between Jesica and Alexandra. The three were toppled over like dominos with a scrabble board on Erick’s lap and letters all over the place. I could only deduce that we’d gotten into a letter fight at some point.

As I looked about Castlevek, scouting for evidence of what had happened last night, someone caught my eye. At some point during the party, Rashinda had showed up with Kumar. Kumar was a skinny Hindu guy. He had an unbelievable sense of humor. He was short, he had short black hair, but his face was well defined, his nose was a little large but it suited him. We, the group, had a discussion once while he wasn’t around and we concluded that he was probably gay. Oh well, he’s hilarious.

He and Rashinda (Rah- SHEET- uh) had been best friends since as long as anyone could remember. They came into the group together at some point in middle school. Ever since she started hanging out with us I didn’t feel like the token black kid. She was small; small body, bones, and frame; petite. Her skin was darker than mine. She kept her hair straightened, and just above shoulder length. She had big brown eyes and a narrow nose. Her face was narrow and she had high cheek bones. Her lips weren’t huge like mine. She looked good. Well, normally she looked good, at this particular moment she was laying in a chair back to back with Alex… her arm was very wet with drool. It was funny to see the both of them. They looked like two little kids, but Rashinda was my age.

I found my jacket - it was a black and gray “gangsta” sweater, I liked it - I reached in a pocket and pulled out a note that read “Note to self: When not stoned, go to inner city bus station 6pm. Wait. Also: don’t wear jacket, Vince puked in it. I threw the jacket off onto the ground. I looked at my watch and saw that it had taken my a few minutes to decipher the hieroglyphics that I had left for myself. I heard a noise and looked over to Vince, he had fallen asleep next to the fire pit. He laughed when he saw my jacket on the ground. “I know you didn’t put that thing on.”

“Cute, Vince” I laughed. “I’m out of stogies, you got any?”

“I Left my cigarettes in my truck. Come on, I gotta wake up.” His deep voice rumbled when he was groggy. He got up off the ground and brushed the dirt off of his clothes. We proceeded down the hill.

“I can’t remember much of what happened last night.” I said, breaking the silence.

“Not surprising,” he grinned, “you were pretty fried.”

“However, I vaguely remember you mentioning something about a black truck, right?”

“Yeah, some douche bag almost ran me off the road.” We reached his Jimmy. He opened the door and shuffled through the glove compartment. “I meant, I could tell the dude was just not paying attention to the road but, shit!” He handed me a cigarette and lit his own, “The was doing like 90 over there in East Mortem.” East Mortem was a residential zone that consisted of “rich” houses; Mercedes, older folks, Chihuahuas, the whole nine. It was like how we in Mortem picture Florida.

“East Mortem?” I repeated.

“Yeah, I guess there was some party Rick and Alex were at over there, they called me to pick them up. Turns out it was whack anyway.” I took a drag and leaned against Jessica’s Civic. Lucky for us the sun was on the other side of the hills at the moment and we didn’t have to suffer blindness.

“You said it was a Chevy?” I asked taking another drag.

“Yeah, an Avalanche. Nice machine, if I do say so.” He looked over to his right. I followed his gaze and saw Rashinda coming down the hill. Her arm was dry. I couldn’t help but wonder if when she woke up she wondered if I saw her drooling.

“Will you asshats, please shut the hell up?” We laughed as she came between the cars and leaned against the Jimmy next to me, “Which one of you can I bum a cigarette from?” She was looking at me, I pointed to Vince. He pulled out his cigarettes.

He handed her a cigarette, “It’s the least I can do for you after bumming your cigs all night.” We chuckled. I remembered the note I’d written.

“Hey do you guys know what this is about?” I pulled the note out of my pants pocket and handed it to Vince.

After looking at it for a second he said, “Oh yeah, y’see, I’d eaten a lot of sea food yesterday, so when I started coughing a whole bunch from the weed, my stomach started turning and it started coming up-“

“Not that, you dunce!” I cut him off and pointed to the first part of the note, “That!”

He read it aloud, “Note to self: When not stoned, go to inner city bus station 6pm. Wait.”

“Oh yeah,” Rashinda said, “You and Erick’s little mission.” She smirked at me mischievously.