Winger

I DECIDED THAT WHISKEY FROM A Maxine’s House of Spirits in Atlanta shot glass tasted a hell of a lot better than beer from a can, even if I did notice one of Kevin Cantrell’s leg hairs floating in it.

Oh, well, drinking another guy’s leg hair can’t kill you, can it? But it did make me feel kind of like a zombie. I mean the leg-hair thing—you know, consuming the flesh of the living—not the whiskey, because that made me feel like the Wild Boy of Bainbridge Island.

And then, too, I had to wonder what Gandhi would have thought about the whole leg-hair thing, him being a vegetarian and all.

So, yeah, I did have a drink of whiskey.

Well, to be honest, maybe two.

I know . . . I’m such a loser.

And I’m not going to feel sorry for myself or try to defend my stupidity, which had been elevated to a kind of Wild-Boy-Meets-Gandhi religion, but the whiskey did wash those sewing needles out of my throat, and I was so pissed off about JP and Annie hugging that I honestly believe I was trying to hurt myself.

I had a feeling I wouldn’t be going to my classes in the morning anyway.

Eventually, the Wild Boy had just about taken over my entire consciousness, and after two tips from Maxine’s shot glass, he was ready to fight Chas and Casey at the same time to settle anything left unfinished between us.

But then the Gandhi part of me said I should just let them both beat the living crap out of me until they got tired of it.

So it was a real ethical dilemma.

Kevin and Joey looked quiet and steady, like they always did. I don’t think they drank as much as the other two guys while we played. Casey and Chas were pretty drunk. I thought it was a miracle that they didn’t start yelling and breaking things and wake up Mr. Farrow.

After about half an hour, Chas and I were both losing badly, so it became a kind of race between us to see which of us would lose out first and get the consequence, even if the Wild Boy of Bainbridge Island kind of hoped it had something to do with running around in the woods naked in the rain and killing something with my bare hands and eating it raw.

That’s when Chas said to Casey, “So what’s up with all that shit on your MySite? Now you’ve got a picture of his nutsack . . .”

Chas hitchhiked his thumb at me.

Oh, great. Now everyone thinks they’re my balls.

“. . . with a Band-Aid on it . . .”

Of course.

Sean Russell Flaherty’s creative touch, no doubt.

“. . . and all this shit about how much you love Ryan Dean West, and there must be about fifty pictures of Pussboy on it too.”

It kind of choked me up that Chas actually knew my name, and also that Seanie had that many pictures of me.

I hoped they were good ones.

“I don’t know who the fuck has been doing that,” Casey said.

I looked at Joey.

“You don’t really love me, do you, Palmer?” I said.

“Do you want me to kill you now or later?” he answered.

Chas bumped Kevin’s good arm and said, “Give me another shot, Maxine.”

Chas downed the drink in one swallow and said, “Damn that stuff tastes terrible.”

Okay, that was the precise moment the Wild Boy took complete charge of my sensibilities as the pacifist was sleeping off a binge.

I said, “You should try it with a splash of Gatorade in it, Chas.”

Well, to be honest, I actually did say “Gatorade,” but I was thinking “warm-four-day-old-fermented- Pussboy-piss.”

He said, “You have Gatorade?”

“Only just a little.”

“I’ll try it. Thanks, Pusswing.”

Wow. It was just like Christmas. I got another new hate-name from Chas and I was about to watch him drink my pee. What could be better than that?

Dear Pussboy Ryan Dean:

Note to self: After I watch Chas drink my piss, it would be a good time to fully commit to NEVER kissing Megan Renshaw again.

Ever.

Kevin began pouring.

“Leave some room on the arrp,” I said.

“What?” Kevin asked.

I realized I had grunted.

Wild Boy had so taken control that I was losing the ability to express myself with the conventions of spoken language.

“Room. Leave some.”

I took the shot glass from Kevin and chimped up to my bunk. I dug around for my Ryan Dean West Emergency Gatorade Bottle Nighttime Urinal and carefully uncapped it.

In the name of all things holy that piss stunk! I could almost feel the fetid gas cloud escaping from the mouth of the bottle and wafting like a moist cadaver’s hand across my face. A quick splash, a speedy recapping, and I was back down on the floor, sweating in my loincloth, presenting Chas with his drink.

“Gunga Din to the rescue,” I said.

“Does anyone ever know what the fuck you’re talking about?” Chas said, and took the glass from me.

I watched.

My sheet came unraveled and fell to my feet.

I sat.

Chas drank.

Oh, yeah. Take that, Betch.

He squinted, cocked his head, smacked his lips, and said, “I think I like it better straight.”

I looked at Joey. His mouth hung open. He looked like he was witnessing a beheading, or something even grosser, like a beheading where the victim is forced to drink some other guy’s four-day-old fermented piss first. Because it dawned on me that I had told Joey about the Gatorade bottle when we were on the bus coming back to Pine Mountain from Salem.

“Fuck,” Joey said. And I know he would have high-fived me, but he was too deeply repulsed, and he was probably afraid I had some piss on my hand, besides.

“What?” Chas asked.

“Nothing.”

And then Christmas came twice in the same day, because Casey said, “Let me try some with Gatorade in it too.”

And that’s when Joey honestly looked at me like I was a depraved serial killer, or I was going to die or something, but I didn’t care because I was the grunting, piss-in-your-drink Wild Boy of Bainbridge Island.

I played it unintelligibly cool.

“I only have enough Grrrrade left for one shot. I was going to have it—me.”

I had become an ape.

Looking back, I am actually fairly surprised I didn’t begin wildly sprouting hair from the vast acreage of hairlessness on my skinny-bitch-ass body.

“Fuck you, then,” Casey said. “I’m going all-in.”