We Came Here for Fun
ALANA MOHAMED
When we found the body it was late. We had gone to Terry’s place after Darren messed with some cops. “Just to check in,” we all said. She hadn’t been around in a minute. But really, we just needed somewhere to drink.
Darren smashed a window and we all climbed in, young drunken limbs tangled together. We moved like a five-headed beast in heat. We were giddy at our own genius: outrunning the cops, some light b&e. We were a force everything else had to react to.
So that’s why, when we found the body, no one wanted to see it. School was out. It was time to work full days flipping burgers and let the oil seep out of us at night along with beer and piss and whatever else was haunting our bodies. That’s why no one paid attention to Johnny when he screamed.
“Johnny, you’re seeing things,” we told him. We stepped over the body to get to the couch across her tiny living room. He hiccupped in protest. Terry had always loved him best. We hadn’t seen her in days. She looked awful, bloated and pale with a bluish tint to her. It didn’t matter. We were there to have a good time and we were going to have a good time.
I settled on the floor with Darren, his body hot with anticipation. Our backs rested against the couch, angled at such a degree that, if we tried, we didn’t have to see Terry at all. We lit candles to savor the dark. Johnny stood just short of the body, looking down as if she were a test he hadn’t studied for.
Sometimes it made sense not to see Terry for a while. She had dropped out of school and gotten a real job. She was assistant manager at the diner where she fed us doughnuts and refused us beer. I hated her preference for glazed bullshit.
“Wonder where Terry got off to,” Jane said to no one.
“Terry’s dead, she’s right there,” Johnny insisted, his voice cracking. Terry had given Johnny a job when no one else would. He was a fan of the doughnuts.
“Johnny, baby, we’re just here to have a good time,” we tried to explain to him. We weren’t here to find a dead body. We urged him to have a lie down on the couch instead, but he backed up even closer to the window, as if he’d be able to slither back out and rewind time.
Terry once told me I had potential. She meant it kindly, but everyone has potential at sixteen.
I used mine to steal beer from work. That night we were drinking the one that turns blue in the cold. Terry’s lips looked more ready to drink.
“It smells in here,” Johnny said. “How can you not smell that?”
“That’s just the smell of the city,” Jane argued. We listed the possibilities. The garbage slush wafting through the broken window, the hint of a gas leak no one could ever afford to fix. Old laundry, moldy bread.
“The smell is coming from right here,” Johnny yelled, pointing.
“I think you’re having a bad trip, man,” Raf said, sprawled out in Jane’s arms. We nodded solemnly.
Johnny started to cry, like an idiot. “Why can’t you guys see it?”
“See what?”
“The body! Her body.” Johnny sputtered. His hand waved over her without making contact.
“Sorry, whose body?”
“Terry’s!” It was hard to hear him through the sobs.
“Johnny, what are you talking about?” Darren said with alien sweetness. “Terry’s in Miami.”
“Miami?”
“Yeah, she said we could use her place, remember?” Raf and Jane were holding back giggles, their catching breath a dare. I kept waiting for Johnny to hear it, grab Terry’s mottled face, and call our bluff.
But Johnny just stared at the hole we had made in the window. “Why did we have to break in, then?” The uncertainty in his voice filled me with disgust, with glee. The world kept bending to accommodate us.
“More fun that way.” Darren shrugged.
Johnny had stopped hyperventilating, but still wouldn’t step over the body. “I’m not having fun,” he said.
“That’s ’cause you’re standing there like an idiot,” Darren said. “Have a drink.” He left my side and in two steps he stood on her chest—its chest. Something cracked. He held a beer out to Johnny, and I shivered.
Johnny hesitated a second too long. Darren made a sound of practiced ambivalence that I recognized from being the bearer of his bad news. When the world denied him his whims, he would blow air from between his lips, shrug, and walk away. He did it then, letting go of the bottle and leaping off Terry’s sinking chest. It rolled my way.
Terry never liked Darren much. She claimed he lacked moral fortitude. I always thought he was just bored.
“We should do something,” he announced, then added, “to take Johnny’s mind off things.”
“Yeah! Let’s raid her room,” Jane said. Everyone ambled over to Terry’s closet, like it would hold anything more than her beige, couponed work uniforms.
I reached for the beer, the body in my eye line. She was wearing an oversized shirt, no knickers.
The last time I saw her, she was on duty in those dumb beige pants. I hadn’t wanted to see her, but we needed the money since one of Darren’s moneymaking ventures had gone to shit. She had sat me down in a roomy booth. We split a doughnut while I feigned interest in scheduling and sick employees. “Oh, everything’s fine,” I had cut in when she took a breath. “Everything’s fine, except I need an abortion and, you know, the clock’s been ticking down for a few days, weeks, whatever.”
She had gasped and looked sorry for me. She said she’d give me the money, of course, but that I needed to be careful. That I had so much potential.
