{"id":492,"date":"2015-08-07T11:24:50","date_gmt":"2015-08-07T11:24:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/zatma.org\/new-wp\/?p=492"},"modified":"2015-08-07T11:24:50","modified_gmt":"2015-08-07T11:24:50","slug":"the-party","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/zatma.org\/?p=492","title":{"rendered":"The Party"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Yin<\/a>
Yin Ts’ao\u00a0Shakya<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

<\/h4>\n

If you like “The Party”, check for more stories in AlphabetGumbo.com<\/strong><\/a><\/h4>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u00a0Part\u00a01<\/strong><\/h4>\n

<\/h3>\n

“I REALLY CAN’T THANK YOU ENOUGH for agreeing to this,” Ginny said as\u00a0she took Jonathan’s hand and led him down the flagstone walkway which\u00a0traversed the soon-to-be wedded Travis and Gretchen’s well-manicured\u00a0front lawn. “I know these get-togethers aren’t your cup of tea. Thank\u00a0you for taking one for the team tonight, Teddy Bear.\u00a0I promise I’ll make it up to you later on.”<\/p>\n

Jonathan, clearing his throat and detecting a hint that sex could be\u00a0in his immediate future – not the kind of sex he and Ginny had before they moved-in together, of course, but SEX none the less – nodded and\u00a0replied, “It’s no problem, Gin. It’s fine. I just, you know, it’s nothing personal against your friends. They’re great and all… I just, you know, feel like I need a few Jell-O shots and a Xanax just\u00a0to be around them sometimes.”<\/p>\n

(That wasn’t actually true. It\u00a0was<\/i>personal, and it had everything\u00a0to do with the fact that to Jonathan, none of Ginny’s friends were “great” at all. And that went double for Gretchen and her fianc\u00e9,\u00a0Mr. What’s-His-Name. And he needed a whole lot more chemical assistance than a few Jell-O shots and a Xanax to handle being around\u00a0them without wanting to blow out the pilot light, turn up the gas, and put his head in the oven.)<\/p>\n

“I know, Teddy Bear,” Ginny replied, giving Jonathan her cute pouty face. To her\u00a0Jonathan looked like a teddy bear. Well, a skinny, well-worn teddy bear.<\/p>\n

“Especially Gretchen, fuck…” (Gretchen taught Second grade elementary school and tended to speak to everyone in that same slow, condescending, “talking down”\u00a0manner that she used when she spoke to her students. She also listened\u00a0to National Public Radio.)<\/p>\n

“I know, Jonny. She can be a little uptight, a little condescending,\u00a0but I’ve known her since Junior High and…”<\/p>\n

“I know Gin, and I said it’s okay. Just, you know, point me toward the\u00a0alcohol as soon as we’re through the front door and I’ll be fine.”<\/p>\n

“Uh, there’s no drinking tonight, Jon. Travis, remember…”<\/p>\n

(Jonathan\u00a0did not<\/i>, in point of fact, remember Travis, or What Travis Had Done, beyond a vague concept of “some guy who’s, uh, engaged to\u00a0Gretchen, I think,” which he’d picked up from half-listening to Ginny\u00a0when she spoke, ad-nauseum, about her friends while he smoked pot and\u00a0playedDiablo III\u00a0<\/i>on the computer.)<\/p>\n

“Uh, Travis?”<\/p>\n

“Gretchen’s fiancee, Jon! For Christ’s sake get it together!\u00a0Fuck<\/i>!”<\/p>\n

“What’s wrong with…. uh, Travis?”<\/p>\n

“Gretchen made him quit drinking… REEEMEMBER!? He was drunk at the\u00a0recital and felt-up the mother of one of her students. She smacked Jonathan on his forehead,\u00a0Ring a bell!?<\/i>”<\/p>\n

(That was actually the edited-for-content version of the story that Gretchen told her friends and family. It garnered her the sympathy she\u00a0wanted from the unfortunate people who had to listen, and spared her\u00a0the embarrassment of telling them the Gospel Truth, which was\u00a0that Travis had taken the afternoon off work, had gotten obliterated at the bar before meeting Gretchen at the recital, and upon being introduced to the leggy blonde-with-the-Yoga-ass mother of\u00a0one of Gretchen’s students after the show, he didn’t just “feel her up.” No, he had boomed, “Pleased to meet you, baby!” at her as he reached\u00a0for her, grabbed her ass, kissed her, and while grinning wildly,\u00a0rubbed his crotch up and down against her hip with the smirk of a\u00a0randy schnauzer humping a pillow into a pile of tattered cloth and\u00a0feathers.)<\/p>\n

“Oh, yeah. Yeah! Travis…” Jonathan cleared his throat, “He’s uh,\u00a0yeah, he’s in that Twelve Step Thing now, what was it?”<\/p>\n

“A.A.”<\/p>\n

“Uh…?”<\/p>\n

“Alcoholics Anonymous<\/i>! Jesus Jonathan!”<\/p>\n

“Yeah…”<\/p>\n

(Ginny was losing her patience. She hated it when Jonathan wasn’t as present as she wished, and knew that he could be, if he wanted. But in her heart, she understood.)<\/p>\n

It occurred to Jonathan that saying as little as possible from that\u00a0point on was the best course of action to take considering the\u00a0circumstances and what was at stake for later on, so he apologized\u00a0and kissed Ginny on the cheek. Ginny smiled and thanked him once\u00a0again, for coming along.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Part\u00a02<\/strong><\/h4>\n

<\/h3>\n
\n

The house that Gretchen and Travis had mortgaged themselves out the ass for three months ago was sterile on the inside. To guests it looked as if happy, well-adjusted people lived there, at least at\u00a0first glance. But upon closer inspection, Jonathan’s subconscious\u00a0would discover evidence that the whole thing was painstakingly\u00a0manufactured, down to the most minute detail. \u00a0Feelings of extreme uneasiness would manifest themselves along with vague, but insistent\u00a0inclinations that something just\u00a0wasn’t right,<\/i>\u00a0here.”<\/p>\n

Jonathan picked up on it almost immediately. He wasn’t attending a bad\u00a0party with a rabble of people he’d rather not talk to anymore, oh no.\u00a0It was so much bigger than that, now. It was as if he was a contestant\u00a0in some kind of fucked-up television game show.\u00a0“Gretchen smiles exactly the same way in every single picture I see\u00a0her in,” he said. Indeed, in all fifteen of them on the mantle alone,\u00a0Gretchen’s expression was identical – a big, toothy, brilliant-white\u00a0smile like a shark who’d been seeing a Hollywood Dentist, the kind of Hollywood Dentist who only works on A-List celebrities. She was wearing different clothes in each photo, and she was surrounded by\u00a0different scenery, but her face, and that smile, were identical in each one.\u00a0“And ‘Mr. What’s-His-Fuck The Pervert Alcoholic’ looks terrified in\u00a0every one of the photos he’s in. What the fuck is that about?”<\/p>\n

Ding-ding-diiiing! Jonathan has just won round two, Ladies and Gentlemen, with another correct observation! Yes, Travis did look terrified. He was smiling in all the pictures, too, and that’s what\u00a0made it so unseemly. Unlike Gretchen’s smile, which was a pantomime\u00a0that had been expertly rehearsed over the years to express\u00a0jubilation under even the most dire of circumstances, Travis’ smile\u00a0came-off as forced and gave the impression that it was masking sheer\u00a0terror. It was the way you smile in the pictures they take of you at\u00a0the amusement park when you’re riding the roller coasters and you’re\u00a0terrified of them. That’s how Travis looked in the engagement photos,\u00a0all elegantly framed and prominently displayed on the credenza.<\/p>\n

Time for round three! Will our contestant notice it? Is he gonna pick\u00a0up on it, folks?<\/p>\n

Jonathan meandered into the kitchen. “Christ, you could perform brain\u00a0surgery in here,” he thought to himself.<\/p>\n

A few of the guests had congregated by a large punch bowl on the\u00a0center island. They took notice of him and acknowledged him with\u00a0half-smiles. He returned the smiles in equally half-assed measure.<\/p>\n

He stared at that kitchen for a long time. \u00a0Then it came to him. “Nobody fucking\u00a0cooks\u00a0<\/i>in here!” he blurted out, surprising the punch bowl crowd.<\/p>\n

“This kitchen hasn’t been cooked in since it was fucking remodeled! I can still smell the paint!”<\/p>\n

DING DING DIIIIING! We have a winner, Ladies and Gentlemen! Tell him\u00a0what he’s won, Jimmy!<\/p>\n

“Ladies and Gentlemen, Jonathan Weissman has just won a bowling ball\u00a0made of depleted uranium! And he’ll be carrying that big fucker around\u00a0with him in his stomach for the duration of the evening, feeling nauseated and uncomfortable! HA-HA!\u00a0Back to you, Craig!”<\/p>\n

That’s fantastic!<\/p>\n

It was then that Jonathan realized he was badly in need of a drink. Probably even many drinks. This wasn’t something that could be resolved by walking back out to the car, getting inside, smoking a\u00a0joint and listening to Portishead on the stereo. Not by a longshot.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

Part 3<\/strong><\/h4>\n

Jonathan peeked around the corner, into the Game Room. Ginny was\u00a0standing by the big-ass TV, belting-out\u00a0Livin’ On A Prayer\u00a0<\/em>into a plastic microphone, as the lyrics whizzed by on the screen, over an undulating tie-dyed background. She was accompanied by the always\u00a0polo-shirted-and-khaki’d Sylvester, a guy Jonathan recalled meeting\u00a0at a barbecue several months ago. Or was it the outing at Kennywood?
\nJonathan was terrible at remembering exactly where and when he met uninteresting people. Jonathan sucked at all things having to do with uninteresting people.<\/p>\n

He was keen, however, at determining whether or not Ginny was having a\u00a0pleasant enough time at a social function to miss him if he vanished\u00a0for a half an hour or so. And Ginny seemed to be having a blast at the\u00a0karaoke jam which, Jonathan assumed, would only allow songs from a\u00a0pre-approved and agonized-over playlist, decided-upon ahead of time by – you guessed it – Gretchen, herself.<\/p>\n

Jonathan shuddered. He always hated Bon Jovi.\u00a0 He made his exit.<\/p>\n

Though he hardly ever came to this neighborhood, he navigated the twists and turns and alleyways on the drive to the liquor store as if\u00a0he knew the way by heart. Jonathan, who over-thought\u00a0everything,<\/em>paused to consider the idea that perhaps he knew, on some subconscious\u00a0level, that he would be attending a dry\u00a0party\u00a0all along and with the
\nuse of his most basic, primal mental faculties, was on the lookout for nearby liquor stores the entire way there that night; and he’d\u00a0been mapping-out points of stealthy egress, and plotting the quickest routes, from the moment he and Ginny arrived. All without being cognizant of it until the moment he stood at the cashier’s station, paying for the two bottles of Bacardi 151 he’d selected.<\/p>\n

“Jesus. Had I planned this all along?” he thought to himself.\u00a0 He dismissed the thought with a simple “Fuck it.”\u00a0He paid, and left.<\/p>\n

Jonathan didn’t approve of drinking and driving. At least, not most of the time. But it wasn’t difficult for him to rationalize breaking the\u00a0seal on one of his bottles of high-octane rum, and gulping down three\u00a0or four jiggers before buckling his seatbelt.<\/p>\n

He grimaced and coughed hard after the mouthfuls of jet fuel hit his throat and then went tear-assing their way down his esophagus toward\u00a0his stomach where they crashed, and subsequently exploded, into a\u00a0fireball he could physically feel, way down there inside of him near\u00a0his intestines.<\/p>\n

He dismissed his reservations forthwith. “I don’t have too far to go,\u00a0and I\u00a0was\u00a0<\/em>sober when I got in the car. Fuck it.”<\/p>\n

He swilled down two more mouthfuls.<\/p>\n

Cough.<\/p>\n

Fireball.<\/p>\n

His testicles clenched up a little bit.<\/p>\n

Burp!<\/p>\n

“Whoo-wee! Fuck.”<\/p>\n

Whistle.<\/p>\n

Jonathan turned the key and his VW’s motor whirred to life. He paused\u00a0again, considering, “Man, this must be what it’s like for alcoholics every single day, when they have to go to work, or\u00a0funerals, or church picnics…”<\/p>\n

It had never gotten downright unmanageable for Jonathan, not enough\u00a0for him to consider asking himself The Tough Questions, at least not\u00a0yet. That time was still ahead of him. But he had to chuckle to himself at the irony of his thought, as he shifted into\u00a0reverse, looked over his shoulder, and backed out of the parking\u00a0space. And with a flick of the shifter and a brief squeal of the\u00a0tires, he was on his way back toward the\u00a0party, one sheet to the wind,\u00a0the other two on their way up the mast.<\/p>\n

Part 4<\/h4>\n

Jonathan arrived safely back at Gretchen and Travis’s McMansion, but\u00a0to his chagrin, the empty space he’d left by the curb in front of the house not more than twenty minutes earlier, was taken.<\/p>\n

Humming along to Modest Mouse, he drove a little farther down the block, looking for a suitable place to park.<\/p>\n

And it should be noted here that Jonathan had consumed two-thirds of\u00a0his first bottle of Bacardi 151 on the drive back which, interestingly enough, allowed him to broaden his mind quite a lot when considering just what constituted a “suitable parking space.”<\/p>\n

He brought his VW, affectionately nicknamed “Dubbs” by Ginny, to rest\u00a0by a tall oak tree which resided on the front lawn of a house down the street – the middle of the front lawn. Jonathan thought nothing of\u00a0it at all; the house remained dark. The homeowners either didn’t care\u00a0or hadn’t heard all the noise. And he’d ceased thinking about it in\u00a0the time it took to unbuckle the seatbelt, open the door, and step out\u00a0onto the grass.<\/p>\n

With his bottles of 151 in the pockets of his overcoat, he made his\u00a0way back toward the\u00a0party, whistling to himself as he walked.<\/p>\n

\nPart 5<\/strong><\/h4>\n

After arriving, via slipping-in through the side-door that lead first into the mud room, which was spotless, and from there into the kitchen\u00a0which was – you guessed it – still sterile and smelling of new paint,\u00a0he made his way past a new group of punch bowl revelers, carefully and\u00a0cautiously, so as not to appear drunk, and headed for the Game Room,\u00a0to determine whether or not Ginny had noticed he’d been missing.<\/p>\n

She had not.<\/p>\n

He stepped in, and leaned against the wall (his legs had started\u00a0feeling like spaghetti) and observed Ginny, sitting on the large couch\u00a0next to Gretchen. She smiled at Jonathan and waved her hand a little\u00a0at him.<\/p>\n

He smiled back, shifted his weight away from the wall, pointed at her, grinned, and blew her a kiss.<\/p>\n

Ginny peered back at him, quizzically, but before the physical symptoms of Jonathan’s intoxication could register, somebody\u00a0handed Gretchen the microphone, and she stood up and interrupted the\u00a0exchange saying, “Everybody, gather around! Travis and I are going to sing a duet. MMMHM, this is our favorite song, and ooh! OOOH! Somebody make a video\u00a0of this so we can post it on our Facebook page!!”<\/p>\n

The booze had somehow extinguished the little warning light in\u00a0Jonathan’s head that would glow bright red any time he was about to say something stupid, so without thinking he blurted out, “You made your fianc\u00e9 make a lame joint-Facebook page with you!” while pointing\u00a0at Gretchen and laughing.<\/p>\n

“OH Ha, Ha, Jonathan! All couples do that! Don’t they, TRAVIS?” Gretchen\u00a0responded.<\/p>\n

And she continued, “This is mine and Travis’s song, and we’re going to\u00a0dance to it at our wedding, aren’t we, TRAVIS?”<\/p>\n

Travis just stood there, by the TV, looking both embarrassed and defeated. Gretchen joined him, and he smiled that same, terror-masking smile, and put his arm around her.<\/p>\n

The duet began. It was\u00a0Truly, Madly, Deeply<\/em>, by Savage Garden.<\/p>\n

Jonathan winced, then laughed, and then laughed even harder, so hard\u00a0he felt tears in his eyes, and in the thick of the laughter blurted out “OHHHH,\u00a0MAAAAN! That song fucking SUCKS!”<\/p>\n

Sylvester laughed. A few others chuckled, and Ginny leaped up from the\u00a0couch and rushed at Jonathan like an defensive lineman and, catching\u00a0him completely off guard, she maneuvered him into the kitchen while\u00a0Gretchen, with her bone white shark smile, continued singing, never\u00a0missing a beat.<\/p>\n

\nPart 6<\/strong><\/h4>\n

“WHAT THE FUCK, JONATHAN! WHAT… THE… FUCK?”<\/p>\n

“Uh… Heh…” \u00a0Cough. “Whatthefuck?” \u00a0Ginny wanted to know what the fuck was.\u00a0“What the fuck what, baby?” Jonathan said, grinning and steadying\u00a0himself on the center island.<\/p>\n

“You just\u00a0haaad\u00a0<\/em>to get drunk! Didn’t you? And how did you get drunk, Jonathan? You were sober when we got here and there’s no booze in this\u00a0fucking one-point-five million dollar retarded house so\u00a0what the fuck<\/em>,\u00a0Jonathan! How’d you get drunk?”<\/p>\n

Jonathan pulled the almost empty bottle of 151 from his pocket, held it\u00a0up, and said “Liquor store…”<\/p>\n

Ginny snatched it from his hand, opened it, whacked-down the dregs,\u00a0wiped her arm across her mouth, and said “You are soooo not getting\u00a0laid tonight for this, Jonathan!”<\/p>\n

Jonathan snickered, and then quietly moaned to himself, “Noooo…”<\/p>\n

“Gretchen will\u00a0never\u00a0<\/em>forgive me for this!” Ginny said, and then\u00a0punched Jonathan in the arm. “You’re such an asshole sometimes!” And\u00a0with that she stormed out of the kitchen.<\/p>\n

Jonathan looked in no direction in particular and asked aloud, “I’M an asshole?”<\/p>\n

Nobody answered. And moments later he was outside on the back deck,\u00a0smoking a cigarette and replaying the events that had occurred\u00a0moments earlier, trying to determine the precise moment\u00a0in time at which he became “Such An Asshole.”<\/p>\n

“Yeah, I probably am an asshole,” he muttered. “That was kind\u00a0of a dick thing to say…”<\/p>\n

“Yeah, man. That was a\u00a0total\u00a0<\/em>dick thing to say,” a voice responded from out of \u00a0nowhere. Somebody Jonathan barely recognized through the\u00a0drunken haze had come out, just as he was talking to himself. The voice\u00a0surprised him.<\/p>\n

“Yeah, I guess it was…” Cough. “An I feel reeeal bad about it,\u00a0man,” Jonathan said as he reached into his coat pocket for the\u00a0other bottle of 151.<\/p>\n

He opened it, took a gulp, and said “I, uh, I apologize you had to see me acting like an asshole, man. Here, lemme buy you a drink.” And he\u00a0handed the bottle over to his new friend.<\/p>\n

Without thinking the man took the bottle from Jonathan’s hand, and then\u00a0paused, staring at it. He licked his lips and then winced- “Oh,\u00a0shit! I, I really can’t, man, I have a sponsor.”<\/p>\n

“AWWW SHIT MAN, sure you can! We’re all adults here.\u00a0 Drink up, Buddy. C’mon!”<\/p>\n

“I need to call my sponsor right now!”<\/p>\n

Hearing this, Jonathan began mincing around on the deck, flailing his\u00a0arms, and mimicked him with a little girl’s voice, saying- “Waaaah! I neeeeed to caaaaall mah sponsooor, I neeeeed to caaaaall mah\u00a0sponsoooooooor waaaaah!”<\/p>\n

“Aww, Fuck it,” the man said and took two huge swigs. “Thanks, man. I\u00a0fucking needed that.”<\/p>\n

“No problem, chief,” Jonathan said and then staggered, asking, “What’d you say your name was, again?”<\/p>\n

“Uh, it’s me, asshole, Travis. You know, the guy with the joint-Facebook page with his fianc\u00e9e…”<\/p>\n

Jonathan stood there, head cocked to one side, looking bewildered as Travis walked past him carrying his 151.<\/p>\n

Jonathan really ought to get better about remembering who all the uninteresting people are, specifically, shouldn’t he?<\/p>\n

“Oops…” Was the first thing Jonathan said. The second thing he said\u00a0as the adrenaline hit him and immediately began to cause the rum fog\u00a0to lift, was, “OHSHITFUCK!”<\/p>\n

He stumbled toward the patio door, intent on finding Ginny and escaping\u00a0with her before the shitshow (the one that he would no-doubt be held\u00a0responsible for) began.<\/p>\n

\nPart 7<\/h4>\n

Once inside, Jonathan searched for Ginny frantically. She wasn’t in\u00a0the Game Room, where Penny and Howie Marsh were warbling\u00a0Friends In Low Places<\/em>\u00a0together. And she wasn’t among the partygoers in the kitchen, either. Travis, on the other hand,\u00a0was\u00a0<\/em>in the kitchen,\u00a0chatting-up Sylvester’s girlfriend Kaye, and she did not appear to be
\namused. He had the bottle in his hand and half of it’s contents were already\u00a0gone. Travis’s face was bright read, and his smile\u00a0didn’t look forced at all. It looked maniacal, honest, and heavily shored-up by alcohol.<\/p>\n

Jonathan tilted his head, watched, and gave the\u00a0image time enough to let the gravitas of it sink in. “God, he looks\u00a0really happy,” he thought as he watched Travis, his face
\nsplit in half by a the kind of grin you normally only see on\u00a0Jack-O-Lanters, reach to Kaye and grab her breast through her shirt.\u00a0Kaye gasped but Travis didn’t balk.<\/p>\n

Jonathan’s mouth gaped. “Oh my God, oh my\u00a0fucking GOD!” he thought as Kaye threw her drink at Travis and gave his face a slap that was hard enough to replace his\u00a0grin with a look of astonished bewilderment at what he could have\u00a0possibly done wrong.<\/p>\n

“What’s the matter Kaye? You’ve got some great after-market tits!” Travis shouted after her as she fled the kitchen. “They’re great,\u00a0aren’t they?” he asked to the guests hovering around the center\u00a0island. They hadn’t seen what happened. Not many people paid much
\nattention to Travis, some because they had trained themselves not to.<\/p>\n

Jonathan tried the living room next, but Ginny wasn’t in there, either.<\/p>\n

He headed upstairs, damn-near toppling two female guests who were on\u00a0their way up to use the bathroom (the downstairs bathroom was\u00a0occupied). He reached the landing and heard Ginny laughing. She was in\u00a0the master bedroom with what sounded like Gretchen and two others,\u00a0admiring the new bedroom furniture that Gretchen’s father had recently given\u00a0to them. Jonathan burst into the bedroom and Ginny regarded him with surprise.\u00a0 He was pale and sweating.\u00a0 He didn’t look drunk anymore at\u00a0all. He looked like he’d just seen his dog get hit by a car. He\u00a0grabbed Ginny by the arm and pulled her out of the master bedroom.\u00a0 In tow, she protested, “But Teddy Bear!”<\/p>\n

“Gin there’s no time to explain right now we just have to getthefuckout! We have to leave right now!”<\/p>\n

They were half-way down the stairs, and Ginny was still pleading “But Jonathan, Gretchen was going to show us the walk-in closet!”<\/p>\n

“We gotta go right now Ginny, shit is totally FUCKED!”<\/p>\n

“WHAT’S FUCKED, JONATHAN? WHAT’RE YOU JABBERING ABOUT?”<\/p>\n

“Travis is getting hammered, and he just grabbed that chick who\u00a0Brown Khakis is fucking’s tits, and it’s my fucking fault and we have\u00a0to go RIGHT NOW!”<\/p>\n

“GOD DAMN IT JONATHAN. YOU REALLY ARE AN IDIOT! YOU KNOW THAT?”<\/p>\n

“I know I know I’m SORRY Ginny. C’mon!”<\/p>\n

Part 8<\/strong><\/h4>\n

 <\/p>\n

Gretchen and her two friends had followed Jonathan and Ginny after their abrupt exit. Gretchen was frantic on the inside but she did not betray her cool, almost stoic exterior, even as the series of horrible\u00a0things that could be occurring downstairs looped through her mind like\u00a0a Domestic Disaster\u00a0Highlight Reel From Hell.\u00a0<\/em>Had someone spilled punch on her new carpet?<\/p>\n

Had the downstairs bathroom flooded?<\/p>\n

Did she remember to close her internet browser on the computer downstairs and clear the history, and if not, were ten or elven of her closest friends having a laugh at the lesbian fem-dom bondage porn she had been looking at?<\/p>\n

Did Snickers, their labradoodle, piss all over the couch?<\/p>\n

Was Travis behaving inappropriately toward some of the\u00a0party\u00a0guests?<\/p>\n

“Whatever was going on, Jonathan had to be responsible for it,” Gretchen decided during the five seconds it took her to\u00a0descend the stairs after them.<\/p>\n

Her two bewildered friends followed her because it was\u00a09:45\u00a0on\u00a0a Saturday night and they were still sober.<\/p>\n

Once downstairs, Gretchen observed an angered Ginny telling Jonathan\u00a0that he was an idiot while he appeared to be rifling through the\u00a0coat closet. She moved in their direction in long, deliberate\u00a0strides, smiling only enough to make her words slow and marginalizing. “Jonathan, I want you to tell me what’s going on, right now, please.”
\nOnly that’s not really what she was saying at all. Oh sure, that’s\u00a0what the words sounded like when Jonathan heard them, but he knew that what Gretchen was\u00a0really<\/em>saying probably sounded a lot\u00a0more like – “Jonathan you drunk little fuck-weasel, I know you’ve\u00a0donesomething<\/em>\u00a0and I’m going to cut off your balls and stuff them up\u00a0your ass for it! Now tell me what you did, you little shit!”<\/p>\n

Jonathan, now pouring sweat, was in the middle of stammering “I, I, I’m so sorry, Gretchen, I fucked up!” when a crescendo of groans and mortified EWWW’s emerged from the kitchen and stopped Gretchen in her\u00a0tracks.<\/p>\n

The groans and grasps were followed by “Oh God! Travis, for heaven’s\u00a0sake!” And then, “Travis what the hell are you doing! Are youdrunk<\/em>?”<\/p>\n

That was enough to turn Gretchen’s attention and anger away from Jonathan and direct them toward the kitchen. And in those same long,\u00a0deliberate strides, she hurried there, determined to get to the bottom\u00a0of just what, exactly, had happened, and whether or not Jonathan the\u00a0Drunk-Little-Fuck-Weasel was responsible.<\/p>\n

And what greeted Gretchen, when she arrived in the kitchen, was a scene almost impossible to relate second-hand in stories told around office water-coolers or in coffee shops among friends, and do it any justice. There, before her, was Travis, standing proudly on top of the\u00a0center island, his pants and his boxers bunched around his ankles,
\ngulping down rum straight out of the bottle while pissing merrily into the punch bowl, as their friends gawked at him the way people normally gawk\u00a0at a train wreck or a collision on the highway.<\/p>\n

Gretchen folded her arms, regarded Travis with a curt “MmHM,” and then\u00a0said, in her elementary school voice,”Travis, the punch bowl is\u00a0not<\/em>for peeing in. Now pull up your pants, put you winkie away, and follow\u00a0me into the den, please.”<\/p>\n

The word “winkie” in reference to a grown man’s flaccid member made Sylvester snicker, though he tried his hardest to muffle it.<\/p>\n

Jonathan, who along with Ginny had made his way to the kitchen in time\u00a0to view the damage he’d caused, once again heard what Gretchen was\u00a0really<\/em>\u00a0saying, “Travis, you piece of shit! Get your ass into the den\u00a0rightfuckingnow. I am going to fucking KILL YOU.”<\/p>\n

He braced himself against the wall with his hand and laughed.<\/p>\n

Ginny took him by the arm and pulled him back, in the direction of the\u00a0front door. She forced an awkward smile and quipped, “We’ve had a\u00a0great evening, but we have to get going,” and then she dashed with\u00a0Jonathan out of Gretchen and Travis’s McMansion, acknowledging to\u00a0herself that her idiot domestic partner may have just ended any shot
\nshe ever had about having a normal social life with her friends and colleagues.\u00a0“You are such an asshole, Jonathan,” she growled at him as they\u00a0dashed across the front yard. “and where’s the fucking car?”<\/p>\n

Jonathan stopped short, waved an out-stretched hand in the general direction of where he’d left Dubbs. Then he doubled-over and threw up on Gretchen and Travis’s front lawn.
\n“Hey Gin, at least I didn’t throw up on their new carpet…”<\/p>\n

Ginny shook her head and gave a small but none-the-less audible giggle.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

If you like “The Party”, check for more stories in AlphabetGumbo.com<\/strong><\/a><\/h4>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Yin Ts’ao, in his own inimitable way, has personalized man’s essential conflict with the material world and all its spurious values. His setting is the home of newlyweds and his instrument of rejection is alcohol and maybe a few drugs. Welcome to “The Party”. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":223,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"neve_meta_sidebar":"","neve_meta_container":"","neve_meta_enable_content_width":"","neve_meta_content_width":0,"neve_meta_title_alignment":"","neve_meta_author_avatar":"","neve_post_elements_order":"","neve_meta_disable_header":"","neve_meta_disable_footer":"","neve_meta_disable_title":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[10,21],"tags":[23],"class_list":["post-492","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-english","category-free-e-books","tag-tales-from-the-sangha"],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/zatma.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/492","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/zatma.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/zatma.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zatma.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zatma.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=492"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/zatma.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/492\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":738,"href":"https:\/\/zatma.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/492\/revisions\/738"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zatma.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/223"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/zatma.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=492"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zatma.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=492"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zatma.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=492"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}