I think Captain America lives a few blocks over
There was a party at someone’s house that started around ten. When I got there at midnight with my friends, there were still two bands left to play, and a keg and a half of beer. We would have been sooner, but we scored some Valium earlier that night and took three a piece. So somehow we lost a couple of hours at my apartment sucked into a Lifetime movie. It was one of those where a lady has an abortion, and the abortion lives, then the child develops cancer. The birth mom and adoptive mom fight for rights for the kid. Then an uncle kidnaps the kid and the adoptive mother’s drinking problem comes out and she starts physically abusing her husband.
Before too long I found myself wandering around the party looking for my friends Christy and Andrew. I had been inside checking out the bands while they were out mingling or whatever. Of course, by that point all of the “cool kids” had left to go to fancy “invite only” parties that you always hear about but never actually witness. They probably all go back to one of their houses, put on the White Stripes, and drink cheap liquor and talked about thrift store shoes and philosophy. Ah yes, an “after hours party”.
Also, the responsible nine to fivers had left hours ago so they could get up bright and early to go make computer chips or some similar shit that would ultimately contribute to our demise. So, what you had left was basically a back yard littered with freaks and eccentrics that drifted around the Hyde Park area frequently, but in different rotations. It created an atmosphere for a good party. No security guys or band managers hanging around trying to get their ego’s and dicks stroked at the same time. I waded in and out of the crowd. Feeling very comfortable amongst this variety of people. I had been to about 20 parties with each of them, but barely knew any by name.
So, there we were, just a bunch of humans. We all lived totally different lives, and came from totally different scenes. But we all gripped together with bulging veins, nails, and teeth to the one thing that we all had in common in solidarity…. ALCOHOL. It only takes it away for a few hours, that’s true. But that’s all life is after all, a bunch of hours piled on top of each other. That being said, when the opportunity presents itself, you should attempt to lose as many hours as possible. Alcohol, the flux capacitor of the lower class. These are the parties that you would usually go home from, put on an old Stooges album, and remind yourself that these are YOUR hours and you will never be a fucking clone. 236 channels, mortgage payments, 1.5 kids, dental plans and lithium? No thanks.
The three of us had taken the bus to the party together, just figuring we’d decide how to get home later. The bus ride was pretty uneventful. There was Martha though, she frequented the busses…any busses, just to drive around. Martha was a transient who could usually be found hanging out at the library when not on the bus. She was big and intimidating, with her shaved head, scowl, dirty clothes and hands. My psychology professor had told me that she had studied Martha’s dissertation in order to prepare her own for her degree. Apparently Martha had been some kind of genius back in her younger years. She never spoke, but once you got used to her, you kinda liked having her around. The scary thing to me was that she had been an upstanding citizen and this prodigy type writer until she turned 29 and then she just fucking went twirling into a world of schizophrenia. I sometimes watched her and wished I’d known her before she lost it. I know I’m an insane mother fucker, but as far as I know I’m not delusional (unless I’m on large quantifies of drugs) And I would just think, “Man, I might wake up tomorrow and be wearing my bra outside my shirt and fingerless gloves, asking people downtown if they wanted to sit on my lap and have a photo taken for a buck while I sing Phill Collins to a broken casio with Unicorn stickers on it.
I waded through the crowd of people with piercings, dreadlocks, tattoos, and pit bulls on leashes. One major downfall with hanging out with the street kids was how incestuous they were, by nature. As I walked through the crowd I felt like an asshole for wondering how many STD’s I was in close proximity with. But I had no judgments towards these people because of their lifestyle. I acknowledged them and they acknowledged me. While this cute little tattooed number was asking me if I had any tinfoil, I saw this guy quickly walk by wearing what appeared to be a costume of sorts. He was walking fast and talking even faster. I gave the guy the tin foil from my cigarette pack and watched him make a pipe in minutes like MacGyver doing some kind of origami. He smoked me out, got my digits, and then I continued to look for my friends.
Christy was easy for me to spot. She was sitting on a piece of wet and moldy wood a few feet away from the now tapped keg. She was loaded and looking into her cup like she was either going to cry, or make it magically fill back up. I knew that she had a six-pack stashed in her backpack that she had totally forgotten about. So I grabbed her and said: ”Hey man, we have some beer to drink. Let’s find Andrew and split before the vultures get it.” She acknowledged me by simply nodding her head. Over the next ten minutes I learned that she is absolutely too drunk to communicate anything with words except “what” and “totally”. So, we stumbled further through yard together looking for Andrew. Occasionally, Christy would see someone she knew and she’s stop for a second, point at the person and say “totally”, and give the thumbs up. Because I was on a mission to fid Andrew this was annoying as hell to me, also I fucking hate pot. I always have. I have no idea why I got high, boredom I perhaps. As we walked through the ocean of colorful people, paranoia was reigning chaos on my brain. Some guy tapped me on the shoulder, before I turned around I quickly prepared a response in my mind: “I found the recipe in The Anarchist Cookbook, but I didn’t really think it would work. I’m really sorry about that warehouse and all…” I turned around and he asked me for a smoke. I nervously gave him one and then Christy and I kept looking for Andrew.
Andrew, all of the girls loooooved Andrew. They all had crushes on him. But Andrew didn’t have time for distractions like girls. He wasn’t gay or even asexual by any means. He just made it a point to avoid dealing with things that other people would obsess over and become consumed with. As soon as he noticed something that others struggled a lot with (usually social problems) he wrote “notes” about it in his old faded notebook. From that point forward he would be immune to getting himself in those situations. I always admired that about Andrew. In all situations he had the ability to let his intellect tell his emotions to fuck off. It was more than being merely pragmatic or stoic. It seemed like he was constantly meditating and that every action was calculated, while somehow never losing spontaneity.
Usually if you were at a party you would find Andrew in a corner somewhere playing chess on a hand scrawled board, with animal crackers as the pieces or something like that. I never really figured out what Andrew’s motivation was, or what was going on in his head…even though he was one of my closest friends at the time. All I knew for SURE about Andrew was that he lived on this guy Phillip’s back porch. He had a sleeping bag covered with stars, 3 books and a handmade ashtray. Andrew would call you up at three in the morning and go off on manic tangents. It was great, he wouldn’t even say, “Hey, it’s me”, or “Man, I was just thinking about something.” The phone would ring, and as soon as you picked it up you would hear Andrews voice:” That’s what makes things happen and and the sad thing is that I think we have genetically evolved into something so inhuman that the continuation of this process is impossible. It’s just fucking impossible. This could very easily reverse things to such a distorted place that black and white thinking is an option you could only dream about. And I for one, I FOR ONE, will not be a part of it! I’ve drawn up some sketches and I’ve done some research into grants and so forth. But it looks like I’ll be fighting this one alone. And I can tell you that I am ready for whatever shit it is that they throw down on me. Because I will not become less human so that I can become more comfortable. It’s a fucking trap, man.”
Then you would hear the phone click, and you’d just hang it up fall back asleep.
Christy and I somehow got sidetracked while we were looking for Andrew and spent two hours on the back of a truck drinking cheap beer out of a cooler that some guys brought. The sun started to rise. I’m not sure how we ended up sitting there as long as we did. With the rising sun though, I started yearning for my cave. My bed, my typewriter, my music and books, and my bed my bed my bed. I looked around at the remains of the party. Three or four other people were scattered around the lawn asleep. There were a few dogs wandering around eating scraps off the grass. I decided to look for Andrew again and I lost Christy once again in the process.
There was a group of lingering leftovers in the house smoking pot and listening to Black Flag. I was on my way in to join them when they all ran out the front door in a panic. So, I walked around the house to the front yard to see what was going on. When I got to the front yard, Andrew was over by the porch lying down with some guy in a weird outfit standing over him with one huge red boot on his chest. I was still pretty groggy and drunk so at first all I could really make out were Andrew’s glasses laying next to him which were held together by duct tape. This guy in the costume was hitting him over and over. It had to have been the guy I had seen earlier in the evening. So I walked a little closer. As I got closer, I finally recognized the red costume. The motherfucker was dressed like Captain America. It was February, so a Halloween leftover was just not an option. All of the people who had run out of the house were doing all those things you do when someone is fighting on your lawn. First they repeatedly yelled for the guy to stop, then the threatened to call the cops (and NOBODY wanted the fucking cops there). When that didn’t work a group of them pulled the guy off of Andrew. Trying to remember Captain America’s arch nemesis, I found Andrew’s warm half empty beer on the ground and nursed it. I knew there was a red skull or something. Goddamn it! I should of read comic books in high school and sat at the special table at lunch. I should have joined the art club and hung out with all the kids who spent the weekends playing D&D. Then I would of at least of had a smart ass comment to make,
“Captain America” got himself away from the guys who had pulled him off of Andrew. He was pointing and yelling at Andrew, but I have no fucking idea what he was saying. I was sitting there in my drunken stupor trying to listen but all that was going through my mind was “That guy is dressed like fucking Captain America.” “The Captain” turned to walk away and stopped after only a few steps to lace up one of his boots. He had some grass stains on his costume and grass in dirt in his scraggly beard.
Andrew got up and walked over to where I was. He casually grabbed the warm beer out of my hand and took a big drink. He looked like hell. He had one black eye, and I’m pretty sure that his nose was broken. Andrew probably hadn’t showered in weeks. He thought showers were a waste of time too, and that he had no use for extra clothes when the ones he wore covered his body just fine. He wiped the blood out from under his nose, looked at if for a second while he adjusted his bent and beaten glasses. Then he nonchalantly wiped the blood into his hair like it was hair gel. When he did that, I noticed that his elbow was bleeding pretty badly as well. Yeah, there was something about Andrew, I have to admit I saw it. His hands and face were covered in tattoos of stitches that covered and surrounded places on his skin that he had once burnt while attempting to breathe fire. He was very beautiful and mysterious. One time he got kicked out of the mall for riding a unicycle with a puppy in his backpack. He always wore a crooked grin, and it really was hard to take your eyes off him though you never really knew why.
After a few minutes I looked over at him and said” What happened?” Andrew drank the rest of the beer, and said ”That creep was trying to sell some acid to some real young kids, so I told him to fuck off.” “That’s it?” I asked. “Yeah,” said Andrew “ and then well, I bought two hits from him and dropped. And I then I just started thinking about how much I fucking hate America.” He looked intensely into my eyes and said “Debbie, I even hate President Clintons hair, his FUCKING hair!: His blue eyes were on fire and you could almost see the light blue flickering flames dancing over the deep blue. “So, I was staring at this guy and after a while all I saw was an American Flag that was laughing at me and waving in the wind.” “So you just started hitting him?” I asked. “No,” he said, “he started hitting me. But I think I might have called him a faggot or something, but I’m not really sure.” “Hmmmm, “ I grunted “So, are you ok?” I asked and waited for the Andrew-esque answer to come my way.
“That’s the thing; even a statement that holds this much irony means nothing to these people, nothing at all. They all use drugs as a method of transportation, they use them like Captain America uses his fucking shield to keep it all away.”(At this point I thought about trying to interrupt him and remind him how many times we’ve gotten completely loaded just because we had already seen the episode on T.V.that night of the Simpsons. But I realize that would be completely useless, and also impossible to get him to stop talking for that long anyway).”And then, in the end nothing has changed. But it’s the bits and pieces that we take with us from there that matter.” He laughed out loud and said to himself “It’s the Matter that Matters.” Then he finished his thought, “ Captain America’s fist symbolized everything we are fighting against for those few moments. But when faced with the option, I didn’t fight back. Don’t you see? This happened to teach me some kind of a lesson, to teach ALL of us a lesson. Pacifists might as well sign on the dotted line with blood. If we are not proactive we will never have an impact on the root of things. And the roots, they run so deep.” He sat there looking off into space for about 3 minutes then finally said:” And so, I have to go now. I have to spend some time alone thinking and figure out why I gave in so easily. I suspect it has something to do with my own roots and perhaps they are growing in a new way. I’ve never planted a tree, and my dad still has that deer tower on his property. Also, I have to find my cigarettes.” Then he got up and walked away, looking intently down for his smokes the whole time.
Christy finally emerged from the crowd with fucked up hair and an empty beery cozy. The guys with the truck from earlier were gonna drop us off. Which was fine with me because they had 3 beers left. As we turned out of the driveway we passed the guy with the dirty red costume. He was motioning wildly with his hands and mumbling to himself under his breath. The pot was starting to wear off and I had stopped counting my teeth with my tongue and thinking about all the incriminating files on my computer at home. “Wait”, said Christy who had suddenly remembered the art of speaking, “what the fuck happened to Andrew? And who the hell was that guy?” I lit a smoke, opened a beer, and said: “That was Captain America and Andrew is thinking of giving up communism.” She simply said “what?” and had regressed back to being unable to speak.
We went to her pad and crashed out on the floor listening to Johnny Cash, drinking Blatz, and waiting for Andrew to call.
