After Party

After the Party

When I woke up, the first thing I noticed was a nerve behind my knee twitching uncontrollably, as if a fish had swum its way down behind my thigh overnight and become stranded, flapping, at the joint. The sun was already high and my mouth tasted like I’d been sucking on small change coins. I couldn’t remember anything of the night before. Everyone says, when you can’t remember that’s when you know it was a good night. But when the ragged edges of memory begin to piece together, fun does not fill the gaps.

A few limbs lay in my peripheral vision. I thought for a moment of a battleground lain to waste on the grass. Chairs were upended. Bottles in all sorts of places, many of them were not even empty; one just near my head had a cigarette inside floating like some sort of Siamese fighting fish. Someone left outside lights on.

Wait, I remember when these got switched on, we were playing that game Assassin and I was sure that Jenny was the murderer, an already dead victim jumped up and glare of 150w economy spot light hit us, a few mumbled, “Where were you on the night of the crime?”

Then pseudo interrogations were thrown about. Seemed funny at the time, but now I wasn’t so sure.

Come on James, I tell myself, I better get up properly and take a look around. But I found it hard to dress. Shirt suddenly complicated and unco-operative, legs of my pants fought off un-coordinated feet.

Bits and pieces started to come back, probably going to be talking to the police later so I should get details in my head properly.

There was a group who threw darts at a pinned picture of Miley Cyrus. Shots slammed down as rewards for any darts which collided with genitals. On the poster, rather than other people

Sausages, we’d eaten sausages, Dave in charge of catering and he turned them religiously.

Some guy showed up in a Santa suit, already drunk before he got here, had a sudden spew through my back-screen door. Fly wire acted as a sieve, apportioning liquids from a mosaic of solids. Oh hilarious, going to smell, bring flies, and take some explaining to our rental agent for his next property inspection. Santa then passed out, grinning through a sickly beard. He was dragged onto the lawn, kicked twice, narrowly missed being impaled on a flung dart, and then mostly because of his stench, everyone left him alone.

Dave said, “He’ll just sleep it off and be ready to help the elves with more preparations soon.”

As best as possible, the door was wiped and left open. Party activities re-surged. Miley’s impaled erogenous zone expanded steadily. All sorts of, “You beauty…!” Responses each time a new region was pierced.

All those things happened before we found her.

As he watched this party old Frank next door went out onto his deck. Face-slapped by cool air and bad music, he’d crept towards the fence, picking carefully through a cluster of cannabis looking weeds. He stayed in shadows of foliage, and heard girlish giggling.

Up until then James’s party just another beer, barbecue, mingling, fondling. Upcoming Christmas merely an excuse. Nearby backyards floodlit and festooned with lights relevant to the season.

To Frank the small crowd looked young, most of them pissed or on some sort of drugs already, he assumed. But neighbor saw her trying to push some boy away, before she fell, face down.

When that went down Frank was squatting, why was he squatting there in the dark, peering like some kind of peeping tom? Because Frank was worried, really worried, this girl seemed to him not much more than a teenager, off the planet from Lord knew what. Just prior to falling on her face Frank heard words down a mobile phone, “…can you come and get me…I don’t feel so good… alright… out the front…” all clearly audible, see nothing to worry about; she rang someone to pick her up.

But Josie never did get home safe.

‘Silly cow, she’s passed out again,’ none of them thought to check her pulse and in the dark missed bruises on her neck. They’d moved her closer to collections of cars that crowded driveway and curbs in either direction.

‘She’s over there, sleeping it off,’ James remembered pointing out her slumped form someone had thoughtfully half covered with a particularly rancid sleeping bag. Her transport home finally arrived. That was, must have been well after midnight, when all hell broke loose and they discovered Josie was not breathing.

‘Here I can make emergency calls on my phone.’

‘No point to an ambulance, probably police are needed now, she’s not even warm.’ Great observation, Dave; thought James, but not even close to your usual laugh-out-loud status.

Right that is when you know it’s been an epic party, when you can’t decide which of the emergency services are required.

Not real keen on the cops being here. ‘Let us clean up some of the incriminating items first, if there’s nothing to do in the way of helping her, lets at least save our own butts.’

Police believe people from the party moved the unconscious woman out of the home, leaving her in a common area. When her friends arrived at about 1 a.m., they discovered that she was dead. Those people immediately called 911.

"Some of the people were making efforts to revive her," said the party host James. Wondering if police could see he was lying. "She unfortunately died here at the scene.”

“Certainly, when a 20-year-old woman passes out and then dies of injuries,” a young policeman is talking, tight uniform, barely able to constrain bulging muscles. “That's an investigation that we need to conduct, which is what I am starting right now."

Police say everyone involved with the party scattered as soon as officers arrived. James noticed a few less cars, and general bodies standing about.

"We know that there were some juveniles at the party, but we don't know yet ... who was in charge of the party or what the activities were at the party," another policeman said. "Those are questions we want answered."

Investigators are trying to piece together the woman’s movements and actions in the hours leading up to her death. Detectives have not released any details.

It will be up to the medical examiner to determine how woman died.

Sober now, James promised never to host another party as long as he lived.