The Half-Life of the Party

Devon left for the party with a twelve-pack of beer and a mind full of reservations and misgivings about the whole thing. He returned home with ten beers, two awards, and a Dalmatian of indeterminant behavior. The only thing missing was the girl who wanted to sleep with him tonight. Thankfully.

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The guests were an odd assortment of university professors, graphic novelists, sycophantic undergrad assistants (is there any other kind?), science equipment suppliers, and Devon. It was bad enough, he thought, that this was a Halloween party and everyone was required to wear a costume, but matters would be made worse by his inability to have fun. That was always Helena’s complaint about him. Not that it mattered now; she had left him for an assistant golf coach at the university. Apparently, assistant golf coaches knew how to have fun.

“Devon!” Dirk yelled across the room, waving Devon over to his group. It was a large one, for Devon was the department chair of the physics program at the university, and God knows that one simply couldn’t suck up enough to a department chair.

Devon meandered his way through a throng of Star Wars costumes, Star Trek uniforms, and a gaggle of people attired as superheroes. Not just regular heroes but superheroes. The distinction was lost on Devon.

His views on his brother, though, left no one in the dark about how he felt. Dirk was a part-time brother and a full-time asshole.

“Bro! This is my brother,” Devon said loudly, “and his wife left him three months ago, so all you fine women can snuggle up to this man and give him some good lovin’!” Devon raised his glass of blue liquid. As did everyone else, accompanied by a raucous cheer. Position had its privileges. Getting people to cheer about something they couldn’t care less about was one of them.

Devon sulkily slunk away, seriously considering slapping his sibling silly at the first opportunity. He spent the next few minutes looking, lurking, lounging, and just generally lollygagging in an attempt to alleviate his angst, his anger, and his acrid attitude. It worked. Devon was Devon, he decided. He was doomed to deteriorate in a desert of denial and dumbed-down, dogmatic dictums. And people started talking to him. Cool.

“Hey! What’s your costume,” someone asked. Devon looked at his khaki cargo shorts and Guns ‘N Roses tee shirt and then shrugged.

“Nice! No costume is kind of a cool costume, my man!”

Devon considered this for a moment before deciding that the man was either drunk or nice or just too naïve to see that he simply didn’t care to wear a costume to a party he didn’t want to attend. He wore these clothes for a reason: to piss off Dirk. In this he failed, forgetting that Dirk was a brilliant physicist but had the social sensibilities of a brain-dead goose.

“I think that you chose to not wear a costume because you wanted to satirize the point-counterpoint dynamic of…”

“What?” Devon turned to the voice that was speaking to him, fully aware that his own voice was carrying a shitload of irritation.

“I said,” a bespectacled woman who had to be uncomfortably crowding forty stared at him, “that you chose to not wear a cost…”

“I know what you said. It was a rhetorical question,” Devon snapped at her.

The woman looked at him owlishly. She wasn’t blinking, he thought. Why doesn’t she blink? This is getting on my nerves, this not blinking thing of hers. I don’t know…

She blinked, interrupting the impending train crash that was Devon’s thoughts. Then she sighed.

“Yeah, I know. God, why do I do this?” she wailed. “I analyze everything in literary terms and I bore the hell out of people. I even bore myself and stop listening. It’s all just word salad isn’t it?”

“Well. No. I mean…”

“You’re absolutely right. Why can’t I just shut the fuck up and let things be what they are? I’ll tell you why,” the woman blinked rapidly at Devon (maliciously, he thought) before continuing.

“Because I’m an English professor and everything has to be looked at through the literary lens,” the woman said dispiritedly. Devon started backing away but the woman followed him, displaying the same level of social awareness that Dirk possessed.

“You know what I need to do?” Devon bumped into a group of superheroes. They looked at him quizzically, shrugged, and resumed their hot takes on superhero codes of conduct.

“I,” she continued, “need to shut up, get drunk, and get laid. In that order!” And she then suited at least part of the word to the action. She did indeed shut up, and she went in search of alcohol. The last part will be resolved in due time.

The superhero group turned on Devon. Actually, they turned towards Devon, but Devon felt menaced by a group of men (and one woman) who consciously chose a costume that demands one to wear their underwear on the outside.

“Star Wars or Star Trek?” Captain America asked. Wonder Woman, Iron Man, The Flash, and a green Robin Hood (who was, in truth, The Arrow) looked at him expectantly.

“Whu…”

“Are you on Team Trek or Team Wars?”

Devon eyed the group with deep mistrust. These were not rich people, yet they chose to spend an inordinate amount of their discretionary income on these silly costumes. And, he sighed, there it was.

Helena told him, ad nauseam, that he missed out on what makes people tick. He didn’t have the ability to see that desires need to be fulfilled because it plugged a hole in one’s life. And, in typical fashion, he totally missed that this was about him and not the rest of humanity. She tried to tell him, he thought miserably.

“Well…,” he looked at facial expressions for clues. Nothing there. Their costumes gave him no hint as to the right choice, and he suddenly and desperately wanted to make the right choice.

“You know…” he stammered, hoping that it was a smooth stammer (if that’s even possible). It wasn’t.

Then an idea struck him. A thought. A concept. A pristine truth that Helena tried to pound into him but couldn’t. People could be satisfied with anything that made them feel like others cared.

“You know. Let’s not kid ourselves, right? We know which team is the best team!” Devon raised his beer and cheered.

“Trek! Trek! Trek!” the superheroes chanted loudly in victory, though what they mainly accomplished was spilling their drinks.

Devon was amazed that they all a) loved his costume and b) stated that he was their lifelong friend because of his allegiance to the sanctity of Captain Kirk. It was so easy! All he had to do was let them tell him what they wanted. Is this what Helena had been harping about all those years? He sat down, enlightened but melancholy; he could have saved his marriage.

The bespectacled English professor plopped down next to Devon. She stank of alcohol and her eyes swam behind her glasses like blue guppies looking for a place to hover. It was disconcerting. And she leaned against him!

“I voted for you!” she shouted. Devon cringed. He wanted to move away but there was no egress; the confines of the sofa precluded social distancing.

“What?” Devon looked at her.

“I voted for you! Twice! Best Costume and Best Original Concept! Yeah, you get a trophy. Everyone wants the trophy, you know,” she slapped his arm, not deigning to remove after delivering the irritating blow.

“Ah. I see. And…and I voted for you,” Devon responded, using his newfound knowledge of human nature. She looked at him and tried to smile, but it slid off of her face and puddled at the foot of the sofa.

“That’s sweet. But I lost my lasso! I don’t think I have the best costume because I lost my lasso…” her voice trailed off as she bent over and looked around for the missing and quite crucial article to her costume.

“Hey!” she sat up quickly, reverting to the owlish and very creepy look she had given Devon earlier.

“Did you vote for me because of these?” she put her hands under her breasts and pushed them up, all the while staring at Devon.

Devon pondered. Should he? It seemed to be what she wanted, but he couldn’t be sure. She was drunk, though, so maybe her inhibitions are down. Or maybe she’s testing me to see if I’m a gentleman. English professors are weird. Especially the female ones.

“Yes. Absolutely. You have a fine, fine pair of breasts, if I’m not being too forward. I mean, I don’t want…”

“Can I go home with you tonight?” she shouted. Because fate loved to laugh, with us and at us, it decreed that the room become fairly quiet at this moment.

Devon could feel the stares of way too many eyes on them, and he shifted uncomfortably on the sofa. The English professor didn’t seem to notice. The very good reason for that was that she was on the verge of releasing the alcohol she had imbibed back into the wild. That is, she was close to vomiting.

As is the way of upchucking, it hurries through the body en route to the mouth faster than expected. The English professor jumped up and stumbled towards a restroom. It was an unfortunate miscalculation in coordination that caused her to stagger, fall to her knees, and spew blue liquid all over Supergirl (one of them, anyway.) Supergirl took umbrage at this and smacked the professor. The professor responded by pulling her hair. The girl fight was well underway.

The men, being who they were and not caring to resist their darker nature, cheered them on. The women were alternately horrified and bemused. They knew that they were the more responsible gender in confrontations, but one couldn’t see Supergirl take a punch and then give one and not be impressed.

Eventually the women separated themselves and stalked off to opposite sides of the room. The English professor vowed silently to never drink blue punch from a bathtub again and Supergirl sniffed and told herself that she just kicked that bitch’s ass (as befitting the essence of Supergirl’s popularity.)

Devon tried to avoid the drunk and now foul-smelling professor, but she was a force to be reckoned with. It was that same bulldog attitude that got her through university and allowed her to be the unpopular professor that she was. She found, lost, and then found her temporary paramour.

Devon thought that a few minutes by the pool would effectively lose her; as was normal for him, he underestimated the guile and perspicacity of a woman. Despite this, he couldn’t find it in his heart to loathe her. She was lonely, and he understood lonely.

Inside, the party guests were chanting loudly again, but this time they were chanting his name. What the hell? He went inside to more boisterous cheers, quite a few back slaps, and a couple of kisses that tasted of alcohol and Tic Tacs. Powermint. Of course.

He had won both competitions (Best Costume and Best Original Concept, just in case your lazy ass doesn’t want to scroll back and remind yourself of the categories) in a landslide. Dirk, the fucker, made a speech about how his brother always thought outside the box, saw that less was more, blah blah fucking blah. Devon took the trophies with bad grace, told everyone to fuck off, and left the stage to more cheers, back slaps, and (in a twist) gropes from both genders.

Devon had to get out of there. The music was too loud now, the funk from sweaty costumes and poorly-chosen perfume and scent, the increasing din, and, most of all, the English professor who wanted to sleep with him tonight. He didn’t have to look for her; she was by his side, still drunk, still wanting to go home with him.

Bending down, Devon whispered in her ear. Her eyes opened wide, though they were still swimming in a pelagic blueness that seemed to be turning into Jell-O.

“Really? She whisper-burped. Devon nodded, looking at his brother. He was currently regaling a group with stories about his recent trip to Spain. Devon remembered that Dirk was sick most of the time and had an unfortunate run-in with a señorita that didn’t find the rich American señor at all attractive. In short, his balls were achy breaky during the plane ride home.

Devon whispered in her ear again. Whatever he said caused her to smile a smile that, had it not been for her personality, would have been attractive.

“That’s what he likes, huh? And he said that about me?”

Devon nodded and gave her a gentle nudge towards her brother. She accepted the gentle nudge in the spirit it was offered; she was by Dirk’s side in an instant. Devon had reached the front door, laden with most of his beer and two trophies. Dirk tried to shoo the professor off until she told him what Devon had told her. They locked eyes.

Each flipped the other off, but Devon knew that his bird was superior. He had effectively stuck his brother with a woman that he couldn’t escape; he hadn’t the wit, not the wherewithal to refuse her. Dirk would be sleeping with a woman who vomited blue liquid, and that thought pleased Devon.

Sighing a sigh that meant more than anyone could possibly know – except Devon, of course – he sat on the curb in front of the university building and tried to decompress. He practiced the things that his therapist recommended, and the techniques of deep breathing and clearing the mind worked reasonably well. He no longer felt like he wanted to strangle Dirk, revive him, and then strangle him again. Well, he didn’t feel it as strongly, and that was a win, right?

A snuffling by his left hand broke Devon out of his therapist-inspired reverie and looked around. It was dark, but there was enough light to see a skinny Dalmatian’s nose trying to make friends with his fingers. Devon, much to his surprise, reached out and petted the dog. It shied away at first but came back quickly. It was obviously undernourished and had not been bathed since – well, ever, Devon figured. The matted, oily hair felt stiff with neglect.

“Yeah. Okay. You can come home with me,” Devon said softly, patting the dog. He had a piece of steak left over from a dinner earlier in the week, and he was sure that they would be fast friends after the transaction from his hand to the dog’s mouth took place. Devon didn’t like animals, but he liked this dog. It reminded him of him, which, sadly, would not change in the near future.

The two new companions arrived at Devon’s house. He turned on the lights, rummaged through the refrigerator until he found the piece of meat, and forthwith fed the Dalmatian. He wolfed it down and waited expectantly for more. More was not forthcoming this night. He was given water, though, and this was something to be happy about. Alas, dogs don’t think in such terms. Nor did Devon.

The night passed peacefully. Devon fell asleep on the couch and the Dalmatian fell asleep on the floor next to Devon’s head. The toads in a nearby pond were still partying in their own particular way, as was Dirk and his bevy of costumed guests.

There was a deep message somewhere inside that last sentence, but it would remain undiscovered. Devon was asleep, the dog and the Dirk brigade were incapable of such introspections, and the world at large simply couldn’t be bothered to give a fuck about profound meanings right now.

So it goes.