happens to the Tower of Power when people do the Tower of Power more than once, do more than oneshot at each level of the tower, or drink too much beer (and do the Tower of Power).
I think the name pretty much speaks for itself.
The real disaster zone was the stairs.
Missy’s Pink Panther had lasted all of five minutes before she rocket-vomited on the landing between four and five (and it wasn’t pink, surprisingly, but orange). Carly upchucked a rainbow of alcoholic delights between three and four, where we met up with several other boys and girls puking their way up and down the stairs. The movie reference, if you’re looking for one, is Steven Spielberg’s Stand By Me (a film that would be assigned in my Cultural Studies class). Fortunately for me, I’m mostly a one-time puker. Unfortunately for me, it hardly mattered, since by the time we made it outside, Carly had thrown up on me.
“Fuuuuck,” she slurred, “iz it in yer burns?”
“Nope,” I slurred back, “but I’m gonna go home anyway.”
“You mean to rez.”
“Yeah.”
“WAIT!” Regaining her balance by leaning forward like an Olympic swimmer about to leap into a first lap, Carly huffed for a moment before righting herself and pointing down the hill. “We’re coming with you.”By “we,” of course, she meant her and Missy, although Missy was already sitting on the steps outside and curled forward like a little kid contemplating a somersault.
“I think I need to call my boyfriend,” she whimpered and then fell forward onto her face and threw up again.
“Fuck!” Dropping down to her knees, Carly grabbed Missy’s cell phone, carefully wiping the vomitsplashed case with her sleeve. “Just go, Allison. You should, uh, clean off your neck. We’ll see you later, okay?”
“Okay.”
As I slumped away from what was sounding and, I’m sure, looking like a gut-soaked version of Wild Water Kingdom, the mayhem continued. I passed herds of girls in various throwing-up poses. Dodging around a puddle of puke, I nearly fell over a blond girl kneeling on the road.
“WATCH IT,” she snapped.
“Sorry.”
“Fuck. Do you see a lighter anywhere? It’s blue.”
“Oh.” Looking down, it was pretty easy to spot. “It’s in this pile of puke,” I said, pointing.
“Of course.” Bumping through her pockets for a spare, the girl seemed to get a good look at me. “Leave your friends at the party?” she asked.
“I don’t have any friends,” I slurred.
Which at the time was, technically, true. Or a leftover sentiment from high school stuck to my brain like so much old gum.
I turned to leave and she stood up. “What’s your name?”
“Allison.”%;text-align: justify;">OH
Discovering another lighter in her back pocket, the girl grinned. “Goodnight, Allison.”
She didn’aid="6LK27">Th
FOUR
And you are
It took a while to get used to sleeping in a new bed, in part because the beds at Dylan were two feet wide and soft like a bird’s nest made of barbed wire, and in part because sleeping at Dylan Hall on the eleventh floor meant waking up to Metallica. At full blast. Every morning.
The source of Metallica was Hope, who at seven a.m. liked to start her day with an explosion of music by angry men. Sometimes she’d even prop her door open with a garbage can so she could hear the music while she showered in the bathroom across the hall. My first three mornings at Dylan Hall went something like this:
7:00 a.m.—ENTER METALLICA.
5 seconds later—Slam knee on concrete wall waking up to blast of Metallica.
5 seconds later—Have delirious moment of wondering where the fuck I am and why Metallica is also there and why they are so fucking loud.
20 seconds later—Lie in bed surrounded by the screams and groans of eleventh-floor residents and think about Anne.
My first “girlfriend.”
I’m actually still not sure whether or not to call her that.
That’s stupid but that’s reality. Every time—even every, like,
Ernle Dusgate Selby Bradford