Thursday, February 17, 2011

The Brawl

(names have been changed and locations altered to protect the guilty parties involved)


It's a Friday night and my high school buddy, Killer, wants to have a party. Parents are out of town and the house is his. He invites me, some of our other high school alum's and we all invite some others. We end up with a group comprised of me (The Doc), The Bear, The Saint, J-Money and Swat. There are some others who are in attendance early on, but several leave and mostly, only we named few remain. At around 1:00 or so, Killer's sister arrives with some people. Two Persians, a big guy and three girlfriends. The big guy is totally cool and the girls are all alright. But Sister's getting panicked because this fellow, we'll call him Grunt, who has stolen her iPod and a bunch of money is going to come over. We don't like this, so we team huddle.


After our huddle, Sister informs us that the Persians are weirding her out. The Saint takes it upon himself to go outside and smoke with them to feel out the situation. Meanwhile, Sister informs us that Grunt and his best friend, a 250-lb Navy Rescue Swimmer who we'll call Kong and Kong's girlfriend who we'll call Garfield, are all on their way. Team huddle again with The Doc, Bear, Killer, J-Money and Swat. We decide that we will ask him to leave if anything seems suspicious or out of control. Sister begs us to not let the two of them disappear together, and we promise to hold that bargain.


Well Grunt, Kong and Garfield arrive and seem to be nice enough. However, Kong is huge. The first thing I notice is how huge Kong is and I look to Killer and say, "dude. f#$k you."


After a little while of civil behavior, Kong goes to the garage to see J-Money, Swat and The Bear playing beer pong. The Bear extricates himself from the game in order to keep an eye on Kong while the rest of us notice that Sister and Grunt have disappeared behind her locked bedroom door. Swat and J-Money come inside while the other miscellaneous party guests play beer pong and Bear keeps Kong distracted. Killer and I go to Sister's door while Swat and J-Money line the hallway. Garfield approaches and looks none too happy but we tell her to be cool and that it's time for her friends and her to leave. Killer has to threaten to break down the door before Sister will open it and, immediately, Grunt is up in Killer's face. Garfield pulls Grunt aside and Killer and Sister have at it. Meanwhile, I grab Grunt by the collar and say, "It's time for you to go." He tries to stare me down from six inches below my nose so I look at Garfield and say, "You need to gather your boyfriend and your friend here and go home now." She says meekly, "okay."


Grunt and Garfield head downstairs followed by Swat and J-Money. I keep an ear for a minute on Killer and his Sis before the yelling is a little more than I should be hearing so I head down. Just then The Saint walks in the door. I say, "How are the Persians." He says, "Great! They're really nice guys but they heard all the yelling and decided to head out." I say, "cool, man. what're you drinking?" "straight doctor pepper." I look him hard in the eyes. "Switch to water and get ready." He reappears five seconds later with a glass of water and I fill him in.


By this point, Grunt and Garfield have joined Kong in the garage and Sister comes barreling down the stairs looking for Grunt. She blazes right past him, sneaks out under the garage door and opens her jeep's door. The Saint and I hear this and, realizing that a 19-year-old probably should drive after drinking a six pack of mike's hard lemonade, chase her. Meanwhile Killer enters the garage looking for his sister only to find that she's driving off and the Grunt is in his face again. Sister nearly runs both the Saint and I over taking off. He runs back inside before me. When I turn around the first thing I see is Killer's right fist nearly take the Grunt's head off.


My world goes slow-mo as I think, "ooooohh noooo…."


That's about all the time I have before Kong has jumped over his falling friend and blasted Killer square in the face. As I run in, Swat grabs Kong by the shoulders yelling "Stop!" but is stopped himself when the Grunt sucker-punches him from below and jumps on top of him. J-Money joins that fray while the Saint tries to block Kong. I see Kong's right hook wind back and have barely enough time to jump on his arm to stop him from snapping the Saint in half. I drop him to the ground, I'm not sure how, and hold him saying, "Sorry bro. You're out of this fight." Meanwhile, the Saint flies in and tackles J-Money, Swat and the Grunt. By now, the Bear has removed Killer and has returned for Swat. With both of them out, J-Money heads into the house and the Grunt tries to follow him. The Saint blocks the hallway.


"You really wanna get in my way?" yells the Grunt.

"You're not going in the house, man." the Saint states cooly.


Just then, Garfield, out of nowhere, attacks the Saint with claws of furry. Fortunately, the Bear took over blocking the hallway. I throw Kong across the garage and leap into the middle of the room. The Saint throw the Grunt toward Kong and he and I go back-to-back between the Bear and our two enemies, arms out to the sides yelling, "everyone fucking stop!"


Everyone fucking stops.


We line up British Militia style, the Grunt's nose barely a foot from mine, blood pouring down his face over his left eye where Killer and cracked his face open. I say, "Alright everyone be cool. No one is going inside. You three need to leave now, but I would really appreciate it if you'd let me fix up that cut on your face first."


Everyone fucking stops again.


The Grunt starts to mouth off to me but is stopped when Kong looks more at me, the 150-pounder who just took his ass down and kept it down saying, "Man, just let him clean you up." I get my med kit and clean him up. He and the Saint go and have a cigarette while I talk the Sister down, get her keys and send her inside. Kong, the Grunt and Garfield take off and we lock the house down. I send everyone who's bleeding or been bled on to a sink with soap to get cleaned up and we crack open some beers and toast the evening's festivities.


I spend about 15 minutes in the garage scrubbing blood of the floor feeling very much like Ian McShane in the HBO series Deadwood and then head in to finish off the remaining Keystone Lights.


All-in-all, a hell of a high school reunion.

Tuesday, February 8, 2011

Spin. A short play by Andrew J. Perez

MIKE: Hey man.
ANDREW: Yo, bro. What up?
MIKE: Nothin much (they hug) how are you?
ANDREW: Kinda tired. Think I'm gonna get something to eat.
(Andrew rummages in the pantry. Mike notices that he has two bandages on the knuckles of two of his left-hand fingers and tape on the knuckles of both index fingers.)
MIKE: Shit, man, what happened to your hands?
ANDREW: Oh - work.
MIKE: Work?!
ANDREW: Yeah, I got a job.
MIKE: Doing what? Punching angry cats?
ANDREW: Ha - no. Sign spinning.
MIKE: Are you serious?
ANDREW: Yeah. (he emerges from the pantry with a protein bar, opens it and starts eating)
MIKE: So you dance on a street corner...
ANDREW: yup.
MIKE: twirling a sign around...
ANDREW: more rocking it back and forth in a rhythmic fashion than twirling, but in essence, yes.
MIKE: And someone pays you for it.
ANDREW: hah - yup.
MIKE: And then you punched angry kittens who attacked you and that's why you have bandages all over your hands.
ANDREW: Oh - no. These are from where the sign skinned my knuckles and started rubbing in a blister-making sort of way.
MIKE: Oh... how much do you get paid for this?
ANDREW: minimum wage.
MIKE: huh... do you have to wear a costume?
ANDREW: oh yeah.
MIKE: what is it?
ANDREW: ... Lady Liberty.
MIKE: No shit you're one of those?!
ANDREW: oh yeah. I'm one of those.
MIKE: ha! that's funny.
ANDREW: yeah. but hey, it's paid.
MIKE: word.
(a pause in the conversation)
ANDREW: well, I'm going to go lie down for a bit.
MIKE: alright man. enjoy.
ANDREW: I will. Take it easy.
MIKE: yup.
(Andrew exits. Mike sits on a stool. He checks his phone, puts it away. He ponders briefly and then chuckles.)
Blackout.