Neil's House
(Part 1 of 2)
Written Spring, 1994

9:00 p.m.

We drive up to the old place, noticing that it is no different than it ever was. A place seemingly untouched by time. Chris and I get out of the car and walk up to the door.

"Hey man, should we bother knockin’??"

"Yeah, Chris, that’s a good one. He never hears us. Just walk in. I don’t care if his mom IS home this time. And she better not be."

"Heh, you and Cory got yelled at last week for just walking in, right?"

"Yeah whatever; we didn’t know Neil was gone. She was just doinking the guy across the street... Like we really wanted to interrupt that so she could run over here and yell at us. I Can’t believe she thought we were burglars."

The two of us climb the blue cement stairs and open the creaky screen door of Neil’s home, our staple Friday night destination. For the past two weeks we have been planning our little getaway to our friend's house to relive some old times. It's been quite a while since all the guys have gotten together to party.

We open the unlocked front door and walk into the dark kitchen. As we stroll through it, we begin to hear the strange tribal sounds of "Primus" pounding at quite a liberal volume considering we are still on the first floor. We traipse through the dimly lit dining room and living room before we head for the stairs following the booming sounds. Throwing our extra clothes on the living room couch, Chris and I look at our evening accommodations.

The downstairs of Neil’s house is actually quite nice. Although Neil’s mother works 2 jobs, she manages to keep the house fairly tidy. Many nice scented candles and ‘yarny’ craft things are scattered about, but still manage to cheer up the place. The lofty ceilings allow head-high shelving to hold numerous baskets of potpourri and useless decorative soaps. The oak door frames and floor of the dining room give the house an old-fashioned type of atmosphere--appropriate since the house is over 100 years old. The worn but comfortable furniture in the living room has accommodated many passed-out bodies. As Chris and I walk through these rooms to the stairs, we notice everything--remembering all the fun we use to have at Neil’s when we were in high school: the parties, the girls, the wrestling matches, the girls, the conversations about life on other planets, the girls, the conversations about girls on other planets, etc. all were a part of quality time spent at our favorite place to hang out. Neil’s house.

With Neil still in high school, our potential for a good party tonight with some senior women (or younger I guess) is rather high, since Chris and I are the "cool freshman college guys". Who knows, maybe some other college women will also come home this weekend (although it really doesn’t matter). The reminiscent thoughts of past encounters bring nothing but sick smirks to our faces.

After walking through the lower level and climbing the spiraling flight of stairs to the second floor, we follow the hall to the end where the door is noticeably rattling in the frame. We also hear Neil singing what sounds like the Primus song "John the Fisherman", except that the words are completely wrong.

<muffled, ‘singing’> "I think my sporting days begun. I WANT TO BE A FISHERMAN! bam chicka bam bam....bam.....BAM.... bam chicka bam bam bam OOOoooohh OOOOOOOoooo!!!"

"Christ is Neil a bad singer. Should we just bash the door in and scare the living hell outta him as usual?" Chris questions me.

"Hmm. I suppose. But he could be wankin’ and I don’t particularly care to see that..."

"Yeah, true." Chris ponders this a moment, and then thoroughly pounds the door. "Neil you homo bastard, we’re coming in!!" Even though Chris has lived in a larger "politically correct" city since graduating from high school, he still has his hick- town mentality firmly intact. Attending the small tech. college 45 miles out of town, Chris finds that no friends really compare to us, the ones from his hometown. Because of this, he comes home almost every weekend, whether we are here or not. When none of us are around, Chris appears to be rather shy (so we are told), but when we all get together he is a hell-raiser. Especially in the comfortable atmosphere of Neil’s house.

Swinging the cracked, fake mahogany door open, we walk in.

"Hey buddy! What’s up?" I scream over the stereo. It has been a couple weeks since either of us has seen Neil, but for all we know he hasn’t moved at all in that time. Neil is in his usual position laying on his waterbed, listening to his stereo, and watching MTV with the sound down. The song on the stereo and the video on the TV do not coincide, nor do they even remotely resemble one another. How Neil enjoys this is beyond me... He blinks at us somewhat confused while looking for the remote for the stereo.

Even though Neil comes from a poor white-trash family, over the years he has bribed his mother into buying him almost every electronic gaming system known to man. His room has everything it would ever need to survive a nuclear war as well as the technology to launch an effective counter-attack. Because his parents are divorced, Neil threatens to ‘move in with dad’ unless his mother buys him ‘necessities’. The more notable ones include a 27" stereo color television complete with Super Nintendo, Sega Genesis, Full Cable TV (HBO and Cinemax), and a VCR. He also has a decent stereo, which is quite capable of shaking all of the above things onto the floor. His bed is a huge waterbed where he lays in and vegetates with three remote controls strewn about him.

"Hey, did you catch the guy?" I yell to him.

"What guy?"

"The guy who ransacked your room!"

To say that Neil’s room is a ‘sty’ is definitely an understatement. Moldy, half eaten food litters the floor along with old copies of Thrasher magazine that are stuck together with God knows what. Superheroes on torn comic books poke their heads out from of the drawers they are shoved into. A large pile of clothes oozes out from underneath the closet door. (If one were to open that door, they would find empty hangers on the rod and a smelly blob on the floor). Skateboard wheels, bearings and boards are strewn haphazardly (and quite dangerously) throughout the entire room giving it the natural ‘skater, dude’ atmosphere. Since Neil is an artsy type, his drawings, paintings and paints are also everywhere. A clever drawing of baby’s butt and a purple fly lay on the floor, dried pizza smearing one of the corners.

Neil smiles weakly at my ‘fatherly humor’. By the strange look on his face, I know something is up. After finally finding the mute button on the stereo remote, he spills it.

"Yeah, hey guys.... ah, dude, they’re like not coming". For some reason I figured this was coming.

"What?!" Chris and I in unison.

"They can’t make it, I guess." he says, not looking at either of us. Chris is a little more shocked than I am.

"You said you invited ‘a whole raft of chicks,’" I say mockingly.

"Well, uh, I called them an hour ago and they, uh, weren’t home," he reveals.

"So maybe they are on the way then, RIGHT?" Chris adds, always trying to be positive, even if he is helping Neil lie.

"Uh, they might have been, I guess, if ah, they knew about it to begin with...," he finally admits unwillingly.

"Neil, are ya stupid?!! I thought we planned all this last weekend?" I’m steaming. I was looking forward to this for weeks. Ruined by this insecure, scared fool.

At this point, Neil seems to be through speaking about the subject and resumes turning up his stereo. He must have figured that the loud music would make us disappear, hoping that we would forget about the whole thing. Chris and I give each other disturbed, angry looks. Wry smiles form on both of our faces. Gears are turning. Somehow we must either save this planned party or make our own. Finally I stand up, turn off Neil’s stereo, and unplug it.

"We’re having the party anyway," I state simply. Friday night had always been ‘party night’. We couldn’t change this tradition now...

"Hey wait, just leave my stereo up here. It’s such a pain in the ass to haul it downstairs."

"No, we’ve had enough stupid parties in your room. Chris grab the speakers." As I move to pick up the top component of the stereo, the room suddenly goes pitch black and a wheezy, high pitched scream fills the air. When I turn my head towards the door, I’m instantly pelted in the face by some projectile while I faintly see Neil being roughly thrown to the ground and beaten senseless by what looks like a monkey. Chris stands unmoving, jaw hanging open, staring at the sight. All I can make out in the dim light is some strange humanoid hopping about carrying an alarm clock (with the alarm on) firing things about the room yelling "Die chicken choker!" Leave it to Cory to make an entrance.

Chris flips the lights on while Cory is pounding Neil in the head with a stuffed dog.

"Okay! OKAY! Christ, I know you’re here! Get the HELL off me!" Neil pleads. Cory jumps to his feet with a satisfied look on his face. While Neil and Chris are both quiet non-violent people, Cory is not. He is as wild as his bleached chin-length hair, and always ready to try some stupid new activity--thus making him absolutely crucial to the parties we have at Neil’s. Most of the fun games we play are concocted in his sick mind; a result of being a bored ‘only child’ all his life. He too seems to be anticipating a happy fun-filled evening.

"The party begins NOW" Cory brags, pushing his ridiculous hair back up under his hat. He understands his importance just as much as we do.

"Dude, they’re not comin’" I break it to him. He looks at me expressionless, apparently in deep thought. He says nothing, takes one look at me, one look at Chris, and then springs back onto Neil resuming his stuffed dog beating. This time we have to pull him off.

"You stupid shit! You said this would be the ‘party of the decade,’" Cory yells. Where Neil got all these great party description sayings no one knows.

"Sorry, I didn’t go to school today, so, I like, forgot to tell everyone." At this point, Neil leaves his room to avoid further hassling. The three of us look at each other with a look so sick that it’s a good thing Neil did leave the room. But this look isn’t one of anger or even revenge. This look can only be achieved by years and years of ‘stupidity training’ at our favored training facility: Neil’s House.

10:00 p.m.

With Neil presently out of sight, we decide to take our problems out on his room. This was something we did often; a look at the 10+ patch jobs on the waterbed was proof. Neil’s room was usually a place where we would really let loose. Since Neil was such a wussy, he never said much about the things we damaged. Besides it was never anything serious; maybe we’d bend the blinds or smash the $5 light fixture, but it was no big deal. With this in mind, Chris and I started doing full flips onto the bed while Cory decided Neil’s walls needed some paint. Cory figured since it was Neil’s room and Neil’s walls, Neil should have his name on them. This continued on for a few minutes until Chris and I became dizzy and Cory ran out of pastels. Boredom quickly set in. Where was Neil? He usually doesn’t like to leave us up here this long unattended. We digressed into playing Super Nintendo when Neil finally came back upstairs. He was not alone.

"Hi guys." Our three heads instantly riveted towards the door revealing a shapely, fair-haired young lass; a Chick!

"Jess!" I said. I haven’t seen this girl for years. "How’s it going?"

"Not bad, just came over to see my little cutie pie."

I was thoroughly confused. What happens when I’m away at college? "You mean me or Neil?" I say, raising an eyebrow and trying to sound suave.

"Neil, silly!" (although, by the look on her face, she was considering...) "We’ve been seeing each other for almost a week now. He’s the sweetest. So, this is your room, eh Neil?"

My head is practically spinning. From what I’ve heard of this girl, she’s sleazy and easy. What the hell was she doing with Neil? He has no idea how to handle a women like this.

"Ah, yeah. This is my room. Do.. uh... do you...., yeah, it’s... uh.... mine."

Cory and I give each other the same stupefied look. Neil is supposed to be throwing a party so we can get women, and instead he only invites his "girlfriend". He is so clueless, that he doesn’t know the first thing about what to do or say.

Jess inspects the room: "It’s very, hmm.... It’s interesting. Why is your name painted on the wall?" Neil’s looks at his wall and his face turns 3 shades of a very non-pastel red. His knuckles turn white as his fists start to clench quite violently. He slowly turns toward a beaming Cory.

"Ah, why don’t we leave you two alone," I intervene. I don’t want Neil to make a bigger fool out of himself by trying to kill Cory. Besides, being the self-less, good-natured friend I am, I thought it was time for Neil to start his life with the ladies. No better girl to begin with than this one. Then, after a while, she could call up her friends and have them come over for us. Keeping this situation all in a very positive state of mind, we collected Neil’s stereo and went downstairs. I gave Neil a warning glance as he was about to object. The stereo for the girl. She seemed a little confused about what we were doing and why we were even at his house this late, but we didn’t care. We were still going to have our stupid party.

After we close the door behind us, Jess runs over and grabs Neil’s wrists.

"Goodie, goodie, goodie! We are finally alone! Now are you going to show me what holds up those baggy purple pants of yours?!"

"huh....?"
..............

Next week, the conclusion: Does Neil get some? Is the party still on? Oh the drama! Oh the suspense! To continue reading the next part, just click here:
Neil's House Part 2

Party hardy,

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