After his recent debacle of ineffective wooing, Marty desperately needed something to boost his morale, and more importantly, his approval rating at school. Everybody was always talking about parties, so why not throw a big one? They had a huge yard, and the weather was still dry before the winter rains. He was helping his mom wash the dishes one night, and casually mentioned he was thinking of having a “team party” after the last football game of the season.
“Oh, that’s a great idea, honey!” Marge’s countenance suddenly perked up at the thought of handsome young football players swarming all over her yard.
“Could we maybe get a keg of beer? We have the money.” That was a lie, but He was sure he could get a few bucks from everyone on the team. The success of his party hinged on this one stipulation. Punch and cookies was not going to cut the mustard, so to speak.
“Sure, I’ll get it for you.” Marge granted permission casually, as if her son merely needed a new jacket.
“You will? Awesome!” I have the coolest mom in the world, Marty thought to himself while putting the utensils away. She was so cool, her brain was frozen! What was she thinking, buying beer for a bunch of high school freshmen? At least they can’t drive, he reasoned, remembering how Jack used to run into deer with his truck after drinking.
When Marty announced the kegger party to his teammates before their last game, they cheered with the lust of barbarians discovering a hoard of treasure. It rejuvenated them after a hard season, and they absolutely destroyed the other team, so the season ended on a high note (but not as high as it was going to get!). In the days leading up to the party that Saturday night, there were hale tidings of a secret adventure wafting through the halls of Drake. Only the freshmen football players were supposed to know… and the cheerleaders, too, that goes without saying. And some of the bleacher creatures would show up, because they had the drugs. Oh, and Marty’s family would be there, too, and some of their friends. Wait a minute, he thought, they were going to need more beer…
Marge and Marty drove over the hill to pick up the keg, and the liquor store clerk looked suspiciously at the long-haired teenager smacking his lips behind his mom. Confident in his estimation that no sane parent would purchase a full keg of beer for a bunch of boys, he said nothing about it, and waved them off in a friendly way, while he counted all the crumpled dollar bills Marty had scrounged together. His college-aged assistant loaded it into the back of the truck and asked the obvious question: “Where’s the party?”
“Wouldn’t you like to know,” Marty teased him. He didn’t want older guys at the party – it was supposed to be just for the freshman football team.
When people started arriving, he realized that he hadn’t considered one aspect of the plan very well. None of the party guests he invited could drive, so they would have to get rides from older siblings or friends! That meant there would be older guys around, after all, but of course they wouldn’t drink and drive, because they were upright citizens, and had watched those propaganda movies at school. (Yeah, right.) Marty was nonplussed to see a couple of cars driven by parents, dropping off their sons and daughters for what they presumed would be a standard sports-themed party with hot dogs and punch. What if they got out, and saw the big silver keg in a washbasin full of ice on the deck? None of them did, but they smiled and waved in a friendly way at Marty and his mom, somehow confident they’d be responsible hosts for their children.
It was a good thing none of them asked to use our bathroom, Marty realized, because they’d have to walk right past the “hors d’oeuvres” trays with bongs, weed, and clowny brownies on the coffee table. They might possibly see the cases of beer on ice in the bathtub, if they pulled back the shower curtain. And if they yelled loud enough over the rock & roll guitars blasting on his stereo, they might have had something to say about it. Never mind, Marty decided, their kids will have to grow up sometime. It may as well be in a relatively controlled environment, with experienced researchers monitoring the behavior of the party subjects.
This was going to be one epic social study, he mused as he turned around and saw dozens of kids already passing around the red plastic cups. A few of the jocks were examining the keg’s spigot as if it was some kind of newfangled carburetor. His mom was proudly introducing herself all around as “Marge, the cool mom,” and Julie wound up tapping the keg and demonstrating proper draft pouring technique. She couldn’t resist being the heroine for a bunch of muscular jocks! The house was already filling up with thirsty people, and more were coming all the time. Marty had figured on about fifty guests, but it would be well over a hundred before he stopped counting. A football was being tossed in the yard (of course), and an impromptu game of Frisbee tag had started. A large crowd of cheerleaders and groupies was gathering down by the picnic table. It would be dark soon, and Tim started testing the outdoor lights he had strung in the trees.
Music and beer dominated the front yard, with Marty’s megalithic speakers perched on his window sill, and the keg on the deck receiving constant attention. Inside the house were the stoners and bleacher creatures, sampling the appetizers laid out on the coffee table. A giggling herd of younger girls hogged the bathroom, so the guys did what guys do, and went to go pee in the woods. Tim and Pippin fired up two grills, and soon a steady stream of hot dogs and hamburgers were being devoured in a freshman feeding frenzy. The revelry was fueled by unbridled joy, behavior without limits, and the raging hormones of teenagers. The beautiful natural setting was also thrilling to the party guests – especially the girls. Marty knew this because they told him so, every time they walked by.
“Gosh, your home is so beautiful! It’s like a park!” He did his best to present himself as part of the beautiful surroundings, but felt like it was always the place that was beautiful, in spite of him. There was not a lot of self-confidence in his outlook; for understandable reasons. Nonetheless, he was having a great time watching everyone enjoy themselves, and soon he joined Rob and Dave inside. They were already pretty wasted, so he’d have a long ways to catch up.
Through the bay window Marty could see the jocks and their older siblings were organizing elaborate drinking games on the deck. They dragged out the white melamine table because it was a perfect playing surface for “Quarters,” where a coin is bounced off a table and into a cup of beer, after which the player gets to choose who has to chug it. A missed bounce meant you’d have to drink it yourself. (That was about all the strategy the offensive linemen could handle.) There was much rejoicing and trying to shout above Lynyrd Skynyrd shredding on the blasting speakers, and the constant chugging was having a deleterious effect on the participants.
“Cuz I’m as free as a bird, now… and this bird you cannot cha-a-a-ange!”
As the jocks on the deck got drunker, their morals and decorum washed away, and they openly leered at the nubile females that scurried by in frightened clusters to use the bathroom. Marty’s front yard turned into an episode of Wild Kingdom. Tough dudes were rough-housing like any young male animals would, as a natural outlet for their surging testosterone. They started “chest wrestling” with the belligerence of elephant seals battling on the beach during mating season. There was much coarse laughter, pumping of pectorals, and incidental head-butting, reminiscent of bighorn rams. Rob had his shirt off and was taking on all comers, two at a time. As the dimness of twilight in the forest gave way to the weird illumination of Christmas lights strung in the trees, the entire scene started to resemble some primitive, tribal rite-of-passage. The young ladies wisely kept their distance, entertaining themselves down by the campfire where they could talk above the music. Some of the saucier ones had been drinking a little, and tormented the young bulls dangerously with their hips. In one way it was like a congregation of angels celebrating their freedom in heaven, but at the same time there were sparks from a red-hot level of libidinous hell.
The beer and drugs wore down the thin veneer of civilized behavior and more guys took their shirts off, screaming like baboons at each other, and flexing their muscles. The music reached a guitar crescendo, and a brief shoving match broke out, then dissipated into posturing and peacemaking, where big strong linemen hugged each other like bosom buddies, tearfully screaming the words of the song being played for the third time:
“Won’t you fly-y-y, free bird, yeah!”
As the resident host for this carnal shin-dig, Marty casually sauntered down to the campfire after the guitar solo to see what the girls were up to. Dave and Mike tagged along for moral support. The young females alertly sensed their approach, and altered their behavior and topics of conversation accordingly. They smiled and waved in a wide, apologetic semicircle, and abandoned the campfire for the bathroom. The three would-be studs sadly roasted their wieners on the fire. You know – hot dogs on sticks! (What were you thinking?!) More guys arrived with their wieners, and soon it resembled a Boy Scout camp-out. Instead of campfire songs, however, they listened to AC/DC sneering their subversive ideas of how young men should behave.
One of the most amazing aspects of that kegger party was the unexpected transformation of some of the “straight” guys on the team. Not to say the rest of the guys were crooked, but the morally upright young athletes were usually referred to in a way that described their exemplary behavior. And yet, there was Barney, the backup quarterback, all hunched over and throwing up in the fern bushes. Mark, the handsome wide receiver, was slouched sideways against a tree trunk with redwood needles tangled in his fluffy hair and mouth wide open, while his buddies were laughing and dousing him with cups of brew from the bottomless keg. Even Tony, the poster boy quarterback and self-appointed ladies’ man, was on his hands and knees grubbing in the fire pit with a stick, trying to pull out his wiener, which had fallen in among the coals. Everyone was swaying, reeling, or staggering, with the peculiar loss of coherence that only large doses of alcohol can induce. Tony finally grabbed his blackened hot dog with his hands and ate the whole thing, ashes and all, while Barney crawled back into the light, moaning.
Rob, Dave, Mike, and Marty were having a great time, watching the jocks who thought they were god’s gift to girls demonstrate that they were true lightweights when it came to beer drinking. The bleacher creatures reveled in finding something at which they were more skilled and experienced than Drake’s finest. Some of the young lady guests came back to the fire ring and excused themselves, thanking Marty for a fun party, and triggering a mass female exodus. The football heroes, tired of drinking beer and pissing in the bushes, slurred their goodbyes and staggered up to their cars, arms around each other like rugby players in a scrum. Mark was thrown into the creek by his older brother to “clean him up,” and a few guys carried him up to the driveway. That left the hardier partiers to try and finish the beer, but they couldn’t do it. That big silver keg kicked their skinny little freshmen butts! The last thing Marty remembered was praying to the porcelain gods for forgiveness.
The next afternoon was spent picking up litter, half-eaten hot dogs, and dozens of empty beer bottles. There were red cups everywhere. Tim and Pippin started in on trying to finish the keg, but Marty wanted none of that. He’d had enough beer for a lifetime, it seemed. The phone rang often, and Marge followed the cord to find it in all the party debris. Naturally, it was in Julie’s room. It sounded like she was responding to complaints from the parents of some of their guests, who apparently objected to the state in which their little cherubs had returned home. Marty pitched into bed again before dark, toxic and exhausted, and fell asleep wondering what effect the party would have on his status at school.