It's Really Happening

There isn’t much to distinguish a hookah bar from a normal café or bar, from the outside at least. Except for being a little clouded, it’s pretty much the same on the inside too. Only, you know, everyone’s smoking and more relaxed.

I felt a little less bad than I had as we sat down in a circle of armchairs around a table; despite going to the Haight a lot and playing along with Alex’s and Jack’s glee, I’d never been to a hookah bar, but neither had Dave, so it was okay.

Naturally this admittance was mocked as we tried to decide what flavour we wanted. “Some of us have better things to do with our time,” I said loftily amidst the derisive laughter.

“Right,” Alex said sarcastically. “I forgot. You California kids only smoke pot.”

I shrugged, crossing my legs at the knee and trying not to kick the table. “Hey, if you wanted pot, you should have asked before we left.”

The six of them stopped whatever they were doing and stared at me, agog. Even Abby. And especially Zack. “You never told me that!” Abby half-yelled. Rian nudged and shushed her when people looked lazily around at the noise.

“I don’t smoke pot,” I clarified. “You nuts? My lungs are screwed up enough. No, my brothers do. Their roommate deals.”

“We should hang out with your brothers while we’re here,” Jack muttered.

I scoffed. “Oh yeah, that’d go over well. ‘Hey guys, can we add seven people to the circle?’ No way in hell.”

While everyone else smoked, coughing and sputtering in varying degrees, and laughing every time someone did, I watched everyone nearby. It was a little hobby of mine, people watching. About ten feet away there was a group of five twenty-somethings like ourselves, hanging out. Closer than they were three old men guffawing uproariously at the television. Across our little circle I could see a couple making out.

I cringed and turned away just in time to get a face (and lung) full of minty smoke. “Alexander, you bastard!” I croaked once I’d hacked my lungs out. Everyone else laughed, though Zack and Abby tried to cover it, and I swatted his arm before going to curl up in Zack’s lap.

“You were being a space cadet,” Alex said, handing his hose off to Jack. “And you’re not even smoking!”

I plucked the tube out of Zack’s hand and breathed in, my brain swirling. I blew the smoke upwards and crossed my legs over the side of the chair, smiling. “Space cadetery excused!”

After a while, I realized that I’d been giggling along with everyone else, even though I had no idea what we were talking about. I kind of doubted anyone else did either, though. Even completely sober these guys had the memory of goldfish.

The image of a goldfish with Alex’s hair, Jack’s backwards baseball hat, and Dave’s nose ring swam into my mind, and I burst out laughing at it. Zack tilted his head at me and started laughing too, and soon all of us were falling over ourselves.

“Wait wait wait wait wait!” Abby said, gasping for breath and pausing in her poking war on the world. Rian grabbed her hands and wormed a hand into her side, making her shriek and swat at him. “No tickling!”

“Right!” I agreed. “There are no tickles on the Battlefield of Poke!”

Abby beamed at me. “Exactly! What were we laughing about?”

We looked at each other, trying to find the answer on each other’s foreheads. Zack drummed his fingers on my knee, and I shrugged. “I don’t remember.”

After a few seconds, we all burst out laughing again.

“I don’t feel good,” Dave commented, sinking into the couch.

Beside him, Abby bounced to attention. “You do feel good!” she whined in protest, tugging his arm. “Daaaaaave!”

“Lightweight,” Jack laughed.

“Yeah, man,” Rian said, turning to look for a clock on the wall, “It’s only… whoa, what the fuck time is it?”

I pulled out my phone and stared at it deliberately for a few seconds. “Didn’t we get here around two?” I asked, getting a hazy noncommittal response. “…We’ve been here over three hours.”

“I’m hungry,” Zack declared.

I smiled, headbutting his shoulder gently. “You’re always hungry.”

“I’m hungry too!” Jack chirruped, jumping to his feet and falling over. We all snickered and slowly made our treks upward.

“We need munchies,” Abby whispered conspiratorially, slinging an arm around my shoulder as we stumbled out onto the sidewalk. My feet felt oddly light and bouncy, like I was walking on a trampoline.

I nodded in agreement, chuckling to myself as I watched the boys trip over each other behind us. “What do you wa—”

“THAI FOOD!” she chorused, pointing ahead and tugging on my arm. “Thai food, Thai food, Thai food!”

Laughing, I followed Abby as she dragged me down the street. “Dawson! Save me!”

“Why me?” he called, curiously.

“Because she loves you the most after me.”

Then there came a chorus of “Hey!”

Somehow I remembered to be extremely politely to the man behind the counter when he asked how many in our party. Seven twenty-somethings were terrible enough to deal with in a restaurant; when you got them all high… Well, dealing with Jack was difficult enough anyway.

“What the fuck is that?” Alex asked, leaning over the table to stare in mild disgust at Abby’s curry.

“It’s awesome in a dish,” she said, grabbing his fork and spiking a piece of chicken to hold out to him. “Eat it!”

“Ew!” He fell back into his seat, flailing his hands at the fork. I laughed and took the bite myself as everyone else conversed and snickered. “Gross, Eris germs!”

I grinned toothily at him and ate my fried rice. “I’m pretty sure your germs are way worse than mine, Alexander.”

“Yeah, but who knows what’s been in your mouth,” Dave joked.

There was a short pause, in which I was pretty sure everyone was thinking the same thing. “But we all know who,” Abby muttered under her breath.

A weird and disgusting noise came from the other side of the table, followed by all the boys laughing hysterically. When I looked over, Jack was holding his hand over his nose and mouth, and when he pulled it away I saw that the lower half of his face was covered in orange liquid.

“Please tell me you did not just laugh orange soda out your nose, Bassam,” I requested, trying to keep a straight face.

“Augh!” he moaned, still laughing. “It huuuuuurts!” Abby and I both fell on each other laughing, accidentally getting a bit of curry sauce on each other.

Eventually I felt bad enough for the workers in the restaurant that I ushered everyone out, leaving a bit extra for tip. When we got outside and started walking down the sidewalk towards my car, the general feeling was not wanting to do nothing. Walking in the back, I studied each of our group.

Jack, Dave, and Zack were discussing something very seriously—it sounded to me like the benefits of brightly-coloured kids’ cereals over boring old adult ones—Abby and Rian were walking arm-in-arm, one of them occasionally breaking into a little dance routine, and Alex was staring straight up at the sky. I smiled wickedly when I realized he was going to walk right into a mailbox in a few seconds.

Which he did. And I laughed the loudest.

“You saw that coming, didn’t you?” he asked, pouting. I nodded enthusiastically and yelped when he pulled me in for a noogie. I shoved him away and he stumbled off the sidewalk, grinning at me. “I think we’re square.”

“The only thing square about you and me, Alexander,” I said with a smirk, “Is the sidewalk I just pushed you off.”

“You got that right,” he muttered, looking me up and down.

I rolled my eyes. “Alert! Gaskarth’s being a sleazy douchebag!”

“When is he not?” Rian laughing, looking back at us. I pursed my lips, considering that, nodded, then deciding to hipcheck Alex into a newspaper dispenser. Epitome of grace, that boy, I swear.

“Hey!” Jack shouted, spinning around with a huge grin as we neared my car. “You know what we should do?!”

“Go look at puppies!” Abby yelled back, jumping up and down.

“…I was gonna say get wasted, but that’s good too!”

I shook my head, chuckling. “Why would I ever need to have children when I have you guys?” I asked lovingly. Then I had four very excited, bouncing people around me, whining and begging to be taken to a pet store. “Fine! Jesus, I wouldn’t need pets with you people either.”

“So… that’s a no to getting a snake then?” Zack asked, grinning.

Thankfully my neurotic disallowing of anyone else to drive my car proved in my favour, since the boys got to cram themselves into the back seat. Abby and I watched, laughing, as they worked it out and had to make adjustments on the ride to the pet store.

The minute Jack and Dave stopped in front of the blue parrot sitting on a perch by the door, the people working in the store had their eyes on us. Or maybe it was that they were trying to make it curse like a sailor. While everyone else spread out to their favourite cuddly or slithery thing, I wandered the whole store, catching snippets of their conversations. Kind of like the Beatle’s “Revolution No. 9.”

Rian found a bunny that matches the tattoo on his arm. Alex and Zack made faces at the fish. Jack tried to convince the cashier to let him hold a tarantula and Abby and I had to dissuade her from taking one out. After that we stared sadly at the wall of puppies in cages and I ranted about the cruelty of puppy mills and pet stores. Abby got to hold her favourite ball of husky fuzz, though.

I think her not wanting to give him back was less instrumental in us getting ushered out than Alex reaching into the tank to pet the two-headed turtle and Dave wearing a rabbit as a hat.

“I want a puppy,” Abby moped. We were back at my apartment, escaping the clusterfuck of testosterone currently inhabiting (and likely not sleeping in) my living room. “We should go buy one.”

“We?” I repeated, rolling out a sleeping bag. “You and I we, or you and Josh we?”

“You and I.” She stretched out on my bed and tossed me a pillow. “You apartment allows pets, right? I saw someone downstairs coming up with a dog.”

I rolled onto my stomach, resting my cheek on my arms. “Dog’s a lot of responsibility,” I mused, shutting my eyes.

Abby sat up and whined. “But mooooom! I’ll love him and feed him and walk him all by myself! Pleeeeeeeeeeeeease!”

I snorted. “Mommy and Daddy will talk about it tomorrow.” She turned out the light and settled into my bed. After a few minutes, I muttered, “But that one was pretty cute.”

“Yessssss!”