Magic America

It is the dusk of a long, drawn-out day. The sky is bruised and sprinkled in diamonds; a tragic high-class call-girl to the bleached blonde socialite of a sunny sky. And, in this gloomy setting, I am surrounded by the corpses of bright people. They have been slaughtered by cheap French beer, the offer of something physical, and the hyperactivity that comes with socialising with friends. I envy the latter.
“And then he fucking NAILS it! Absolutely nails it – top lad!”
“He’s such a whore – I was like, can I really be bothered with this stress? I mean, it’s not like I’ll be able to see if he’s doing some bitch at Cardiff when I’m across the other side of the world on my Gap Year. So I was like, totally do what you want, but we’re over...”
“You made out with a guy? Jeez, Mark! You’re such a fag!”
“Guys – Ricky’s passed out on the loo and vommed all over himself – I NEED HELP CLEARING UP...”
A patchwork of people lend their voices to the stale air, which reeks of tobacco stench and sweat. The conglomeration of words are as obvious as oxygen.
“Oh, wank – he’s mid-dump! Guys – someone – come and help... first one to help me wins his wallet.”
I am ensconced in a corner, fenced in by Gordon and his best friends, Tom Foster and Davis Small; otherwise known as Fosty and Biggy. They separate themselves from the pack by talking about the oil slick in America. I am helpless to their criticism.
“And then Obama’s blaming us for it. What did we do? What should he have been doing? It’s lu-di-crous. What America needs right now, is a true leader to set them straight. Like Cameron. He could whack them into shape; a true nation founded on morals and mutual respect for the rest of the world. Not one based on self-serving economics or a superiority complex, like a Jeep which sits in the middle of the road and won’t let anyone else through.” Speech over, he waits for a stunned yet awestruck silence from his two aides. Yet Fosty, feigning innocence to veil his sarcasm, harvests a pop-cultural gem.
“Like the Snorlax on Pokemon Blue which won’t let you through to Fuschia Town until you’ve got the Poke Flute?” he asks – cloaked in naivety – lending a dewy eye to me. Fosty and I have a knowing glance which we use whenever Gordon is being a pretentious snob; the persona that reared its ugly head when he applied to Oxbridge, and stated that he was a ‘politician’ because he took politics. Oh, the idiocy! Fosty is less of a devotee than Biggy; yet he refuses to abandon Gordon because “he’s a laugh”. Once I briefly felt a pull towards him, but his cowardice to go against the grain for certain showed weakness. And weakness is a weakness.
“What?” Gordon stumbles. “What on earth are you talking about, Fosty? And what the hell is that noise?”
Thump. Thump. Bump. The party’s host, a scientist-wannabe by the name of Cain Abrahams, appears with the feet of Ricky in his hands, whilst a boy I know by sight but not name carries Ricky’s upper half. Ricky is the chief of the debauchers at the party; a fat layabout with as much ambition as he has dignity, and his life’s hopes and dreams stretch to as far as 30 Jägerbombs in an evening. A blubbery no-hoper whose imagination is tempered with déjà vu vomit stains on his clothing, and is restrained by nature rather than the law or common decency: of course, it is his luck to have an affluent family to prop his inebriate self up, who can fund his aims of doing nothing but downing spirits as though Nirvana could be achieved that way.
“We’re just taking Ricky downstairs and into the garden to sober up... or wake up, even.” Cain, on the other hand, always seemed more respectable than this; he had been sober at two parties during the past six months so he could drive the intoxicated home. Legend had it that he could perform auto-fellatio on himself, and had gained a six-pack from doing so. Common knowledge had it that he had taught Lavender a trick or two about oral sex on her fourteenth birthday. I had reached a zenith of desperation to socialise with my peers that rendered it acceptable to attend the house-party of a paedophile sister-defiler, in the company of little more than wretched sluts, political peacocks and hedonistic-but-idiotic drunks.
Whereas I am a martyr in conformity hell, Gordon – where you would expect him to be a similar killjoy – finds the hilarity of such Neanderthal behaviour. Crude I can be, but Gordon is the epitome of a chameleon; ‘lad’ one moment, stickler for family values the next. We haven’t broached the topic of the proposal yet. I can only hope he has forgotten it, that it has been misted over by wet dreams of Conservative domination of American politics and lifestyles. He continues babbling about how terrible America is. I interject.
“Oh, for fuck’s sake, Gordon, stop going on about it.”
“Says Miss America herself.” He sniggers, a vile chatter of hideous mini-laughter splutters strung together to make the most nauseating necklace of sound known to man. “Cami, Obama’s a dick. Face it – America is shit.”
“That may be, but I’d rather have a president reminiscent of Will Smith than a make-up-caked Oompa Loompa to run the country,” I offer sweetly, and Fosty’s cackles provide a welcome soundtrack to my victory. Gordon’s silence is golden.
Our coupling is anomalous to the party; we show no sign of clinging – not even a sweaty seatbelt of an arm for our troubles – yet we are unmistakably long-term. This is in contrast to the others. There are two types of insecurities that manifest themselves in today’s youth to my knowing; the polars and the couple bubbles. The former are lone wolves, copulating out of need for a reputation among others, a social standing that cannot be carved from mere personality or looks alone. They are wanton not just with their kisses, but with their bodies. The poetry of curves and shadows are waylaid for something colder; the icy reality of sexual promiscuity, briskly businesslike to prevent feelings from being savaged, avoiding the misery of heartbreak their elders had written mournfully of. God forbid that hormones strangle one’s mission, for a casual fuck-and-fling! Joe, Lavender’s first boyfriend, and Sabina, Aleksei’s virginity thief, are the epitome of the polar whore. They suck face in a corner and later on will screw in Cain’s younger sister’s bed. Let them.
The flip-side of the social coin is ‘couple culture’. When the troubadours of old serenaded their muses, the crushing passion within their songs and stories was absurd; yet the inevitable obstacles that divided the star-struck lovers were the making of them, allowing them to cling onto the edge of realism, and preventing them from falling into the bottomless pit of absurdity and farce. But in these clouded times, the couples are forced to face the grim prospect of love without drama. In the days when computers connect people infallibly, there is no impediment to requited love, save perhaps for religious or racial boundaries. Yet in the homogenous, sanitised circles of culture that Britain and America are steeped in, love stands to become as bland as anything else. And thus, the heat is on to invent drama and rise out of the magnolia dregs of everything, and write gallingly overwrought odes of love on the internet to their ‘soulmate’, who they will love ‘forever and ever’. I fear deeply that – seeing as great literature, poetry, art and music are founded more than anything on a depth of infinite passion – the arts cannot and will not survive the onslaught of soulless, fake articles that are borne of this type of romance, covered in a banal sheen so that the sentiments can be passed around to any lover that the future throws up. The effect of the ‘three words’ that all others crave has been diluted to the point where it is little more than water to vodka. I hate water.
As I excuse myself to seek out soft drinks and solace on what was perhaps once a poker table, I encounter the one person I truly care for here. Paul Lung had been blessed with a ridiculous surname, yet a sparkling personality; a true one-size-fits-all blend of hilarity, sensitivity and enthusiasm. His interests spanned good music, critic-swooning films, playing seven instruments (saxophone, viola, double bass, drums, electric guitar, piano and harmonica), being a committed Christian without being a street preacher, playing semi-professional football, surfing and cooking. Never had anyone been as quirkily but obviously beautiful as he had. He had loved as he had been loved, yet his several girlfriends had gone on to be within his coveted inner circle of friends after they had dissolved romantic obligations. The people he had known had blessed him with a gleaming archive of anecdotes; unlike those who parrot the same tired stories, he never ran short of yarns of misadventure, achievement or a comedic lack of communication. His dexterity and intelligence were exceptional; yet his modesty blanketed any envy it produced from his army of fans and friends. Had he not been so set on taking a philanthropic Gap Year and working in the Third World, he surely would have been Oxbridge-bound, and wrapped up ready for the highest successes in life. And yet, in amongst all this perfection, was a genuine kind heart – one which, somehow, had room for me within it; the only one of his inner circle who was not similarly popular.
“Camomile!” A hearty, wholesome grin, enunciating the three syllables in such a way that they rang and rolled with deep and meaningful importance. No one else called me by my first name, with the exception of my parents. “I heard about your hospital trip. Are you ok? I was going to visit, but then you were released. So quickly!” When he speaks, his gestures are simultaneously natural yet staged – they convey his fervour for life, his genuine interest in the lives of others and the colour he receives from socialising. He is entangled in the abrupt rapidity of half-formed ideas that begin to manifest themselves in speech, yet he measures out words enough to express a great intellect and sincerity.
“Nuh, it was fine. Got me through a few days of pre-Results Day terror. How’s Emilia?” Had he not been involved with the lugubrious Emilia for nearly three years, I surely would have been head over heels for him; by simple dint of the fact that he had a girlfriend, I was freed from the curse of adoration. The last time I adored someone – truly, hopelessly, boundlessly – it was an affliction, a plague on my sensibility! I worshipped from afar, knowing that they could never return such overwhelming ardour: I became a spirit chained to nothing more than obsession. Any humanity was swept under the carpet so that I could mirror a robot for him, forgoing truth for perfection. Every beat my heart stuttered out was lathered in desperate and useless hope, a foreboding sense that imminent destruction was en route for me, and the pain of unsaid rejection. By the time such feelings subsided, I was an empty shell; better that than the lovelorn corpse that had drifted around for six months, stupid and brainless, blind to the obvious. Destruction ravaged my last vestiges of hope. Of course, three months later, he kissed me in the library.
Gordon watches across the beer-soaked kitchen. His scarlet t-shirt camouflages him against the poppy-red walls that he is propped up against; Paul and I sit in parallel wooden chairs by the window. Rain lashes the window, we’re battery hens cooped up in the house. Fosty and Biggy are imitating rappers. Gordon, of course, is above such tomfoolery.
“She’s... Emilia. Loving and hating in balance. Off the old meds, onto new ones. What’s new in your life then? -And are you dumping Gordon any time soon?” This conspiratorial whisper makes my bones chill, my voice dip down to near single-figure decibels.
“Shh! He’s over there. I’m planning it – yes, I know I said that last time, but I mean it this time. And as it happens-” I grow louder. “I’m going to America next week!” That does it – Gordon stalks across the room towards me – and taps me on the shoulder. This means he is furious and determined to prove me wrong on at least one account. “Sorry, be back in a moment.” Paul nods in appreciation of the obvious upcoming argument. He opens a can of Heineken, takes a slug, and inspects the small print on the can. Cain reappears with vomit on his t-shirt – Ricky’s, presumably – and the fiercely entwined couples grow more inseparable; poison ivy clinging to a tree, strangling it and sucking all the life out. In this case, that tree is dignity – something I lost when selling my soul to Gordon.
We ascend to a bedroom, for reasons not applicable to the others.