16

Laughter rang through the room as someone cracked yet another “hilarious” joke and I downed the last of the drink I had been nursing. I’m not sure how many I had had, losing count about an hour previous. I knew I had drunk too much, I was switching between drinks too, probably not the best idea; I was well on the way to completely wasted. I justified it to myself with the fact that it was a lot harder to be back at the apartment building than I thought it would be. To put it simply and in a cliché manner – I was trying to drown my sorrows.

That afternoon, my first trip back home since the day of the funeral, Alex, James and I had played for the usual crowd in the basement. Joey also joined us for a couple of songs; it turned out he had learnt a thing or two from that famous father of his and the crazy music scene he had been immersed in his whole life.

After a long afternoon of musical excitement, just like old times, our audience had returned to their daily lives. The only people left in the room had been James, Joey, Alex and I and our close friends Cate, Dean and Lara. I’m not really sure how, but we somehow managed to procure a variety of alcoholic beverages – leading to the situation at hand.

Joey was sitting near me on an armchair, James, Alex and Dean were all on the sofa and Cate and Lara were rolling around on the floor beside me laughing. Needless to say, I wasn’t the only one that had drunk quite a lot, another thing that I kept telling myself to excuse the excessiveness of my alcohol consumption. I was sitting on the floor, leaning over the coffee table, one hand clutching a freshly opened Smirnoff.

I turned to look at Cate and Lara. “You know what?” I said. “I’ve missed you. And you!” I pointed at Dean before bringing the Smirnoff to my lips and throwing back my head, feeling the liquid slide down my throat until half the bottle was gone.

“Who’s up for shots?” I yelled, gesturing to Alex to give me the bottle of vodka that she had been clutching protectively to her person.

She laughed as I lined up the shot glasses, ignoring Joey’s comment of “I don’t know if that’s a good idea.”

“D-Dani,” Cate stuttered a few minutes later after she slammed her now empty shot glass down onto the table, her face was displayed an excited grin and she was flailing her arms. “I-I can speak Polish!”

I laughed loudly, “I know you can – you’re from Poland you dick head!”

We collapsed into giggles and I lied down on my back, placing my head on Joey’s shoes, no longer feeling well enough to sit in an upright position.

“Aleeeeeex,” Lara called quietly in a sing song voice from where she was lying under the clear glass of the coffee table. The rest of the occupants in the room turned to look at her, intrigued by the tone of her voice.

“What?” was the response she received.

“Do you have lots of new friends at your new school?”

“I don’t go to school,” Alex said gleefully. “It’s freaking awesome!”

I threw my hands up into the air. “I go to school! I go to school! Pick me. Pick me.”

“I pick you!” Cate said pointing at me and crawling over to where I lay, pulling me into her arms so that we lay side by side; spooning, is what I think the position is referred to.

“Ok Dani,” Lara began again. “Do you have many many new friendslies?”

“Negative, Captain,” I stated importantly, looking up at the ceiling, failing to notice the affect these words had on the rest of the room. I was too preoccupied with the feelings that saying this out aloud brought about, the realization that I had no friends wasn’t exactly a pleasant. “Everyone hates me,” I continued. “Some stupid bitch named Cassie actually accused me of having sex with my own father.” I let out a bitter laugh as Dean spluttered and coughed on his drink at the bluntness with which I was talking.

“Dani –” Alex attempted to interrupt my awkward rambling, but I just kept talking anyway.

“Isn’t that fucking ridiculous? My Dad had sex with my Mum, not me. That’s how I came into existence. My Mum…I really miss her. She’d make me feel better about being a fucking loner.” I trailed off, the room silent.

After a moment or two of awkward, unsure glances Joey spoke.

“Right…” He began. “We should probably head back, it’s quite a drive and the parents will get mad if we’re home too late.”

“Oh no,” Alex said. “I really don’t want to go yet; it feels like we only just got here.”

“Yeah,” James nodded, sitting up. “Are you sure you want to go? You can all stay the night here? We’ve all had quite a lot to drink and it is getting pretty late.”

“I don’t want to stay,” I said loudly. “I need to get away from this place.”

“I’m fine to drive hey guys,” Joey assured the group. “I’ve only had one beer, Alex can stay if she wants though.”

“I can drive her back tomorrow!” James confirmed, as though settling the matter.

“We’ll all go!” Dean yelled, eliciting cheers from the other girls on the floor.

“Road trip!”

I added my own cheer to the chorus of appreciation for the idea of a road trip, not understanding that I wouldn’t be included in the activity

“Alright, let’s get you home.” Joey muttered, already standing and reaching down to help me up off the floor. I giggled as I stumbled over my feet and fell forward into his chest, gripping onto his shoulders for support.

“We won’t get up; that could be dangerous.” James said eyeing Lara, who had moved to lean against the couch, the cushions holding her head up while she drummed a rhythm on the coffee table with an unbelievable amount of enthusiasm. “Have a safe drive, it was nice seeing you and meeting you etcetera.”

After a few minutes of goodbyes and gathering our things – Joey doing most of the gathering and me doing most of the yelling – we made our way up the stairs and out of the Basement, me stumbling and laughing as we went.

We were finally got onto the road 15 minutes later, my head was only stable due to being half held in my hand and half propped up by the cool window of the car. I was drifting off to sleep when the Super Mario theme rang loudly from my bag.

“Woo! Someone wishes to speak to me!” I said loudly, reaching for my bag somehow managing to pull out my cell phone rather quickly, glancing at the caller ID. “It’s Mike Dirnt, my father.”

Joey snatched the phone out of my hands before I could answer it. “You are way to drunk to talk to your Dad right now.”

He flipped the phone open and brought it to his ear.
“Hello?” he said.
…
“Nah its Joey, she’s driving so she can’t talk.”
…
“We only left a few minutes ago so we should be a while yet.”
…
“Nah we’re fine, don’t wait up for us.”
…
“We’ll see you tomorrow.”
…
“Yep.”
…
“Bye Mike.” He shut the phone and passed it back to me. I put it back into my bag, threw my bag onto the seat behind me and leaned back against the car window.

A while later and I was woken by the feeling of the car around me coming to a stop and the engine cutting off. I opened my eyes to see that Joey had pulled into one of those 24-hour diner’s with the neon flickering lights; a really classy establishment.

“What are we doing?” I asked, unbuckling my seat belt as he did the same.

“I really need a coffee.” We both got out of the car and I stumbled a little bit towards the entrance to the diner, the lights of which caused me to squint in disgust.

Joey led me over to a booth in the corner and we sat down. I leaned back and rested my head on the top of the seat, attempting to stabilize my spinning world. A minute later a waitress came over to us, her little waitress notebook in hand.

“What can I get for you?” she said at the same moment that I had a sudden intense craving for bacon… and eggs.

“I’ll have a coffee; really strong and two sugars thanks.”

The lady looked at me after she wrote down what Joey wanted as though waiting for me to give her my order. I smiled happily up at her until she walked away, a confused and rather frightened look on her face.

I turned to Joey the second she was out of ear shot and said. “I want bacon.”

“What?”

“I want bacon.” I repeated as though he was stupid. “And eggs. Bacon and eggs; food of the gods!”

“Dani, they only serve bacon and eggs at breakfast.”

“But I want bacon.” I whined.

“They won’t give it to you.”

“Pleeeeeaaase?” I looked at him with the best puppy dog eyes I could manage.

“Fine.” He gave in. “I’ll ask the waitress when she comes back.”

“But I want some now!”
“Look, here she comes now.” He gestured to the waitress now heading in our direction with Joey’s coffee in her hands.

“Thanks.” He said to her picking up the coffee as soon as she placed it on the table in front of him. “Hey, do you think that she could maybe get a bacon and egg burger?”

She smiled a knowing smile. “Sure hon, you want onions?” I shook my head yes when she looked at me questioningly. “Sauce?”

“Barbecue,” I grinned.

“That shouldn’t be too long.” She walked away to the other end of the diner and disappeared behind the counter and around a corner.

“Damn that bacon was good.” I said, licking my fingers once more as we walked out into the cool night air and headed to the car to continue the drive back to Oakland.

Joey laughed and got in the drivers seat of the car. “Yes Dani, well you sure ate that thing fast.”

“Hey, I was hungry, leave me alone.”

“Well at least you’ve sobered up a tad now.”

The comment caused me to double over with laughter as we pulled out of the parking lot and back onto the main road. Joey simply rolled his eyes at me and turned his full attention to the traffic, a silence falling over the car.

“Did you like my friends?” I leant back against my seat, looking to him expectantly.

“Yeah,” He said. “They’re great, James is an awesome guitarist.”

“He is isn’t he?” I smiled. “Did you have fun playing with us? Our band I mean.”

“I loved playing with you guys, I haven’t played in a band in a while actually, it was cool.”

“You should play with us more often. We need another guitarist.”

“Yeah…Okay, you’re officially nuts.”

“Nuts?” Well I was officially confused. “I have no idea what you are talking about.” I giggled and slurred, completely confirming to Joey that I had definitely not sobered up.