-{ redgeek.net }-

I was pissed. I didn’t want to go to the football game. We never payed attention; our high school had been on a losing streak since my sister had attended CHS. We’d sit, do nothing, apathetic, biding time until the parties started. I’d rather blow time in front of my computer, learning, doing.

But I was faced with four adamant friends wanting to pick up two girls they’d met from the prep school. It was early sophomore year, and I was one of the first to get a license, and had access to my mom’s Jeep Cherokee.

Fuck. Another night carting my drunk friends around, watching them slobber over reticent females, as I wish I could. But I was out of the loop, and outsider, sober.

As always, after many excuses and much cajoling, they convinced me. I turned her over and pushed in Faith No More’s “The Real Thing” more violently than necessary.

“Dude, not this shit. This shit’s old.”

He was right. It’d been released at least two years prior, and was old. Passe, even. But I loved it.

I turned the dial delicately, appreciating each notch of resistance, the apprehension, subtle grinding, pulling it the length of my nerves into my stomach.

I smile for the first time since my friends showed up – wickedly. They know I have a habit of driving too fast, bordering on recklessly.

They all reach for their seat-belts simultaneously. If they’re going to have fun drinking with the two girls shoved in the back seat on laps, I was going to have fun driving. Fast.

When we arrive at C’s house, I step out, leaning against the fender smoking a Camel, letting the other boys deal with extricating C and M from C’s parents. I wasn’t in the mood.

Two and a half cigarettes later, they emerge.

I nod nonchalantly to the newcomers, attempting to disguise my immediate attraction to M. Stubbing out my cigarette, I pause: “Better buckle up.”

The rest of the way to the game, I can’t hear the conversation over my music, my radio, my thoughts. I do not participate.

As my passenger tumble out, horsing around, inexpertly flirting with C and M, I resume my position against the fender, lighter suspended before smoke, flame bristling. M slides onto the hood, my eyes involuntarily follow her, flame still heating the flint.

“I fucking love that album.”

I challenge her with my eyes: unbelieving, not in the mood for insincere small talk despite her looks, to be used as a foil to her true interest, to have my album defiled. I challenged: inaudibly: prove it. You may be hot, but this ain’t free. Prove it.

“Faith No More. The Real Thing. Mike Patton. ‘89. Still rocks.”

I lean over and light her cigarette, smiling.

She was the first, the first one to destroy me, with help from myself of course.

We were born on the same day, and that would haunt my birthday for years.