Free Burn Down The Night by Craig Kee Strete

flatness.
    "I'm not clumsy,"
I tell him, dragging myself up off the floor. I can feel blood on my face. Feels like I broke it.
"I'm just athletically inclined toward pain."
    From the bed, Gail
yells, "Hoooorny!"
    I stumble around
in the dark, feeling around for the door. Trying to aim in the opposite direction from the
moaning sounds coming from the bed. Get a little freaked out, stumbling round in the dark. Can't
find the door, can't even find a wall.
    Morrison catches
me by the shoulders and suddenly the door is open and we go through it.
    Life is like that.
You're struggling in the dark with elephants who are out to do you in, and then suddenly the door
is open and you're going through it.
    Outside the
bedroom the party is going full stroke. Everybody's getting drunk, train wrecked and dizzy on the
end that blows bubbles. Also enough coke going up noses to fly a small country to
Cuba.
    This is one of
those all-types, all-talking, all-singing, all-dancing parties. A little bit of everybody is
there. Geese and the goosers. Macrobiotic munchkins eating bread, wine and cheese and
shoot-'em-up drug abusers. All the tried and true not-so-beautiful losers. Every­body is
everybody.
    There's also a lot
of very straight looking types wandering around. People with suits even. Rich people with bad
bodies and great clothes to cover them up.
    "Wow!" I say,
staring at the human wreckage. "Who looks like a likely candidate?"
    Morrison nods
toward an Ivy League type leaning against a wall. An escapee from a college frat house and
obviously embalmed in beer.
    This guy's got one
arm around a lamp and a glazed expression that looks like someone has buttered his
eyes.
    "We gonna let it
all hang out," says Morrison as we zero in on our target.
    "Hey, man!"
Morrison slaps him on the shoulder, almost flooring him. "Long time no see! How's it
hang­ing?"
    "Woooowee, man!
I'm druuuuuunnnnkkk!" says the mental midget in the Sears and Roebuck suit.
    "Getting any
poontang?" asks Morrison.
    Our new friend
shakes his head vehemently, smashing one cheek into the wall. He lifts his head away from the
wall, surprised that he is that close to it. Stares at the wall suspiciously.
    Morrison comes
around him and lifts him up, one arm around his shoulders.
    "Hey, old buddy!
How'd you like some poontang?"
    "I... uh... no
thanks. I don't... don't do no drugs." An enormous belch, about four point five on the Richter
scale, splits our friend's face almost in half.
    "'Scuse me. Just
drink... boy, do I drink!"
    Morrison shakes
his head. "Idiot! Poontang is pussy! Smoke muffins!"
    "You mean girls?"
asks Squirrel-eyes. "Oh, that's different." He nods his head, painfully thinking it
over.
    "Yes... girls is
different. Much."
    "You wanna get
laid?" asks Morrison conspiratorially.
    "Me?" He seems
astounded. "Who? When?"
    Morrison turns him
around and aims his head toward the bedroom door. In front of it a tall blond girl stands talking
to a couple of guys. She's a hot looker. Long wicked legs trying to burst a hot little miniskirt
that just barely covers the central goodie. Two high breasts like baby ducks pushing against a
thin tie-dyed T-shirt. She's got to be all of six foot tall and sharp the way only California
girls can get.
    "See that girl
over there?"
    Our friend nods
idiotically.
    "Well, she's
horny," says Morrison. "She wants you."
    Our newfound
friend giggles. "You're putting me on," protests Booze Boy. "She wouldn't want... "
    Morrison smiles
like Satan witnessing the signature on a contract. "Hey, listen. I used to date her. Man, earlier
this evening she was telling me she didn't like the looks of the studs in this room. Till she saw
you, that is. I don't know what you got but she's been watching you out of the corner of her eye
all night, man!"
    "No shit!
Jeeeeeeeesuuuuuus!" He licks his lips in anticipation, straightens up his shoulders and sticks
out his chest. He looks as masculine as a deflowered