‘The House’

   Yolanda and I were hanging out all the time. I included her in almost everything I did. That didn’t sit well with Kelly because when Denver went back up to school, Yolanda was still hanging out with everyone while she was not. Kelly had been pretty possessive of Denver for one reason or another and felt like every other girl was after ’her man’. This caused the majority of her other friends to mingle with the rest of us. All of us got to know all of Kelly’s other friend’s better than we knew Kelly. It got worse when Denver and Kelly broke up because all of Kelly’s friends were still being invited to parties, mostly by me through Yolanda. I didn’t care who Yolanda asked to come with us, but Yolanda did. She remembered how Kelly tried to keep her away and now it was payback.  This pack of girls became known as ‘Kerry’s Harem’ Most of the time I just drove. Back in these days the rule of thumb was ‘Kerry  knows what’s going on tonight’ and Yolanda had the hotline to the action. I even bought her a ‘beeper’ for her birthday. Back then, it was the equivalent of owning a cell phone in high school.  

  For the most part, I was unaware of the high school drama behind the scenes until one weekend when Kelly called me out of the blue to ask me what I was doing that night. There was a party that night at “The House” which Jay, Mark and Brendan’s rented house became known as. I told her as much and she responded with “Oh yeah… I forgot. Do you think you could give me a ride.” Everything about this call put up red flags. Denver was in town for this party and they were broken up. Kelly never calls me as I hardly talked to her. And the fact that she seemed to have forgotten there was a party on the one day she does call came off fake and contrived. But I couldn’t say no and I agreed. When I picked up Yolanda, she was livid. It was then that I realized that not only did Yolanda want revenge for how Kelly treated her, she wanted to make her suffer. I wasn’t expecting grief for bringing Kelly until we got to the party and Denver saw her there, but now I was getting it from different directions for different reasons. I would have put my foot dawn had I not expected to be in more trouble over Kelly. Pick your battles, I thought, and I was on a losing end on this one. For that party I decided to lay low.

 Yolanda started dating Brendan shorty after the party but I don’t know whether it was before that or after that in which she had sex with Denver. The ultimate “screw you, Kelly.”

   I learned that Jay and Sean had joined up with Brendan to create a skit comedy show that was to be aired on the closed circuit television station that their college had called “Jip-Joint Theater”. Remembering my own efforts at movie and video production, they asked if I would assist them in their endeavor. Of course I signed up. We created two and a half episodes. Some of the skits were crass and some made totally no sense. Brendan would air them at midnight or so with a scroll along the bottom of the screen asking to call the station for feedback. It was surprisingly well received. Brendan was more surprised that anyone even watched the station because it sucked. But it turns out that ‘stoners’ will watch anything and late night skit comedy is what they like best. Most of the time, I was the cameraman. I didn’t go to the school, so I tried to keep my contributions on screen to a minimum and took no credit (they gave me credit recognition by the second episode) but the few scenes I was in were memorable, because people recognized me when I was on campus much to my embarrassment.

  That New Year’s we held the party at ‘The House’. And an even bigger party in March. Everybody attended. Even ‘the Melman’ made a rare appearance.  It was pretty much going to be one all night sleep over. 

 Mark had drank a little too much and his temper got the better of him. He told our friend Valerie that he was in love with her and Valerie, told him flat out that she wasn’t interested. Rather than accept that. He kicked her out of the house.. A lot of people there lost a lot of respect instantly for Mark.

 Erin had brought her friend Joanne, the one girl who found my happy go lucky nature annoying. A generally grumpy girl, my instinct was to cheer her up which only made her find me more annoying. As the night progressed, Erin really hit it off with a guy named Victor, leaving Joanne to her own devices. The problems began when Joanne had developed a crush on Denver. Denver wasn’t interested and wasn’t going to be interested.  By 1AM Joanne wanted to go home NOW. Erin wasn’t going anywhere and Maureen stormed out of the house. She really didn’t make herself endearing to anyone in all the time she was there. I had met her in the past, so I was her second closest ‘friend ‘at this party for what it was worth, which was nothing. So I quit my card game and ran out of the house after her. Convincing her she couldn’t walk the 98 miles back home tonight I got her to agree to come back. Emotionally, she was spent. I found a spot in the corner of the dining room and we made a fort out of her favorite blanket (I listened to her tell me the story). I announced that this fortress of solitude was not to be dist

urbed and I shared my blanket with her as I guarded her from any further stress.

  I woke up around 4 AM to find Joanne’s blanket missing. Our fort was gone and she would flip if she saw that.  After a quick search I found “The Melman” was using it. He and Sean had went MIA around 11 and had been gone ever since. I shook The Melman and told him I needed the blanket.

  “It’s so cold in here!” he said. I tried to reason with him, but finally bargained.

 “If I find you another blanket, can I have that one back?” He agreed.

 I quickly found Matt sleeping under the table. He is the heaviest sleeper I had ever met so I just took his blanket and gave it to Melman.

  With my mission accomplished I went back to sleep. I woke up to screaming. Matt was wailing on the Melman repeatedly as he slept on the couch. Melman had no idea what was going on.

  “You took my blanket, you bastard!” Matt yelled.

  “Kerry gave it to me!” the Melman pleaded. At that point Matt ran over and took our fort blanket.

 “Give me that! “ I yelled.

“It’s freezing and you’re using it as a fort!”

“That’s Joanne’s blanket. If you guys are all so cold, why don’t you turn the heat back on?” I shot back.

“What!?!?!?” almost everyone yelled in unison. For some reason, everyone assumed that the guys didn’t pay the oil bill which would not have been unheard of.

“Erin flipped the Oil Burner emergency switch earlier tonight when they were giving a tour of the basement” I said in a matter of fact tone. Erin, from the other side of the room slowly slunk under her blanket.

 “Why didn’t you say anything earlier when we were all freezing?” someone asked”

“Why would I care? We had a blanket fort.”

That morning, Sean and Melman regaled us with tales of their adventure. They had went for a quick drive to see the location of an unfinished nuclear power plant that protesters stopped from getting built. Off the beaten trail they winded up on a dirt road and got their car stuck. In the middle of nowhere and no way to contact anyone they tried in vain to get the car unstuck in the freezing dead of night. Just when they expected to be there until morning before they could attempt to find a pay phone, a tow truck showed up out of nowhere, in the middle of nowhere on New Year’s night.The tow truck got them out and they got back hours after they had left only to come back to a house colder than when they were stuck in Sean’s car. They just wanted to go to bed. After being woken up for using the blanket fort and then again to Matt wailing on him, the Melman conceded that it was one bad night.

 Joanne was nicer to me that morning, but she still found me very annoying the few times I did see her. You can’t please everyone.