A New Year

To celebrate the transition from 2003 into 2004 this year my girlfriend convinced me to go to an acquaintance's party in Stoney Creek. The last two new years had been rather tranquil celebrations and Laurianne convinced me that I owed her some rowdiness.

On that fateful night of December the 31st I picked up some of our friends and headed to the party. After forty minutes of meandering around the suburban wilderness we finally found the Canaanites.

Tickets to the party were approximately ten dollars, and being the generous Dutchman that I am, I paid fifteen, allowing my girlfriend, in the interest of women's liberation, to pay the remaining five dollars. My hand was skillfully marked with a red Crayola marker, my keys were turned over, and I was given a plastic cup with my initials written crudely on it with black Crayola marker.

"Wait a minute," the slightly inebriated door-keeper intoned, "are you going to drink a lot?"

"No," I answered.

"Good," she said, "because you shouldn't drink and drive."

I nodded and followed my friends down the stairs to the basement, impressed with the party's security precautions. The basement was filled with sweaty drunken bodies. Individuals in red shirts cleverly titled Dube's New Keggers Eve Party served as security. With very little imagination I could see these shirts very soon gracing the rack of some local Value Village only to be thumbed through with very little thought by some bargain-hunter.

A lanky shaggy drunken fellow bumped into a zit-faced youth, "Hey, are you drunk?"

"Yeah," said the lanky fellow, "are you?"

"Yeah," the zit-faced youth bobbing in exaggerated inebriation, "I'm absolutely hammered!"

"Alright!" yelled the lanky fellow, and the two of them exchanged a clumsy high five.

I served myself a cup of beer from the keg, in the corner of a former bedroom. An absolutely humungous guy popped me the thumbs-up sign. I took a sip and then I noticed that the humungous guy was back for conversation, "that was kind of retarded wasn't it?"

"What?"

"When I gave you the thumbs-up sign," the humungous guy imitated himself giving a retarded thumbs-up sign, "that looked a little retarded, didn't it?"

"It didn't look to bad," I intoned, smiling.

"Good," the humungous guy smiled back and slapped my on the back with a huge paw. I nearly spilled my beer.

I went back out into the hall. The lanky fellow had his shirt off and was yelling, "at Marcel's party I was the only one who knew how to party!"

Fortunately, the lanky fellow had friends who restrained him and the shirt was soon in its rightful place on his back. A heavy-set curly-hair man in a trenchcoat was telling to girls that he was gay but he wasn't into, "all that gay shit."

I wandered over to the bar and noticed stacks of pizza boxes. I could do with a slice of pizza. There was a sign crudely marked, "50 cents a slice." I was not getting my money's worth.

I walked over to a larger room and noticed a drum kit and several individuals setting up their guitars and amplifiers. Excellent, I would be treated to a concert, maybe I would be getting my money's worth after all. Then the music started.

Now, I like a lot of music and I have paitence with most music, but this was a little too much. With a cacophony of poor rhythm, distorted guitars, and a badly played bass, the lead singer had his shirt off and along with some expletives was roaring such enlightening lyrics as, "I HATE YOU/ SHUT UP/ I HATE YOU," and so on and so forth. The music was not very welcoming.

The lanky fellow was entering the room on the back of a friend, a plastic cup in one hand, "AAAAAAAAAALRIIIIIGGHT!"

The lead singer had become unintelligable and approximately seven people were extremely pumped and forming a mini-moshpit at the front. The lead singer paused for an announcement, "Uh, the party down the street was shut down by the cops, so if all the underage people could stay down here for now that would help a lot."

Then the next song started off with a roaring, "WE DON'T NEED YOU!"

My friends decided to go for a smoke and I decided to accompany them. Outside several people were having a deep philosophical discussion about zippers, the smell of pot heavy in the air. The heavy-set curly haired man in trenchcoat was having a conversation with same two girls, no doubt about the same thing.

My Lebanese friend leaned over to my Quebecker friend, "There's the fag."

The heavy-set man looked up, "I am not a fag," he exclaimed effeminately.

My Lebanese friend was shaking his head in embarassment, my Quebecker friend was doubled over in laughter and then the lanky fellow stuck his head out of the sliding door, "Hey Maurice! I'm coming out."

"You do that," muttered an unenthusiastic Maurice.

The lanky fellow swayed forward and then backwards and then forward and then as he tried to step forward he swayed backwards and disappeared from sight, lying somewhere on the kitchen floor.

Two girls rushed out, frightened by a police cruiser they had spotted driving past the house. I found myself wishing that the police would come and send these underage drinkers into a drunken panic. That would be fun to watch.

We left twenty minutes later, without the cops having shown up at all.