Song: High Roller - Cheap Trick
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CHAPTER TEN
Jump in my love car, don't have to go very far;
Just far enough to show you a thing or two
Social boys turned into idiots once kegs were brought out. Amara was finally invited to one of the parties, despite Eleanor's distaste for her. That girl got her way a lot, but Amara was happy when she occasionally didn't. Again, the party was held by Anthony. It was Friday, December 17th, and Christmas break just started. Anthony was always threw big blowouts for special events like this.
"Chug! Chug!" Boys chanted as Freddy Wheaton ducked under a keg and drank as much as he could. Some overflowed and spilled all over his face and onto the floor. She didn't find him as attractive as she did a couple weeks ago.
Social girls stumbled around and clung on to boys they hardly even knew. Amara wondered how they could spend all day ranting about greasers girls who got drunk and fooled around and then come to things like this and do the exact same thing. One of those girls being Laurel.
That girl wondered why none of her relationships lasted but they all started at parties like this with her clothes off. Boys couldn't take a girl like that seriously, they just used her for fun until she got boring or clingy. Laurel would never understand that, though. She would still just throw herself at whoever showed interested. It made Amara a bit sad, Laurel had good intentions.
Right now, that red head was hanging off David Manson's Madras clad shoulder, giggling as he almost paid no attention. Even if Laurel was not the brightest girl Amara knew of, she was beautiful. She had curly bright red hair, and freckles in the right places. Quickly, Amara would name her as the prettiest girl she knew.
Heather Manson stood awkwardly next to her brother and her friend. Amara was about to walk over and save her, when a boy joined the three and threw his arm over Heather's shoulder. Her gesture didn't go unnoticed though, Heather smiled at her.
Amara's eyes drifted from her friend and fell onto the clock. It was eleven-oh-three, she was supposed to meet Curly at eleven thirty.
"Here a soda." Kathryn passed her a plastic cup.
"Thanks."
Anthony and Jimmy Dawson came over to the pair. "Hey, you girls want to go burn some greens?"
Amara had heard of kids smoking marijuana, and she knew Kathryn and Laurel had tried it. Kathryn had said she liked it a lot, Laurel said it was trashy. Her parents even gave her a pamphlet about it and gave a whole speech after one of their friends' kids turned into a 'damn hippie'. She had never touched it.
"Of course, Ant." Kathryn hooked Amara's arm in hers and they headed into the Sheldon's backyard.
The four of them stood in a square and Jimmy took a cigarette looking thing out of his pocket and flicked his zippo to light it up. The scent was weird to her, it didn't smell anything like a cigarette. It was nice, sort of.
The other three took their puffs, which were all followed by coughing and then the joint was passed to her. She took it but froze for a second. Jimmy urged her on with his eyes and Amara put it to her lips and inhaled. She repeated that four times until she coughed.
At first she felt nothing and that disappointed her.
It wasn't until it was five minutes to eleven thirty and she was making her way to her car that she felt any different. Everything seemed slow and she felt lighter, happier. For a brief second she was against driving all the way to Opal to meet Curly but that thought was left her mind as fast as it had entered and she drove.
Driving was weird. Things passed slower and the lights seemed way too bright to be normal. Later on she would be thankful that it was late and not full of traffic. Also, the radio DJ seemed a lot funnier than usual because she had never laughed at his tacky jokes before tonight.
It seemed like forever before she reached the red row house but when she looked into the clock as she pulling into the drive away it was only eleven thirty-seven. She beeped the horn and Curly's figure made its way to her car and got into the passenger.
He smiled at her but she watched his noise scrunch up and he looked her over.
She laughed. "Why are you looking at me like that?"
"It smells like pot in here." He said, still looking at her. "Your eyes are the colour of my house."
She laughed again and he shook his head. She didn't notice the frown. "Amara, are you high?"
"Well I don't think so," She told him. "I did try some of that, pot as you call it, but I don't think it worked."
He chuckled but even to her ears it didn't sound happy. "It worked. You drove all the way here?"
She nodded.
"That was fucking dumb," He sighed. "Switch seats with me, doll."
"I'm fine." She whined. She didn't know why Curly was acting this way. She didn't feel that much different than usual, she could defiantly drive.
"Switch with me." He demanded in a voice that reminded her of Tim that time she showed up at their warehouse. It was a voice of authority and even as her dazed self she listened to him and climbed over to the passenger seat.
They drove around quietly and he stared straight ahead the whole time.
"I'm sort of hungry, Curly." He didn't say anything.
"How'd ya get the drugs?" He asked her, ignoring everything she had said.
"Anthony Sheldon asked me to try it. I wasn't sure I wanted to but Kathryn said it was cool."
"Anthony Sheldon?" He did not seem as upset anymore, well not at her. "Goddamnit."
She was confused. "What's wrong?"
"Nothing. Let's go get you some food."
"Everything's closed." She said but he didn't seem like answering her tonight.
They drove and he didn't talk, it was like when she drove around with Tim. She was uncomfortable. She shifted her mind to the radio; she didn't feel as light anymore and things weren't as bright. Her head had a small throb and she was even hungrier.
Curly pulled into a parking lot of a small building. There was only two other cars there. The sign above the door read "Benny's Billiards", she had never been here before or even heard of it.
Inside was a couple pool tables, four booths, and a long counter equipped with bar stools. Behind the counter was a frail, lanky man and in one of the booths was four men who looked to be in their twenties. She was out of place, this was obviously a men's hangout and not just men – but greaser men.
"Johnny, Steven, Wayne, Ricky," Curly greeted them all. Steven was familiar to her; he was the one who gave her directions to find Curly. "Benny, can you get me a coke and a burger and fries for the lady?"
"Why'd you bring some dumb ass Soc here, man?" Johnny stared at her in disgust but it didn't bother her, she had expected it as soon as she realized where she had been brought into. "This is our place. They can't have this to."
"Fuck off, Johnny." Curly said from behind her. In the back of her mind she remembered Curly telling her that he didn't like this guy. She didn't think she was going to either.
"He's got a point." Said another of the boys. She was pretty sure it was Wayne.
"You're just kissing up to Johnny because ya screwed his girl." That came from Curly. "Now, shut your traps. She ain't leavin' no matter what you lot say."
Curly pulled up two chairs and told her to sit down. The guys started to talk like normal again but she still got a couple glares from Johnny. Benny came over with her food not too much later.
"Why'd ya bring her here anyways, man?" Steven looked over at Amara and she shrunk back, feeling some awkwardness rush over her. She wasn't as bold right now as she had been that day at the Dingo and thinking about her yelling at him embarrassed her slightly. He didn't seem to mind. He grinned at her.
"We were s'pposed to hang out, right?" Steven nodded. "Well this little lady shows up at my place high as a kite. Eyes were red as my house, I swear. We go for a drive as planned, then she starts complainin' she's starvin'."
Curly stopped his story to send her a dirty look. "So of course at 11:30 nothing sensible open, so I brought her here."
Ricky gave her an amused glance and then looked back at the boys. Ricky seemed to be the youngest out of all of them. He still had the leftovers of his childhood babyfat and she couldn't even hardly see peach fuzz on his face. The other boys also seemed more intimidating than him, excluding Curly, who was no longer that way to her. Ricky was also the younger brother of Eric Wheeler, Henrys right hand man. Eric was never involved in gang activities though, just like Henry when Tim started doing that stuff, Eric split. Ricky seemed to be all for it.
"Makes me sick, that stuff does." Johnny was staring right at her again. He had black eyes. She didn't like them. "If my girl ever tried that shit, I'd kick her right to the curb. I ain't just talkin' a little pot either, she tries anythin' other than booze or cigarettes, she's gone."
His attitude surprised her. No one she knew minded it all that much, Laurel thought it was trashy, but she wasn't totally against it like Johnny was. Amara thought it was just accepted nowadays since the hippies started getting bigger in society. She wasn't all for the hippie lifestyle; coke, LSD, heroin and that 'free love' stuff scared her but this never had. Seeing it made a big deal by someone other than her parents was odd. But it wasn't just Johnny, all the boys surrounding her seemed like they weren't for it, even Curly.
"I dig you, Johnny." Ricky butted in. "My mama told me that shit gives ya brain damage."
The four other guys rolled their eyes.
Shortly after Curly decided it was time to leave. They got back into her car and drove. It was dead now, it usually was at one in the morning.
He stopped at the park this time and drove the car on top of the bank. There was a lake on the other side of the hill and the other side was just the playground but from her frontal view it was a beautiful sight. She knew he didn't take her up here to be romantic, though. That wasn't him.
"You're the worst kind of person." He flicked off the radio and his eyes were flashing an even brighter gold. He was angry at her but he had no reason to be. "You just do what people tell you to do, to fit in. You aren't yourself."
His hands dropped from the wheel and his fists curled, "You lose your strong accent to be proper, you don't use slang because the people you want to be like don't,
"You dress like that because that's what they do. You do whatever they tell you to do."
Amara was not easily angered; she hardly ever got mad at anyone. But Curly Shepard saying to this her was rich – because he had just described himself. He was just as bad as Amara for not being himself.
"You're the exact same way! You fight because Tim tells you to, you're in a gang because that's what your brother wants, you skip school because Tim wants you to, and you pretend not to like movies because Tim thinks they're stupid. You even say you don't like the Beatles – but last time we went for a ride but you sang your heart out to Help."
She was rambling so much, she forgot to breathe. Out of the corner of her eye, she took a glance at Curly. He still appeared angry. "So don't tell me to 'be myself' until you do the same thing."
It was quiet after she stopped talking, she could hear herself panting and Curly's short breaths. She switched the radio on again and laughed when Help was what was playing. Curly did, too.
"I kinda do like the Beatles." He told her with a grin; she returned it.
"I kinda didn't like getting high."
"Good, because I wouldn't want you turnin' into one of those potheads."
He leaned over her and tucked her curls behind her ear. She smiled at him shyly and he closed his eyes and kissed her.
She wasn't nervous like she had been in the old drive-in building. It wasn't foreign anymore, she knew what was happening.
His lips were warm and they made Amara's body feel like the beer had at Buck's, but even nicer.