F L A U N T
I am having a cocktail party tonight and I hope my guests will not behave inappropriately. We are celebrating my husband’s promotion. He has been given a raise of $20,000 and they have moved him to a large office on the periphery of the complex. He tells me this will improve the quality of his life enormously, and that his friends (many of whom I kindly invited tonight) will be very pleased with him, as they have received promotions far more rapidly than he and often take short trips for the weekend that exclude him. Our son and his girlfriend are home from school and they will be joining us alongside a member of his youth basketball team from long ago. I am prepared for the possibility that they will drink too much. I have cleared the rooms of clutter in case the younger guests should like to roam the premises following dinner with their father’s colleagues.
As I see it, this gathering is my beast that has not yet awoken. It is curled in utero in the dining room at present. There is a pleasant blankness to the evening as it stands now, unmarred by the psychic orderings that will inevitably shape its place in our memories. It will acquire form and feeling as my husband’s coworkers and our neighbors file in; it will experience love and fear and hope and belonging and then it will die when the night is over. I hope it will not die too early, nor horrendously late. I have prepared a litany of conversational recipes. I have purchased the expensive champagne. I removed the plastic casing from the couch at the urgent request of my husband and son. It is neatly folded in its original box in the hallway closet. I have locked my mother’s jewelry and our wedding china in a wardrobe upstairs. This entry will be my last before my husband arrives to survey my handiwork, after which I will place my journals in the wardrobe and hold the key in my pocket throughout the duration of the affair. I can only hope the canaries will remain quiet in their room.
Mom...Is it possible you could book me an earlier flight home? Before I tell you this story, I want to preface it by saying that the last thing I need is you telling me I told you so.
I think there is something really off about Josh’s family. I’m literally whispering this message to you from the downstairs bedroom—which, by the way, reeks of bird shit because this family decided that birds are great alternatives to dogs, which I will touch on later—but I am almost certain that his Mom snoops through all of our stuff. She may even have listening devices scattered throughout the house. I’m worried that she’s going to somehow know that I sent this to you and get angry at me. I should have taken videos of her at the party she threw for his Dad’s promotion last night.
She was doing this thing where she hovered, quietly and completely still, right behind you as you were talking to people, and neither of the parties in the conversation would notice her presence until she breathed on your neck and interjected with some cryptic statement about something she calls The Beast.
Seriously, Mom, I don’t even know why she could have possibly thought that was socially acceptable. She kept adding things to the conversation like, that will certainly please The Beast, or, The Beast will die dissatisfied tonight. You should have seen her, in this long evening gown with this bun that pulled her skin on her face back so tightly that her bones were casting these ominous shadows across her face. I think she might be a witch, Mom, and you know I hate to say that about women because I’m trying my best to be a girls girl.
Here’s one example. While everyone was outside smoking cigarettes, I was inside talking to Josh’s friend from elementary school. We were both kind of drunk from all of the nice champagne, so naturally we were talking about how weird the party was and how we feel like it’s animal cruelty to be keeping all of these canaries locked in the downstairs bedroom. He was joking about releasing them from their cages and letting them go free, and we heard some shouting coming from outside. We turned our heads to look out the window for ONE second, and when we turned around, Josh’s mom was right behind us with her hands on the smalls of our backs, gently pushing us out the back door saying something about needing to “Put down The Beast.”
It was so annoying, Mom. There was even someone dressed like a police officer at this party, who did jack shit but walk around and ask stupid questions. I swear to God that lady threw herself down the stairs at the end of the night...I was half-tempted to push her myself, if it meant getting her dry rattling voice out of my ear. Anyway, I have to go. I think I hear her limping outside the door. Please let me come home early.
Hey...me. Haha. Well, here’s another video in an effort to build more self-confidence and influence people, to be perceived as a real leader. In the last video, I noticed that my voice fluctuates to a loud, high pitch when I get bothered, my eyebrows move a little too much, and my mouth sort of relaxes into an awkward position between words.The goal of this video is to tell you about last night without any of those things happening.
I went to Joey’s party to celebrate his promotion. Everyone was so kind and welcoming, and my brussels sprout-tuna casserole was fucking killllerrr! Everyone was into it. I brought my crystal sample-sized plates and forks for people to try. The thing is I got there and then I realize it’s a standing party. Ok, I thought, no problem. I’ll serve these people.
So I start with folks in the kitchen...I noticed a lotta people who hangout in the kitchen at a party are the real neurotic type. Always the first to be ready to go somewhere else, like the party they’re at isn’t cool enough, like they don’t wanna be here–THEN THEY END UP STAYING THE WHOLE DAMN NIGHT ANYWAY! AND TRY TO HANG AROUND WITH YOU LIKE THEY ALWAYS WANTED TO BE THERE AND WERE HAVING A GOOD TIME!
Next, I went to the couch but didn’t stay long because there were some teenagers dealing cigarettes. Last thing I need in my fucken life is a conversation with a minor...ESPECIALLY A CONVERSATION WITH A MINOR GONE WRONG! Heh.
Then I found it, I saw it—as clear and as beautiful as Led Zeppelin wrote it out to be, baby. The staircase.
Filled from top step to bottom step with all different kinds of people...waiting, conversing, shifting weight from one leg to the next, looking around...These people will try my casserole, I thought.
And BOOM I’m up there dealin’ this dish like I was born for it. “Try my brussels sprout-tuna casserole?” I ask, and the hostess smiles at me like I’m the man of her dreams. She’s speechless, probably from her NATURALLY LOW IQ, when I grab her wrist to put out her hand to hold the small crystal serving dish. I plop a sizable glob down. Man, that woman is a real freak. She ate it right up.
Slowly, step by step, I walk up the stairs. “Try my brussels sprout-tuna casserole?” I ask, and put the platter only inches from each person’s nose so they can smell that sweet aroma of what their mouth can anticipate.
Women sheepishly grin when I offer. Flirtatious thanks, but, I’m married to the broad who’s in everyone’s business at this party. Men nervously look at me as if they are trying to find out if I’m serious or not. Intimidated I know, but if you just video record yourself talking everyday, and find out all the things that you don’t like about the way you present yourself in the world and improve them, you actually become much more imposing in mundane, everyday moments and people can’t help but look to you, want to hang out with you, want to look up to you.
I pretty much stayed upstairs for the rest of the night, tracking people down to give me back my crystal sample dishes. It was confusing to me to see that some people had not touched the food. OK, I thought, I get it, a party, you’re talking, you’re distracted. But I just waited, smiling, trying to join the conversation, but I typically can never physically get into the face-to-face open body space of a conversation. That’s OK, I thought, I will wait by the shoulder of someone, just wanna get my crystal sample plate back. I ask for it back and ask for them to please eat it if they haven’t already. Please, I say, I brought it just for you to try.
Gretchen: Hey Delia! While I’m so sorry that your first-floor bathroom was so conveniently flooded right as you were supposed to meet at my place to go over to this stupid party at the end of the cul-de-sac, you actually SAVED yourself !!
Delia: Girl, what happened?
Gretchen: Now, I know what you’re thinking, ‘Oh, calm down, Gretchen, they’re just teenagers.’ But listen, I’m not that kind of mom. I’m not the one who lets their children go out and “have fun” like they’re in some sort of free-range zoo. No, I believe in structure, in boundaries, in not turning up to a party looking like you’ve just crawled out of a garbage can. So, I pull up to this house, and what do I see? A group of teenagers, dressed like they’re auditioning for a role in a post-apocalyptic music video, standing next to appropriately dressed as adults and they’re all standing in front of the house with red cups in their hands. What happened to the days when we used to drink out of actual glassware?
Delia: Red cups! Were you trying to take me to a frat party?
Gretchen: And then there’s the music. Sweetheart, I don’t know what to call it, but it’s certainly not “music.” It’s just noise. It’s like a herd of cows were given synthesizers and told to go to town. I am standing there, listening to what can only be described as the auditory equivalent of a blender on high speed, and I’m this close to asking them if they want me to pull up some Ed Sheeran on the Bluetooth speaker just to give them some culture.
Delia: Gosh, I pray for them.
Gretchen: While I had a very demure glass and a half of the white wine I brought over from the last time I went to Temecula, there were people here, UNDERAGE PEOPLE, drinking up my $89 wine bottle as if it were a Smirnoff Ice. If not my wine, they are drinking a White Claw? Sweetheart, I have no idea where they even find this stuff. “Hard seltzer”—what does that even mean? If I wanted to drink something hard, I’d pop a couple of Advil PM after my pilates class.
Delia: Ain’t that the truth…
Gretchen: And then, out of nowhere, a fight breaks out. A fight! Between the ADULTS! I don’t know what these ladies were fighting over—but it was happening, and it was happening in the front yard. I cannot believe what I just witnessed. I mean, I really thought I’d seen it all. At this point, I just want to march over there and give them a stern talking-to. “Excuse me, this is not how we behave in public!” But of course, I don’t, because I’m not that kind of neighbor.
Delia: What did you do?
Gretchen: Luckily, I popped that special bar I saved from the last time I was on a flight and boosted it with a strawberry-flavored clonazepam wafer I’d found stuck at the bottom of my bag.
Delia: Hah! you came well prepared.
Gretchen: It’s the perfect concoction. Brings you nothing but ease. A great cloudy bliss, I tell you! If only I caught the hostess who fell down the stairs last night before she disappeared...I could have helped her. I literally have a little something for everything tucked in my Altoids box. Zyrtec, Advil, fish oil, D-Mannose, adderall, thc, mushrooms, molly, flintstones vitamins, oxy, warhead, valium, a peanut m&m... you name it! Anything your heart desires. Well, not actually. I don’t have any more Altoids it seems, but everything else!
Delia: Gretchen…
Delia: Is that healthy?
Delia: Is that legal?
Delia: I saw a cop car parked across the street last night, was that for you?
Gretchen: You should really stop judging. It’s not cute on you.
I was at this extremely boring family gathering at my house. Like, not even a single person was talking about anything interesting. Honestly, I would’ve rather been talking to Fredrick, the canary, than half the people there. I digress. Anyway, I was outside on the steps, minding my own business, enjoying a nice little spliff when this older lady (mid- 50s? My dad’s “work wife”) walks up to me and asks if she can “borrow a cigarette.”
Now, I’m a gracious host, right? So, of course, I offer her one of my Luxuries—a Camel Crush. You know, the good stuff. The smooth stuff. She takes it and says thanks, but as she’s walking away, I catch a whiff of her breath, and I’m like woah. It smells like she’s just eaten tuna and brussels sprouts that’ve been left out in the sun for a week. She walks back to her group of friends, who— let’s be real—look like a bunch of housewives who might swing on weekends and go on tropical vacations while their husbands wear speedos. (I can’t prove that, but it’s a vibe.)
Anyway, I watch her as she finally lights the cigarette, and then—this is where I lost it—she doesn’t even inhale! She’s just holding the cigarette like it’s some kind of prop, like she’s trying to prove to everyone that she’s still young or whatever.
Look, if you’re going to take a cigarette from me, at least smoke it. Don’t just pretend. Every time she brought it up to her lips, she’d start talking again, like she was dropping some ancient pearls of wisdom, and then put the cigarette back down. The whole thing was just too painful to watch. I was like, ‘Come on, lady, if you’re going to waste my precious darts, at least do something with it.’
So, yeah, I couldn’t help myself. I said, “Hey, it only works if you inhale.”
I didn’t think it was going to cause this kind of reaction. She hesitated, and then—finally—she took the hit. She inhaled. And for about three seconds, I thought she might’ve actually been cool, but then... she started coughing. Hard. Like, a full-on, life- threatening, I-just-suffocated-on-a-gumdrop-level coughing fit.
She coughed, and coughed, and COUGHED some more. At this point, I’m thinking, ‘Okay, she’s fine. It’s just a cigarette, not the plague.’
But then it got worse. She was on the ground, gasping for air like she’d just run a marathon in a sauna. Her friends were hovering around her, freaking out. At this point, I’m like, ‘Oh God, what did I do?!’ I’m standing there trying to play it cool like I’m not the one who just ruined the entire party. She’s still coughing like a dying animal. “God, are you okay?!”
Her friends are freaking out, calling her name, trying to get her to stand up, and I’m just standing there completely mortified, wondering if this is what it looks like when you kill someone with kindness. Some random guy dressed like a cop comes in to ask about my mom’s fall down the stairs and her relationship to The Bees? So random...
At this point, I’m totally bugging. I quietly slipped inside, and tried to pretend I didn’t just possibly end a life with a cigarette. I still don’t know what happened after. I’m pretty sure she was fine, but she was coughing so violently, I thought she might’ve literally died right there. Was that just a normal reaction? It was just a cigarette...I was just trying to help, but now I’m starting to wonder if I’m an accidental killer.
Hi Sarah...sorry I missed you...call me back when you can. It’s nothing, really, just...David made the biggest fucking fool of himself again last night, without even knowing it, of course, and, of course, I had to stand by and just let it happen, because what the hell else am I gonna do? Getting in everyone’s face about brussels sprout tuna goop and harassing people for his plates back. I can hear him recording his stupid self-confidence video in the garage...god damnit. I just need to vent about this terrible party last night.
First, the bird shit. All. Over. The. House. Swept under rugs and squished around the frayed edges of the seats. In between the silverware dividers in the drawers of the kitchen. Truly awful. I had to pour a heavy glass of champagne just to stomach it.Then of course the host’s husband sees me and wants to have a cheers. OK, whatever. I wonder if he knows that I know that he’s been wanting to leave his wife for months. Seriously. I bet he doesn’t even know that I know that the only reason he got his promotion is because of some Blackrock blackmail bullshit facade that’s going to implode the company they work for in a few months. More on that when I see you for running club.
And the host was so kitschy. I mean all her nice teacups on display... next to the alcohol...at a party? Ok. You can’t be a Stepford Housewife, Single White Female, and Mommie Dearest all at the same time. I’m not so sure why so many women our age are taking up these personas. The one thing I did like about her, though, well, you know how I like to peek in medicine cabinets. She’s real pillllled up baby. Real pilled up. Sarah, I know you’ve seen her... on top of her thousand mile stare, she would not stop talking about something called The Beast last night... Was she referring to her husband? Who knows. He is a beast, I must say. Anyway, she kept encouraging me to talk to her husband because it would please the beast. Maybe she’s referring to all those birds she has in her house... I wonder what she would need to add to chill out. I think her supplier was there at the party too. I did borrow some Dexedrine from her. I mean Christmas is just around the corner for God’s sake, can you blame me?
Don’t let me get into Darlene and her fake smoking. Poor thing. Never was quite comfortable just being herself. I went inside to grab her some water and between the sounds of birds screeching and a commotion on the stairs, I had to get the hell out. Let’s just say, when you hear the rumors of how the party ended, I always knew that something was off between that marriage.
In the 12 years I’ve been on patrol, I’ve seen murders and DUIs. I’ve given tickets and fished illicit substances from ponds and cuffed a guy in his bathroom while his pants were still down. Not once in my experience have I ever seen a group of people behave so inappropriately as I did last night. I need to write this down somewhere, as the official police report doesn’t have a section for sudden, all-consuming feelings of hopelessness and disarray.
I was called to investigate a report of a woman who had been pushed down a flight of stairs. The call was made to our nonemergency hotline but it was cut short. Upon arrival at the house—a nice, suburban house, in one of the areas where agoraphobic Neighborhood Watch vigilantes frequently ring the hotline to report strangers meandering the neighborhood—there appeared to be nothing wrong, albeit a crowd of visibly drunk people of varying ages smoking and chatting outside.They were so engrossed in their conversations that they didn’t heed the police van, and barely made eye contact with me as I approached the door. An older man, dressed in a suit (an absurd sight next to a young man clad in threadbare sweatpants) made a lazy gesture towards the entrance when I walked up to the crowd. The door was ajar, so I stepped through.
On the ground by the staircase were a number of feathers, a small smearing of oxidized blood, and no woman in sight. This is when that unpleasant feeling began to wrap itself around my lungs. It was difficult to discern whether or not this feeling was emotional or a byproduct of the pungent, beastly smell that permeated the house. It was a mix of animal feces, tuna, stale champagne, and plasma. It piqued my interest, sure, as a law enforcement professional, because I have a nose for criminality and a desire to set things straight. I was half sure that this was one of those satanic cults that had just sacrificed an innocent in exchange for an earlier tee time.
Honestly, I wish I had discovered a dead body.
Conversing with this group of people took every ounce of professionalism I had left. After I strolled through an asthma- inducing smoke cloud outside, I proceeded to ask where the victim was. Before anyone talked—I kid you not—a flock of BIRDS flew out of the window, followed by the hysterical sounds of a woman screaming from the kitchen. Immediately, I phoned for backup on the walkie and ran to trace the noise inside. Lo and behold, I walk into the kitchen to find a young lady rubbing a stain out of her shirt, mumbling under her breath about birds and their food.
She was the first person to actually talk to me. According to her, the hostess (her mother-in-law?) had actually thrown herself down the stairs, called the police on herself and then taken a car to the emergency room because she’d hurt herself in the process of the attention seeking staircase fall. This seemed unreasonable. I moved on to some of the eclectic crowd outside to a group of zombie-looking zoned-out women circling another woman who was coughing a lung out (I tried to help but she refused to allow me to see her “in this state”). The men seemed to be more with it, albeit rambunctious and unhelpful. “Ethel!” One of the men said. “She’s definitely somewhere, probably hovering around in the attic, writing in that damn journal.” (This elicited a hearty chuckle from the group). They clamored to point out a man in a double breasted suit, holding a plate that appeared to be filled with vomit.
“It’s him!” the men chuckled. “David pushed Ethel down the stairs because she refused to try his tuna casserole!”
The guy in the double breasted suit smiled. (Smiled! I tell you. In the face of the law. These finance men are a different breed) “Sure,” he said. “Try a taste of the casserole. If you genuinely think it’s bad, arrest me. I trust in myself that much. I’m willing to spend a night in the clink for this dish.”
I was growing increasingly irritated at this point. The casserole was terrible. My backup wasn’t coming fast enough. It was unbelievable that someone—let alone an entire party—could be so blasé about a woman who was likely seriously injured. The more time I spent with this cohort, however, the more I began to comprehend that their obsessions with themselves eclipsed any worry they had about this mysterious host.
More conversations: she’s in the bathroom! She’s tending to the birds! She left her husband because his promotion wasn’t good enough! The jocularity was insufferable.
I left the house with nothing. There was one thread, though, that I was able to extract from these substance-addled toddlers: Ethel must have had a large pet, or some sort of cutesy nickname for her husband. Throughout the night, everyone kept telling me that she might be “tending to her Beast,” rolling their eyes.
Ok, Beast, I thought. Animal bite? I headed to the local urgent care to see if I could find the host, and actually, I was immediately able to identify her in the waiting room without asking for her name because of how strange she looked— a floor length gown stained by patches of blood near the knees, an ice pack on her head, alone, a trace of a smile on her lips. She beckoned to me, and got uncomfortably close to my face, hot breath on my ear.
“Are you alright, ma’am?” I said.
You came, she whispered. This lady was the cherry on top of this ridiculous pudding. She talked with the inflection of a Victorian ghost. How is my Beast? Is it behaving to my satisfaction?
“Where is this beast?” I pressed. “Who pushed you down the stairs?”
Ethel grabbed a hold of my collar. I tripped, she grinned. But I wanted someone else to see how beautiful The Beast was. I invited you. I’m so happy you could make it.
I was getting so sick of it at this point. The lady showed me her diary, tucked into a pocket of her purse. She gestured to some lines, written in spindly, weak handwriting. Something about The Beast being an allegory for a party? Something about lying in the womb of a living room? Honestly, I walked away at this point. Waste of a night.
I cannot stand these white collar metaphor mongers. Who in their right mind personifies a party and proceeds to invite the strangest and most selfish people they know to the event—all for the sake of a story?
And if she needed selfish pricks to feed The Beast, why the hell was I invited?
Photographed by Isaac Dektor
Illustrated by Carson McNamara
Colorist: Ryan Urzi
Lighting Tech: Wyatt Stromer
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