Get Everyone In Here Right Now

The neat basement den of a prosperous suburban family. They've got all the home theater equipment, all the fine wood furniture. The XBOX and the PS3: look out. I'm worried I'll put my drink down somewhere I'm not supposed to, so I don't ask for a drink. A vast white carpet like fresh snow and it's strangely quiet, even with the couple dozen people milling around enjoying the Pabst and pixels.

John wears a stocking cap and flannel and reminds me of a few other acne-plagued scenesters I knew in high school. He's drunk and I can tell he's very sad by the way he earnestly pursues trivial conversation. Not sad like the scenesters I knew in high school, but a more acute misery; a fresh wound.

Later on, a storage locker. Six of us: Anna (whom I'd met the night before and was quickly losing interest in), Sim and Bridgette (the attractive couple with careful outfits), John, and Jason, whose mom was blissfully unaware her son was inviting friends to hot-box her storage locker. Before we light the bowl, John mentions someone named Warren---apparently he was always smoking, whether it be weed or cigarettes.

We need to smoke this bowl for Warren, he says.

We need to get everyone in here right now, says Jason.

20 more strangers, all of them friends, makes it abundantly clear that I'm the odd one out. Three pipes are passing around the room, filling the tense air with smoke like a censer carried around the pews. Sniffles, sobs. John is hugging Jason. It's only now that I realize that Warren passed away a few days earlier. I'm stoned and I'm in the suburbs and I want to be sincere but more than anything I'm just uncomfortable.

So I numbly sit and watch the video games and ponder the excruciation of my situation until it's okay to leave. I do some more pondering on the drive back to Chicago and when I go to bed I'm grateful. Happy Thanksgiving.