2011 Issue - Santa Fe Community College

in terror I wish I had control over these things.
I have no control over myself at the moment. Just look at me,
unchecked audacity has turned me into a character in a real-life slapstick
comedy. The ghost of Mack Sennett is directing me and I am compelled
to go with the flow of the gag. A fifth and then a sixth beer hit the carpet
(and maybe a seventh as well but I've lost count by now). A drunk
guy walking by trips on one and falls, spilling his plastic cup of margarita.
Finally my friends are dragging me away.
As I'm exiting the house it occurs to me that I have behaved like a
complete and utter douche hole. Cringing with shame, I pull out the
can I had slipped into my jacket pocket and crack it open. I express my
remorse to Wendy, one of the friends who helped drag me out of there.
She insists that I was hilarious. Wendy is a beautiful dark-haired girl
with a permanent sardonic smirk. She's my secret target audience, the
reason I went to the party in the first place. It was she who, when I
asked, said no one was likely to care if I helped myself to a can of beer on
my way out.
Santa Fe Literary Review 45