ELLEN We had a cousin of Karen's staying with us. Her name was Ellen. She was fat and on Prozak. She'd just gotten out of the hospital Ellen was anorexic, then bulimic, then bulimic-hold-the-purge. Then she was depressed. Then she tried to die. Now she was on Prozak. Karen had somehow convinced Ellen's parents and he doctors that it would be a real mistake to send Ellen back home. She needed a change of scenery. She should stay with us. So she did. She and Karen had been very close as girls until Ellen had to move out of New York when her father was transferred. As it turned out, Ellen was not the living, breathing buzzkill that she had been made out to be. She was always smiling and laughing and telling some of the rudest jokes we'd ever heard. "Ellen," said Karen, in a short terrycloth bathrobe, "Rich, How, Ree, come on, let's play something. We all hit the living room at about the same time and it was funny because the opening credits to the Simpsons were on. At first, Ellen was a little wary of getting stoned because of the Prozak, but when she saw how we washed down Lithium with vodka, she changed her mind. "Oh God," said Howard, "Check this shit out. We were watching this special last night, about the terminally-ill. And--" "Oh...myGod," said Karen. "That was a piss." "At the end, as the credits were rolling, you heard this doctor doing a voiceover. He said, 'When we are presented with a terminally-ill patient, we as doctors have pretty much shot our collective wad." "No way." "Yup. You get the feeling someone doesn't know what a certain salty idiom means?" "You think?" "It was too funny." It was the door. "I'll get it," said Karen. It was Josh. He and Erin had had some kind of fight not long ago and that was pretty much that. Despite his looks and easygoing charm, Josh had problems keeping a relationship going for more than a few months. It always depressed him. "Hi Josh," said Ellen. "Hi Ellen." He sat down between Maria and Howard. Ellen took a sip of a Coke out of a McDonald's cup. Karen was playing with Howard's hair. "You guys are so adorable," said Ellen, the end of her Coke gurgling. "You know anything about papryomancy, Josh?" said Howard, pulling some pot out of a bag and onto Hotel California. Howard handed Josh some papers. "It's the ability to prophesy through contemplating the way people roll. Go ahead, roll a joint." "Wait a minute. Gravity's--" "Yup." Josh took rolling joints as seriously as he did his painting. He used two papers, had to be Jobs. "Um, How, listen. I can't card off of this." "What's wrong?" "It's gotta be Europe '72. I mean, Don Henley..." "But Joe Walsh..." "Good point." So he began. It's useless to describe, it happened so fast. In about twenty seconds, he was caressing his perfect joint with the flame of a Bic. I took the joint from him and looked it over and showed it to Howard. "This line here. It's long, isn't it? Does that mean--" Howard shook his head, and he and Josh both said, "Length is usually intensity, not time." "You gonna light that thing or you gonna worship it," said Karen. Howard threw it at her and Josh winced. "Hey. Hey...that's my baby." Karen lit it. "Oooh," said Karen, "Ellen has the hottest story. Tell em." "Tell what?" "You know. The school one." "Karen. I can't. I--" Karen passed her the joint. She took a deep hit and held it for a long time. No one actually saw her exhale it. Josh said, "Go on, tell." Ellen said, "All right. When I was in eleventh grade I went to this fucking Catholic school. It was a complete nightmare. But it was weird. In eleventh grade I was going from anorexic to bulimic and for a few months there I looked awesome." "I remember," said Karen. "I was a psycho bitch from Hell, but gorgeous. I got all sorts of action. I had some kind of chemical problem, too, because I was constantly, constantly--" "Some things never change." "--horny. And evil. Very evil. Me and these two other girls, we had this little evil club and we would pick out certain freshman girls and decide to make their lives miserable. And we got to be damned good at it." Howard put on some Joan Jett. [Well I don't give a damn bout my bad reputation...] "Okay, well, there were these two blonde Barbie Doll girls that we really couldn't stand. Ugh. We talked about these two constantly and what would be the perfect thing to do to them. Finally we came up with a plan. Maggie, my one friend, slipped this rolled-up joint into one of the girls' bags. Then, we took turns spying on them for the rest of the day. "Well, connected to the gym was like this shed thing where they kept like old equipment and stuff. No one went in there except it was the one place where you could get high safely. No one ever went in there, the door locked, and all the smoke got sucked outside. The shed had these doors that led outside too, out towards the parking lot, only these doors hadn't been opened in years and had this big chain lock on the outside of them. Only we had come by the school that weekend and Maggie had gotten a hold of a pair of these mongo boltcutters that her dad had. He was a volunteer fireman. The chain was all rusty anyway and real easy to cut with these. So we were ready." Josh got up and grabbed a bag of fig newtons from the fridge. "So, to cut to the chase we saw them head towards the gym between classes, we headed outside, Maggie threw open the doors and Anne, the other girl snapped this SX-70 camera she had. We took their joint and held them there and smoked it while the picture developed. It was beautiful. A perfect picture. Both of them, looking extremely 'caught', with a joint passing between them. They both started crying and we made a big show out of putting the letter into this envelope that was addressed to one of the sisters. So, I said, if you don't want this dropped in the mailbox, meet us here Saturday at one for your punishment. Since it was like, only Tuesday, they had almost a whole week to stew on it. Howard put on an album. Brownsville Station--Yeah. 'Smokin' in the Boy's Room' was the song. "So Saturday rolls around and my parents are gone for the weekend as usual and we drive up to the school and there they both are, sitting on a step. They got in, all red-eyed and nervous and we drove them back to my house. The whole way they're like, 'Where are we going', 'What's going on', all sorts of annoying shit. Maggie pulled out that letter and said, 'Where's the nearest mailbox, El? 'Oh, there's one right around...here...,I can pull right up to it. I did and Maggie rolled down the window and put the letter halfway in and the girls started crying and begging, 'oh no no no, please, don't.' Maggie let go of the letter and caught it before it slid in. She did this a few times. Finally she let it drop into the mailbox and the girls really freaked out. The one, Becky, threw up, I think. Maggie just laughed and pulled the real letter out of her bag. 'Good thing there was no stamp on that one. Now *this* one, on the other hand...' Then they both promised to be good and we drove back to my house. "We all sat down in the living room, except we made the two girls stand in the middle. 'Take off your clothes,' Maggie said." "HeLLO!" said Josh, somehow unrolling a fig newton. "They just stood there, dumbfounded. 'You heard me,' Maggie said again. Take em off. She was good at this. Could be a real Nazi if she wanted to. She pulled the letter out of her purse and said, 'Listen, this can be easy or hard'. You can do what we say and take your punishment and afterwards we'll give you this or I can drop it in the mail right now and you can both be kicked out of school. They whispered something to each other and started undressing, down to their little bras and panties. 'All of it', said Maggie. 'Everything.' They took off what was left and then they just stood there, looking like idiots." "Josh, what the *fuck* are you doin' to that newton?" He had unrolled it perfectly and was shaping the gooey part into an animal. "I hate fig newtons. I just like playing..." "Nice fingers," said Ellen, distracted. "Story, El?" "Oops." She swallowed down a newton. "Okay, so now these girls are there, naked, scared out of their minds. Maggie says, 'You ready, girls?' 'Ready?' 'Yes. We want to see you make love to each other.' The girls started crying again and we were all just getting high and laughing and Maggie stood up and took off her belt. 'Well,' she said, 'Then you've got a choice.' And then she looped it and snapped it. The girls shuddered a little. Maggie walked over to them. 'Oh, it's not so hard. Look, just face each other--' She turned them so they faced each other, 'Put your arms around each other...move close...good. Now kiss. No. A good one. Tongue action. Close your eyes. Look,' said Maggie. 'It's easy. Watch.' She spun the smaller girl, Becky, and pulled her to her and kissed her hard, like a guy. Then she moved her hands all over the girl, over her back, around her ass, everything.' It was hot. She had to hold Becky up, because Becky looked woozy. 'Okay, look. Ellen, come here. Help me with this.' You girls sit down.' We pushed on their shoulders until they sat. 'Good. Now move close. But scissor your legs.' We arranged their legs until they were right up against each other, clit to clit. 'Now how does that feel? I said, how does that feel?' 'W-weird,' said the taller one, Janet. The other one was just crying. "'Okay,' said Maggie, 'Stop bawling. Both of you, relax. If you play along no one outside this room will ever know and everything will be fine. Besides, it's not exactly torture, you know. In fact, Ellen, Sarah. Show these two what I'm talking about. Come here.' We did, and we took off our jeans and just left our panties on and we showed them what we wanted them to do. 'See', said Maggie. It's not going to kill you. Now both of you, put your palms on the carpet behind you, lean back, and lift your butts off the ground. Good. Hey, I think this one's digging it.' She was talking about the taller one, Janet, who had either resigned herself or was genuinely going for it. 'How does this feel?' Maggie put her finger in her mouth then pressed it against Janet and slid it down until she found her clit. 'Nice?' She nodded. 'Well, I don't think your friend here thinks so.' Maggie whispered something to Janet and Janet shook her head. Then Maggie lowered her head to between Janet's legs and I held Becky up so she could watch her friend come. Then, we stretched out Becky on her back and Janet went down on her. After a long long time, Becky stopped crying and started moving her little hips. "Now *that's* a high school," said Josh. "Did you really give them back that picture?" "What are you, crazy? We tormented them most of the rest of the year. Between classes. In closets. In the bathrooms. Oh we had a blast, until I went nuts and had to go into the hospital. I mean, towards the end we were bringing along our boyfriends, other girls, all sorts of people. It was hot." "Sounds it." "But then I got all fat--" TLC was on tv with their song 'Ain't Too Proud to Beg'. Howard said, "I'd do TLC before En Vogue." "Really?" "Well, by 'before' I mean 'in front of'." "Ah." Maria grabbed Howard and Josh and they disappeared. When they came back, Maria had her acoustic guitar. Josh sat down by Ellen and gave her a Wint-o-Green Life Saver. Maria tuned up the guitar and a bowl was lit and passed. Maria said, "Got a hold of this Harry Chapin songbook and Howard and I learned all the songs. This one's my favorite. It's called 'A Better Place to Be.'" Howard sang softly and Maria strummed. [It was an early morning bar room, And the place just opened up. ... Josh stayed over and they were a couple after that. One day, Josh was over for breakfast. Ellen was downtown at a pro-choice rally. Josh said, "You know, I went to high school with this guy, Mark. He was over my house for breakfast one day and I poured a couple bowls of cereal. I poured milk into mine and was about to pour it into his, but he said 'Stop. Don't. Just put it in a glass. Thanks.' I asked him why he ate his cereal like this, he said cause that's how they bring it to you in restaurants." "Whooosh." "He was bright, too. I think everyone has like at least one thing that they do or say that's stupid, but that they can't think any other way about." "I believe in Santa Claus," said Howard. "You can't get pregnant if you do it standing up," said Karen. "Irregardless of societal norms, I will serve Cook's Champagne and sit on the same side of the table as my date, and think myself very debonaire." Maria said, "There are no integers n greater than 2 and x, y, z > 0, such that x to the n + y to the n = z to the n." "Oh fuck all of you." "How's things with Ellen?" "She asked me if I thought she was too fat the other day." "What'd you say?" "I said, 'Too fat to be an Olympic gymnast? I'd have to say, yeah. Too fat to be a Green Beret, almost definitely. Too fat to kiss, too fat to adore, too fat to desire--not even close." "Good answer." "Damn good." RICHH