VI.Only a determined removal of the thin veils of society sets the soul free...A beast approaches
I remember James coming at me slow but deliberate...or perhaps it was quick and erratic - my mind was displaying the scene in a lumbering menagerie of snapshot images. The next thing I remember is falling into a beautiful light-blue painting textured by small white bubbles. The water was warm and rushed in around my body with a quiet benevolence. I was sober enough to pull in a lung full of air before going under but for a second my world went black and the disjointed halo of noise stopped ringing around my head. The drunken mind can’t reconcile a static world so it spins in space when you close your eyes. However, when thrust into an amorphous pool of blue, where there is no up or down, everything is reconciled flux, and the mind is one and at peace within the inebriated environment. Peace and comfort - the absence of madness. Back in the womb as they say, eyes closed, engulfed in warm water, the survival instincts took hold and I propelled myself upwards. A split second later I popped out of the water and into the surprisingly frigid summer air.
At the shallow end of the pool my eyes focused on an entity stranger than that of being made into a child again. Steadman stood there, his face illuminated from below by the blue of the pool, his person back-lit by the party lights near the bar…motionless for a second he swayed gently in the cool of the night and stared up to the sky towards the Beanstalk beings, and then bellowed into the night, “Bow down before the pyres fiends, we have come of age.”D
"I had to do it, you just kept taunting and taunting me."
James didn't need to explain his actions. I knew I was taunting him. Of course I had wanted to jump in the pool. The night just wouldn’t have been complete without doing so. It seemed like the right thing to do and there was a collective feeling that everyone else wanted to do it as well – that what we were doing was right. Or, rather the people who had been at the bar throwing back tequila shots wanted to do it. Or rather, I wanted to do it and the collective willingness was all in my mind. I just didn't want to do it by myself.
You should be free to express your individuality and push the limits in life - but when one dumb drunk jumps in the pool and no one follows, it can cast a somber mood over the whole event. With poor timing, the guests will stare in your direction with confused astonishment and quiet shame. Then you're just the dumbass who jumped in the pool and people look at you as if to say, "So, you've seen water before right? Doesn't mean you have to jump in every time you're near it." But when there's a collective movement to enter the pool fully clothed it encourages a kinsmanship between the participants. So even if everyone does think you're crazy, the whole place won't be staring just at you.
The next thing I knew the pool was full of clothed bodies. The cool-blue white-glowing womb was filled to capacity. When I got out my linen Hugo Boss shirt clung finely to my partially muscle-toned arms and pectoralis muscles. The water was extremely warm but the night must have been near 50 degrees Fahrenheit. Upon exiting the pool my nipples became hard in the frigid air and protruded through my shirt like strategic missile tips from Cold War-era ICBM silos or the nipples of any female mannequin in a Paris shop window.
My mind was in a most desirable state of suspension. Planets had aligned themselves, ancient Gods looked down upon our celebration in jealous longing at the joy and festiveness our night had brought on. How long could we maintain the crest before our wave broke upon the shore and rolled back into the recent past?F
Drenched, slightly shivering and fully aware, I walked around the waning party barefoot. I think Malcolm and Melina had taken off by this point. Swallowed by the night and whisked away to the married life. Later I would find out that a Bloody Mary had accidentally been poured over Melina’s dress, and she and Malcolm had decided that that was the high-water mark of their night, and decided to leave without further delay. The wedding was breaking up and guests had decided it was time to exit. Carrie wouldn't let me hug her goodbye, the soaked clothes may have been a factor. My emotions were too fulfilled to be hurt by the understandable rejection. Along my trip through the exodus I ran into the bride's father. We had met at the engagement party a year earlier, and briefly discussed the theory of science and how everything is united by the 1st Law of Thermodynamics. I'm not sure if he remembered our conversation, or if I was even talking coherently. It’s possible that my mouth was simply vomiting streams of unconnected confusion in his general direction, and he was just playing along for my benefit – backed into a corner, he was searching for a way to exit the conversation without offending. I imagine he was accustomed to such a scene, a commonplace occurrence in a binge-drinking American society, so he smiled and listened politely to my nonsense. Perhaps he couldn't connect the person he had talked with a year earlier to the jabbering water-logged thing he now saw casually navigating the empty chairs and tables of what was for sure, one of the happiest days of his life.
On some level I’m sure fathers are wary of letting their daughters marry. How could they not be? Men know first-hand how low the male mind can degenerate and it's hard to judge a suitor worthy, even if known for a long time. The exterior facade might look clean cut, but there’s no telling when a man might metamorphose and the real beast is unleashed upon their poor, unsuspecting daughter. Of course, fathers can’t do much about it and have to accept the notion that their little girl is all grown up with the freedom to make her own mistakes in life. Barefoot, drenched and intoxicated, my outward appearance probably resembled everything a father prays his daughter will not choose until death parts them.
“My God! What if scum like this had got hold of her heart?”
In the end Malcolm is a stable-minded, hard working, compassionate individual, and embodies everything a father probably hopes for in a son-in-law. However, at that brief and fleeting moment, Melina’s father no doubt juxtaposed the fresh pure wedding memories of Malcolm speaking his marriage vows with my pathetic person and surely felt quiet secure in Melina’s decision to marry him. I couldn’t conceive of a better gift to give a father.
