Christian had some money. He paid his rent for a few months in advance. This was his version of investing in his future. Then he took a bunch of us to eat at the Chinese place in the shopping center by the condo where we shared the master bedroom. After dinner he got one of our friends who was old enough to go in the grocery store and buy a big plastic bottle of cheap vodka.
I went to work the next day. Christian called in sick and went out to spend some more of his money. That night a couple of neighborhood girls drank beers with us and we alternated between playing music we thought they’d like, Love and Rockets, Erasure, and music that we thought made us seem dangerous and cool, noisy British industrial like Coil and Throbbing Gristle.
“You can’t really like this stuff. It’s just screaming and noise. Where’s the talent in screaming and banging on things?” Cheryl asked. Kristen didn’t say anything. They were both rail thin and they looked like they hadn’t gone through puberty yet and like they were already old at the same time. When we first met them I made Kristen show me her ID before I’d let her have one of my cigarettes.
“Don’t you listen to Def Leopard though?”
“Oh fuck off, Keith.”
When the beers were done the girls left.
A few days later the money was gone, and Christian was back at work. I never knew how much money it was. He told me the Blackfoot Indian tribe sent it to him because he was full blooded Blackfoot. “I also have a piece of land somewhere in the middle of nowhere. I can’t sell it or do anything with it. I don’t really get what the point is, but it’s mine.”
“Maybe we can go camp on it sometime.” I suggested.
“Yeah, maybe.” He poured the last of his bottle of vodka into two glasses and we went and sat on the back patio. The patio was all the condo had for a yard. It was about the same size as our room. “I get some more money when I turn twenty five.”
“Well, in seven years make sure I’m around for the Chinese food and the vodka.” I teased.
He fixed me with a stare that said he didn’t find my joke amusing. “I think it’s more money next time. I think I might get a car. My uncle has a Dodge Dart with suicide doors that he doesn’t drive. I bet he’d sell it to me.” That’d be cool.
I’d been hearing me about this car since we were in high school. He thought the suicide doors made it the coolest car you could own, something different than the expensive cars the rich guys had, or the loud cars the gear heads obsessed over. I wasn’t into cars but I did think suicide doors sounded pretty cool after he explained what they were.
“Thanks for the vodka.”