You know what a suitcase party is, right? It’s a surprise going-away party. Everybody shows up with their suitcase packed, pays twenty bucks at the door and puts their name into a hat. The hosts pick a name out of the hat and use the money to buy a one-way ticket to wherever for whoever gets drawn. At the end of the night the hosts announce the winner and that person flies off to wherever the hosts picked and spends the next few years getting drunk, getting a job, getting married or whatever as an illegal alien in whatever unfamiliar country.
In the summer of 1986, after I dropped out of the U of M for the second time, I was sort of friends with this party promoter named Kurt who made everybody call him Phil after Phil Graham, and Kurt knew this chemist named Dave who made everybody call him Eulenspiegel because he wanted to be the new Owsley, and Dave was cooking all these variants of Ecstasy and his runners and acolytes were retailing them at Kurt/Phil’s parties. You’d get this big wave of emotion washing over the whole party as the drugs peaked. One after another people would giggle uncontrollably, or burst into tears, or tear off their clothes, or get the hiccups, or whatever. One time everybody got déjà vu.
But anyway one morning about noon I was on my way to the Wienery for some franks and eggs, and I ran into both Kurt and Dave, fired up and running in three different directions. Kurt had found a new DJ with great taste, great tits and her own PA, and Dave had a new molecule that was a big secret that he couldn’t shut up about. Both of them wanted me to work the show, probably because I was the only guy they knew that they trusted with money and guns. I told Dave I didn’t feel like dealing that week, but I told Kurt I’d work the door and he could pay me in Dave’s new product. (I had a bunch of side jobs going that had already paid the rent that month, so what the hell.)
So it’s Saturday night and Kurt’s hot DJ is spinning all these supposedly-stolen dubplates some girlfriend of hers just drove in from Detroit. The floor is packed. Half the crowd is already down to their underwear because the AC is on the fritz. I’m standing at the door holding down ten thousand bucks with a Glock 17 that’s pulling my Levis off my butt. There’s a girl about five-foot nothing dressed like hell in bike shorts and a wifebeater who I want to give some urgent fashion advice to in the back room but who won’t meet my eyes. I’ve dropped Dave’s big purple pill same as anybody but it hasn’t done anything except make my forehead sweaty and my nipples hard. Best I can tell, it seems to have done that to everybody.
When the bass break drops I’m in the middle of the floor and the money’s gone. I grab for the Glock but it’s gone too. I start running for the door but I’m right there, staring at my gun like I’ve never seen one before. I look down and I’m wearing lycra shorts. My bra itches. The guy by the door sticks my gun in his waistband, picks up the bag with the money and walks out the door. I run after him but my geometry’s all wrong. I keep crashing into dancers who spill their vitamin drinks on me.
By the time I get out the door the guy who looks like me has found my bike and is trying to start it but he kicks like a girl. I turn out to be a good sprinter and I’m about to take him down with a flying tackle when the engine turns over and he squeals out into the street. I’ve got my arms around his neck and I’ve got scratches all over my thighs from where I hit the bike. My toes drag on the asphalt for a few seconds until I get my leg up and over. Now I’m riding bitch on my own bike behind some asshole with my gun, my shoulders and my money. I’d choke his ass if it wouldn’t kill us both. Dude rides like the insane. He’s going seventy back into town on 55, ignoring all the lights and weaving around cross-traffic, then up East Lindale and over on Plymouth and then some scary shit with alleys and Dumpsters and then he’s the money and he’s tearing around front of some sandstone apartment building. I’m chasing him and screaming in a crazy high voice. I’ve got my hand on his belt before he can get through the front door and I’m trying to take him down but he drags me up two flights of stairs and into an apartment that’s even dirtier than mine but with more throw-rugs and smells like stale perfume.
The money bag hits the floor and he’s got my shirt off before I can get loose. I pull his jeans down to his knees and I’m laughing because I can see the stains from changing the bike’s oil, and he’s got my bra off and his hand down my shorts and he carries me like that into a bed with flowered sheets and I’m going down on him and his dick looks just like mine.
I wake up sore and stinking. The guy, my pants, my money, my dick? All gone. I spend most of Sunday cleaning the apartment. On Monday I take a shower and drive the girl’s car to the girl’s job, work all day and come home to an empty fridge and an unpaid cable bill. After a couple weeks I get horny and go looking for a date. After a couple years I move in with Craig. A couple years later I move out. First of many. Life-long pattern.
I get lonely, but at least I have my work.
image CC-BY-NC-ND by Curtis Gregory Perry
