Short Story: Greenfield

I walked out the door with a little over fifty dollars that my parents left me. It was Friday night and I was off to some senseless party to instill my social status on my peers and high school youth. After all homecoming was around the corner and it would be quite the disappointment if my reign as king was ended short. My friends were all crashing an underclassmen’s ‘open’ house. Why pay for booze when you can drive ten minutes to some sophomore party being overthrown by your friends?
I feel the urge to defend my alcoholism. It wasn’t self medication. I don’t have anything to medicate. Or maybe that’s why I have such an attraction to a bottled eighty proof dinner? I’m dead inside? No, it has to be that I’m alive. I need more from life, and small town Greenfield isn’t enough for me. I’m trying to kill the burning sensation for wanting more. It makes me sink to the mentality of an average Greenfielder. Could that be why people stay here?
I arrived at some senseless sophomore’s house (this kid Chris White, he was in my pottery class, that’s how I got the invite, not really important though.) Things start to slow down whenever I’m at a party, and I don’t mean that literally. It’s as if I have time to look around and analyze everything in just moments. There were people all around me. Some of which are my close friends some I don’t even know. What is it about teenage parties that waters an ego and makes it grow? If you host a party you suddenly are the most popular kid. Everyone wants to hang out with you; it can go right to your head. I never feel that way about parties. It’s just a place to drink and to gather, so much better than hanging out in a parking lot with a Poland spring bottle(not water…). I picked up my bottle of Captains, chased it with my coca-cola and started having ‘high school fun’.
They say in an instant, a life can change. It was somewhere between my sophomore year and now that my life had morphed into a stereo-typical Greenfield High School student. A semi-popular alcoholic teenager with drug addictions in short sight. But isn’t that what Greenfield does to people? Peer pressure, fast cars, and a rich life style, it damn near kills you before you get out. I never saw it happen and I never cared enough to stop it. I always said, not me. I would be different. Greenfield High is a gauntlet. I knew that coming in as a freshman. If you don’t survive you will not survive the rest of your life. This was the unwritten test I must pass. But in the heat of a party, and while your in the situation, is anyone thinking about tomorrow? Or the long run? I certainly never was. And who said drinking alone was bad? It’s a non-prescription pain killer for over stressed, daily high school lives.
You can see mud tracked throughout Chris’ house, piles of coats around the dining room… Beer all over the floor of course. If I was a basement where would I be? Most high school party throwers try to contain the mess in the basement by creating some sort of make-shift beruit table for the crowd to gather around. Oh, what a life. It’s a life style I was meant to live. After stumbling around a bit and finding the basement, I can see that people started without me, but that was expected. You look around seeing girls dancing by a boom box, the guys huddled around their beer as usual. The stoners are all outside smoking their bowls and camel cigarettes.
For some reason I feel like I’m better than everyone else, I feel like I have the right to critique everyone around me. It’s upsetting to me cause I come off as the snobby one, I don’t mean to, I just wake up each morning with an attitude thinking I’m better than everyone in Greenfield. It comes naturally…
Teenagers tend to embellish the amount they’ve been drinking to appear more intoxicated and be more open, in the morning you can just use the face that you were drunk for hooking up with someone or saying something wrong, and it unfortunately gets you off the hook every time. I’m not saying I’m better than most of these people who say they drink every night, party all the time, drink alone occasionally, but I feel like I am, because I actually do those things. People think that drinking and being at parties every night is cool, but is that gunna take you anywhere?
I took a couple of shots, and finished my Captains. Then I respectively said by to Chris and walked out the door. I didn’t want to be there anymore. I was restless. I wanted to get out of my comfortable box. It wasn’t worth it because for some reason anywhere I go I always find a way t beat up on myself or someone around me. Every single day I wake up and start thinking about what I’m doing tonight, my life has started revolving around partied and alcohol. It freaks me out because I’m watching it happen, but I can’t bring myself to do anything to stop it and I don’t know why. Nothing makes sense to me anymore. I don’t know if that’s just the teenage hormones talking or if it’s really me. I have lost friends because I’m selfish, I’ve lost my life because I’m an immature adolescent. I’ve lost all my money because I’m addicted. How long will it take for me to admit I might have a problem. Well not a problem, I don’t think rehab is necessary. Recuperating with a bunch of junkies and prostitutes seems like a joke.
I pulled into my drive way and I decided not to think anymore on the topic. Its not gunna help if I sit and beat myself up.
I woke up; it was Saturday, September 11, 2004. This girl Michelle was supposed to be having a huge party tonight, her parents are gunna be gone for like a week. After taking my shower and getting dressed the time was 3:07pm. This was the time when all the townies come out and it’s a lot easier to get word of what’s going on. I decided to go and check out the scene.
I pulled into the parking lot of Rite Aid next to my friend Jordan.
“Hey what’s up?” I asked him.
“Not a whole lot, how bout you?”
“Nothing at all, bored”
“What’d you do last night, I didn’t get a chance to call you…”
…and I didn’t remember. Whether it was alcohol induced or subconsciously erased from my mind, last night was a blur. Not a problem… I’m sure tonight will be exactly the same.