Skit night rehearsal at hotel

We are in Trevor and Charles room. In it after hours. We are brainstorming on a skit for Skit night. Bryan and Banky are already in the room. Josh is standing next to Trevor like he is some sort of Junior counselor-elect.  As we enter can hear Trevor talking about the vicissitudes of college life stating you guys don’t know how crazy college is until you find yourself out of milk and need to go shopping for milk at three o’clock in the morning. I think about the crazy college girls next door in their panties at three o’clock in the morning. I think about Rita. Her number is in my pocket. In two hours from now I will be hearing her voice. \

In two hours from now I will be holding her.

Chris, Spencer and Kenny walk in. Trevor is holding what looks like an official Parade memento like he is in church.

“Listen guys, Liz wanted me to mention to you that this skit, there’s actually some reward money riding on the winners.”

The contours to everyone’s lips are begin forming phonetic vowels.

“Yeah, first place is actually 100 pounds.”

Mentally each of the Big Ten is cogitating 100 pounds. Mentally that equates to around 150 dollars.

“Second place is 50 pounds. Third place is 25 pounds each. So we really need to focus. We need to focus now as a group ”

Josh is rubbing his hands together as if he is at a Roulette table. He has been waiting the entire trip, always hushing, speaking of his intended skit as something nuclear and covert and military classified.

“Guys you aren’t going to believe this skit. This skit is like it is the coolest thing ever.”

We are all nodding in unison. Everyone is saying okay.

“You guys just aren’t going to believe this skit, this skit’s so cool. Basically what it is is that we have two people hold a drape with holes in it.  Two people sit up front while the other two sit behind them in an oversize shirt (Josh notes that they wear the same shirt only one set of arms are visible.”

 Barker immediately interjects Josh.

“So what you are saying is that it is a dude sitting on top of another dude?”

Jim says no. He says hear me out. He has been secretly waiting for this moment the entire trip. He is trying to market to the Big Ten. He is trying to get the most socially-convoluted juvenile wad of young men to invest in his concept.

“The person sitting down doesn’t have his hands visible. Only the person sitting behind him does.”

Jim interrupts again stating that don’t you mean the dude saddling him from behind. Josh again says technically yes but implores that the Big Ten again hears him out.

“What I’m saying is that the person seated behind him is the arms. The audience can’t see the guy seated behind at all. They share the same shirt. Only it’s the person behind them that serves the arms and they do funny things.

I know the skit that Josh is talking about. I’ve seen the skit performed basically at every summer camp I have been to since age five. Spencer asks what kind of things.

“You know, they like brush their teeth or they eat potato chips or put on make-up.”

Jim says that no fruitcake is putting make-up on him. Josh says that that is not the point.

“It’s hilarious. We will laugh so hard. The audience will lose it.

Josh ends by stating that we will win for sure.

 

A pause snaps throughout the room. Thaddeus Barker tells Josh that basically no dude is going to sit behind some other dude and mount them with their legs using the word dude four times.  Spencer says that he would have no problem with it only technically that constitutes sodomy in the state of Utah.  Trevor says that maybe be should put this to a vote. I don't care. I am thinking about Rita. I'm the only one who sides with Josh stating that perhaps we should do his skit. Josh looks deflated. An hour later it is curfew and we still haven't decided what skit to perform. We still have no clue what we are doing and none of the Big Ten seems to care.

"We have a little bit of time to practice Tuesday afternoon before the skit. We'll iron things out then."

Everyone says okay. Josh is notably flustered. As we walk out their our several more Open Jewels but it has subconsciously been decided that the game is growing somewhat old. I follow Justin down to the hotel room. I unzip the pocket with the napkin where I scribbled down Rita's number with a pen I borrowed from  the polite Alabama lad.  I reach into my pocket the napkin is not there. I reach into the opposite pocket only to discern the same result. I then reach into the pockets of my jeans.

My roommate asks what I am doing. I continue to frisk myself. I am beginning to hyperventilate. As if in either prayer or defeat I drop to the caps of both knees.

"Her number. She gave me her number right when  I was exiting dinner I promised I would call her tonight. I promised her that we would look at the moon together."

Justin sounds like a nocturnal ornithological specimen when he inquires who. He then says Harmony. I say no, Rita. He asks who that is.

"It's some girl I've been semi-flirting with the entire trip. She's hotter then Harmony. She is always smiling. She ties Meg Weaver for most alluring smile on the trip." I am going batty. I know for a fact that I had the napkin in my side pocket. It was there when I left the George and smurfed it up with the Big Ten.

I begin looking around the room. I pillage the sheets and pillows on my bed. I look in the bathroom. I open the door and look in the hallway. I walk near the elevator and come back to the room.

Justin again tells me that I am weird.

"Bro, it was a napkin. I had it in my pocket of my jacket when we left dinner. It was a napkin and it practically had my heart tattooed on it."

Justin asks why would your heart be tattooed on a napkin. I tell Justin please. I tell him this is serious.

"Have you seen it. I mean. It was in my pocket. I know it was in the pocket of my PARADE jacket when we left dinner."

Justin seems like he doesn't care. He offers and I-don't-know bro.

"Maybe it fell out when Jim jumped on your back and your glasses fell out. You know. When you guy were horse-playing in the parking lot."

From above my head the glass contours of an invisibility light bulb becomes illuminated. Yes. That must have been it.

I head towards the door. When Justin tells me that it is after curfew and I could get in trouble if I go outside I tell him I don't care.  He tells me that if I get caught I could land on the discipline bus for the day and even get sent home early.  I slam the door. I head towards the elevator.  As I get to the lobby I see several counselors and a few members of the older group socializing in the direction of the bar. I am discreet. I am walking like a caricatured burglar.  I walk towards the door, passed the stag, passed the area where I finally went off on Zeke Bosh-Midden

I pass the door and enter in a sea of night. It is London. Taxi's zip past like oversized novelty ants. I am walking the route I just took knowing that I could get in serious shit if I am discovered going AWOL. I don't care. As  I look back at the Gloucester I can see Justin looking out the window shaking his head back and forth. I walk two blocks. There is a light wind tickling the back of my neck. Someone could have picked up the napkin by now or else mistook it for litter. More than anything it probably blew away.

When I arrive at the intersection where Jim jounced on my back there is nothing. I need to skulk back into the hotel. I try not to think about Rita sitting cross-legged on her bed next to the phone waiting for me to call.

                                                                ***

I re-enter the room without anyone seeing me. It is close to midnight. Justin is swiping his head back and forth telling me that I am crazy. 

"You don’t understand. It was Rita. I felt like I finally bonded with someone on the trip I was suppose to call her up tonight and then I must have dropped her number when Jim jumped on my back when we were leaving." 

Justin says whatever. He turns the light off on his side of the room. He tells me that I should go to bed.

I am forlorn.  I have failed again. All day there was Harmony then there was Rita and now she is gone. I can't fathom picturing her next to the bed waiting for me to call.  I drift off into sleep somehow I see her smile underwater,drifting away. She is mouthing her digits to the room I am expected to call her only carbonated bubbles come drifting out of her mouth. The Big Ten arrive wearing their jackets like apish-smurfs without any pants.  They are making rather sophisticated ooga-ooga orangutan sounds and scratching their armpits. From the waist down they are completely naked exposing their open jewels only their jewels on their open jewels are cylinders of Aqua Net hairspray. The Big Ten seems to be saluting me with their hairspray erections. Before I know it they are spraying me. Before I now it everything is wedged in my head and there is a volcanic shrill. I am being lifted out of my dream coffin by Justin’s voice emanating from the opposite side of the Bed. He is telling me to pick it up. He is saying that it is more than likely for you. 

He says that it is probably that girl you have been waiting to call.