Friday, November 24, 2017

F

or my daddy's fiftieth birthday, my mother decided to buy him a brand-new boat, with his money of course. It was a small yacht that my father had his eyes on for some time because it showed off his success and was sized well for speed and maneuverability. He also liked it because it was the same one Leonardo DiCaprio had when he played the role of Jordan Belfort in Martin Scorsese's movie The Wolf of Wall Street. It was a damn nice boat, but when my mother and I watched it roll up to the harbor with a big red bow on top of the windshield, I asked my mother excitedly if I could take it for a spin with my friends, and she merely laughed and told me to keep dreaming.

My father had been thinking of taking us on a cruise this summer and had already planned for us to hit up the hotels between Monaco, New York and London. But thanks to my mother, he would be keen to the idea of hiring a small catering crew as well and of inviting only a few exclusive friends (including some potential Saudi Arabian clients who spoke English well and had their hands in energy firms, as well as Chinese real estate deals scattering all over American soil that could prove advantageous if my father stuck his foot through the door before they closed-- otherwise he would be shut out of a closing market where the big players were blooming rapidly.)

My only request was that I could bring along my friends for the yacht ride.

"By friends do you mean the five boys you've been fooling around with?" Snapped my mother, as she and I scouted out the yacht before she would agree to exchange money with the deliverymen.

"It's fully autonomous, Madame," said the European manufacturer, "the new technology is top of its class. Just press the location on the map and the boat will take you from Thailand to Timbuktu without you having to lift a finger to the wheel."

"We're not going to Timbuktu," snapped my mother again, sweat beading down her hairline as the day of my father's Big-Five-O was approaching. His fiftieth birthday was a big milestone for him and was important for her. My mother wanted my father to see how much she loved him for his hard work and discipline to make their family dreams come true. Life was no easy feat to conquer, and she wanted to make undeniably clear that she believed he had conquered this beautiful life and made it his own.

My mother's irritability wasn't easy to accommodate sometimes, but I felt warm inside to know she and my father's marriage was light-years stronger and more substantial than the marriage of Craig Ferguson's parents. When it came time for my father to return from his annual eighteen-hole birthday golf with uncle Tom and his best friend Mark Jablonsky, my mother gave him the most beautiful loving kiss two middle aged partners could share and took my father out to the harbor with me to show him his new present. The afternoon could not have been sunnier, as the red ribbon on the windshield flickered with ruby, and my father's smile stretched longer than I had ever seen it stretch before. He turned his back to the present, and my mother asked how he liked his gift. He merely examined her face with all its history and love, and kissed my mother like they were in love for the first time in college again. "Are we going to dinner tonight?" she said. "I've made big plans for us. I know you love the Ciuppinos."

"Italian?" he asked, smiling.

"Mhm..." she said, as she kissed my father. (Meanwhile I crept onto the boat feeling totally invisible. I looked over the hardwood floors and decided I would definitely host my next birthday on this yacht. I could already imagine a weeklong party cruise to Mexico. I already felt bad for my enemies who wouldn't receive my invitations. Serves them right for looking at me the wrong way in the halls, or for talking behind my back, or making the wrong assumptions about me and spreading rumors. They would rue the days they ever crossed me. (I had two sorry bitches in mind.))

I honestly think sometimes my mother wondered if my father was faithful to her, what with all the long business trips and everything. My mother wanted to make sure she was the best option my father still had-- I've seen the way she examines my father whenever we go to a restaurant and are served by a pretty young waitress.

And sometimes I find myself examining Jack with jealousy, too, whenever he and I are out at a school football game and the cheerleaders start cheering. (I would have joined but I didn't want to be branded as a slut for the rest of my life and become one of them.) My mother needed to work on herself, but thanks to my father's patience, and my mother's genetic advantage—she hasn't seemed to age since age thirty-- they still make for a perfect duo, and I believe my mother has nothing to fear. My parents both believe in love and marriage, and through thick and thin, they've always pulled together.

I took pictures of the yacht as the two lovebirds walked back to the house to go watch The Office in their room, doors locked to mean "Do Not Disturb," and when all my picture-taking was done and I had posted today's fill of selfies for Instagram, Snapchat and Facebook, a slew of likes and comments came rushing in on my social media, with hordes of people just begging to come see the new yacht.

But as I started thinking about Craig Ferguson, and started hoping with all my heart that he wasn't alone and God forbid returning to the drugs that used to hurt him back when we were in Junior High (he used to fall into the wrong crowd, and got addicted to drugs like Ritalin, Ecstasy, Vicodin, OxyContin, Adderall, cocaine, hallucinogens, tranquilizers, cough medicine, synthetic marijuana straight from San Diego, inhalants and regular marijuana), I gave Craig a call, and I asked if he wanted to go with me on a little boat ride.

Craig sounded like he had been crying, and he lied saying he was busy. I could tell by the raspiness of his voice and the shuffling noise that sounded like his moving blankets, that he was in the same place as yesterday before I had called him— at the foot of his bed, lying on the carpet, facedown. I said I was coming to get him, and immediately he said, Okay.

I skipped on my way to his house, knowing I was doing good for a friend. Craig Ferguson needed all the company he could get, and so, thinking of getting more friends together to cheer him up, I sent a mass text with all my new pictures of the yacht to Jack, Brett, Travis and George and told them all to come or they would miss out on this evening's kickback. The party yacht was leaving in twenty minutes.

All the boys hurried on their way and eagerly brought all the necessary equipment to make our party a success. That included limes, club sodas, mint leaves and vodka for mixed drinks, Jack's saxophone, Travis's bassoon, George's trumpet, Craig's guitar and Brett's drum set for potential jamming (quite a few of these knuckleheads were in our school's world-famous band or in garage bands of their own), and George was the one to also bring weed while Jack and Brett brought the music. (George never smoked weed on account the government will eventually screen him for drug use and he wanted to be clean by all accounts to ensure his future candidacy for American president.)

When I had managed to influence Craig Ferguson to finally take a shower, and I picked out from his closet his party clothes, he looked like a new man, and a handsome stud muffin at that.

We made it just in time to beat the twenty-minute deadline I had given the rest of the guys over text, and thanks to my skills from being on the sailing team (being rich kids on the coast, we all had our fair share of sailboat racing), I led our party yacht out of the harbor and we cruised offshore a while before coming to a stop on the black night ocean. The horizon was just a black screen, and the city and mountains behind us lit with the purple and yellow lights of civilization in the P.M.

The yacht had an open middle-deck dance space for us to turn on the disco lights, and we jammed to Spotify's playlist for Current Best Party Songs (that's what the boys were into these days. And I must say I could dance to anything.) We shook to the boom of musical beats blaring like a digitized orchestra over the ocean. (Jack's favorite of the songs was Mac Miller's "Donald Trump." I loved Luis Fonsi's "Despacito" featuring Justin Bieber.)

We stirred together like the fools we were, realizing youth and zero responsibility could never get any better than how we had it. That was my take on it all, as I danced with all five of my favorite men on Earth who whirled all around me. I lost control to the free naked creature that scratched underneath my skin, and the drinks sedated me down to another level, as the world quaked and my heart thumped. Hours passed and I think Jack, Brett, George, Travis, Craig and I did something crazy. But to all the head rocking, and all the body thrusting and hair whipping, and shirt shedding and laughter breaking, I must have kissed Jack a thousand times, and got the lustful eyes of the other boys in the corner of my sight, and I found my animal side sending the other boys looks that Jack would never have wanted me to throw them.

The night went on, and I must have had a lot of fun, because when it all came to an end, and we'd fallen asleep, I had forgotten if anyone had dropped the yacht's anchor into the sea, because I was drifting on the waves of my dreams, and the sounds of tempestuous thunder sent a menacing message through the dark, that this was the last time we'd ever be dancing in this town again. . .