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And then Alex — Alex the Humor-Challenged — told a JOKE.

He said that if Jay was trying to bring back the old times, maybe we should show up with our Darth Bader masks and plastic lightsabers, the way we used to when we were seven.

Not a GREAT joke, but a try. A good try. And it did make you laugh, and you reminded him about the time we all went trick-or-treating and Jay’s bag grew much bigger than ours and we didn’t know why until we figured out that he was stealing our candy while we weren’t looking, and Alex remembered some other crazy thing, and you were both laughing so hard that you almost forgot to ask him again about the “get-together.”

But you did.

And he said yes.

And somehow you avoided fainting from shock.

Mirror, Mirror

On the Wall,

Who Are You Trying to Kid?

Ducky, you are nuts.

Take off the Penn State football jersey. You don’t even know where Penn State IS. Well, Pennsylvania, but that’s not the point. Put it back where it belongs, in the closet with all the rest of the Christmas gifts from Uncle Chad, like the football and the metal bad and the ‘76ers autographed team poster.

YOU ARE NOT A CRO MAG.

YOU WILL NEVER BE A CRO MAG.

DON’T EVEN TRY TO LOOK LIKE ONE.

You should be ashamed of yourself.

In Which Ducky

Takes Hold of His Senses

And Prepares to Leave

I am nervous.

I am scared.

I am very, very, VERY glad that Alex is coming to the party.

I just called. He’s ready and waiting for me to pick him up.

Here goes.

It’ll be fine.

Lots of fun.

And if things get bad, we can always leave.

Late

Maybe Too Late

I don’t know what to do — I’m home — alone — no, not alone — Alex is here too — but I

might as well be alone because

What? What? My mind is jumping around and I’m forgetting things and I feel like I’m in shock or something and it’s so late I should be fast asleep but I can’t sleep because I HAVE TO DO

SOMETHING and besides, if I DO sleep what’ll happen to Alex? And I WISH MOM AND

DAD WERE HERE or at least Ted, Ted might know what to do, but it’s so late now and I’m worried about HIM too, what if he’s lying in the street somewhere and he has no I.D. and Stop.

Get it together.

Alex is ASLEEP. BREATHING. Muttering to himself.

Let him be. Decide what to do AFTER he wakes up.

Think it over. Start from the top. You have time. Alex isn’t going anywhere.

Okay.

The top.

7:30. This evening.

You pick up Alex. He’s back to his old self. Not his OLD old self, as in happy Alex of long ago, but his NEW old self, as in quiet and gloomy. And you don’t know what has caused this to happen, so you make the best of it, joking around and singing to the tape of Maggie’s rock group, Vanish, and have you ever heard them and yada yada yada you’re talking so much you sound like Jay, and Alex is just sitting there looking like something out of a wax museum.

Finally he warms up a little and asks if you “brought anything” to Jay’s, and you figure he means a GIFT or something, so you ask if it’s Jay’s birthday and he cracks up, REALLY laughs, as if you’ve just made a joke, and you’re so relieved he’s coming out of his bad mood that you laugh along with him.

So we get to Euclid Ave. and Jay’s house. You shut off the ignition and look at Alex, and he’s smiling and suddenly you remember what we always used to say to each other when we were kids — “May the Force be with you” — and when you say it, he laughs again.

TWO laughs in one day. You high-five, leave the car, head for the party. The music is so loud, the LAWN is vibrating.

Jay greets you at the door with a holler that sounds like the call of a wild boar — not that you KNOW that sound, but that’s the general idea — and he practically pushes you and Alex inside, shouting all his “Ducky-Duckman-Duckometer” variations and then slapping Alex on the back and saying how HAPPY he is that they’re BUDS again JUST LIKE THE OLD DAYS, and Alex

is smiling away now, but you’re distracted because somebody’s shoving a bottle of beer at you, and you take it only because you don’t want it to drop onto the Adamses’ living room rug, which feels a little moist and squishy already.

And that’s when you notice that the house — the neat Adams house that’s always so perfect-looking, so full of expensive stuff that Mr. and Mrs. Adams loved to show off to Mom and Dad way back when you used to visit, so nice that you always felt awkward just walking in there, like you might bump into the cabinet full of delicate crystal or get mud prints on the Persian rugs —

the house is SWARMING. Guys all over the place, shouting and laughing and smoking and driving beer and eating chips and candy and pretzels, and two guys are leaning against the china cabinet and it’s shaking, and you KNOW the Adamses would be having a coronary if they could somehow see what was going on

And then, just like that, Alex is gone. He’s not by the door, where you last saw him, but it’s not easy to actually SEE anybody specifically, because it’s pretty dark and smoky in the living room and everyone’s moving around, jumping to the music — not exactly dancing, because no girls are there — and as you’re scanning the place you notice that Marco is standing in the corner, staring right at you.

You sort of smile, sort of nod, and he comes walking toward you, puffing away on a cigarette, and saying, “Yo, Bambi, what are you drinking?” and you freeze up.

THIS is the new Cro Mag attitude?

THIS is the openmindedness?

Then it’s as if Marco’s reading your mind, because he starts laughing and says, “Yo, guy, just a joke, all right?” — and as he walks toward you, he is weaving, as if the house were a ship of stormy seas.

You try to laugh along. You watch Marco flick his cigarette ashes into a coffee cup at the edge of the piano top — only it’s NOT a normal coffee cup, because you remember the collection it came from, the BONE CHINA collection that Mr. and Mrs. Adams used to brag about. And you notice that this expensive bone china cup is full of a liquid that definitely NOT coffee, definitely STRONGER than coffee — and you realize that Jay will be in the DOGHOUSE if the cup

breaks. So you pick it up, ashes and all, in front of Marco, and he laughs and says, “Oh, sorry to mess up your drink, har har!” so you pretend to laugh too, and you head toward the kitchen.

On the way, you pass by guys you don’t know very well, guys you don’t WANT to know, and a couple of guys you’ve never seen before.

Quickly you wash out the cup, dry it, and put it back in the china closet. And from behind you, someone reaches in and grabs a delicate little glass thimble from Mrs. Adams’s [sic] collection, and she ALWAYS used to talk about how valuable THAT is too, so you grab it back, and you realize you’ve just taken something from Mad Moose Machover.

You have never been face-to-face with Mad Moose. You have never wanted to be. And now that you are, you see your life pass before your eyes.

He accuses you of stealing his “shot glass.” You explain, “That’s Mrs. Adams’s [sic] thimble,”

and immediately you cringe because the worse sound so dorky, and sure enough, Mad Moose thunders, “SO WHAT, SWEETHEART?” and repeats his clever joke to everyone around him,

and now you’re standing there, with everyone laughing at you, and it’s even WORSE THAN

SCHOOL because there’s no place to run to, and you realize that Jay is a total rotten betraying creep for inviting you here, and that you NEVER should have even THOUGHT of coming, and you look around again for Alex so you can SPLIT.

And then, out of nowhere, Jay appears. He puts his arm around you and tells Mad Moose, “If you’re going to insult my friend, you’re out of here” — and Bud’s with him too, backing him up.

My heroes.

Anyway, Mad Moose mumbles something and walks away. You’re happy to escape with your

life.

Meanwhile, you’re looking around for Alex again and he’s NOWHERE, and Jay is

ANNOUNCING stuff to Bud — ol’ Duckmeister and I were like bros, we did EVERYTHING

together, like the time we broke the basement window yada yada yada …

And then, like a shot, Jay is off chasing Sam, who is heading out the back door with a large, expensive-looking liquor bottle.

You and Bud follow. The coolness of the night air feels great. The quietness does too, except that Jay’s over by the garage, yelling at Sam for stealing his dad’s scotch.

Another group of guys is sitting on the blacktop below the basketball hoop-and you notice that THEY have bottles too. And Jay starts yelling at them, but they’re saying, hey, take it easy, we BROUGHT these, and it’s only BEER, and besides, we’re not IN your house, are we?

That’s when you spot Alex again. He’s alone, lurking in the shadows near the house.

You call his name, but he just walks inside without answering you.

You run in after him. You search the house. He’s nowhere. Vanished.

You duck out the front. You see someone far down the street, walking away. You can’t tell for sure that it’s Alex, but you guess it is. You figure he’s doing the smart thing, leaving.

Which YOU should do too, but you can’t, because your car is wedged in by a double-parked Jeep Cherokee.

So you go inside to find out whose car it is, but you’re too chicken to ask around, so you end up watching a horror movie on the VCR in the den, which only makes you tired and bored and wastes an hour and a half.

In retrospect, THIS was your big mistake.

After the movie, you walk out of the den, and the first thing you see is that the living room is no longer a living room. It’s a mosh pit. Guys are ramming into each other, hollering. Someone has moved the furniture off to the sides, but not the stuff ON it. So you run around the room, closing the piano top, putting Mrs. Adams’s Steuben glass figurines in safer places — because SOMEONE’S GOING TO HAVE TO ANSWER FOR THIS.

Then you notice the liquor cabinet. It’s open. Guys are pouring drinks, and Jay is nowhere in sight.

But Alex is. He’s slumped in an armchair, a bottle in his hand, just staring at everyone with this weird smile.

You run over to him. You kneel down and talk. You ask if he’s okay. He keeps saying, fine, fine, don’t worry, everything’s great. But he’s slurring his words, and his eyes are red, and he seems to be in a whole other world.

And then someone JACKS UP THE MUSIC. You’re right near the speakers, and you feel like someone is punching you in the ear.

You jump away. You run to turn it down.

And there’s Jay, standing by the stereo, a beer in hand, SINGING ALONG!

You turn the volume down, and everyone starts screaming at you. You try to explain to Jay that Alex is in bad shape and you need to talk to him — but Jay doesn’t even listen. He just says,

“Lighten up, Duckman,” and jacks the volume back up.

Louder.

Calmly you turn it back down, to medium-loud.

You are standing toe-to-toe with Jay now. In each other’s faces. You smell the alcohol on his breath. He looks furious. You know he’s NOT REALLY LIKE THIS. Deep inside, he’s not an obnoxious Cro Mag. He’s just a little drunk. But you’re also losing patience. You suggest in a firm voice that maybe HE’S lightened up a little TOO MUCH.

Mistake. Jay slams his drink down on the stereo cabinet. He starts SPEWING. Loud. So everybody can hear: “That’s it, Ducky, mess up my party! Make EVERYBODY mad! You can’t change, can you? I think of ways to HELP you, I fix you up with BABES, I tell all these guys what a DUDE you are, I invite you to my party, I STICK UP FOR YOU against Mad Moose,

who could probably kill me — and what do YOU do? What kind of friend are YOU? THIS is how you thank me?”

You try to speak. You try to calm him down. Fat chance.

Jay is practically sitting in your face: “I give you all these chances to be a NORMAL GUY, and what do you do? Act like a WIMP. Maybe that’s the way you ARE, huh? Maybe there’s a REASON you can’t meet girls! Maybe I’m wasting my breath and all these guys are RIGHT

about you — ”

That does it. You see stars. You want to grab his bottle and hit him over the head.

You raise your fists.

Come on, Jay says.

FIGHT! yells the pack behind you.

You almost do it. You almost jump on him.

But you don’t. You can’t. Your eyes are filling with tears.

So you do the only thing you CAN do.

You LEAVE.

You don’t care if the Jeep is still blocking your car. You’ll drive onto the sidewalk if you have to.

Jay doesn’t try to hold you back. As you walk through the living room, the volume shoots back up to ear-splitting.

You expect to see Alex still in the same chair, but he’s not.

Part of you wants to go without him, but that wouldn’t be right, so you go outside and walk around the house, looking. Then in through the back door again for a quick check inside, but you don’t see him at all and you hate being here and you are LOSING PATIENCE with the amazing disappearing friend, so you decide to check upstairs and if he’s not there, tough, you are GONE.

And that is where you finally see him. At the bathroom door. Struggling to turn the knob. In one hand he is holding the bottle of gin. It is almost empty.

You ask: Did you drink ALL of that?

Alex spins around, like you shocked him. He mutters something about having to go to the bathroom.

You can barely understand him. It’s only been a few minutes since you last spoke to him, but he seems drunker.

You reach for the knob. It’s a little tight, but you can turn it.

As you open the door, you explain that after he’s done, you are driving him home.

He says nothing, goes inside, and slams the door behind him.

You listen for retching noises, but all you hear is running water. You sink to the carpet outside the door. No one else is upstairs. Now that you’re alone, now that you can THINK and not feel like people are STARING at you and wondering how you could have been invited, you realize how tightly you are wound up. You want to cry, but you CANNOT give Jay the satisfaction of finding you in tears. You SHOULDN’T be here anyway, and you WOULDN’T be here if it