Reunion (7)

We were here! Guelph!

Cool?

I hadn't expected much, and we hadn't received much. We'd made our way onto a bus full of small-town kids, and the mixture on their faces was a mixture of awe and apprehension. Apparently they'd never seen traveling hobos; we were still a breed of homeless fairies that existed only in their imaginations and in ancient doctrines from the early half of the century. They weren't prepared for these dirty back-road, province-hopping rejects.

They warned us about the local gang. We laughed. The gang called themselves the Rats. Really? Any gang that called themselves the Rats clearly didn't understand a thing about terminology - that, or they just wanted to get their ass handed to them.

We ran into a few of these Rats as we got off the bus: saggy-pantsed, backwards hat-wearing Gangsters from Guelph. They stared us down until Fernweh shouted at one of him to pull up his pants and get a belt; the kid's tough-standing posture instantly melted into insecurity. He lifted up his shirt to reveal his belt and muttered something about the fact that he was wearing one. We shrugged the kids off with our laughter and went to go find Snooze.

We promptly forgot our task as a liquor store crested on the horizon and we started to beeline towards it; fortunately Snooze intercepted our path. Her obsession with Scrib had not abated. I'm not opposed to love, lust, even infatuation (though the latter can be dangerous) but when emotions come to such a degree that they  interfere with your relationships amongst friends, I start to get worried. Me and Fernweh stepped back - we knew that in a few minutes, she'd hopefully be able to tear her gaze from Scrib and pass a few words our way. We had our own conversation about similar topics in the meantime.

Still missing some...

An eon passed. Finally, Snooze turned and gave me and Fernweh a much less lustful greeting and led us back towards her house. Along the way, the group made a pact: tonight, we would black out. Tonight, we would get so sloppily slizzered that the very Earth itself would tilt 45 degrees to the side. Tonight, friends, would be a night to forget. There was not to be one wayward memory that weaseled its way into the back of our minds. We stopped at the liquor store and dropped the last of our 70 bucks on the cheapest, strongest beer we could find.

At Snooze's, we felt out of place. The house, her father's, was quite classy: middle class excellence that was pretty much as regal a place as a hobo could be without getting ushered out. Our comfortable mood began to subside in unison with the beers that we drank; our relaxed demeanor melted into varying scopes of immaturity. Me and Fernweh resumed our childish ways - name-calling, in-depth conversations about ass, etc. Scrib had become verbally aggressive; his words took on an intimidating factor and to interrupt him would be an instant confrontation. "Why is it that your speech is more important than mine?"

Naturally, there ensued a whole bunch of stupid arguments; a clash between three faulted points of view. We decided to call it quits - we'd only drank a few beers, and realized where the night would go if we kept it up. Fernweh and I traipsed to the living room, where we took all the blankets and pillows off of the couches and set them on the hardwood floor before we realized that we could have just slept on the couches. Our hobo instincts in full effect, we curled up in our Hobo Rollup and fell fast asleep.