Sleepless In September

12 - Ken Carson's House

TRIGGER WARNING: mentions of sexual assault. no detail.

Minji doesn't like to be early to parties, so up until about a half hour ago, they were all watching TV and chilling at Yunjin's apartment. It's midnight and Chaewon parked the van at the end of the bumper to bumper line of cars down Forum Drive, Strawberry. The sidewalk is broken in many places, and when Hanni walks she tries to make perfect paces without stepping on any cracks. Minji figured that's what she's doing, so she didn't rush her to the house. She only held her hand. Ugly graffiti marks most walls here, like the side of the church and the liquor shop that's across the street. Because of this, many of the houses have been repainted in patches that are barely the same colour. Quite the eyesore.

Ken Carson's front yard could be mistaken for a scrapyard. There's a whole bunch of junk all over the place, with the rusty shell of a car tucked to the right side. Nothing blocks the short walkway to the front door. The house is a yellow, dilapidated, single-story bungalow with a basement, and it's a miracle the music hasn't blown the roof off yet. The garage is to the left, and looks larger than the entire house. It used to be a mechanic workshop, but it's been repurposed into a studio after the passing of his father.

"Ladies, are we ready to have some fun?!" Danielle gleams at her friends with a smile so wide she could barely see and everyone else shares in her excitement. The night is cold, she's well rested and it's the perfect start for her first house party.

"Yeah, let's go inside before we get shot," Chaewon says. At the front door, she knocks a couple of times. When the door cracks open, the bass hits like a steel pipe to the face. She knows this song, it's International Love. Sakura likes this one a lot.

"Oh my gosh, hi Lone!" Chaewon greets Destroy Lonely with a grin, and he opens his arms for a hug.

"Where my hug at?" He asks.

Chaewon gives him a brief but warm embrace, then pats his shoulder as she walks past him and into the house, dim-lit in purple.

The house is modest. From the front door, there's a short hallway that runs straight to the kitchen and the back door. On the left side of the hallway are the bathroom and two bedrooms, and on the right there's the living room. About forty people are crammed there, fixated on this gigantic, muscled dude doing pushups with Nettspend on his back, they're counting his progress, "Ninety four, ninety five, ninety six!". In the hallway and most places, people are so drunk they can't move from off the floor. There's cocaine on the coffee table and on the dining table. Someone is throwing up through the kitchen window and onto the flowers in the backyard. Two girls are fighting and ripping each other's hair out. There's a woman on her knees giving the DJ a blowjob and nobody minds or cares.

Across from the majority, people in the kitchen are serving themselves a drink from the kitchen sink. It's a foul mix of Everclear, vodka, tequila, Malibu rum, peach champagne, blue curaçao, blue lemonade, blue Hawaiian punch, lemon-lime soda, Jolly Ranchers, gummy bears, gummy worms, orange slices, pineapple chunks, lime and strawberries. The concoction looks like deep blue liver failure—which is exactly what Hanni and Yunjin like, so that's where they linger first.

Minji and Chaewon walk around in search of familiar faces. Danielle already found one, so she's somewhere catching up with a guy she went to high-school with.

"Dude, what the fuck is this?" Hanni asks Yunjin, holding her red cup of jungle juice from the cooler to her nose. "It smells like straight gasoline."

"Fuck, I don't know. There's like lemons and Gatorade and shit, it looks like," Yunjin answers and braves the cup of firewater. "GOD DAMN!" She chokes. "Nah, that's like some biological warfare shit." Another cough. "That's insane. This the shit they dropped on Pearl Harbor."