Syllables

Champagne, Gramophones and Missing Social Skills

Wednesday, 26. 07. 1919
White wooden floorboards stretched across the ceiling of my room. These white stripes where everything I could, and everything I wanted, to see as I lay stretched across my bed with no will to move ever again.

Parties. I hated parties, but somehow I ended up attending them anyway. Getting drunk and talking to people. I knew alcohol was a demon, but it facilitated what I had always had a problem with; socializing.

But like I said, I hated parties, and the fact that the one my mother was currently trying to get me to go to was taking place in the house of Daniel Butler, my school time foe, which was by the way located in Woodbury, 10 miles from here, did not make it any better.

Once again I heard my mother's voice yelling from the kitchen. "Francie, can't you please join us for the party? You have plenty of time to get ready, it starts at eight, and if your father lets us take his new Ford, we'll be there in half an hour. Isn't it wonderful, the new age of speed these cars bring with them?"

I surrendered, groaning back an insincere "Fine".
If you want to believe my mother, I'm a poor little boy with way too less social contacts. If you want to believe father, I'm a lazy child with no hope for a decent career. Maybe both of them are right.

I've always wanted to make a living by writing, by arranging words and creating worlds, but my 23rd birthday would be in two months time and I hadn't published anything, Lord, I hadn't even produced anything major up until now.
So maybe I should listen to mother for once and get to know some people. I mean, it's not like all these other events my parents forced me to attend had promised the same thing and yet I found myself stranded in the corner talking to no one but the guy who refilled everyone's drinks.

At eight thirty, roughly two hours later (father's Ford had turned out not to handle the country road's insidious sleepers as well as he had promised so we had to replace the back wheel with the one attached to the side of the car on our way), the gates of the Butlers's mansion stared back at me with the same contempt my own eyes probably radiated. Muffled gramophone music surrounded the house like an overly happy aura.

I really absolutely hated parties, but not as much as I hated the fake happiness one masked oneself with before entering the house. Everyone knew everyone was miserable, and all these smiles and grins and "How are you"'s and "I'm fine"'s just made me want to puke.

"Oh, I see Mr. Butler has finally aggrandized his collection of shellacs!", mother exclaimed with (fake) excitement as we stumbled through the doors of the richly decorated, bourgeois detached house into a room full of music, voices, and people in expensive suits and summer dresses.

It took me less than a minute to completely lose sight of my parents in the crowd, and I would've lied had I said I deplored the loss. Mother was without doubt entirely happy to engage in conversation about hairstyles and pies with her female friends and father was probably, like always, busy talking to serious looking businessmen. They were better off without me, and I was better off without them.

From that moment on, time and people just started to float by. I zipped on my glass of champagne once in a while and sat in the corner next to the pitiable waiter the Butlers had hired. He was a taciturn personality, and I appreciated it. Not interacting with anyone made time pass more quickly, at least when you were sitting in a corner half-drunk and longing for this horrid event to be over.

Or so I thought - until I met Ernie.

I hadn't had much time to get drunk yet, merely half an hour had passed and I was a slow drinker, when a tall-grown, dark haired lad about my age sat down on the ground next to me. I felt distracted in my act of not interacting with the world, so instinctively I moved a few inches to the left as to establish a distance that would restore my cosmos of loneliness and boredom.

The lad followed me, however, and spoke up. "What is a charming young man possibly doing off the dance floor at times like these?"

I groaned into my bubbling champagne. I wasn't in the mood for conversation, or for taking care of what other people thought or felt. "You can stop the noble talk. According to these people here, our generation doesn't have manners anyway. Apparently they're right in my case, or I'd at least pretend I have one drop of enthusiasm left for this horrid event of people breaking their legs on the dance floor trying to find a partner for life. Which they don't find anyway, needless to say."

His dark eyes sparkled in amusement. "Someone's in a bad mood."

Confused, I recoiled further. He didn't give up on me. Why didn't he give up on me? Everyone gave up on me the second we met. That's how it worked.
"Hasn't changed since birth."

"I bet people think you're pessimistic. You sure can seem like that when one doesn't know you." His eyes still had that sparkle of amusement in them. And he was still talking to me. This was really starting to get uncomfortable.

"I am pessimistic. And you don't know me. Besides, you're talking to me and that's an anomaly because nobody does that, I'm not a person to talk to. I'm not made for being talked to. So why don't you just get up, find a girl to dance with if you think that's so pleasant, and leave? That's what everyone does, after all. Leave." My tongue felt heavy and numb and some of the consonants didn't come out as clearly as I would've liked; a sign the champagne had finally arrived in my circulatory system; but if I had started one of my speeches, not even alcohol could stop me. One of the reasons why most of my conversations turned out extremely awkward.

"You're right", the dark-haired, dark-eyed, but nevertheless bright-minded guy answered, and for a moment I thought he would do as I instructed and leave me be.
But it turned out I had made that expectation too early.

"You're right, I don't know you. What a pity. But, you see, it doesn't have to stay that way."

I sighed, giving up on getting rid of this person before the end of the party. I didn't have other plans, after all, and my social skills could use a little practice.

"Fine. But can we please get out of this stuffy room first? I think I might actually be suffocating."