Along These Highways

Random Punchlines

105 Random Punchlines At 5:45 a.m., the last of the stragglers had left. Most of the plastic cups that had been strewn about the back and front yards as well as all through the house were in trash bags. All of the vomit had been mopped up from the bathroom floors. It was a pretty successful party. Only one fight had broken out, and it was between two drunken sorority girls, so it was more entertaining than dangerous. Two posters, three CDs, and one keg tap had been stolen. Less than usual. Fourteen kegs of beer had been floated; fifteen gallons of grain alcohol, five fifths of vodka, ten three-liter bottles of Sprite, and fifteen gallons of Hawaiian Punch were distributed evenly among five coolers of punch, of which only half of one cooler remained. All but two members of the fraternity had either taken someone to bed or passed out drunk and alone. Ryan was the last person awake. He was always the last person awake after parties. He had been working on charming a drugged-out hippie chick into bed with him, but before he could seal the deal she passed out on the couch mid-sentence. “I must have smoked, like, five bowls before I got to this party, and I don’t even know what the fuck those pills I took—” And then she was out. Ryan laid her down on her stomach and put a half-full wastebasket on the ground next to her head, then went to the backyard to take one last look around. He realized when he fell down the stairs on the back porch that he wasn’t in much better condition than the girl he’d left on the couch. He got up, dusted himself off, and leaned onto the backyard bar. He tried to think back on how much he’d had to drink all night and couldn’t come up with a number. He needed another one just then. All that was left was punch. He always stayed away from the punch at his fraternity’s parties, but the beer was all gone and the night was over, so he poured himself a cup. It was a rule that all of the members of Ryan’s fraternity had to show up at the house at seven o’clock on the night of a party for cleaning and bar Rene S. Perez II 106 set-up. Inside, there was sweeping up the living room, vacuuming the TV room, giving the bathrooms a once-over with a mop, and dealing with the dishes in the kitchen sink and whatever organisms had grown on them; outside , there was wiping down the bar in the backyard, connecting CO2 tanks in the four-keg kegerator, climbing on a stepladder to clean the leaves and moss that had gathered in the funnels that fed down to the free-standing beer bongs that were never taken down and flushing out any dirt in them with warm, soapy water, and stapling up black tarp onto 4x4 posts planted in the ground around the perimeter of the house’s front and back yards. He was tired and had been drinking since set-up was done, around nine o’clock that night. Before Ryan had his first drink of punch, Tom stumbled out of the house with an unlit cigarette dangling from his lips and a cut over his left eye. “She fucking hit me.” Tom was digging in the pockets of his khaki slacks in search of his lighter. “And with the goddamn ring I bought her. I mean look at me, I’m bleeding. She never drew blood before. All I want is a cigarette, a drink, and for her to not be in that bed when I go back inside.” Tom stood next to Ryan at the bar. Ryan could see the remnants of tears in his friend’s eyes and said all that, with his twenty-one years of emotional maturity, he could to help his friend along. “I don’t know who’s the bigger bitch, her or you.” Tom rolled his eyes, not even trying to defend himself. “See, even you know you’re a bitch,” Ryan continued, reaching into the breast pocket of Tom’s black cotton T-shirt, pulling out the Zippo Tom couldn’t find. “Shit, man, she’s hit you more than once. The bitch is fucking nuts. Why are you even still with her...