i remember the evening in brief flashes, with no information connecting the flashes to form much of a cohesive timeline.  i believe these memories to be in loose chronological order, but i have no idea what occurred between them.  like how you don’t know what happens to the characters on the show during the rest of the week.  like a movie you saw a very long time ago.  like elementary school.

i am in the passenger seat next to ryan, leaning forward trying to find the house on stilts next to all the other houses on stilts.  i don’t know where we should park.

i sit in a plastic chair on the deck, listening to a guy i don’t know talk about a bag of cocaine in his car.  so far, we only know two people at this party, and i’m feeling a little out of place.  jamie is, apparently, an accountant.

i mix vodka, orange juice, and gas-station fruit drink in large styrofoam cups in the kitchen.

doritos.  fishing poles on the wall.  handmade quilts on the beds.

more people arrive in headlights from down the road.

i interrupt ryan and andy’s conversation to offer vodka drinks.  ryan already has one so i make one for andy.  i make a vodka drink for brandon.  then i make another one for shaun, another for ryan, another for andy, and another for me.  we take to calling the drink GSP.

brandon tells me i have to come see the cookies, so i follow him into the kitchen.  i am disappointed to find chips ahoy.  when i open the sliding door and walk back out onto the deck, i kick over someone’s beer.

ryan walks in front of me; we are trying to stay on the path and not get bitten by snakes.  it is dark and i am not wearing the right shoes for this–the weeds scratch my ankles and i stumble a bit when we hit soft sand.  this may be when i spill my GSP on my new khakis.  we reach the shore, where everyone is standing in a cluster, setting off fireworks over the water.  someone hands me a sparkler, but i don’t know how to light it, so someone else does it for me.  i twirl it around for a few seconds before it sputters out.  kurt points and asks if the moon is green.  i ask if he is colorblind.  he is, mostly.  i tell him what james told me once about colorblind people being colorblind because if they weren’t, the world would be too beautiful for them to handle.  “it is pretty beautiful,” kurt says.  he smiles, and looks back at the moon.

we take all the remnants of used-up fireworks and sparklers and pile them up on the sand along with the box they came in.  someone, jamie i think, tries to set the whole stack on fire.  i back away a little.  he tries to light it again, starting with the corners of the box.  shaun grabs my arm and pulls me further back.  i expect the whole pile to explode in an enormous red and green ball of leftover sparks, but it doesn’t.  not even the box ignites.  we pick up the pile and head back to the house.  there is sand in my shoes.

i make more GSP for everyone.  we run out of ice.

grey deck floorboards.  i talk about ben folds, saying some things that are probably dumb.  cobwebs, glinting in the deck lights.

downstairs.  as another ryan plays something on the guitar, i lean over to brandon and tell him that james and i broke up.  “yeah, i figured,” he says, managing to look both sympathetic and uncomfortable at the same time.  i change the subject.

ryan keeps playing.  i talk some more, to someone, about something.  there are fewer people and the guitar gets passed around, to ryan, to shaun, to andy, to me.  i don’t know how to play the guitar, but i try anyway, strumming and moving my fingers along the frets in an attempt to make chords.  some of them sound okay.  “not bad for someone who doesn’t know how to play the guitar,” i say to andy, and immediately feel stupid.  i give the guitar away.

falcons.  seagulls.  briefly, i forget my own name.  well, i don’t really forget it, but it doesn’t seem like it’s mine.  i turn it over in my head.  it’s got to be somebody else’s.

everyone settles down in double beds and single beds and trundle beds and couches and recliners and carpet, all in the same room.  i loan out my pillow and blanket and sheet, since i don’t need them.  i bring water to ryan and erica, tostitos to andy, water to ryan and erica again.  andy makes some sort of joke about not respecting him as a musician after seeing him eat tostitos on the floor in the hallway.  i tell him not to worry.

i’m the last person up; i turn off the kitchen light and close the blinds.  i can hear ryan and erica whispering and giggling.  i can hear someone breathing, hear someone stirring, feel the sand gritty between my toes.

i dream of mint juleps.