A Short Story About

by Elliott Jones




It was smoky, because they had been smoking—and dim, because they had dimmed the lights. The unpleasant atmosphere in Derek’s basement was, according to him, “grown-up”—the second-rate card table with its legs duct-taped to keep them together; an old TV that couldn’t get cable and as a result solely played old-school Nintendo games; a record player that had been bought dirt-cheap at a garage sale and sat on the floor for lack of a more suitable space; Derek’s tattered, years-old couch over to one side of the room across from the television, and especially the bottles of Jack Daniels and Coca-Cola that were hidden strategically underneath it. Derek’s mother had been planning to throw the couch out, but he had salvaged it by throwing an equally threadbare, green and orange, equally trash-worthy quilt over its back and forcing her to relinquish it into his care and subsequently into his ‘chill spot,’ which is what seventeen-year-old creativity comes up with as a nickname for the basement space where Derek, and three of his best friends, now frequented during boring summer nights.
Derek McAllister, John Lee, Seth McLaughlin, and Derek Jones were seated on two sides of the room—Derek and John were playing Texas Hold ‘Em at the card table, Seth was seated on the couch playing Mario Bros. on the Nintendo and the other Derek was next to him, watching.
The room was a stereotypical Seattle basement—concrete walls surrounded them on four sides, and there was a large water heater in one corner underneath the wobbly, banister-less wooden stairs that lead up into the kitchen of Derek’s home. The boys had done what they could to turn the room into a ‘bachelor pad’ of sorts—posters adorned all of the walls, and everyone had put a little bit of themselves into the decorations.
From Derek came images of Terrell Owens or Michael Jordan. John put up one of their favourite posters—an at least three foot tall shot of Hyo Ri Lee. In it, she looked provocatively over her shoulder, clad entirely in white spandex, with an innocent, mocking smile that none of the guys could get over—and when they drank, it was a pose which none of them could resist imitating. John had actually convinced the rest of the guys (for a few weeks, anyway) that Hyo Ri was in fact his cousin—they were both Korean, similar aged, and shared the same surname—and that was enough for almost any American to believe that they were related. He also had decided to attach to the walls posters of Tila Tequila, Lucy Liu, and various other token Asian sex symbols.
Seth, who considered himself a music “guru” (it was his idea to buy the turntable—even though none of them owned records) had brought in a bunch of posters from decidedly indie pop and rock bands—Rogue Wave, Death Cab for Cutie (though he took that one down with a feigned tear as they signed to Atlantic Records, a major label, in 2005), The Faint, Broken Social Scene, Beam, and Sunny Day Real Estate. Derek Jones, or just Jones, as they called him, to prevent confusion, hadn’t put anything on the walls. He had, however, brought the alcohol (and he always did), so he added to the atmosphere in his own way, and the rest of the group didn’t have any complaints.
They had also, maybe at the same garage sale, found a cheap beanbag chair, and positioned it in another corner. Its red exterior, extremely soft with over-use and covered sporadically with silver bits of the duct tape that kept it together, had a reputation. It is debatable how many members of the female sex had actually ever sat, or done anything else, in that bean bag chair, but the number of times one of boys had claimed to have “hooked up” with someone from their school, in that chair, was enormous—and grossly exaggerated. The rest of the room was pretty much empty—there wasn’t sufficient space for much else save a rug on the ground to soften the concrete floor, and they might have put up a dart board had they been interested, as there was another blank space on the wall where it might have fit.
So, as they were spending their summer in preparation for being high school seniors, being “grown-up” was on all of their minds. College acceptances and rejections floated around in all of their minds despite their best efforts. Most of them were going to spend the next four years nearby, in Washington, but the lure of California, Oregon, and even farther whet their appetites as well. Jones and John, who were a few steps above the others in terms of SAT scores and the like, also had their eyes and hearts set on schools on the east coast, or even abroad. For now, however, all of the guys pushed thoughts of the future from their minds and consoled themselves with underground poker games, Jack and Coke’s, and old-school Nintendo games.
“Have you ever had an out-of-body experience?” John asked Derek, as he dealt the cards for their second game of the night. Derek glanced at him, somewhat aloof, before looking again at his cards.
“What?” He asked. He focused, pleased, on the two Kings that smiled warmly up at him, having had lost three dollars from John in the previous game, and sipped at his drink.
“You heard me. An out-of-body experience.” John responded. He stared at Derek’s face intently, in his own unnerving, condescending way. Maybe it was because they were playing poker, but he looked disarmingly serious. Derek actually looked up at him this time, focused on his earnest expression, and considered the question.
“I have no idea what that is.” He responded as he made his first bets. “Out-of-body? What is that supposed to mean?”
“You seriously don’t know what that is? I hope that by the time you finally have sex, the government has instituted mandatory contraception to prevent idiots like yourself from polluting the world with offspring.”
“Well you’re fucking gay, how about that? What’s your bet?” He retorted. John stared at him with a look that screamed ‘pity’, but Derek was too intent on his pocket kings and winning the hand that he didn’t notice. Jones and Seth looked over from their game upon hearing the outburst, but as John didn’t seem too upset, and no fight was deemed impending, they both turned back to stare like robots at the pixels flashing over their screen.
“That doesn’t even follow the rules. You’re not only idiotic, you’re horrible at insults. I feel sorry for you”. He finally responded. Derek looked up, this time a confused frown on his face.
“Can you deal the cards?” He asked impatiently, and then he thought for moment. “Rules? There are no rules to insulting people. What are you talking about? I can say whatever the fuck I want, you faggot. Is there a rule against me telling Jonesy and Seth that you’re out of the closet now? Is there a rule against dealing the cards so slow that it’s an insult to me? How about that?” The two other guys looked back again towards the table upon hearing their names.
“First of all, I’m not gay.” He shot a glance at the others, and upon receiving his gaze; they again looked back at the television screen. “Secondly, of course there are rules to insults. To intelligent insults, at least, I mean, if you want to get the full effect out of them. An intelligent insult tells the person that you really thought hard enough to say something that would seriously offend them. It tells them that you really, really do feel strongly about the fact that they aren’t that great of a person. If performed correctly, an insult can be beautiful.” John stared at him and slowly, and the little smiling faces in his hand seemed less important than the startling topic matter at hand.
“How can an insult be beautiful? I thought—“ and John interrupted.
“You weren’t doing much thinking, obviously, if you gave me that excuse for an insult earlier.” He looked at him warmly. “There are two types of insults—pragmatic and cathartic.” He put up one finger after another to illustrate. ”Pragmatic insults are well thought-out, they are deliberate, and they pay close attention to the victim. Cathartic insults, on the other hand, stem from emotion, and usually, lack of creativity. Yours, of course, was cathartic. Are you going to call or bet?” He motioned down at the table at the three, seven, and king lying on the table. Derek motioned to call without looking, and John continued to deal. “You see, a pragmatic insult can do many things to harm its victim—it can humiliate, it can provoke, it can dominate, it can offend—your insult actually did none of those things. If you had thrown it at someone with a lesser grip on their sexuality, like maybe Seth over there, then it might have had some kind of effect.” Derek stared at his hand and at the ‘river’, which now showed two threes, a king, and two other face cards.
“Hold on, you’re confusing me. Did we bet yet?” He asked.
“We’re on the final bet. I’m checking, how about you?”
“Shit. I totally lost track with your stupid rant.” He peered down at the table and thought for a moment, realizing, finally, that he had a very good hand. “Ten dollars.” He pushed almost all of his chips out toward the center and looked over at John’s face, where a smirk had formed.
“I fold then”.
“Fuck you!” He exploded, realizing that he had been hoodwinked. “You knew that your fucking ‘rules of insults’ shit was going to confuse me. I had a fucking full house!”
“All’s fair in love and poker, my friend. You allowed yourself to be played.” He chuckled. “Next hand?
“Fuck you, you fucking, Korean motherfucker. I quit this game, you Asian, fucking, cheater! How’s that for an insult? If I knew more about Asians I would insult you better. Is that prag-fucking, whatever? Matic? You small-dick, rice rocket bastard?” John noticed that Derek’s drink was empty, and grinned, and Jones and Seth laughed from the couch.
“That was pretty good actually, I’m impressed.” He responded evenly. Derek cooled down as he got up from the card table, knocking over his chair, and plopped down on the couch just in time to watch Seth lose his last life in the video game. John eased over to the beanbag and slowly finished his drink.
“Watch out, man, Seth splooged on that bag last night.” Warned Jones. John feigned concern and felt around on the bag with an exaggerated grimace on his face. Jones and Derek laughed. “Who was it with this time, Seth? Was it Kelly Templeton?” Continued Jones. “Or Hyori and your right hand, like last time? Fap, fap, fap!” He imitated Seth’s bedroom behaviour extravagantly; sound effects and all, until he reached a deafening, cartoonish climax and slumped again on the couch, breathing heavily. Seth tried to look disinterested.
“Shut up, fuckers. I don’t kiss and tell.”
“You mean the yoga worked? You got flexible enough to kiss it yourself?” Joked Jones. The other boys erupted in laughter.
“Fuck you.” Seth murmured.
“See, Derek, that was a pretty good insult.” Remarked John.
“What were you talking about with that whole rules stuff?” Seth changed the subject. “I didn’t really listen; I was trying to save myself a princess from a giant turtle. What did you say?”
“Yeah, that shit was actually kind of interesting.” Said Jones.
“Wait—have you ever thought about that?” Interjected Derek. “Like, how hot must Princess Peach be for Mario to keep rescuing her? I mean; she’s obviously a fucking dimwit bimbo if she keeps getting captured all the time. How many Mario games have been made? She’s been kidnapped like fifty times. And it’s not like Bowser is smart or anything, he’s a fatass turtle. …She is blonde, so I understand, and I mean,” he motioned to Seth, “I hate to speak badly about your people, Seth, but I mean, they aren’t usually so developed in the brain, if you know what I mean…”
“Shut up. You’re right, she must be hot though. They must fuck like nobody’s business. Seriously, why would any guy go through freaking fireballs and lava pits and freaking, goombas and stuff just to save a chick?” said Seth.
“I don’t know, love maybe?” offered John. Everyone stared at him, and silently agreed that, other than sex, love would be the best reason. A semi-awkward silence enveloped them for a few moments until Derek, slightly inebriated and unaware of the moment he was ruining, spoke up.
“I think that that’s bull.” He offered, and nobody really listened, but it broke them of their trance. John sat forward in the beanbag chair.
“So, about the insult thing. It’s this movement I decided I’m going to start that promotes the use of intelligent put-downs. If you didn’t know, they used really good insults back in the day. People like Shakespeare were excellent at creating really harsh, smart insults, I mean, he even used iambic pentameter while he was insulting someone! They had such a sophisticated vocabulary back then. Like, if I called you a freaking, um, like, scullion, it wouldn’t mean anything to you, right?” They all nodded in concurrence. John sighed and looked to the ceiling, seemingly at the patient loss of an art. “Nobody uses cool words like scullion or miscreant. Now all anyone can say is ‘faggot’ or ‘bitch’ or something unintelligent like that. Anyway, I would like, make a club at school about it or something. I can’t think of a name for it though.”
“The fucking, elitist, um, insulters that think they are smarter than everyone!” Shouted Derek from where he had laid, up until that moment seemingly comatose, on the couch. He was promptly ignored.
“What would you guys even do?” Asked Seth. “I would kinda want to be a part of that, I think.”
“Yeah, me too.” Said Jones. “I bet the school would pass it. It’s somewhat academic, I mean, it advocates reading and vocabulary building and stuff like that, right?”
“There still isn’t really a purpose, though.” Seth commented. “What really would you guys do?”
“That’s the thing, I don’t know! But so, here’s the like, premise. It’s basically just that we’re dissatisfied with all of the stupid insults going around. Like I said, people don’t even have any vocabulary anymore, they just say “fuck you” and think that’s enough. If I could come up with something personal, if I could comment on something you’re wearing, something you believe in, something that you stand for or something like that; whatever as long as it is really important to you—if I could say some extremely unfavorable thing about that particular something, that’s so much more effective. And the more personal that something is, the more that something means to you, the more effective the insult is too. I mean, if I insult your hat, whatever, you know, like, you didn’t make the hat, it’s not important to you really unless you paid some exorbitant amount of money for it or something. But if I say something about your mom, or your girlfriend, like, “Kelly Templeton is a whore”, then it hurts a lot more, because that person is close to you.” Derek looked up groggily from the couch.
“What did you say about Kelly?”
“She’s not even your girlfriend, bro, calm down”. Jones offered.
“She’s not—she’s not a whore, man. She’s a virgin. We talked about it.” Derek stammered. He had obviously had more alcohol than the rest of them, which wasn’t saying much—sixteen year-olds don’t typically have high tolerances. “We—we had a major heart-to-heart.” He was visibly upset again.
“Anyway, see how upset it made him? He even felt the need to defend her. Imagine if she was his girlfriend, he might be seething.” A faint knock was heard on the door. Instantly, the boys covered the beverages and hid them under a fold in the couch as Derek’s mother slowly waddled in.
John, your mother called, she’s wondering when you’ll be home or if you’re spending the night. That goes for all of you boys, I’m sure your parents are worried.” Without saying anything to the effect, her tone and the look on her face as she used it told them all that spending the night wasn’t an option this night.
“I’ll call her soon, Mrs. McAllister. Thank you very much!” Jones responded politely, and the boys got up and prepared to leave.
“We’ve seriously got to get this going.” Seth commented to John as they walked up the stairs, Jones following slowly behind. “Derek, are you fucking drunk, or what? Are you even awake?” Derek murmured a response, his face buried in the folds of the tattered quilt that covered the couch. “Suit yourself, buddy. We’ll call you tomorrow. You should drink some water.” He rolled over, but didn’t make any noise.
The boys all exited and walked to their respective homes, dreams about insults, Shakespeare, Princess Peach, and Poker dancing through their heads. The realization of John’s proposition would have to wait for another night, but the seed had been planted—and the water was soon to come. John, however, wasn’t thinking about any of those things—he was thinking about what he had said about Mario and Princess Peach. Was that for real? “Love”, he thought. He pondered it all the way home.