EXCERPT FROM I’VE NEVER LIVED HERE

Alex has just been expelled from boarding school for smoking pot and drinking. He’s now at home, before starting another school.

I saw Nick Stavros coming out of Carlo’s Pizza with several guys.

“Hey, Nick.”

“Alex, great, you’re just the person I need,” Nick said, like we’d last been talking an hour ago instead of a year ago. “Who’s the seventies guy who wrote ‘I Was Made to Love Magic’?”

“Nick Drake.”

“See?” he said to one of the guys with him. “Nick Drake, Nick Lowe, Nick Cave. Lots of famous Nicks, and people know them.”

“So two of you have heard of Nick Drake. I haven’t and it’s not a good rock star name.”

“Drake is the name of the guy on Secret Agent Man, right?” said one of the others. “Good spy name, ergo good rock name.”

“John Drake not Nick. Drake is fine. It’s the Nick,” the first one answered, while the second one and another guy started singing “Secret Agent Man.”

“You are so not correct,” said Nick.

“Jolly old Saint Nick. Nicholas the czar. Nicholas a Greek waiter. Nothing musical. The K sound works. The N is nothing.”

“You’re a pigheaded N bigot. Alex, do you want to come with us? You missed the pizza but you’re on time for the entertainment. We’re having a bachelor party for Manny here.” He gestured to one of the singers.

“A bachelor party?” I echoed. Manny looked our age.

“He’s going on his first date next weekend. This is his last Saturday night out with the boys.”

“I’m not going on my first date. I’m asking her for a date. She could say no.”

“If you thought she’d blow you off, you wouldn’t have told us about it.”

“I didn’t tell you about it. You bulldozed me into it. I wasn’t going to ask her at all.”

“So where are you going?” I asked.

“Maybe nowhere,” Manny said.

“I mean tonight.”

“My house to watch porn,” said the first guy. “We tried renting one but they wouldn’t let us. Before that we tried to get into an XXX movie, but no go.”

So I got a quick introduction (Manny, Wesley, Hector, and Ray) and we went over and searched for porn movies in Wesley’s house. Upstairs, I did the bathroom and hall closet with Manny while the others did his parents’ bedroom and the guest room. No luck. We skipped Wesley’s and his sister’s rooms and moved downstairs.

When we were searching in the kitchen, his sister came in. “This is the big bachelor party?”

“It’s still early,” said Nick, and Wesley asked, “Do you know where Mom and Dad’s porn films are?”

“I didn’t know they had them,” she answered. “I don’t want to know they have them.”

“Where would they hide them?”

“Wherever they hide the Christmas presents.”

“I always thought that was at Aunt Claire’s.”

“They wouldn’t hide the porn there,” she said.

“True,” he agreed, grinning.

“Behind the good dishes?” she suggested.

Wesley went off to the dining room and I decided nobody would keep porn in a refrigerator that people were in and out of all day long. I followed Nick into the living room where he opened DVD cases to see if they held what they were supposed to. I sat on the floor in front of the shelves and did the same.

“The labels could be fake,” said Manny behind us.

“They have forty movies here,” said Nick. “If we watch every stinking one, we’ll find the porn on time for your real bachelor party.”

“We only gotta watch the beginning.”

“We can just check the ones they wouldn’t expect Wesley and his sister to watch,” I said. “Something for real young kids. Stuff with subtitles. Shakespeare.”

“This is not a Shakespeare house,” said Nick, picking up Dumb and Dumber.

Manny put on a DVD and began fast-forwarding.

“That’s not porn,” said Ray (or maybe he was Hector), coming in with the other two from the dining room.

“It could start later on,” said Manny.

“You think my parents recorded porn on top of Snow White? You’re sick,” said Wesley.

He and the others started checking under chairs and on the tops of the cabinet and shelves.

Wesley’s sister came in and watched us while she ate an apple. “You’ll have to move on to the stripper coming out of the cake.”

“No stripper. No cake,” said Nick.

“I think you have to have strippers,” I said.

“You know where to get them?” he asked.

“No, this is my first bachelor party.”

“Then don’t complain.”

“For two hundred dollars, I’ll strip for you,” said the girl.

“You will not,” said Wesley.

“I will if you guys come up with the cash.”

“Ooh, Lion King? Hit Play, I like this part,” said Hector (or Ray).

“We’re looking for porn, not watching kids’ movies,” answered Manny.

“We don’t have two hundred bucks, Beverly,” said Nick. “We might be able to come up with a hundred.”

She hesitated. “All right, but it won’t be all the way.”

“It won’t be at all,” said Wesley.

“I’m only going down to my underwear. It’s like being in a bathing suit. What do you care?”

“I don’t want you parading around in a bathing suit in front of these geeks either.”

“Who you calling a geek, freakazoid?” said Nick.

“Maybe they hid it under the floorboards. Let’s roll up the rug,” said Hector/Ray. He pushed a chair to one side.

“They wouldn’t move furniture every time they wanted to get it,” Manny said.

“Yeah, that would ruin the mood,” Hector/Ray said. “Around the edges then.” He, Wesley, and Ray/Hector checked the floor around the edges of the rug.

“Money money money,” Beverly said. She pulled her sweatshirt up for a flash. Since she had a shirt on underneath, we didn’t see anything.

“Take it off, take it off,” chanted Hector/Ray.

Wesley hit him in the shoulder. “Cut it out.”

“Ow. What is your problem?”

“She’s my sister,” he said through gritted teeth.

“And she has a mind of her own,” said Nick.

“Thank you, darling,” said Beverly, and blew a kiss to Nick.

“We need alcohol for a strip show. Where’s the beer?” asked Hector/Ray.

“Over here,” said Ray/Hector, pointing to a bag on a chair. He took out two six-packs and set them on the coffee table, along with soda, chips, and pretzels.

Nick helped himself to a beer and tossed me one. I looked at it for a second and then passed it on to Manny.

Beverly fiddled with the radio and found Latino dance music. Dancing, she put her hand out to Manny and said, “Have a last dance as a single man.”

“Uh, no, thanks.”

I asked, “Is this like a, what do you call it, those dances with escorts they have in old movies, around 1930 or ’40? A taxi dance. You pay for a girl to dance with you.”

“Why’s it called a taxi dance?” asked Ray/Hector.

“She takes you where you want to go,” said Nick.

“I doubt that,” said Hector/Ray. “I’d need more than a dance to get me off.”

“Ew, gross,” said Beverly.

“Maybe it’s taxi because she picks you up like a fare,” I said. “So you hail her.”

“I’d be more interested in nailing her,” said Hector/Ray.

“You’re disgusting,” said Beverly.

“I’m not the one stripping.”

“There is not going to be any stripping,” said Wesley.

I sat down on the couch, giving up the search. Either his parents had gotten rid of their porn or they had a really good hiding place.

“You want the show now or after your porno?” asked Beverly.

“Instead of. We’re not having any luck finding any,” said Nick.

“I’m telling Mom,” said Wesley, getting desperate.

“You’re telling Mom I stripped in front of your friends when you couldn’t find a real stripper or a porno flick and while you were drunk?”

He hesitated but bravely came back with another attack. “I’m telling Mom about you skipping school.”

“Oh please. Old news.”

“Like she wouldn’t still go bananas?”

“Here’s Terminator Genisys,” said Manny. “Let’s watch that.”

“Good idea,” said Beverly. “You’ve used up the time to come up with the money.”

“The bachelor of the night has spoken,” said Nick.

He sat down on the floor next to me on the couch and I softly asked him, “Would she really have done it?”

“Of course not. She likes to get Wesley riled up.”

When Wesley turned out some of the lights and no one seemed to be paying attention, I took a soda, glad there was a choice.

And so we watched Terminator Genisys, and I had a pretty good time.