"But Xmastime", you say in the voice of Craig “Ironhead” Heyward from those soap commercials (RIP), "shouldn't they take your lead and make a movie about Kid's Party Crashers, like you did so brilliantly in your debut novel from (gulp) 10 years ago?"
Sigh. Yes they should, faithful reader
Remembering that little episode only depressed me even more during my struggle back to happier thoughts...
…but then, suddenly, it hit me like a flash: kid’s birthday parties.
In Brooklyn, children’s birthday parties had become the new wedding reception: endless free booze and food. Unlike the lame-ass birthday parties when I was a kid that featured a dried-out coconut cake and some asshole kid that inevitably spilled his soda all over everything, these parties had become “keeping up with the Joneses” events that served best those invitees who didn’t have kids themselves and therefore weren’t responsible for anyone else, all without having to give a shit about the costs. In other words, the Manny’s Holy Grail.
Hell, I preferred those to adult parties anyway, since adult parties without fail spun into late-night fights, embarrassing confessions, and regretful text messages found onscreen the next morning. A kid party meant I’d show up at noon, eat and drink my face off, and everybody was in a great mood since how could they not be, what with all the kids flying around the room like midget lunatics? Have a bunch of beer, laugh at the collisions, it's great. There's an innocence to a kid’s birthday party that keeps everybody light and happy.
My mind racing back into the direction of happy thoughts, I remembered that three different kid’s parties I’d been to in Fort Greene were at the same place, at the same time: 2pm, Saturday afternoon. That was it: I’d show up at a random child’s birthday party the next day, pretend I knew the kid, and then cheer myself up with all the free beer and pizza I could squeeze into two hours.
I inhaled the rest of my Colt 45 and fell back onto my pillow, with a smile on my face.
**********
The next day I walked into the lobby of the Fort Greene co-op school and headed straight to the sign-in desk where, as always, the security guard looked at me with suspicion, presumably because I was showing up at a kid’s birthday party without a kid.
“Man,” I ruefully shook my head, “another one of these damn things, right?”
He simply nodded as I signed my name, and I slipped into the playroom by way of the kitchen I knew was off to the side. My plan was to grab a few slices and a couple of beers, insert myself into a corner without being noticed and, once I was settled in, look out into the crowd of kids and shout out “Hunter! Easy, buddy!” every so often. I walked across the floor with my head down, presumably unnoticed, and as I chewed on my first slice I could hear and feel the bustle throughout the room, that familiar sound of kids screaming and parents nervously asking each other where their kids were going to school next year. I quickly downed my first of what surely was going to be many, many free beers, and smiled at my own genius.
You, sir, I chuckled, are the cat’s pajamas.
“Hi!”
The voice startled me into looking up, and there was a little black kid standing in front of me. How diverse, I smugly thought, the people at this school must be really rich. He looked at me for a beat before thrusting his hand out at me.
“What’s this?” I asked, taking the object from his hand, which turned out to be an un-inflated balloon.
“Boon!” he squealed, pointing at me.
“That’s right,” I feigned being thrilled out of my goddam mind. “Balloon! Thank you!”
I handed the balloon back to him, hoping that would satisfy my newest little friend into leaving me alone, and went back to my pizza.
“Boon!”
He was holding it out to me again. Goddammit.
“Okay,” I took the balloon, “you want me to blow up the balloon?”
I don’t know what the hell he said, so I just started blowing it up. It wasn’t until I’d blown it up as fully as I could that I remembered there’d always been three things I was utterly incapable of doing: lighting a match, getting keys on and off key rings, and tying off a balloon. Obviously, my fat fingers were the reason I couldn’t manipulate a key ring, and when it came to lighting a match, I was just a complete pussy. I could sometimes pull it off with a wooden match, but even then I’d have to go through about ten of them since I’d try to have my finger as far away from the flame as possible, and the match would snap in half. If I did actually light one I turned into a child's squeak toy, squealing and flailing about until I could put the flame out. As for tying off a balloon, I had never learned this particular brand of black magic.
As I sat there with the balloon clasped in my teeth and floating in front of my face while the kid stared at me patiently, I decided the hell with it – maybe this would be the first time I pulled it off, who the hell knows? Maybe it’ll turn out that I was suddenly great at tying off balloons, and I’d find a new career making balloon animals for kids at carnivals all over the goddam country. I’d become famous, going on television shows as The Greatest Animal Balloonist in the History of the World. I pulled the tip of the balloon from my teeth, and started twisting it with my fingers.
FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFTTTTFTTTT!
The farting noise filled the room, halting conversation and turning every head in my direction.
It was at that moment I realized the party wasn’t quite as diverse as I’d thought. In fact, had it not been for my showing up uninvited, it wouldn’t have been diverse at all, since every single face looking back at me was black. They looked as surprised to see me as I was to see them, but within seconds everything had returned to normal, with everybody chatting while the kids flew around the room.
I don’t know what I’d pictured going on at black kid’s birthday parties, but I found myself slightly disappointed that everything was exactly the same as all the white kid’s parties I’d been to, other than the soda being orange. Since they weren’t any more interested in talking to me than white people were everybody left me alone anyway, and with each beer I pounded I became more and more fearless. My courage peaked when I tried to volunteer my services for cutting the cake when it came time to sing Happy Birthday, and by the end of the party I was walking up to random guys and slapping them on the back as if we were oldest of friends, shaking my head at how big Wayne, as the cake read, had gotten. After trying to help the hostess (Mary) and the other mothers clean up while they politely suggested I sit down and drink some coffee, I happily popped out into the sunlight, thrilled with how much the party had cheered me up. Perhaps helped by the beer, but mission accomplished nonetheless.
Just then I got a text from Jimmy, asking if I wanted to come over for dinner. For a broke-ass Manny, another free meal was too tempting to pass up, and the endless free beers that were sure to follow were even more tempting. I hopped on the L train back to Williamsburg with my head buzzing about what was turning out to be the perfect day of grifting.
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