The Losts Posts Part III: The Frenchie Party

April 12, 2009—2:30 a.m

Baptiste’s mother swore she wouldn’t come into the party to check it out, and we swore we wouldn’t drink. It’s only fair, then, that now Baptiste is hiccoughing like a mariner in the other room.

As soon as we got into the party, at about eight thirty when the lights were still on, Baptiste’s mom had her face literally pressed to the glass of the windows and her hands cupped around her eyes like little binoculars. I have to hand it to the French kids, they knew what they were doing. They had all the juice and coke spread out under the counter facing the window, while all the alcohol—an ungodly amount of it—was spread out right under her nose, under the window, invisible to the voyeur. Then of course, she came inside and hung around for a while as the kids cracked out a few beers for the parents who asked and a few shots for the kids who wanted. She hung around, she hung around, and finally she retired to Ludovic’s house—down the street.

Again, the French kids knew what they were doing. They had t-shirts on, in red and white Bearnaise colors, that read proudly “I HEART AMERICAN” and the name of their correspondent on the back. I am glad, proud, ecstatic, that Baptiste never took off his sweatshirt. They also had these hand stamps that really served no purpose, and they had a little schedule behind the bar with French kids’ names written at different hours—the hours they had signed up to serve at the bar. So I thought that was nifty. Anyway:

 

• I had a drink in my hand as the $9.99 DJ started his miserable setlist, the likes of a Bar Mitzvah DJ.
• I had a drink in my hand as the French kids taught me how to play baseball in the bathroom—that is, take a smoke from a joint and hold it in until it is passed all the way around and back to you.
• I had a drink in my hand as I smoked one, two, three, chainsmoked cigarettes with a passionate disassociation.
• I had a drink in my hand as the “rugbymen” arrived in their bicycle jerseys, high socks, and shorts and blew their party horns.
• I had a drink in my hand as little piles of vomit piled up in the sink of one of the bathrooms, as vomit clogged the thing and made and swim with water and regurgitation.

           

And you know what? I didn’t get drunk. Or stoned. So I gave up, finally, and:

 

• I didn’t have a drink in my hand as French kids snapped pictures of drunk American girls rubbing themselves on French boys who were smiling for the camera.
• I didn’t have a drink in my hand as innocent American girls, neverbefores, coughed up a lung of my cigarettes with their first puffs.
• I didn’t have a drink in my hand when a girl ran outside AS SHE PROJECTILE VOMITED everywhere and then disappeared. I actually when around the side of the building to help the poor thing so that she didn’t get lost.
• I didn’t have a drink in my hand when everyone poured outside at the end of the party to listen to the Rugbymen sing, proudly and drunkenly, Basque songs. And all I could think was, “Well, Mr. Zailian, I’m immersed in French culture.”
• I didn’t have a drink in my hand on the drive home, when Baptiste hiccoughed up a STORM and elicited silly comments from our chauffeur, Remy’s dad.

 

This was the first one of these high school parties at which I didn’t want to shoot myself. I actually had quite a nice time. It was very different than American parties—for the first hour I kept glancing at the door because I was convinced the police were about to bust in. And then I remembered I wasn’t in Mill Valley anymore.