Hunting Lost Causes

Fuck. Fuckity fuck fuck. I’m on my hands and knees, throwing dirty jeans and grey socks over my back, stopping only to paw at every sweater pocket I come across. Goddamn son of a bitch. I sit back on my heels, sigh and smack my thighs; it’s a lost cause and I know it. What is this, number fucking thirteen? This one cost me a fortune too; camera, mp3s and flat as a credit card. The first one, at least, had been just black and white.

****

We were on a mission and as wild as supervised, suburban fourteen-year-olds could want to be. No sprints, no push ups, no defensive drills; just dead balloons, yellow sunglasses and four and a half oranges. There I was, scavenging with the basketball girls, and my mom had let me borrow her cell phone. Jesus, was I ever freakin’ cool. I called the dollar store, touched base with the other girls and wouldn’t let the phone out of my hand. Coach wanted to find out where the rest of the team was? I was on it. We needed a twist tie? I’d call dad! I was in the zone and ready for anything.

Suddenly, a need to make dinner plans arose and my hand shot into my pocket, already imagining the smooth flick with which I would open my cellular device and the resulting marvel of my team mates. My hand hit cloth, and I panicked, scrambling to grasp at both empty pockets three or four times before I even got that the phone wasn’t there. Nor was it on the seat, on the floor, or in the snow bank under the back tire. Oh God. That piece of luxury had been entrusted to me by my very own mother and it was gone. I was going to be in a whole lot of shit.

I still remember the lecture I got once I dragged my feet through the front door, up one side and down the other, until my “lack of responsibility” sunk into my “thick skull.” She then shoved me into the car to take me wading through ankle-high snow at each one of the seventeen different locations me and my team mates had gone scavenging. It wasn’t anywhere to be found, of course, and I spent the next two weeks staring at the ceiling in my room, knowing I would never lose a phone again.

****

I get back to my feet and shuffle towards the bedroom door, kicking at my backpack one last time in a vain hope to see the little black thing come tumbling out of its pouches. Fuuuck; nothing. I’ve done this so many times now that I know the drill by heart. I lean into the hallway and ask loudly to borrow a phone from someone; I’ve got to make sure the local shop has my model – their cheapest – in stock so I can pick it up ASAP. Once I get it, I’ll call Mom and tell her I’ve been busy for the last couple of days.

Research

“Umm… What is a drinking game. Jeez, that’s a hard question. It’s where you play a game and, say, if you get something wrong you have to drink. And it’s kind of a social thing where everyone gets together and it makes it more interesting, I guess.”

“I probably have a lot more funny things to say when I’ve been drinking, ’cause now I’m sober.”

“A way to pass time while – well, it’s like a catalyst, enhancing the speed at which you consume liquids in good company.”

“They’re a lot of fun if people are not used to each other or it seems a little awkward. It’s something else to focus on, as opposed to staring awkwardly, sitting in a circle, slowly sipping on your drink.”

“Awkward situations: that’s the best time to drink. You walk in, you don’t know anyone, so you start one and suddenly you make friends. Woo!”

“I hate people. Which is why I dislike drinking games; I don’t like team things, group things. But I guess every once in a while if I’m with a group of people and I like them ... but I think they mostly happen ’cause you’re with people you don’t know and you don’t really want to talk to them, but you want to get drunk with them and then people get drunk and are like ‘you’re my best friend, this is awesome.’”

“Drinking and fun go hand in hand.”

“It’s also like stepping it up a notch. Like when we did [Egg]Nog-Pong; it wasn’t necessary but you know it was awesome.”

“Oh I really like Waterfall. Sociables. It’s got a load of different names, I think it’s pretty well known ’cause you get to watch other people do stupid shit. You have a bunch of different rules and you can be totally strategic. Like ‘Whenever Roxanne takes a drink, Abbey takes two!’ and shit.”

“You learn a lot; mostly super-weird secrets about people. Like, it only gets fun when you start asking awkward questions.”

“I like Three Man, ’cause it’s simple. Nobody has to pretend they’re mooses or anything, like Sociables. I don’t know why: ‘Do an accent, ladies drink or guys drink!’ I just don’t really like them in general, but if they’re simple I don’t have to do anything stupid.”

“How much do you love Flip Cup? And Beer Pong! I like the team thing. Those things are extra fun.”

“’Cause you get to do something physical. It’s like ping pong, and ping pong is played officially, in the Olympics. So, really, it’s like I’m drinking beer for the Olympics.”

“What else would I do, sit outside and have a smoke by myself? …I guess so. Well why don’t we play monopoly and I’ll just drink and we can call it a drinking game. I think every game is meant to be drunk with; everybody gets their competitive side out and then we find out who the competitive asshole is.”

“I play ‘cause I don’t like the taste of alcohol.”

“I think a lot of them are hype things. Apparently a lot of people play them ’cause it’s like ‘yah! Let’s drink, let’s do something stupid, let’s go out and drink!’ You wouldn’t necessarily if you’re with a couple of friends with a glass of wine. But I think it’s a hype thing mostly.”

“There’s a lot more peer pressure, so you get a lot more drunk.”

“By the time you get to the end of the game, you’re pretty messed. They usually end in somebody being ill or something like that. Then usually it’s like well “my friend” did this but, you know.”

“One time, my friend got naked and pole danced for us.”

“I’ll never do that ever again.”

“They’re not for kids or injured people. Ridiculously messed up? Once, this buddy face planted while trying to do the worm. He laid there on his face, moaning.”

“It’s fun, but it’s probably not very appropriate.”

“No, dude, definitely no. I’ve seen way too many games gone bad. Shit always hits the fan, things go down, people start crying. Do I not condone it? … I like seeing people cry.”

“I don’t see why they’re bad, it’s a social thing. It’s also sexual.”

“I never really liked it ’cause, ah… it was all about getting drunk, but I guess that’s the point, so I don’t really know what to say. I’m just a cynical bitch. I can admit that.”

“…yeah I like drinking games. It’s big, it’s universal – ’cept for people who don’t drink.”

“Well, exactly.”

Little Details

“I think it looks like a penis.”

“Really? I was thinking rocket ship.”

“No, definitely penis.”

Thirteen minutes of staring at the thing, and this was all we had managed to conclude. Not why it was there, what purpose it might serve, or who the hell had erected it. I took a sip of my coffee, handed it off to the roommate I’d dragged out for research purposes and straddled the cement construction.

“How ‘bout now?” I said, reaching over the top to get fingers under the edges of its cap. “Think I could ride it to the moon?”

“Your kind of ‘ride to the moon’?” she asked, swirling my coffee and smirking. “Definitely wouldn’t be the rocket ship.”

It had taken two and a half years for me to stop and examine the greyish lump I’d passed on my way to and from class – alright, fine, it’s hard for a gutter-brained girl not to notice a vaguely phallic statue side-lining her daily bike route, but this was the first time I’d gone out of my way to look.

“Man, I didn’t even know this thing was here,” she said, handing the coffee back as I slipped off of what could have been a wing or ball – depending – and took a step onto the patch of dust around it. We were smack-dab in the middle of campus, buildings in four directions and five steps from a coffee shop, examining a three-foot-high, concrete block. No wonder it got about as much attention as the gumball under the fridge.

We split up the structure; she looking for plaques on the flat, triangular outcrops, me kicking at the dust around the base, knocking over a metal box that revealed nothing but a ground tap. So I tried another method of inspection, leaned in – nose to the cement – and took a whiff.

“Maybe it’s a fire-hydrant. Like, for dogs or first-years.”

“What kind of fire-hydrant has wings?”

“Naw, you’re right,” I said, clambering back on top of the statue, thinking maybe I’d find an answer from atop the cap. From my square-foot perch I instead discovered that not only did it still look like a penis from above, but affirmed that it was about as useful as a seven-year-old’s Saturday afternoon Lego tower. The sloped cement pieces jutting out from each side could not possibly be sat on, be stepped on, hold coffee mugs or grow flowers. Not that the surface which I was standing on was good for much else, either.

I finished the dregs of my cold coffee and turned to further examine the surroundings of the cement lump. It was thrusting out from a tiny dirt patch set between a paved square and a field, home to two sixty-foot totem poles, complete with plaques and recognition.

“You know, it’s gotta be a penis. Like, a faculty joke.”

“So you’re, uh, coming to a conclusion, eh?”

“Ha-ha; funny joke,” I said, chucking my empty coffee mug at her. “But seriously, dude. What the fucking else would it be?”

I tried to ask a few questions later, maybe get a few answers, but nobody knew what I was even talking about. I campaigned the square around the statue, interrogating bewildered students – most of whom could hardly find it when I pointed to it with my notebook – and a few of the nearby coffee-shop staff.

“Oh, that grey-thingy? Yeah, that’s been there for a while, I guess,” offered one such employee, holding a stack of coffee filters. “So d’you want the African or Light Roast?”

I ended up camped out on top of the thing, waiting for a member of the grounds crew to come by and eating rice crackers until I saw one raking leaves between the totem poles. I ran up to him, introducing myself with cheese dust fingers, and asked him if he could tell me what exactly the statue was.

“I’m not actually sure,” he said slowly. “Why don’t you check the library?”

But even the librarians failed me. Cocking eyebrows and pointing me in the direction of university databases, not one of them knew about the little structure on the other side of the grounds. I found not a picture, article nor a mention of a small, concrete rocket ship anywhere on campus.

“It’s a bit too odd-shaped for a penis, anyways,” my roommate said, tilting her head to the side and eyeing the concrete chunk I was still on top of. “There is way too much ball for that length. Completely disproportionate.”