Page 64 of The Parent Trap
A sigh. “Fine. So, the first one was my sophomore year at Yale. Me and a handful of guys from my fraternity went to Daytona Beach for spring break. It was…god, wild isn’t even the right word. We were out of control. Drunk from the time we woke up to when we passed out. Chasing girls, acting like privileged white douchebags. But…it was a hell of a lot of fun, and it was all mostly harmless drunk shenanigans. The story in question begins at a beachside bar.”
“Where else?”
“Obviously. So, we’ve been wasted since, like, ten in the morning. It’s been a very full day of beach volleyball, doing shots off the bellies of nubile young women, and general ill-advised carousing. It’s well past midnight. We should be in the hospital for alcohol poisoning, but yet there we are, eight young men who haven’t worn a shirt or been sober in over a week, and, um…someone in our group, not going to name names, decided there should be a wet T-shirt contest.”
“It was you,” I guess.
He snorts. “It was me.” He waves a hand. “I mean, you’d have to have been there. But it was a fantastic idea. There was this whole huge group of hot girls from another college sorority, all wearing bikinis and white T-shirts. Like, literally you could not ask for a better opportunity. And, they were just drunk enough to not just agree, but to think it was a freaking amazing idea. Basically, I’m theman. I get the whole thing going. The band is in on it, the manager is comping shots because the whole crazy hullaballoo is bringing the crowd. Shit is wild. But then. Ohhhh, but then. My buddy Spike decides it would be even better if we took the whole party down to the beach. By this point, the whole thing is out of control. The manager is like no, no, no you can’t—but who listens to managers, right? It’s a stampede, like a literal riot. People are grabbing bottles from the bar, someone shows up with a freaking keg, the band cranks their amps up to fuckin’ eleven, and suddenly there’s this impromptu bash on the beach, with naked women and booze everywhere.”
“And there’s only you to blame.”
“I mean, sure. You could say that, since it was my idea. But shit, that kind of thing happens all the time in spring break towns. They let it slide, for the most part, as long as it’s not too rowdy. Well…this shit got rowdy.” He laughs, rubs the back of his neck. “So, there I am, feeling like the king of the beach. I’m literally wearing a crown—one of my buddies gave me a crown from Burger King. There’s at least half a dozen topless girls around me, like my court of debauchery. I have a bottle of Patrón in my hand, and life couldn’t get any better.”
“Until the cops show up?”
“On their four-wheelers and beach pickups. As the king of the beach, I obviously get arrested first, which is clearly my duty to my people.” He shakes his head. “Of course, my incarceration, and the charges, are conveniently dropped when the captain gets a call from a local congressman recommending that I be let go.”
“Ah, the privileges of extreme wealth.”
He shrugs. “Too true.”
“So, the nuisance call?”
He sighs. “That one’s…kind of embarrassing.”
“Do tell.”
“I’d just graduated from Yale. I was bored, between girlfriends, and I’d just spent weeks cramming for my finals. So I figured a little shindig was in order. Just me and a few friends, nothing too crazy.”
“Famous last words—nothing too crazy.”
“It wasn’t my fault. Honestly, it wasn’t. I invited a handful of friends to hang out and drink scotch. I’d envisioned it as this snobby, sophisticatedsoirée. Scotch and cigars and the highbrow conversation ofYale graduates.” He laughs, a self-deprecating sound.
“Let me guess, your friends brought friends.”
“Got it in one. In fact, the troublemakers were friends of friends of friends, or something. These brainless yahoos show up, slam my fifty-year Balvenie like it’s fuckin’ Jack Daniels and start breaking things.”
“Barbarians.”
“Right? Like, have you no manners, you uncouth Philistines? Clearly not. They’re out of control. I try in vain to rein them in, but once the booze has taken control, there’s no reining it in.”
“Never. The genie doesn’t go back in the bottle.”
“So a neighbor calls in a nuisance complaint. I figure, I’ll talk them down, kick the offending savages out of my place, everything will be fine.”
“It’s not fine?”
“I open the door with my winningest smile on my face. Ready to smarm and charm the pants off those poor, unsuspecting officers.”
“They won’t know what hit ’em, is the idea?”
He winks at me and clicks his tongue, shoots me a finger gun. “You know me too well, my dear.”
“They won’t be smarmed?”
He snorts. “So, it turns out that the responding officer is a woman.”
“Oh boy.”