Curtain

The fog creeping in around Brandy Lynn's cute corner loft apartment made the christmas lights she hung around her porch banister glowed out into the darkness. It reminded Tommy-Boy of when he was younger and used to open his eyes too much in the public pool during the summer; every light had a pulsing ring around it. He took the last puff on his smoke and threw it towards pavement as he braved Brandy Lynn's steps. Everyone was already there, and Tommy-Boy could already see the tanlged lovers "Kennifer" snuggled up on Brandy Lynn's old couch that never made it to the curbside. Natalya Gage was sitting on the stairs on her cell phone with her usual mysterious smile to Tommy-Boy as he climbed past her. The door was closed but you could hear the muffled sound of chatter and music and laughter. Tommy-Boy reached for the door knob but the door was swung open by a tittering Brandy-Lynn and she almost walked right into Tommy-Boy as she stepped out for a smoke.
"Tommy-Boy! oh my gosh I'm so sorry did I burn you?" Her face held a genuine look of distraught until Tommy-Boy smiled and shrugged, checking his shirt and quickly covering a burn mark with his jacket. Her classic goofy grin returned and she threw her arms around him just like she did with everyone: with a sort of unconditional love and joy that Tommy-Boy hardly saw in this world anymore.
"Everyone's inside, there's some Killian's in the fridge, and I think the boys broke into the hard stuff already." She said as she relight her cigarette and turned her attention to Natalya. Tommy-Boy stepped into the apartment to find it moderately smoky and full of people. There was jubilant-Jaime sitting on the couch passing a Hukah pipe and listening intently as two guys argued over some director Tommy-Boy had never heard of. Mr. Samson was in the kitchen making martinis wearing a pair of some girl's bug-eyed sunglasses and a tie to match his girl jeans and and incredibly old vans. Brandy-Lynn's dog Apollo the brindle pitbull scardy-cat crawled out from under a desk to sniff at Tommy-Boy's shoes and to lick his hand. Once satisfied he returned back to his den of safety. Brockman the Badass was yelling and hopping around as some girl, probably the owner of the bug glasses, chugged beer out of a beer bong. Danny the Man came in behind Tommy-Boy and the two yelled over the music when they saw eachother.
"Hey man, how's the pizza business?" Tommy-Boy grinned as he shook Danny the Man's hand.
"It sucks you should come back!" Tommy-Boy laughed at this and they both headed towards the kitchen to join Mr. Samson.


***



There in the middle of Natalya Gage's clothes-strewn-chaotic-mess of a bedroom laid the famous bottle of Mexican Tequila. It's deadly Amber liquid glittered tauntingly from the light coming through the thin threads of an old-blanket-turned-shawl that covered Natalya's window. Brandy Lynn, Mr. Samson, and Natalya Gage stared at it in silence, a look of fear from Brandy Lynn, a chisled smile from Mr. Samson, and a distracting look from Natalya Gage as she continued to pick out a nail polish for her appearance at the new indie film theater opening up later that night. There was some catchy questionably gendered voice crooning to a domineering piano beat out her old stereo and Brandy Lynn couldn't help but tap along as Mr. Samson puffed his cigarette with intensity, carefully dolling out the amber liquid like doses of medicine. Brandy quickly grabbed her chaser and silently took deep breaths as her heart raced and her stomach plummeted at the thought of the toxic fire touching her tongue.
" Are we gonna drink or we gonna stare at this shit all day?" Mr. Samson said quietly, almost serious, making Brandy Lynn giggle and Natalya Gage roll her eyes into her mirror as she methodically plumped each eyelash until they gushed out unto her cheeks.
"Go ahead, I invited you over to get rid of it. I'm not a fan of cheap shit, but Brandy's a light weight and a little deserving of some horrible punishment." Natalya grinned and winked at Brandy Lynn and she smiled back sheepishly. Mr. Samson wolfed his down without hesitation and Brandy Lynn lifted her glass to follow suit. She threw the shot into her mouth and struggled to fight it down her throat as the fiery burn choked the life out of her. She almost gagged as it went down and no sooner did she gasp for air then she was right to the bottle of soda that was her chaser and its sweet fizz washed away some of the burn. But it's rage would trickle down into her stomach, making it ache. Brandy Lynn lit a cigarette quickly as Mr. Samson cheered at her and poured them some more.