average raze take inventory before leaving the house. red_wine? check. black fedora? check. acoustic guitar in soft case? check. jaco pastorius? check. thick blanket of unease? check. check. check. call a cab. wait for the cab. get in the back. tell the driver where to go. the street is a greco-latin variation of the hebrew name "ezra", but he doesn't know that. pay the man. get out of the cab. inside this house are the people who were my best friends six months ago. now i have nothing in common with them. i don't even know why i'm here. that's a lie. i know why i'm here. i'm here because i keep hoping gord is going to drop this wasted asshole routine and the sweet stoner i fell in love with a little in high_school is going to hatch from the cracked shell of whatever he is now. i know it isn't going to happen, but i don't want to admit it, so i keep tapping that shell. tap. tap. tap. don't play the guitar. that's not what it's here for. these people don't deserve your music. it's a prop. you're a prop. you prop yourself up 'til someone kicks your legs out from under you, and down you go. land on a couch in the living room. stay there. lily's here. she's beautiful in a way that lets me know she'll never let me know her. she's always sketching in a moleskine book. no one gets to see what she draws. all the other guys here are loud. obnoxious. one-dimensional. they're nothing but noise. if i make myself the opposite of noise, maybe she'll notice me. don't say a thing. say it all night long. say it until you start to believe this silence is a language you've been speaking all your life. the wine's better than i thought it would be. i play "portrait of tracy" and "continuum" for gord. he says there's no way that's a bass making those sounds. he listens to "echoes" by pink floyd. i get josh to add cat_power to the playlist. he finds a cover of pavement's "we dance". he puts a small fistful of songs on a randomized loop and lets the loop play for hours. "we dance" comes around every now and then. i'm the only one listening to it. i'm the only one listening to anything. everyone else is talking and saying nothing. do you hear that? chan marshall's voice is something sad and strong and small that almost isn't there. her voice is who i am. everyone moves into one of the bedrooms to smoke a joint. i play "rondo alla turca" on a cheap keyboard and turn it into a tango. gord knows i don't smoke anymore. when it's my turn he passes the joint to the next person in line. lily looks at him and says, "what about the quiet guy?" "johnny?" she nods. he can't stop laughing. i'm a lot of things to him. quiet isn't one of them. look at that. it worked. back in the living room. lia's sitting next to me on the couch. her boyfriend bill is slumped in a chair on the other side of the room, getting sloppy drunk all by himself. the tv's on. "saturday night live". will ferrell. more nothing. "do you like him?" lia asks me. "i like babies," i say. "i like death." she knows what i'm trying to do. she keeps talking to me. i start talking back. we don't really say anything important, but it's enough. enough to make me feel like coming here wasn't a mistake. when it's time to call it a night, bill's so drunk he can't put his own shoes on. i get on my knees and try to help. he makes it impossible. he's doing it on purpose. lia does most of the work. she gets it done and helps him stand up. "i tried," i say. "with half my ass." she smirks at me. "you get an a for effort, and a d for delivery." "that averages out to either a b minus or a c plus. i can live with that." 210918 what's it to you? who go blather from