Chapter 39: The Party Anthem
Friday, October 30, 2015
Michael was in his studio. It was a Friday night. He was working on the beat for 'Life Is Beautiful', but his mind wasn't on it. The anxiety about his Ethereum investment, which had been hammering his head for weeks, made it difficult to concentrate.
His phone vibrated on the desk. The name "Jake" appeared on the screen. Michael sighed, relieved by the distraction. He answered.
"Mikey!" shouted Jake, his voice sounding like he was already partying. "Listen, you have to come! Massive party at the Kappa house! Halloween! It's gonna be legendary! See you there?"
Michael thought about it. Going out. Noise. People. It was exactly what he needed. "Sure, Jake. Pick me up in an hour?"
There was a pause on the other end. "That's the problem," Jake said, his voice lowering a bit. "I'm stranded. My car broke down. The starter died this afternoon. It's completely fried."
"Ah," said Michael. He felt a pang of disappointment. The night of escape was fading.
"But..." continued Jake, his tone turning hopeful. "You have your car, right? The ghost Corolla? Any chance you can drive us?"
Michael looked at his Corolla keys, which were on the desk. It was his escape tool, not a taxi. But what else was he going to do? Stay home staring at a price chart?
"Okay," Michael sighed. "I'll take you. Who are we picking up?"
"You're the best, brother!" shouted Jake. "Pick me up first, and then we have to pick up your nerd friends. Leo sent me a message."
Michael laughed. The merging of his two social worlds was getting weirder. "Alright. I'll pick everyone up. Give me forty minutes."
He hung up and stood up. He looked at himself in a mirror. He was wearing the same hoodie and jeans as always. 'I guess I'm going as a "tired student".'
An hour later, Michael's gray Corolla was ridiculously full.
Jake was in the passenger seat, controlling the music at a volume that was too high. In the back seat were Leo, Sam, and Nate, squeezed shoulder to shoulder. Sam was in the middle, complaining that Nate's elbow was crushing his ribs. Leo was looking out the window, already looking bored.
It was the first time the five of them were together in such a small space. The dynamic was strange, but funny. Jake tried to talk to Leo about sports, and Leo responded with a sarcasm so dry that Jake didn't even notice.
They arrived at the fraternity house. It was, in fact, legendary. The music could be heard from the corner, and there were people in costumes flooding the front lawn.
Michael parked three streets away, in the only spot he could find. They got out of the car. Sam was dressed as a dark anime character, Leo was wearing a V for Vendetta mask, and Nate simply had put on a black t-shirt that said "This is my costume". Jake was wearing a football jersey and said he was going as a "star athlete". Michael was still in his hoodie and glasses. He was going as a "Zombie".
As they walked toward the party, Jake patted Michael on the back.
"Thanks for the ride, Mike. I owe you one."
"No problem," said Michael. "Now let's go find that beer."
The time had come to turn off his brain.
They entered the house, decorated like a cheap horror movie, with fake cobwebs hanging from the ceiling and artificial smoke coming out the front door. The music was so loud you could feel the bass vibrating in your chest. The place was packed.
The group split up almost instantly.
Jake, in his natural element, shouted "Beer!" and headed straight for the kitchen. He disappeared into a sea of people dressed as superheroes and sexy nurses.
Michael looked around. The noise was overwhelming. Sam, Nate, and Leo looked incredibly uncomfortable, huddled near the door like a lost herd.
"This sucks," shouted Leo over the music.
"Follow me!" shouted Michael back. "Let's go get some air."
He guided them through the crowd, toward the backyard. As usual, it was quieter. They found a dark corner, away from the others.
"Okay, now we can start," said Leo, pulling a joint out of his pocket. Sam, Nate, and Leo passed the joint, their shoulders finally relaxing. It felt like their territory.
Michael stayed with them for a while, smoking weed and criticizing the costumes. But after about twenty minutes, the alcohol he had drunk in the car started to fade. He needed a drink.
"I'll be right back," he told Leo. "I'm gonna find Jake."
He went back inside. The house seemed even more chaotic. He found Jake in the kitchen, just as expected, dominating a beer pong table, shouting and laughing, drinking a lot of beer.
"Mikey!" shouted Jake. "Grab a cup, brother! We're destroying them!"
Michael joined in. He played a game. Then another. He drank the watery fraternity beer. The buzz returned. He was relaxing.
While he played, he felt a gaze. A girl dressed as a vampire, on the other side of the kitchen, was watching him. Their eyes met. She smiled. Michael smiled back.
An hour later, Michael was in an empty room upstairs. The encounter was quick, intense, and no strings attached, a physical escape from the noise. The girl, whose name he didn't even ask, left first, returning to the party.
He stood there for a minute, alone in the dark, fixing his clothes. He had gotten what he was looking for. Sex, like alcohol, was another way to turn off his brain.
He felt good, relaxed, his mind finally silent. He left the room and went down the stairs, ready to return to the party.
The combination of the beer, the weed in the backyard, and the physical connection in the room upstairs had worked. The noise in his head, the constant anxiety about Ethereum and the house sale, had dissolved.
Now he was in the party vibe.
He went back to the main living room. It was less crowded now, past midnight. He saw Jake, who was still by the beer pong table, telling an exaggerated story to a group of girls.
Michael went to the kitchen to get another beer. While he was there, leaning on the counter, the party DJ, a frat guy with a laptop, changed the song.
Suddenly, the unmistakable watery beat and synth melody of 'White Iverson' filled the room at a thunderous volume.
Michael froze, beer halfway to his mouth.
"HEY!" someone shouted from the living room. "IT'S THAT SONG!"
"DUDE, IT'S THE 'NEWWAVEFINDS' GUY!" shouted another.
And then, someone saw him. The same guy who had been at the beer pong table. He pointed at Michael.
"IT'S HIM! IT'S THAT GUY! IT'S MICHAEL DEMIURGE!"
In a second, every eye at the party turned to Michael. The "Zombie" kid from high school, the "Glasses Boy", the guy who had just beaten them at beer pong. Suddenly, they saw him differently.
They recognized him as the singer of 'White Iverson'.
The rumor spread like wildfire through the house. People started coming out of the backyard to see what was happening. Leo, Sam, and Nate appeared at the kitchen door, eyes wide, watching their friend become the center of attention.
"SING!" someone shouted.
The request was chanted instantly. "SING! SING! SING!"
The DJ, excited to have a local celebrity at his party, grabbed the microphone he was using to make stupid announcements and held it out to Michael.
"Dude, you have to do it!" shouted the DJ.
Michael looked at the crowd. Dozens of phones had been raised, all pointing at him, the little recording lights shining. He saw Jake, giving two thumbs up, with a smile of pride on his drunken face. He saw Leo, Sam, and Nate in the doorway, watching him with a mix of awe and amusement.
Michael felt a rush of adrenaline. He wasn't the quiet kid in the corner anymore. He was the artist.
"Hell, why not?" he said, his voice sounding calm amidst the chaos.
He took the microphone. The song started again from the beginning on the DJ's order. Michael closed his eyes for a second, listening to his own beat. And then, he sang.
'Double OT... I'm a new three...'
He started singing with his song in the background. His voice, clear and confident thanks to the microphone, cut through the noise of the party.
'Saucin', saucin', I'm saucin' on you...'
The crowd exploded. They were watching a private concert. Michael moved with the rhythm, no longer the shy kid. He was the artist.
'I'm ballin', I'm ballin', Iverson on you...'
He walked through the kitchen, singing to the people, who shouted the lyrics back at him.
It was chaotic. It was improvised. And it was absolutely electric.
For two and a half minutes, Michael Demiurge owned that party.
Saturday, October 31, 2015
Michael woke up in his own bed. He had a terrible hangover. His head was spinning and he tasted the stale flavor of cheap beer in his mouth. He had gotten home sometime in the early hours of the morning and crashed.
He reached for the nightstand, fumbling for his phone. He grabbed it and opened his eyes, the light from the screen feeling like a knife.
Immediately, he saw that something was wrong. His phone was having a crisis. It was flooded.
His Snapchat and Instagram accounts had exploded. It wasn't the usual hundred or two hundred notifications. It was thousands. His Instagram account, which had been growing slowly, had made a massive jump, gaining around 15k followers overnight. His Snapchat was full of hundreds of friend requests from strangers.
On Twitter, where the link was easier to share, the situation was similar, with an increase of 5k followers.
"What the fuck happened?" he muttered, his voice a croak.
He opened Twitter. His feed was full of mentions. It took him a minute to understand.
He was tagged in dozens of videos. They were all from last night's party.
He opened the most popular one. The quality was horrible, recorded vertically with a phone that wouldn't stop moving. The audio was completely distorted, the bass saturating the microphone.
But there he was. In the center of the fraternity kitchen, in his hoodie, singing 'White Iverson' while the crowd around him screamed the lyrics.
The tweet above the video read: "Michael Demiurge played a house party last night and it was insane."
There was even a video on YouTube. Someone had compiled all the Snapchat and Instagram clips and stitched them together. The title was: "MICHAEL DEMIURGE SINGS 'WHITE IVERSON' LIVE AT FRAT PARTY (RARE)".
The video, uploaded just six hours ago, already had 100,000 views and rising.
He rubbed his face, feeling a mix of amusement and dread. The "Glasses Boy" from high school, the "Zombie" who slept in class, had just had his first "live" gig. And, apparently, it had been a massive success.