the beginning of my novel for november

the last time i went to merchants was with jake. we had gone to a roller derby, oakland against san francsico, and i was driving but i dont remember much about that. what i remember is his friend sam completely wasted on jim beam in my back seat, changing his clothes and putting on different t-shirts from a huge sack he was carrying. jake later told me that sam was squatting somewhere off fillmore, was an alcoholic, but one of the best artists he had ever met and i felt bad for weeks after. we dropped him off on the corner of webster at 4am, and i had thought, he, like us, was going home, to a warm bed, maybe a blunt or piece of toast in bed, and sleep. but no, he camped out on the grass and woke up, hung over and unwashed under a brilliant morning, blue sky and trees, changed his pants and socks and made it to work on time. as if the entire evening, the sleep hardly slept, had never happened at all.
merchants was packed with roller girls, still in their derby costumes, striped shirts and tight shorts, fishnets and glitter. skates tucked into messenger bags and hoodies with devil patches and suicide girls safety pinned on. the drink is always pabst among this crowd, followed by whiskey and parliaments and those three things will forever shape my twenties, backs of bars, cold nights where the smoke stays in your hair, whiskey in cups by the bed when you wake up, lips pressed tightly, boys faces mixes into smells and nights, months, bed patterns but never names. fingerless gloved hands smoking and touching and covering laughter mouths in burgundy corners, placed gently on backsides, and shoved into tight jeans to keep cool, to keep warm. it was a rowdy night, two dollar tecates in plastic cups and heat forming on the walls of the ice rink so that it trickled down like sweat. tightly packed arena and none of us caring what were yelling for, not even cheering for one team, but glad to be yelling, rowdy, red faced and wild, a night for fights, to make love, to slap old friends on the back, to buy them a beer with your last five bucks, because were young and in love, were invincible, screaming next to old men and young girls with lip liner. were fighting our way through crowds, watching girls on skates slam each other into the white walls, helmets against cement against shin guards and were all just watching and waiting and about to burst.
sam was a referee for the derby, a job he heard about on craigslist that would pay him 100 bucks for the night and all the beer he wanted, plus he got a volunteer shirt which he wore for a week straight afterward, some baby blue cotton against his broad smile and heavy brows (later this shirt shows up in my laundry basket, months after jake has left me again, i find the shirt and it still smells of that night, faintly of boy, and somewhere underneath it all happiness, our youth). jake and i find ourselves pinned up against the plastiglass, banging on walls and egging sam on “blow the whistle! foul! oh that bitch fucking punched her! ahhh!” and for an hour and a half nothing matters except two dollar tecates, roller derby and looking at jake under those bright lights.