Part one of this tale chronicled the beginning of my older sister’s party in our basement–an event made memorable by Tom Reynold’s phony wiener: a tofu dog from our refrigerator. The wiener, obviously fake after the initial double-take, but with an unsettlingly flesh-like hue, scared me off and I retreated to my room with no intention of returning. However, an hour later, I was summoned back down by my sister’s demand that we play Beirut together.
I reluctantly descended into the great unknown. The whole scene was a haze of confusion, probably due to the–omg–marijuana pipe that three seniors were sharing in a corner. I spotted Tom Reynolds passed out on the couch, fake weinerection still exposed. I approached the Beirut table.
Please keep in mind that this was not only my first time playing a drinking game, but also the premiere of my high school drinking experience. I didn’t even know what beer tasted like and I watched with dread as my sister emptied two cans of Natural Light–mmmm!–into the cups.
More terrifying still were our opponents: the captain of the basketball team and his best friend, a pitcher on the baseball team. These guys spent their entire existence thinking about their balls and where to put them. Great.
So, the object of the game was to get the ping pong ball into the cups, as the team players on the other side of the table so deftly demonstrated by sinking their first four balls into cups. Yes, I thought. Let’s get this over with. I held my nose as I managed to gulp down the beers.
My sister shot and it bounced off a rim of a cup. I shot and watched the ball arc gracefully over the entire pyramid of cups. Back to the boys. They sunk another two. My sister looked at me in a frenzy. “We have to get at least one. We have to.”
But we didn’t. I didn’t even hit the rim. And as the ball landed in our last cup, there was an outburst of victory from the other side of the table. Both of them whooped and chest-bumped before starting a chant that soon rocked the basement: “Make Ed run! Make Ed Run! MAKE ED RUN! MAKE ED RUN!”
I turned to my sister, finding the whole situation incomprehensible: “Why does everybody want to make Ed run? What’s going on? Who’s Ed anyway?”
“What are you talking about?” she snapped. “We’re supposed to do a naked run now. Like a lap around the block. Because we didn’t get any of the cups. It’s a rule. I didn’t want to tell you during the game because I knew you’d flip out.”
Naked run?! I experienced a sensation of burning throughout my entire body. My head started spinning. So this is what dying feels like, I thought to myself.
“Fuck this!” my sister said to me. I’m sure my horror was apparent. She looked a little green herself. “I hosted this party for you people,” she announced. “I’m sorry, but that gets me out of my naked run. I won’t do it! And I won’t let my sister do it either!”
“BOO!” everyone screamed. But then our opponent, the baseball player, stepped forward, holding his hand up for silence: “Since the dawn of time, we have obeyed the laws of the Beirut table. And the naked lap has always been a part of that, carved in stone along with the rest of the rules [cheers]. However, there is a clause that if the REIGNING CHAMPIONS [cheers] decide on something comparable to the naked run, the losers may do that instead.”
“Okay. Fine,” my sister said, glaring at him. “Since you obviously have something in mind what do you want us to do?”
“You have to eat the fake dick,” he said, pointing to Tom, who was slumped over and as lifeless as ever on the couch. “Not the whole thing. You’re just gonna like, circumcise it.”
There was a burst of laughter, followed by applause. The tribe approved.
At the time, I thought we’d struck gold. Rather than expose myself to a group of people I was generally awed and terrified of, all I had to do was nibble a piece of tofu.
“On your knees ladies!”
My sister and I both sunk to the ground in front of passed-out Jake and his prosthetic peen. My sister turned to me. I could see she was concerned.
“Whatever,” I shrugged. I was just elated that no one was going to find out about the birthmark on my right butt cheek.
At the time, I didn’t really grasp the full magnitude of degradation that was about to occur. Two sisters were about to take turns nibbling a guy’s fake weenie. Cameras were held at attention, ready to capture the moment forever, and maybe even make what was fake look like a real meaty affair. This was the stuff blackmail was made of.
Just as my sister leaned in, Tom Reynolds sat straight up. His eyes widened for a second. Then his head fell and he let out the most enormous burp I’ve ever heard, directly followed by a flood of vomit that splashed onto his lap. It was unlike anything I’d ever seen before. I felt as though I was watching the hand of God hose down the fiery pit of sin in our basement.
Cries of shock and amazement rang out from the spectators. My sister screamed and ran upstairs. I stood there, frozen, watching Tom’s ralphing session taper off; then I followed my sister’s lead and ran after her.
When I got upstairs, my sister was in the shower. I looked out my window and saw people pulling out of the driveway, drunk driving home. And that was the end of it. Saved by the belch.
Since narrowly escaping the bris of the tofu dog, I’ve sworn off the fake wieners for life. Let’s face it: ain’t nothing like the real thing, baby.
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