"Good gig", said the drummer, "we’ve got lucky to find a lead guitarist to jam with us - say, what room are you staying? Oh, we haven’t been introduced, right? Whassyername? "Tom", he sputtered almost silently, putting his guitar into the case. Apparently heard over the din, the tall and seemingly propitious drummer put a hand on Tom’s left shoulder and carried on with the socializing ordinance. "I’m Kenneth, but you can call me Ham.  heh, don’t ask me why; ask the girls, haha"

Tom looked at Ham with a faint smile on his face, and then gazed upon the concourse of people that he knew that he didn’t belong with. As jocular as they were, all of them taller than his dainty countenance - not to mention stronger, but that’s a redundance if I may say so. A fish out of water. And there was the pool.

"Let’s have ourselves sum’n to drink, Tommy", said Ham as they made their elbowroom towards the bar. Oh, but there was more than just the punch. Beer, whiskey, vodka, all in handy for personal consumption and communal muss. They were jumping at the pool. Girls were stripping to their tight bikinis. Tom didn’t want anything to do with it. Joy.

Hark’s Island was a place where the affluent used to spend their summer vacations, until the powers that be decided to make it a condo with its own university and the youngsters lived their self-complaisant lives in their own little apartments on a colonial themed building, which was joined to the school. Sometimes, said young people were sent there to straighten up their topsy turvy lives, but that wasn’t quite the case. The ferry would take them to the city where they’d purchase their mirthful implements and then they would come back to raise some hell. Tom was there due to parental prerogatives given the sullen ways he was going through back in the city. Why wasn’t he happy? Why didn’t he have friends? Maybe in such an outgoing environment he could cheer up, right?

"Wow, you can play really good", rosey cheeked and light blonde haired girl approached Tom while he grabbled through his alligator bomber jacket for his pack of Kools and his lighter. "Thank you", he answered while putting the cigarette on his mouth and then lighting it up. With a deep draw, he then turned his face away to blow off the smoke. Inferring that they would get themselves acquainted, he presented himself first: "I’m Tom. You?"  "I’m Patricia. Why won’t you join us there?" she said, pointing out to a group of very statuesque girls whereupon he noticed that one of them kept beaming at him. She was different. She was thin, with equally haggard lips and somewhat big blue eyes and dirty blonde hair. In her purple gown, she seemed alluring as she gawked at Tom, and Tom himself couldn’t keep his eyesight from anywhere else.

"It’s not worth it", thought Tom, and he picked up his case, looked at Patricia and with yet another faltering smile and said "Maybe some other time", and carried on to his room.

Showering. Cold water jolting over his body, the numb feeling preventing him to twitter; there he stayed, still. A bit further, a bottle of  Knob Creek in the wet tile floor, where he reached to take a swig every now and then. Finally, he was clean. He took the bottle and dried himself up with the towel, with mild torpor taking up his body. Putting on his boxers, remembering the grey skies of the city and wishing he was dead.

Oh well, let’s have some more of that pill case. It was the nonpareil way to give him back the car horns, the vitiated air, the sky-high buildings obscuring the view of those grey skies. And he’d rather have it that way. He looked at the table watch and it was three forty. Better go for some valia.