Page 34 of Rootbound
“That’s not even—how am I supposed to pick?” Henry complains.
“Five seconds!!!” Grady shouts.
“They serve completely different purposes—”
“DRINK!!” Grady roars.
Henry throws me a wink, one I am very unprepared for—my hand actually clutches my chest before I cover it with a feigned scratch. Then he takes a long drag from his cocktail glass, licking his lower lip to catch an errant drop.
“See? Fun, right?!” Grady laughs at my expression, oblivious, but proceeds to line up fresh beers, and fills up three shot glasses with tequila… Good Lord.
“Also, terrifying,” I add. But the competitor in me doesn’t want to turn down the challenge. “‘Yes or no’ seems straightforward, but what’s ‘vote’?”
“If you draw a vote card,” Henry says, “you need to read it out loud, and immediately after say ‘shot’ or ‘vote.’ So, either take a shot yourself, or risk voting for someone at the table to do whatever is written on the card. If you—the person who drew the card—end up losing the vote, by everyone votingforyou, you have to finish everyone’s drink at the table,anddo the dare. If someone gets voted for and does the dare, everyone else drinks. Keep in mind that Grady wrote these when he was a teenager.”
“When I was in love with you, apparently didn’t care about our extremely distant shared lineage, and tried to invent ways to make you kiss me and change your entire sexuality. See?” He hands me the cards he retrieved from a cupboard in Henry’s bar area. “I made copies and laminated them for all the regulars.”
“As we’ve gotten older and wiser, we usually just take the shot,” Henry offers, trying to comfort me as I look over the cards.
“‘Kiss the person to your left,’ ‘streak around the house three times,’ ‘send a dick pic to someone at the table’?! You play this with your family members?!” I laugh, horrified.
“We have varying versions, okay?” Grady explains. “Note that the kiss doesn’t say where or with tongue or anything, and most are up for interpretation if you’re smart.” He taps his temple. “I once sent Grandma a picture of Dick Cheney when I pulledthatcard. This version at Henry’s place is admittedly the nastier, less family-friendly one because he never plays. The one we keep in the bunkhouse is by far the worst, though.” He beams with pride.
I look across the table at Henry again who gives me a challenging, single brow lift. So much communication from that face, with so few words.
“Let’s play,” I say.
“I’ll go first,” he replies, without breaking eye contact.
He draws and seems to exhale when he reads the card. “This or that. Tait. California or Idaho?”
It’s not as easy as I make it sound, but I quickly respond. “California, duh.”
“BOOOOOO!!!!” they both shout at me simultaneously. “DRINK!” Again, in unison.
“What?! I answered in less than five seconds!” I slam my fist down on the table before I can rein myself in, indignant.
“Oh, did we forget that part? If we don’t like your questionoryour answer, you have to drink. So, don’t hold back.” Henry tosses his head back and laughs, his hand in the middle of his ribs, delighted at my display.
Uh-oh.
Eighteen
Tait
It’s obvious within twenty minutes that the parameters for this game are constantly evolving and are not meant to be confined, or therefore limited by being inebriated. Apparently, the game is also dependent on how seriously the players take the questions. Henry pulled a ‘yes or no’ and asked Grady “Harrison Ford, yes or no?” Which put Grady into a panic. “That depends, are we talking Indiana Jones, Han Solo, or old Harrison like the one where the one-armed man kills his wife?”
“YES OR NO?!” we both shouted at him until he drank. Then he stated, “Who am I kidding? Yes to all.”
I attempted to challenge when Henry asked me if I’d rather have no arms or no legs, because, really? But my challenge was squashed. We’ve only come across two ‘vote’ cards so far, the first of which Grady decided to put to a vote, a gamble that ultimately paid off formewhen they both pointed at me. I had to sing the opening line toI Will AlwaysLove Youby Whitney Houston at the top of my lungs. It wasn’t news to me that I am a horrible singer. They both drank.
Henry pulled the second vote card, and we earned one vote each. Grady declared that this meant we all had to do the dare.
“‘Share your most embarrassing story,’” Henry reads, but his jaw immediately tightens, all traces of humor lost.
“Ehhh, maybe we don’t all have to do that one, actually,” Grady says.
“What?! Uh, yeah, we most certainly do,” I argue. But then I take in the truly miserable look on Henry’s face and decide to try and recover. “Since it’s split three ways, it’s diluted. Just share a top three level embarrassing tale. I’ll go first.”