Birthday Beatings

Nuts!

That's how I felt for that all important one second, and that's where I kicked him.

Talking to the police the next morning is a great opportunity to make everything that happened when a crescent moon was out seem absolutely stupid.

I couldn't even look the detectives in the eye when I half mumbled, half pleaded, wholly lied:

-they were…like… dares that just got out of hand. And then Ted was on the roof.

I came to this party with the greatest of intentions. No wait, check that, I'm not shouldering the entire blame, that's not fair or accurate.

We all came to the party with the most basic and obvious of intentions. To drink and talk and probably eat some pretty good shrimp and a variety of desserts because while it wasn't exactly pot-luck, something like 25% of attendees had taken a shine to this sort of quick, communal baking app where everyone decides on a time and they all bake together in their own kitchens and broadcast the whole thing amongst all those taking part.

I just came because I knew Ted for a couple of years when we worked at the same advertising firm, and we both liked the local sports teams. Enough that we'd get some double-dates together with my fiancée at the time, and his girlfriend Greta, who clearly worked her ass off for this party.

She reserved this section of the park months in advance and surveyed and measured it like she was going to be building a ten story condo, not hosting a swinging shindig for her on again off again boyfriend (currently on, obviously).

Homemade patio lanterns made out of smaller than usual paint cans.

Ted-theme games, like a chance to restore dignity to a life size cardboard cut out of cartoonishly naked Ted by pining revealing garments of both sexes upon him. Or throwing bean-bags into a photograph of the man himself with a photoshopped mouth that's over thirty centimetres wide.

Greta's own food contribution were cupcakes of varying sizes (no idea where she gets the weird shaped pans), each one decorated differently for the twenty five different guests.

And only two last minute cancellations, which meant Larry and Leia's personalized desserts went to Percy and Rowlf, the cocker spaniel and Labrador retriever of Tessa and Henrik, respectively.

It wasn't long after cheering the dogs on that Will Buford (a guy who I didn't know at all except that his name sounded a lot like the English musician Bill Buford) walked up behind Ted and gave him a slightly more than playful punch in the shoulder.

Ted had been drinking a bit by this point, obviously, including several shots, so was a bit slow on the turn around and even the semi-accusatory question was heavily slurred.

-what was that for?

-birthday, Will shrugged, with the assumption that such an explanation was sufficient.

And it must have been, because no more than thirty seconds later as the conversation moved onto other random, forgettable things, Greta got in a healthy pinch on Ted's forearm, with a smirky smile tattooed to her face.

-hey. Come on.

-birthday, but more for Larry and Leia cancelling.

-that's my fault now?

-yeah, why are you beating Ted?

And there was laughter because drinks were being drank in an irresponsible sort of way and there might have been a joint or vape pen or both being passed around, so of course there would be laughter and everyone was bright and easy as the patio lanterns.

And it became the question over the next half hour as one in the morning rolled around:

-hey, why are you beating Ted?

And if Ted was currently smiling and not being bothered, then it was all the more reason to step on his foot, flick his ear, kick his shin, all the proper level of needling and hazing that should go with a birthday.

Ideas had been bubbling in my chemically addled brain since Greta made it a thing, and it didn't take long before I knew I had a sure-fire winner.

-hey, Ted!

I couldn't help but be louder than I intended. There was excitement radiating out of me.

And because my joy could not be contained, he turned - in full - with warm and pleasant acceptance, wishing to give back, so that's exactly when I raised my foot with newfound, somehow-less-tipsy-than-five-minutes-ago energy to present him with a simple kick between the legs.

A look of shock more than pain, but that was quickly replaced as Ted crumpled like a man getting kick in the balls, because that's it exactly what it was.

-that was for..., I began...

And my mind went blank, even as I could tell everyone around was hanging onto my very next word.

Silence, save for the odd moan of pain from Ted.

And then a chortle. And then a strong chuckle. And then the whole place lit up in gales of laughter.

We all came together, surrounding the birthday boy, suddenly looking at him with new and unforgiving eyes.

This was bigger than Ted. This was bigger than all of us. This was the wild spirit of the mighty eagle, having a complete mental breakdown in a suburban city park. I don't know who kicked next, but I know it was Tessa who spoke first (while also kicking).

-this is because my kid won't sleep through the night!

-this is because I can't rely on any of the idiots at work!

-this is because my Dad can’t remember my face anymore!

-this is because it doesn't matter if I live or die!

With more and more violent kicks, after each unfounded accusation, I tossed in another kick and complained about the increase in my property taxes. I'm pretty sure I gave his hand a terrible boot.

Then Greta came barreling forward with a lawn chair and threw it on top of him, one of the legs cutting him on the side of his head.

-this is because I had to settle!

And that one hung the air for just that split second and you could suddenly hear the snapping of firewood being split apart by the flames.

It seemed in line with the general assessments, and was probably a top tier capper, but suddenly Chuck and JJ were holding bats that were previously used for the makeshift mock-croquet game.

Now I didn't use the baseball bats, but I do admit to playing umpire and calling out 'strike one'' and 'strike two' as the first blows rained down.

A couple 'outs' later was when something finally cracked inside Ted - who had been remarkably quiet this whole time except for the moaning, which really wasn't doing much to endear him to us through all this - and something cracked inside all of us, and we all returned to our normal nine to five and probably later selves, with concern coming on strong. And ridiculous.

-I didn't hit him in the spine, did I? Chuck asked, I mean, I know I've had a few but thought I really made an effort to not fracture his vertebrae.

Greta went down to Ted offering a thousand apologies as he spat up blood, and when she implored someone to call 911 it actually took a couple seconds to realize that yes, while we should do that first, we should then quickly try to come up with a story. Well first we wanted to look over Ted to decide if a story was even necessary, and whether we could just tell the paramedics that he fell off the roof.

No dice. In fact, it was clear - once we dragged him under one of the homemade lanterns - that we really laid into his kidneys, which, unbeknownst to all of us, weren't one of Ted's greatest features at the moment. In fact, he'd been suffering from interstitial nephritis, which made them particularly susceptible to the baseballs bats.

But once he regained even half his composure Ted was a class act, and refused to file charges even after the police really started to grill us about the many holes in our 'falling off the roof' story (which we found ourselves stuck with when Henrik yelled that was what happened to the 911 responders) and I almost spilled the whole can of beans with a hard to understand, hangover-laden mumble about birthday beatings.

In a sense, the greatest gift was the one Ted gave to us (his silence), after we gave him one of the worst possible.

So it really hurt when he died from infections due to acute renal failure three weeks later. Greta was able to convince his family to have him cremated, to the lower the chances of us all 'doing an encore' on his corpse at the wake. She really does cover all the bases.

END