By Anthony Bernardi

I had been in hiding for weeks when I received a communique from James Dyer, opinion editor of the North Wind.

“No article,” the email read, “some people have been asking if you’re going to write again.”

The truth is I had barely left my fortified hideout for fear the fat cat would initiate Order 66, effectively scorching the United States of all hippy scum.

A few weeks before hunkering down in my stronghold, I had met a nice foreign exchange student hailing from the Netherlands. I’d had the idea of showing one of these backwards foreigners what America is all about for quite some time, and there was no better time than now.

Surely the Wall Street Death Squads would think twice about executing a crooked sot like myself in front of a foreign national.

We’d start our educational journey at the heart of freedom and the American way, a football game. I felt bad for the bilingual geek. His only exposure to the sport had been a rare telecast of the European Football League.

Better games have been played in stadium parking lots by forty-year-old-burger-bellied-goons who only take breaks in the action to vomit the alcoholic contents of their stomachs behind parked Oldsmobiles marking the sidelines.

I thought taking him to see raging brutes pummel each other would be a hit, but he hardly made a peep throughout the entire first half.

Perhaps he had been turned off by the vulgar ranting I had spewed at the visiting bench, or the inappropriate cooing I had let loose at the sight of the dance team, but this was a football game; a little immorality is to be expected.

Regardless of this unfathomable failure, I was even more determined to open his eyes. He had signed up to experience the most progressive nation on Earth, and I was going to give him his money’s worth.

Contemplating my options, I decided a taste of the night life would do the trick in easing him into our culture.
There’s nothing more American than being involved in a mob of young people, drunk from cheap beer and dancing like they had just been stung by a renegade swarm of Japanese hornets.

As soon as a cliché party song hits the airwaves, the dance floor instantly becomes a melting pot. Arms and legs flail in all directions, and hoarse voices sing along in a pitch that would undoubtedly break glass if the music were pounding at inhuman decibels. Acceptance is in the air.

“You want something to drink?” I asked him, “I’ll buy.”

“Okay, I’ll get some Rosé.”

I nearly fell over. I didn’t know whether he was joking or being completely serious, but after a painfully long break in conversation, it was clear he wasn’t kidding.

“They don’t have Rosé here,” I told him laughing between my words. “They have beer like PBR, Bud, Miller. Or you could get some liquor, whiskey, vodka, rum. But Rosé, are you nuts?”

“I only drink Rosé.”

I felt like a beaten man. Slinking off to the bar to suck down some liquid comfort, I left him to his own business and hoped he wouldn’t follow me. The decadent freak had crossed the line.

He would never know of America much less learn from it. He had effectively denied himself the education he had traveled so far to experience.

Swooning violently after raving to the barkeep about my failure of a story, I decided it was time to cut my losses and leave. Picking myself up from the stool, I caught a glimpse of my face in the mirror.

My severely inebriated mug stared out from the crowd behind me. The people mashed their bodies against one another like dogs in heat, pounding drink after drink.

A heavily intoxicated fool sped walk to the nearest bathroom to make a return on the night’s purchases while one of the dude bros he so clumsily careened into gave him a vicious glare. The music reverberated through the room repeating, “I’m sexy and I know it.”

It was in that moment of clarity that I realized what I saw was backwards. Overtaken by a flush of anxiety, I hustled to the exit to find my alien comrade waving like he was directing a run way.

Scrambling by a scantily dressed woman in the middle of some sort of primitive display of sexual courting, I yelled out, reaching his position in full stride, “My God, we’re monsters!”