In the Bunker

I took it as a very pointed, personal comment on my lifestyle that my parents chose to wait until I moved out of the basement before they carpeted it. I suppose the thing that tempers this feeling somewhat is that they had to wait until my older brother had left as well, but the idea that my little brother got to wake up every morning and pad his way on nice shag carpet to the bathroom still chafes a little.
The tile was pretty scary - mostly white with little flecks of pink and grey and blue - and there were a couple of tiles that were cracked due to harsh treatment by a weight set. Again, maybe my parents were right not to waste carpeting on me and my high school buddies. The basement is where we headed after every football or basketball game. The basement is where the Atari was. Favorite games included Breakout, and endless battles with Space Invaders. A group of us band geek boys would head on back to my house to hang around on the well-worn furniture and make plans for the future and rehash the evening's events. The couch was a two-piece monster that was covered in brown and black faux fur. The very comfy easy chair was covered in the same material, but it was a royal blue - as if someone had skinned the cookie monster and laid its pelt on the chair to cure.
It was a monumental occasion when it was decided that for Halloween in my senior year there would be an actual party in the basement - girls were invited. Some of the guys brought dates. Everything changed. We still played Atari, but without the zeal and enthusiasm - sometimes we would let the girls play - if they wanted to.
My parents stayed upstairs. We were working on the whole "trust" thing. Some couples found their way over to my bedroom, with the lights out. I had a waterbed. The problem with this was that somebody (usually me) was constantly going back in to change the record or turn the tape over - how many times can you listen to side one of Billy Joel's "The Stranger" anyway?
There were some drinking parties at the end of my senior year in high school. My parent's basement was the place we all grew up, threw up, and moved on. The boys' club that had once met there had expanded to include girlfriends and underclassmen and hangers-on that we couldn't always explain - after all, why would anyone want to hang around with a bunch of band geeks?
Years later, my twenty-first birthday was celebrated in that same basement. The carpet was a nice rust color that complemented the furry couch. There was a VCR on the TV set - the Atari had been moved to a corner with the "old TV." It was a great party, I've got pictures to prove it, but I missed the tile.