"I can't believe it, man," Pierre sighs, "I can't believe we made it this far!"
"Yeah?" I pat him on the back, "Believe this shit, man."
"Maybe I do, after all," he smiles. His white teeth shine the ground ahead of us so we can find proper footing. We step carefully past each other and look away from the Brooklyn Promenade, towards the Manhattan skyline. In it, an aggregate of city lights replace the stars that fail to shine where they used to. Above the water ahead, red taillights trail back and forth against each other. Even in the small hours of the night, the town lives and breathes.
"Fucking beautiful," Pierre sets his backpack on the ground beside him and cups his hands around his mouth, screaming "Fuck outta here, bitches!"
I chuckle in response. Pierre, turned away and backlit by skyscrapers, looks like he's on the cover of some mid-2010s EDM album. A few Nero songs shuffle through my head, none of particular interest, but all of familiarity.
As if reading my mind, Pierre belts out a drunken tune: "You got me so wild! How can I ever deny!"
There he goes, warbling out the intro to "Promises." And once he gets past the vocals...
"Bwow! Bwah-wum-wum-wum, wah-wah-wah!" he a capellas a bass drop complete with vocal "wubs" that fail to sound anything like the original song-- or the remix he's trying to replicate.
Knowing that I can't beat him, I join.
"And I still feel I'm so wasted on myself!" I scream like some maniacal schizo.
Our numb, drunken bodies quake back and forth, left and right, up and down. I'm sure that from the outside we look like asylum escapees, but that never stopped Pierre, so why let it stop myself? The music throbs between us, stopped only by moments to laugh or catch our breaths. Once the song is over, the two of us are little more than shivering, out-of-breath hedonists.
"Wai- wai- wait," Pierre huffs as he reaches for his bag, "Don't do anything else, I gotta get the speaker out!"
He draws an old Beats Pill from his bag and strings the aux cable to his own phone. Before choosing a song, he tosses me a bag of plastic cups, then a four-pack of Redbulls and a bottle of Smirnoff. Through blurred eyes, I split one can between two cups, then pour in some vodka-- nevermind how much exactly.
"Bangarang" crashes through the speakers once I've finished pouring both drinks. I hand one to my friend, whose every body part is in motion save for his drink-taking hand. We toast and drink to ourselves and no-one else.