John and I skipped school one day in the spring of 1983. We left Whitman after 1st period, met
up with a red-haired girl we knew and invited her along. She agreed, and prooved most adept at getting us
all picked up while hitch-hiking.
We got to my house by eleven or so, watched t.v. for a bit,
then commenced to raid the liquor cabinet.
We drank shots of Bushmill’s Irish whiskey. I think we played spin the bottle for drinks rather than kisses and we proceeded to get quite drunk.
At some point, John – I think it was John – suggested to the
drunk girl that we should have sex. She
didn’t think that was a good idea, but John kept pestering. Finally she said she would, but only if John
and I each drank three more shots of whiskey.
(In hindsight, this was clearly a stalling tactic, since
there was no way she would’ve. Also, I
don’t think we really believed that she would, but any shot seems worth taking
when you’re fifteen and you live in hope of pussy.)
But unfortunately, we’d run out of whiskey.
In the fridge, however, was a full bottle of iced tea. John and I filled up the whiskey bottle, watered it
down a bit and it looked a pretty convincing golden brown.
We took the faked liquor into the other room, poured our shots in her
presence and made quite the show of drinking them.
We did our three shots – and one more for good luck. She seemed quite incredulous that we weren’t
puking yet, and when we suggested it was time for her to keep her end of the
bargain, begrudgingly, amazingly, she agreed that she would.
But first, she said, she wanted to take one more shot of Bushmills.
We couldn’t stop her, she insisted, and poured her own shot. She downed it quick and made a face as she
realized that it was iced tea. She was
more amused than anything, and we all agreed that we just been joking around
and nothing would’ve happened anyway.
She took a nap in my parents bed, then John woke her up at 3pm, gave her
money for a cab home, and later insisted he would’ve had a chance if I’d left
them alone, and gave me shit for cockblocking him.
End of the story.
I haven’t thought of that afternoon in a long time, but was
over a friend’s barbeque the other day, and the red haired girl’s name came
up. She had died a year or so ago from a
brain aneurysm. She was married, had
young children, and from all accounts she was a very sweet person. Her death was very sudden and very sad.
In high school, she was always nice to me, and I’d had quite
a crush on her. I once asked her if she
wanted to go see “the Outsiders” with me, and she turned me down gently with
remarkable grace for a fifteen year old girl.
It seems crass that my strongest memory of such a nice
person is such an obnoxious teenage afternoon.
It seems lonesome and impossible that the red-haired
teenager I knew grew up, had a life, had a family, then died.
The memories take on different notes now, like they do with my
friend Taylor, like with Bruce who sold us acid in high-school, like the rest of
this year’s crop of the “What ever happened to? Oh, they died!” people I knew.
And those notes seem to get a little closer each year. I realize that my wife is the red-haired girl
in somebody’s story, my sister is the girl who used to take acid by the river in
high-school, and I am the obnoxious boy who filled whiskey bottles with iced tea. We are all fifteen forever in somebody’s
head, and we are all sitting in a circle, watching the bottle spin.
.
