When I was 15

John and I skipped school one day in the spring of 1983.  We left Whitman after 1^st 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.

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