25. My First Time Drunk

My father took us snowmobiling at the house of someone he’d met a few nights before at the Goose Pond. He would do this sometimes, strike up barroom conversations with strangers and then make us awkwardly socialize with them. It was one of the things he and my mother argued about. “He said we could come by any time on Sunday,” my father told us. “He’s got a trail right in his backyard. It will be great.”

It was a freezing day. Even in the car, with the heater blasting, I felt cold. The guy, my father’s friend, was young-ish, with a big bushy beard. He introduced himself as Paul, which was unusual, because I still didn’t call many adults by their first names. Paul turned on the television for me and my brother, and brought my mother and father into the kitchen. “I made us some dynamite martinis!” I heard him tell my parents.

Paul had a great TV, much nicer than ours at home, but the living room was kind of disgusting. The rug crackled as you walked across, like there was food in it.

There was nothing on TV except Wide World of Sports, and I soon found myself listening more to the adults talking. Paul was doing most of the talking. He had a booming, enthusiastic voice, it wasn’t hard to eavesdrop. The funny thing was, he was talking about all this really personal, heartbreaking stuff, but in a loud, cheerful voice. He was saying how his wife had left, but he was glad to be rid of her, but that she’d wanted the house and he hadn’t wanted to give her the house and weren’t lawyers bastards? He just went on and one.

“It’s a nice house,” I heard my mother say, one of the first sentences she’d managed to get in.

“Let me give you the tour,” Paul said. “Ellen, you’re going to love this place. This place should be on the historic register. Wait’ll you see what we did with the upstairs.”

I’m not sure why I did it. It wasn’t like there wasn’t open liquor around my house all the time. Maybe it was because I resented my father dragging us to these stranger’s homes, wondered how he could so completely ignore how much my mother and brother and I hated it. Maybe because I was feeling sorry for Paul, who for all the happy boom in his voice seemed like a lost soul in this house, his casual use of a “we” that no longer existed when he’d talked about the upstairs. Maybe I was just bored.

I went into the kitchen and poured myself my own martini. I drank in quick sips. It was horrible-tasting but I managed to keep it down. Then I poured myself another one and did the same thing. Paul had made a big pitcher. I was pretty sure no one would notice.

“What were you doing in there?” my brother asked when I returned to where he was watching television.

“I was thirsty,” I answered.

I’m sure it would have shown if we’d stayed inside the house. But as soon as Paul came back from his tour, he said, “Okay, everyone, get your coats on, it’s time for rides.” In the cold air, I didn’t have to say anything, so no one could hear my speech slur, and everyone was walking funny in the icy snow so my own lack of balance fit right in.

“This is a beauty,” Paul said, as we approached his snowmobile. It was yellow and black, very cool looking. 

“This here is my pride and joy. Don’t know how I’d get through the day without it.”

Paul started it up and first took a ride himself. He drove really fast, in figure eights. The snowmobile lifted entirely off the ground in a few spots. He returned back to where we were standing, freezing, and said, 

“Okay, who wants the first ride?”

“No way you’re getting me on that thing,” my mother said.

I raised my hand, like I was in class.

“Okay,” Paul said. “A brave soul. Hop on, my friend.”

He didn’t take it easy on me. He drove just as fast as he’d been driving solo. Probably he was drunk, too. I hugged onto the back of him, hugged as tightly as I could, closed my eyes. The wind was whipping by, but I couldn’t feel it. I felt like I was doing tumblesaults, felt like I didn’t know which way was up or down, felt like I was gliding, gliding, like I wasn’t on a snowmobile or any kind of vehicle or machine at all but just gliding along something so smooth, and twisting, doing my own figure eights but in mid-air.

So this is what being drunk feels like, I said to myself. No wonder my father likes it so much.

24. Mary Royce’s Bra Strap

Mary Royce's family had sublet the Ruhl's house, just for the summer. We'd never known anyone who'd done that before. The Royces would be cooking on the Ruhls' stove, sleeping in the Ruhls' bed, watching the Ruhls' television. Then, in September, the Royces would leave. Sitting around at the bus stop we had long discussions about how we wouldn't want someone to come in like that and live in our houses, and about people whose houses we'd want to live in, and what that would be like.

This was the summer girls became part of our group, meeting us when we met on weeknights under the street lamp at the bus stop, shushing everyone whenever a slow song came over the transistor radio. We knew most of the girls, had invited them to our birthday parties, or gone to theirs. This summer, though, they seemed different. There was Lisa Carmody, and Tina Cornerby, and Karen Golembowski, who had short blonde hair and always wore the same pair of blue satin shorts; there were Kim and Sharon Speechly, sisters a year apart who did everything together. And there was Mary Royce, the newcomer, who we all accepted. One warm night Mary played "Surfer Girl" over and over on a portable cassette player and taught us each the box step, first Jay, then Dougie, then Mark, then Billy, then me, counting off in fours, yelling at us to be serious when we acted like our mistakes were on purpose. Her whispered numbers sounded like part of the music as she guided my steps on the gravel, and her hair was damp, and smelled like shampoo.

Alone playing basketball in Dougie’s driveway, our ridicule of the girls was constant, accompanying the thump of the ball against the backboard like punctuation. We imitated their phrases, made comments on the smallness of their breasts. We accused one another of showing too much interest in them. "I saw you talking to Tina the other day," Mark shouted to Dougie. "Over by the tunnel."

"I was just showing her the sewage pipe," Dougie said.

"I'll bet you were showing her the sewage pipe," Mark said, and we all laughed. We didn't really know what we were talking about. Most of what we said was just echoes of what we'd picked up from older brothers, or overheard on the school bus.

Mary was the most sophisticated of the girls. Not the prettiest – that was Lisa Carmody – nor the smartest and funniest, which was Karen Golembowski. But Mary was the one who seemed the most to know what was going on. She had black hair parted in the middle that came down and made an oval around her face, big eyes and pencil-thin, tweezed eyebrows. She used a lot of make-up, something she introduced to the other girls. They would sit at the bus stop and talk about this eye shadow or that, or Mary would apply blush to Lisa while we looked on, smirking. In Dougie's driveway we talked about how stupid make-up was, how the girls looked like circus clowns with it on their faces. One night we let Karen paint our pinkies with a nail polish she'd brought down to lend Mary. The next day we didn't mention it, but pinpricks of jazzy purple flashed every so often as we fought for rebounds.

It was Mary who came up with the idea of going to the hill behind Karen's house to pick out constellations. Lisa brought the star chart. The night was a clear one. We lay in the grass and the girls pointed out Orion and Aries to us. The grass was moist, but warm. "Right there," Lisa said when I complained I couldn't see any pictures, lifting her arm straight up, pointing to where she wanted me to look. She was wearing a peasant blouse, with red stitching across the front that strained taut when she pointed.

"All I see is a bunch of stars," I said.

"It's right there," Lisa said again, moving closer in the grass, until she was right next to me, and I could follow her point directly. "That's the bow and arrow. There's the bear over this way."

"Whoever thought these up is crazy," I said, jumping up. "That guy could have said there was anything up there."

"They're up there. You just have to use your imagination," Lisa said, and also stood, pulling her shirt back down from where it'd ridden up her stomach as she slid in the grass.

It was a hot summer, and in mid-July Mary told us she'd managed to convince her father to open up Ruhls' pool. The pool was a six foot in-ground, with a diving board. I'd never been in it. My family wasn't such good friends with the Ruhls. That Saturday, we all showed up to help. The girls were there, too, sitting on the porch watching, drinking lemonade from frosted glasses. First Mr. Royce had us sift dirt, to fill in the cracks in the patio around the pool. Then we took the cover off, rolling it from the corners like unwrapping a present. The water inside had a greenish tint, and there were clumps of algae. Mark grabbed the skimmer from Dougie's hands, just as Dougie was about to dip it in the water. "I'll do that," Mark said.
Dougie glared at him.

We worked hard, harder than we had ever worked when our fathers asked up to help out around the house.

On the porch the girls played cards, called down to us, "How's it going?" Too busy, struggling with heavy bags of white sand that had to be poured into the filter, we didn't answer. After, as a single garden hose slowly filled the pool with water, Mr. Royce offered us each a few dollars. Tired, wanting it, the girls within earshot, we said no, said we'd get paid back by swimming in the pool. "Well, thanks then," Mr. Royce said. "You're all good workers."

The pool didn't get much sunlight, and so the water was very cold. Tina's bathing suit was almost the exact same floral pattern as the chaise lounge pillow she'd lie on tanning herself, face down with her legs slightly spread. We'd do cannonballs off the diving board and try to reach the girls with the freezing drops of water our splashes made.

Sometimes Mark and Billy didn't show up for our basketball games. "Where were you this morning?" Jay asked them that night at the bus stop.

"Playing cribbage at Mary's house," Billy answered, as if it didn't matter, as if it was just information. When they didn't show up we either played shorthanded or skipped the game entirely, and went over to someone's house to watch TV.

One night in August Dougie, Mark, and I were at the bus stop lofting rocks at the street lamp, watching them scatter the gnats from the brownish light, when Mary wandered down alone. A few houses away, her parents were having a party at Ruhls' pool. Our parents were all there. We could hear the familiar block party sounds, the clanging of horse shoes, a boisterous sing along to "Peg of My Heart." Mary was drunk. She said it was her first time, and that it felt great. She said her cousin's new boyfriend had been slipping her drinks and winking, she hadn't even asked for them. She said his name was Tom. She didn't stop talking. We just listened.

Mary lay down. Dougie, Mark, and I sat around her and grinned to each other at the words she tripped over, the amazement in her voice. I was thinking how I would describe this to everyone else the next night, when we were all sitting around. Mary told us how boring the party was, all old people. She told us the stupid things they had been saying as they jumped off the diving board, trying to act like they were funny.
Then Mary's voice dissolved to a gurgle, and she threw up on herself and passed out. All three of us jumped back, away from her.

Dougie and Mark wouldn't touch her at first but after I started we took turns trying to slap her awake. It was the way we'd seen them do this on TV. After touching her, we wiped our hands on the grass. Mary didn't move. The less she responded the lower our hands went on her body, the more our slaps became caresses. In the backyard of her house the adults switched to "When Irish Eyes Are Smiling."

Finally Dougie lifted Mary's soaked T-shirt, pushed her arms back and her training bra up. None of us said anything. Mark and I crowded in as Dougie stretched her shirt with a straight arm, peering beneath. The white of her bra strap almost seemed to glow, against her tanned throat.

Mary stirred, and vomited again. Dougie pulled his arm back. She locked my eyes and said, "What are you doing?"

I thought it was my eyes she locked.

Mary tried to pull herself up but then lay back again. Dougie and Mark took off, running in opposite directions. Mary and I looked at each other. A car went by on the road, but its headlights didn't reach us. I pulled down Mary's bra and shirt. Then I ran too. At home, on the couch in the dark, I felt like I was still running. Soon it would be September, I was thinking, and it would be like none of this had happened.