Brilliant … But Bouncy

Is This What “Drunk” Means?

When my friend, Sherry, suggested that we raid her parents’ liquor cabinet, I was 15. So we created rum and cokes made mostly of Coke, and we sipped them like schoolchildren at a tea party.

They were sweet and yummy, except for the alcohol. The burning in my throat was unpleasant, but I had a second drink anyway. At some point, my head started to feel a little tingly.

I thought: Is this what “drunk” means?

My friends were laughing raucously, so I guessed they were drunk. My tingly head didn’t seem sufficient to warrant the kinds of guffaws and hoots that emerged from my friends.

We each drank a third drink, still mostly Coke. The louder my friends got, the harder I tried to be loud. I wanted to feel whatever they were feeling. I wanted to be wild and free of inhibitions.

But I felt just like me. As usual, I could only pretend to be wild and free.

My friend, Frances, and I left Sherry’s house and rode our bicycles home; she was swerving all over the place, so I swerved, too. When we got to my house, I wrote in my diary – for Frances’ benefit – “I am so DRUNK!” Then we laughed and laughed.

But I still just felt tingly.

I wasn’t even particularly fond of the feeling. It just made me wonder if I hadn’t drunk enough. I wanted to drink more so that I could be crazy and fun like my friends. But that didn’t happen.

Instead, Sherry – whose liquor cabinet we’d raided – got really drunk after we left. She smoked cigarettes in the house and she drank more. When Sherry’s parents came home, they were livid. They called my parents and blamed me for being a bad influence. They said I couldn’t be friends with her anymore – and she was my best friend in the world.

My parents, likewise, didn’t believe me when I said I wasn’t drunk. For the first time (to my knowledge), my mother decided to read my diary to get “the truth.” Yes, I’d been drinking – still illegal and improper – but I’d lied in my diary. There was no way to explain: I was just trying to be cool for my friend. My parents forbid me from seeing Sherry again; they said she was a bad influence.

The next morning, Sherry and I went into the girls’ bathroom and cried together; we were in so much trouble. How could our parents keep us apart? They couldn’t! They simply couldn’t! We cried straight through first period.

When second period started, we realized we could be caught skipping class in the bathroom – so we left school and went to the nearby 7-11. We planned how we would confront our parents and explain that we needed to be together, that it was vital for both of us. We strategized until after third period – at which point, we didn’t have anything better to do, so we went to school.

Somehow the school administrators didn’t believe our stories – whatever they were – when we both walked in together at lunchtime. The school suspended us both for skipping classes. And that didn’t go over well with our parents, either.

So my first drink landed me in a world of trouble with my parents, led to my first (and only) high school suspension, and threatened a treasured friendship. And all I could think afterward was: I wasn’t even really drunk. At least I should have had more fun.

And that imaginary good time is the one I chased for the next ten years.