I Wanted it to Last Forever.
The last party of the year meant more to me than graduation day. It was the end of an era, the end of my youth and, as far as I could tell, the end of my life. I wanted to make the most of it.
I think it was a Phi Tau party, but I cannot be sure. I only know that I wouldn’t have missed it for anything.
Bonnie – who wasn’t graduating since she was two full years younger than me – had gone home. Her boyfriend, Tony, had not.
So when Tony invited me to smoke a joint with him, I followed him into his room. I was still in my “I-don’t-smoke-pot” holier-than-thou phase, so I wandered around his room while he smoked a joint. He let me pick the music – some fabulous new wave stuff – and as much as I wanted to get back to the party, I was having too much fun with Tony. We were having a wonderful chat when, quite suddenly, Tony pulled me onto his lap and started kissing me.
Tony was a very, very good kisser.
I immediately forgot about Bonnie and continued kissing Tony until he got up and locked the door – and then I continued kissing Tony until we’d gone way beyond kissing and I still never even considered stopping. Tony and I never discussed Bonnie, and eventually I just wandered back to the party to continue having my end-of-college fun.
Of course I kept drinking the whole time.
I wandered around the frat house with my red cup, reminiscing about all the times I’d wandered around frat houses with red cups. I pushed through the people without talking or making eye contact, like a fly on the wall of my own experience. I watched people drinking and laughing and yelling over the music; I noticed the stickiness of the floor under my feet, the empty cups strewn about and placed on tables with cigarette butts in them. I felt the BOOM BOOM BOOM of the bass thumping and heard shrieks coming from someone laughing on the stairs and I saw the smiles on the faces all around me and I thought, This is how life should always be.
I couldn’t bear the thought that college was ending; I wanted it to last forever.
I started talking to Tom in a corner. One of my regular friends with benefits, Tom asked if I wanted to go for a ride, and I did. Cans of beer rolled around – miraculously chilled – on the floor of his van, and we cracked them open as we rode.
It felt like flying over the plains of Ohio. The weather was gorgeous, the windows were open, the night sky was ours.
Somewhere in the middle of nowhere, Tom stopped the van and we became very adventurous in the front seat. We may as well have been lovers at the end of a long relationship; with college ending, we were ending, and we kissed extra long knowing this.
Then we drove home, quieter and softer somehow. It was getting late.
As we hopped out of the van, amidst the insanity of the still-rocking party, I saw someone I really didn’t want to see. The fact that Larry was in town for my graduation hadn’t even crossed my mind.
“There you are!” Larry said, catching me at the door. Tom had disappeared. Larry smiled and kissed me, completely oblivious to the details of my night.
And that was the end of my college partying days.