Don't Forget to Write

Party

Eventually, it was time for us all to go to the party. The features around me had become blurred, my speech slurred, and my step had a little extra swagger to it.

"Look at you," Bruno said very slowly, "Stumbling and mumbling and ya belly is a rumbling."

"Easy there, Doctor Seuss. You're in no condition to rhyme for the kids."

"Ha, kids. Remember we coach kids Pete?"

"Yeah, we do coach kids."

"Isn't it funny. We coach these kids, and they probably think we are so old and wise and responsible," he hiccupped and burped at the same time, "but really, we are just as dumb and clueless as them. The only difference is," hiccup, "we are little bigger, speak a little better," hiccup, "and we shit ourselves a little less."

We all laughed, but he was right.

The party was within walking distance, only about fifteen minutes away, and the air was brisk, but not too cold. It was cool enough that your lungs felt it when you took a deep breath, when you expanded them as far as they would go and really stretched out your rib cage, and the cold pinched your bronchioles in that refreshing way that seemed to expand your lungs even further. The fresh air was good for our drunkenness, too. The party was in a small two-bedroom apartment packed to the walls with at least fifty people. Half the people were dancing, the rest were standing uncomfortably around the room. We thanked the host, a girl who was Camila and Diane's friend, and then the three ladies went off to talk about something while Bruno, Moose, and I found the rest of our old teammates. I'm not sure where Karen went.

As we approached the team I pulled my beanie lower over my forehead, despite the dense sweat pooling on the top of my head. They all gave us hugs and smiled, then immediately after the warm salutations were done, they began demanding that we come to more of their games. "You are family, we want you there," Sammy said. Me and Bruno nodded and said we knew we should be there, both of us were too embarrassed to say that we felt ashamed, and that we missed the game too much to simply watch our team from the sidelines knowing we couldn't do anything to help them win. We didn't want to tell them just how weak we had become without a team.

Someone had brought cards, so we started playing drinking games. I sat in a circle between Camila and Karen, with Bruno and Moose across from me, and several other people filled the spaces in between. Karen was having fun with her costume. "Hey Pete," she said.

Yeah?" Camila reached out and grabbed my hand.

"Why is pirating so addictive?"

"Uhh, I dunno. Why?"

"Well, they say once ye lose yer first hand, ye get hooked," she said with a big dumb smile and I couldn't help but laugh.

From across the circle Moose laughed but Bruno shook his head, "Oh the corniness," he said into his hand.

"I got another one. What's a pirate's favorite kind of movie?"

"What?"

"The ones that are rated ARRRGH."

Many drinks and few pirate jokes later, the games had been worn of their fun, and everybody was fairly drunk. Karen was practicing her pirate humor on a few new friends, Bruno and Diane were dancing, and Moose was nowhere to be found.

Camila and I stepped outside onto the fire-escape. We leaned against the wall and looked down at the traffic flowing beneath us and the lights shining in the distance while we drank and enjoyed each other's company. She was looking at me with the tops of her eyes, and she smiled when I saw her looking at me. I put a hand on her hips and pulled her in and kissed her, and we swayed back and forth, hands rubbing each other and biting each other's lips. "Should we-"

"Get out of here?" I interrupted her.

"Yes."

"Great."

We made a silent exit from the party and hurried back to my apartment. The second we were in my room we were taking each other's clothes off and I joked, "I thought T.A.'s couldn't sleep with students?"

"Shut up or I'll have to give you detention." She kissed me again, and I put music on my speakers so Bruno wouldn't hear us when he came home. We were all over each other and all over the room, getting louder and sweatier for hours until we both became to worn out to do anything but sleep.