The night after Thanksgiving, our team won the biggest game of the season. We saw it on TV. Only, we were so far behind in the first half that everyone started drinking too heavily to care much if we lost or won. But we won. One of the biggest comebacks in college football, they said. Then a small kind of happy Hell broke loose.

While the parents, the aunts and uncles and family friends, danced their celebrations in the kitchen, their daughters collected in my room, some drinking pineapple and rum, all watching a movie. Their sons had sequestered themselves in a shadowy corner of the children’s playroom with a stash of alcohol pilfered during the confusion of the game. I checked in on them before locking myself away with the girls. They hugged and high-fived me, yelling and laughing.

Too drunk to have much dexterity left in his fingers, one of my younger cousins handed me a bottle of Sam Adams. “Couldja open this’n for me?” I smiled and tried to unscrew the pinched tin cap.

“It’s not a screw-off,” Tullie offered helpfully.

“If you can unscrew that, you’ve got more balls than me.”

“Thanks Joe.” I rolled my eyes and popped the cap against the corner of the air hockey table.

“You’re a sweetheart, Kit,” he slurred gratefully as I handed him the bottle. Yeah, I know.

“Don’t tell on us, ‘kay?” I assured him I would not.

“Don’t do anything stupid, then. You’re both too young to be so damn drunk.” I giggled.

“Yeah, well, they drink.” Tullie gestured towards the floor. A tattoo of clinking glasses, shouts and small explosions of laughter beat its way through the ceiling of the kitchen below.

 “If they do, we sure can,” Joe interjected. “Bottoms up!” He handed me a shot of rum in a plastic cup.

“Cheers, man.”

Author guidance for This story

An observation of what is accepted... and what is overlooked.

updated Apr 5 '11 by Lyre