That Fateful Night--Revisited

As a ward clerk my shift rotation meant I was off one weekend out of three. Lynne was a nurse assistant on another floor with the same rotation. We'd gone to high school together, had a lot of mutual friends and often got together on our days off.

About a year after Sheila broke me in, Lynne and I were off work. We'd had a rough week and wanted to go dancing. But being a Monday, every club in town was dead.

Lynne suggested we go to the gay bar where the dance floor was always hopping. I absolutely did not want to go. But Lynne begged and pleaded and promised we would leave if I felt the least bit uncomfortable. I finally agreed.

That I might be gay still had not occurred to me. Gay people were either pedophiles (i.e., my scoutmaster or the manager at the movie theater), flaming queens or perverts. I was none of these things, therefore, I was not gay.

Besides, I thoroughly enjoyed sex with women. With a continuous string of girlfriends dating back to the fourth grade, how could I be gay? It just wasn't possible.

Rather than gay or bi or straight, I preferred to think of myself as honest. Surely every man in America sometimes wondered how an attractive male friend or coworker would look naked. I was just honest enough to admit it. Right?

The gay bar in Lexington had been in the same location for decades under many different names. It was Johnny Angel's then, and more popular than any time before or since. The location operates as The Bar Complex today.

We presented our IDs, paid the cover charge and started up the big spiral staircase to the disco. The thump of the base hit your ears long before the music. Through a brick arch at the top of the stairs was a huge marble bar with mirrors behind it. Reflected in the mirrors was the dance floor. My heart was in my throat.

Nothing in my life had prepared me for what I saw on the dance floor. There were a couple of drag queens, and some other straight people, but the overwhelming majority were guys around my age. More than a couple were downright cute! I was shocked, speechless, and absolutely certain I was gay.

I kept my eyes on Lynne, avoiding any possible eye contact with any of the cute boys dancing all around me and danced like I had never danced before. My mind raced as the implications of my new awareness sunk in. I was gay.

Was I ashamed or mortified or suicidal? Not at all. I was excited, curious, and oddly at peace. Everything made sense now. At long last I'd found a label that fit.

I noticed a coworker from McAlpin's across the dance floor. He was dancing in a circle with a group I believed to be the cutest guys in the bar. I didn't know his name, but vowed to meet him the next time we worked together. I did, too.

Sheila

And so, at last, we come to Sheila. Chronologically we were close to the same age. I may even have been a year or two older. But in terms of life experience, Sheila was two or three times my age.

Sheila was divorced and had a kid I never met. She worked as a nurse assistant and lived at home with her mother, a little black cock-a-poo, and her younger brother in a house just off North Broadway. The brother was still in high school--Bryan Station, where Sheila had graduated.

We started going out. Turns out we had absolutely nothing in common and even less to talk about. Sheila lived in the real world with duties and responsibilities. I was footloose and fancy free. But hey, we got along and she thought I was cute.

Mom didn't care for her--at all. Dad thought Sheila was cute. They both thought she was a little trashy. I suspect the divorced thing put them off. Lord knows it couldn't have been her frosted hair, sky blue eye shadow or frosted-pink lipstick.

Dating a divorced woman really ratcheted up expectations. Faking experience would be impossible. She'd done it before...lots of times...even had a kid. I figured honesty was the best policy. I confessed to being a virgin.

She told a friend, who told another friend. Before long everyone at Saint Joseph Hospital knew. I didn't know whether to be proud or embarrassed.

Connie was an African-American nursing assistant who worked on the same floor as Sheila. Connie enjoyed few things more than teasing me about my virginity. She said she'd break me in herself but thought a white girl should do the job since I was too delicate for the likes of her.

One night Sheila invited me inside after our night out. The dog greeted us at the door. Mom and little brother apparently slept elsewhere in the house. The kid was off with baby-daddy.

We were making out on the couch when Sheila said we needed to talk. She explained that as a former married lady, she had certain needs. Our heavy petting was making it harder rather than easier to live with those needs. We needed to do it...now.

Who was I to argue? She slipped out of her clothes, laid down on the living room floor and motioned for me to join her. I heard Mom snoring in the next room.

I slid down onto the floor and into her arms. We started kissing and somehow, she got me out of my clothes. Things were getting hot when I felt the dog licking my butt. Sheila put her hand over my mouth to quieten my scream and kicked the dog away.

Two minutes later it was over. Wouldn't have lasted that long but we got distracted fighting off the dog. Sex was good, and I liked it...a lot. Three minutes later, little brother came out of his bedroom and asked if we wanted to smoke a joint. We passed.

Over the next few weeks we had sex a lot. I remember one particularly wild night in a room so dark I still don't know for sure what happened. A few weeks later Sheila dumped me. She felt like I was only interested in sex.

Duh!

Margie

Margie was an x-ray technician at Saint Joseph Hospital. Her older sister, Linda, took care of me the night I got sick at the after-hours party. As is often the case with sisters, the two were as different as night and day.

Whereas Linda was generally the center of attention, Margie was intentionally understated and reserved. She had shoulder-length hair more auburn than red and wore little to no make-up. Rather than standing out in a crowd like her sister, Margie wanted to blend in.

We hit it off the minute we met and were soon dating. Her razor-sharp wit and dry sense of humor cracked me up. I've often thought Margie was the girl I would have been happiest marrying had I been straight. If a frog had wings...

One night we decided to take in a midnight movie at the brand new South Park multiplex theater. Already drunk, we went through the drive-through at the liquor store for cigarettes and a pint of bourbon to take into the movie with us. As I recall, we also got cups of ice and a coke. Those were the good-old days.

We chugged stiff drinks in the parking lot, stashed the rest of the pint in my coat and headed for the packed lobby. At the ticket counter I fumbled with my wallet for several minutes without success. Margie took the wallet from me and after struggling for another couple of minutes, handed it to the cashier. Here, you do it.

With tickets in hand we retreated to a quieter corner of the lobby to regroup before hitting the concession stand. True or not, I thought everyone was looking at us and said so. Margie said we should act normal and just wave. We waved like beauty queens on a parade float. No telling what people thought.

We both still lived at home when we started dating. I don't recall the particulars but somehow we were planning to spend a night together on the upcoming weekend. Without coming out and saying it, we both knew it was going to be "the" night.

While getting ready I discovered a tiny little crawling insect on me. After I started looking I found several more. What the hell? Mom!!!!

Mom quickly determined the problem was a raging case of crab lice. Honest, I must have acquired the nasty little buggers on a toilet seat or something. When I found out how they were typically transmitted, well...I was mortified.

I called my Doctor, got the Physician's Exchange and left a message. He called me back minutes later. I told him I had a bad case of crabs. He asked if they were more on the left side or the right. I said they appeared to be evenly distributed.

His questions led me to believe crabs were a lot more harmful than I knew. He asked if I was passing a lot of gas. I said no more than usual. Was I passing blood? No.

After I answered all his questions he said there wasn't anything he could do. If it got worse I should call him back and meet him at the emergency room. Huh? Once he realized we were never talking about cramps he quickly called in a prescription.

By then I was already supposed to be picking Margie up. I called to explain something had come up and I wasn't going to make it. She said she wasn't surprised and hung up on me.

After I left the hospital we lost touch. She called me out of the blue about 9 one night several years later to see if she could come by. I said yes and told her where I lived.

She knocked on the door about 15 minutes later. When I opened the door she started kissing me. Moments later she pushed me down on the couch and laid down on top of me to kiss me some more.

We ended up making out on the couch in the living room for a good hour or longer. She never said a word, and shut me up with more demanding kisses whenever I tried to talk. I had no idea what was going on and frequently said so.

Finally, she got up, straightened her clothes and said she had to go. I told her it was good to see her. She apologized. She'd been out drinking and dancing with friends and apparently become a little horny. She said I was the only guy she knew she trusted not to take advantage of the situation.

After she left I watched her walk across the parking lot. She turned and waved before getting into her car. I never saw her again.

The Boys of Crossroads Twin Cinemas

Mrs. King was a sexual predator. Unfortunately, she was not the first or even the second I encountered in my youth. Since we're on the subject of sexual predators I may as well tell you about Jim.

Jim was the manager of Crossroads Twin Cinemas. I'm guessing he was 40ish if not older. He wore a sports coat all the time and drove a big yellow car with a white top. He wanted to appear successful.

I worked at Scoop's, next door to Sir Pizza in the same shopping center. Jim popped in several times a week for a cone. He was friendly and very appreciative of the always prompt and efficient service I provided. Or so I thought.

He said I should work for him and asked how much they paid me. Scoop's had hired me away from Dipper Dan where I made $1.25 an hour with a whopping dollar an hour raise. Jim said he'd give me another dollar an hour raise to work for him.

Working at the movie theater was a big step up for a junior in high school. In addition to the pay increase, I could see movies for free with a date anywhere in Lexington. Welcome to the world of fringe benefits.

Jim played favorites like a virtuoso. Pets got more hours, the most desirable shifts, the best duties and cash bonuses. At least you always knew where you stood.

Whether they were needed or not, Jim was always hiring new ushers. With each new hire the hierarchy changed. The rest of us often got our hours cut to make room on the schedule for the new guy.

Jim was also skimming. Ticket sales were tracked by reporting the starting and ending numbers on the roll of paper tickets. Jim sold his own tickets and pocketed the proceeds. To keep us quiet he gave us cash bonuses.

Unless something really important was going on, you wanted to work Friday and Saturday nights. Because of midnight movies the shift was longer and you got more hours. But that was only part of the reason weekend shifts were so popular.

Jim kept a case or two of beer in the bottom of the ice machine. We couldn't start drinking until we closed the concession stand after the last movie started. The second it did the party was on.

Once the concession stand was clean the girls were dismissed. Pets stayed with Jim to close things up. He had an 8mm projector and a diverse collection of dirty movies in his office. He and his pet(s) watched porn on the closed door to his office while they waited for the last movie to end.

Jim liked me but I never reached the highest tier. I wasn't his type. I knew about the 8mm projector and the porn but was never invited to watch. Fine by me.

Eventually he left me or another trusted employee alone at the theater while he and his current pet took the cash bag to the overnight deposit at the bank across the street. They were often gone an hour or longer.

Years later I sometimes saw him cruising the block around the gay bar. He had the same car so I know it was him. The street hustlers all waved in a friendly way as he drove by, like they knew him well.

Unlike my scoutmaster and Mrs. King, Jim was careful. I never heard a word about him touching or trying to touch anyone. Maybe he never did. Anything is possible.

Department Store Cougars

Compared with the near frantic pace of the hospital, my part-time job at McAlpin's in Turfland Mall was a walk in the park. Here, too, single women out-numbered available men by a hefty margin. Just my luck.

Mrs. King, the director of personnel, looked like a cheap version of Elizabeth Taylor--in her heavier years, with brown eyes instead of violet. She always wore mules with a 2 or 3 inch heel--what I think of today when anyone mentions F*ck-me Pumps. I thought she was pretty and very nice.

I'm guessing she was in her 40s. She had died-black, permed hair and wore make-up like you only see on those women in white coats who do make-overs in upscale department stores. She was the first person I ever knew up-close-and-personal to wear false eyelashes.

Mrs. King liked me. Rumor had it she put me in housewares because it was the closest department to her office. I do remember she stopped to talk to me a lot and that I was getting nice little raises every few weeks.

Wasn't long before she started calling me at home...drunk...at 2 or 3 in the morning. I had to get up at 6 to be at the hospital by 7 to work my shift. She'd be so drunk it was hard to understand what she was saying.

The late night calls continued for a long time. At first she just talked about being lonely. She wanted me to come over to her apartment, for a drink--so we could talk. I always said no.

She'd cry and beg and plead in a shameless manner. I felt sorry for her. Eventually she'd get mad and hang up on me. Sleep at last.

Over time the calls came more frequently. Sometimes she called several times in the same night. She told me she loved me because I reminded her of her deceased brother.

Then she started telling me how much she needed me. She'd go on at length about what she'd like to do to me. I was in way over my head with no idea what to do.

The calls got even worse. After months of turning her down she started asking if I was gay. Turns out, her brother was gay. "You can tell me" she said. I still didn't know myself so how could I tell her?

I never brought up the calls at work and neither did Mrs. King. Raises and promotions continued to come my way. They moved me to electronics so I could increase my pay with commissions. People started talking with me about the manager training program.

Pixie took me under her wing to show me the ropes. She was a department manager and Mrs. King's much-younger best friend. She was an outrageous flirt and beautiful, with stunning green eyes, olive skin and wavy-brown hair.

One Saturday when I got off at 5 I discovered my car had a flat tire. Mrs. King and Pixie were leaving and saw me standing in the rain looking at the flat tire. They asked me to come have a drink with them until it stopped raining enough to change the tire.

We went across the street to the lounge at the Springs Hotel and ordered drinks. We sat around a small, cocktail table covered with a linen tablecloth talking and enjoying our cocktails. We had the place to ourselves.

Several rounds later I felt a hand caressing my thigh. It was Mrs. King. Uh oh.

Minutes later I feel Pixie's hand moving up my other thigh. Oh shit. This was getting awkward and uncomfortable.

I stood up abruptly and excused myself to go to the bathroom. I called Dad from a pay phone in the lobby and asked if he would pick me up. Are you in trouble? Well...

After I explained he laughed. He was still laughing when he picked me up about 15 minutes later. We changed the tire and I went home to my apartment.

The calls stopped. The next time I came in to work I had been transferred from electronics to lawn and garden--the farthest department from Mrs. King's office. I was fired on the spot a few weeks later for mouthing off to the general manager.

Over the years I ran into other guys who had similar experiences with Mrs. King. I wonder how many more there were. If I knew then what I know now...I would have sued. Pretty sure I would have either won the case or received a nice settlement.

Vicki

Before we continue, I need to back up. You need to know about Vicki--the first girl I almost married. I worked at the movie theater when we met and was still dating her when Saint Joseph Hospital hired me.

Vicki graduated from Sacred Heart and still had a boyfriend back home in Louisville at Bellarmine College. From the start she was clear they planned to marry. Fine with me. Marriage was the last thing on my mind.

Petite with an almost boyish, athletic figure, Vicki had a blond Dorothy Hamil pageboy and a long, thin face. She wasn't a flashy dresser and paid no attention to what everyone else was wearing. I always blamed a lifetime of Catholic school uniforms for her lack of style.

We met through the Honor's Program at the University of Kentucky. She had a full scholarship to pharmacy school from a big drugstore chain and worked part time at stores in Louisville and Lexington while she was in school. In return, she promised to work for the company for so many years after she graduated.

Guys could come into the lobby of Donovan Hall any time, but were only allowed up in the rooms between certain hours on specific days. If you went up to the room you had to sign-in and out. Since Vicki's roommate had absolutely no social life and was always in the room, I didn't go up very often.

I still lived at home. While allegedly watching television, we made-out on the sofa in the basement once in a while. Mostly we made-out in movie theaters or in my car.

We thought we'd found the perfect place to park and climbed into the rear of my Vega hatchback to enjoy some much-anticipated privacy. We were shocked to find out we weren't the first to think of parking at Shillito Park. Who knew cops would actually sneak up and shine big flashlights in your car?

In the beginning Vicki went home every other weekend. Before long she was skipping weekends in Louisville to do stuff with me in Lexington. Then she took me to Louisville to meet her parents. Things were getting serious.

Mother loved her. So did everyone else. She was cute, outgoing, smart, ambitious and most important (at least as far as Mother was concerned), Catholic. Having a pharmacist in the family was just icing on the cake.

I knew all about Mr. Boyfriend-in-Louisville from the start. He didn't know about me for quite a while. Vicki came clean and told him all about me over Christmas break. For a while I lived in fear certain he would surely come to Lexington to beat me up or worse.

Even so, unless one of us was working or out of town, we spent every waking moment together. She told me the boyfriend was safe, secure, familiar and predictable. She thought I was wild, exotic, totally unpredictable and for that reason, exciting but more than a little scary.

We went out to celebrate my 20th birthday. Vicki showered me with gifts, including several 8-track tapes of my favorite groups (Journey & Queen) and bought me dinner. But the big gift was announcing that she and the Mr. Boyfriend-in-Louisville had split up. She was all mine.

If they planned to marry and she was ditching him for me, well...it could only mean one thing. Vicki was throwing caution to the wind for the first time in her life and going with unpredictable. Oh shit.

I ditched her like a hot potato then dodged her like she had a disease I didn't want. She was the reason I quit going to school after midterms. I couldn't face her. I know I broke her heart.

My heart was breaking too for reasons I didn't understand. On some level I knew it would be wrong to marry Vicki. Had I known the truth I could and would have told her. But since I didn't know myself I couldn't possibly explain it to her.

I saw her again a couple of years later. She was engaged to the old bf and about to graduate (with honors) from pharmacy school. She told me she felt bad about me dropping out of school because of her.

I told her it wasn't her fault. I wanted to tell her I'd done her a favor, but didn't. I don't think she ever found out I was gay. If she knew maybe she'd understand it wasn't about her at all.

Lucy

Lucy answered the phone when you called the hospital lab to order blood work or to check on results. She was a year or two older than me and nearly as tall. She had a model's figure, Farrah Fawcett hair, a dark tan, and puppy-like brown eyes. She turned heads wherever she went.

Unlike almost everyone else on second shift, her job in the lab meant she wore street clothes instead of a uniform. Being able to wear whatever she wanted was a huge advantage in a very competitive environment. And Lucy knew it.

If they weren't in backless hospital gowns, the rest of the women at the hospital wore white or light-blue polyester uniforms over several required layers to make sure nothing showed through. Hair had to stay pinned back, under an attractive nursing cap, or in some cases, in a lovely hairnet. Perfume was prohibited. Make-up was used sparingly, if at all.

Lucy stood out like a flamingo in a flock of penguins. I can still see her tossing her long, blond hair as she gracefully crossed the hospital cafeteria in 3-inch heels and a strapless red sundress with little white polka dots. You could still smell her Halston perfume a good thirty minutes after she left the room.

When I heard Lucy had a crush on me I was a little flattered and a whole lot terrified. Lucy dripped sex. She was clearly far more experienced than I was. But then, who wasn't?

Lucy and I started taking our dinner breaks together. Once Kathy found out I wasn't going to dinner with her, she'd schedule my break last and spend the entire shift pretending I didn't exist. Consequently, I didn't have plans after work and was free to do something with Lucy.

Mostly we sat in my car in the parking lot of Saint Joseph hospital smoking cigarettes and talking. Looking back, I really have to admire her persistence. She did everything but write me a note to let me know she'd make out if I just made the first move. That was exactly why the first move never came.

As you might imagine, our relationship was short-lived. I don't remember why it ended (other than the fact I was gay and didn't know it), but it did. We stopped taking dinner breaks together and avoided each other as much as possible. That's when I first heard the expression about not dipping one's pen in company ink. It was really awkward for a while.

Must not have been too bad. Wasn't long before I was going out after work and taking my dinner breaks with another coworker. Some people are slow learners.

Kathy

Kathy had waist-length dark red hair and a temper to match. The hair stayed hidden beneath her pyramidal nursing cap. The temper was harder to hide.

As second shift charge nurse, Kathy was ultimately responsible for everything that happened on our 37-bed surgical unit. She couldn't have been more than 24 or 25 at the time and about as lonely as they come. Shy and reserved, she never dated anyone but talked (rarely) about an ex who had broken her heart.

Through Kathy I became friends with Linda, of broken leg fame in the Trauma Car story. Linda worked on the next unit over and had been a year or two behind Kathy in the nursing program at Eastern Kentucky University. They had a lot of mutual friends from partying in Richmond.

A month or two after I started working with her, Kathy invited me, Linda and others to her place to hang out after work. She shared a two-bedroom apartment in a four-plex off Wilson Downing Road with two indoor-only cats. We sat around listening to music, playing cards and drinking beer until the sun came up.

Going to Kathy's after work became the thing to do several nights a week. She'd stack 8 or 10 albums on the stereo (Billy Joel, Peter Brown, Seals & Crofts & Christopher Cross come immediately to mind) and bring out the playing cards. Spades was the game of choice. On nights it was just me and Kathy, we played Canasta. Whatever the game we played for blood.

Sometimes Kathy cooked. It was always chili. She'd get inspired and toss interesting and/or unusual ingredients like peanut butter and cheddar cheese into the pot. The cats, Bad-ass and Little Kitty, frequently sampled from the pot as it stewed on the stove. We didn't care.

One night the three of us went to Jefferson Davis Inn to play pinball. Pinball machines were plentiful because video games hadn't yet been invented. Kathy got trashed, which wasn't all that unusual. What was unusual was for usually shy Kathy to take a liking to a scruffy looking dude none of us had ever met before.

Linda and I nearly fainted when Kathy asked him to come back to her apartment with us. Turns out, he had only recently completed his sentence for some little thing he dismissed with the wave of a hand. Within a week he had moved in with Kathy. She stopped asking us over shortly thereafter.

I transferred to the Emergency Room for the excitement and didn't see much of Kathy for a while. She got fired a few months later...for pilfering narcotics from the unit. I heard she lost her license, too.

Kathy was the kind of nurse you wanted looking after you--smart, capable, and professional. I can't imagine what happened. We've googled her unusual last name without success. Linda and I have often wondered where she is and if she was able to turn her life back around.

Free at Last

In the late 70s the second shift at Saint Joseph Hospital was mostly female, single and under 30. Everyone knew everyone else directly or by reputation. Because of the gender imbalance all the single men were celebrities--without regard for race, socio-economic status or sexual preference.

There was never enough help. When your unit was fully staffed someone got pulled to cover an absence elsewhere. If you got caught up you were pulled to a busier unit to help them catch up. The shifts flew by, but you were too hyped up on adrenaline and caffeine to just go home, brush your teeth and go to bed.

Coming home at 3, 4, and 5 in the morning went over big with my parents. The carefully thought out explanation I'd worked out on the drive home never produced the desired result. Drunken arguments with sober parents rarely ended well either.

After a particularly ugly scene I found a roommate through an ad in the local paper and moved into a two bedroom/two bathroom apartment at the Cloisters. The arrangement didn't last long. My roommate had to get up early and complained if I made a sound when I got home. I still owe him for my part of the phone bill.

I moved to an efficiency on Lansdowne Drive on the big hill between Reynolds and Reading Roads. You could see the complex from my parents house. My first floor apartment was on the front of the building that overlooked the pool on the side closest to Lansdowne Elementary.

Drunk and hungry, one night I came home and without even taking off my coat, threw a pizza in the oven and sat down on the bed to take off my shoes. I woke up still in my coat and shoes about noon the next day. I remembered the pizza an hour or two later when I overheard neighbors talking about the horrible smell in the building the night before. The oven was still on. We used the charred black disk for a frisbee the rest of the summer.

School slipped from the priority list to the back-burner. I had a full-time job with benefits. Wasn't that the reason you went to school in the first place? I quit after midterms without bothering to withdraw to focus on my career as a hospital ward clerk.

The luxurious, bachelor lifestyle of my dreams wasn't happening. I transferred to first shift and got a second job at McAlpin's in Turfland Mall for the extra income and the discount. That's when things really started to get crazy.

My First Real Job

The place I'd been working since high school--Crossroads Cinema--went out of business in January of my freshman year at UK. I was still living at home, but had a car payment and a few credit cards. I needed a job...fast.

It was the height of winter during the energy crisis in 1977. The mall was only open a few hours a day. Everyone I knew was getting laid off.

After a mercifully brief stint at the original McDonald's on New Circle Road over by Eastland Parkway, I landed a full-time job with benefits as a ward clerk at Saint Joseph Hospital. This was serious stuff. Someone could die if I screwed up.

I was 20 and incredibly naive. I'd kissed a girl or two but the idea of anything else was frankly terrifying. Surely everyone else had already had sex and would laugh at me if they ever found out how little I knew about it. That I might be gay had never even crossed my mind.

No doubt that's why Jesus plopped me down in a hospital. The female to male ratio was better than 30 to 1. If I couldn't get laid there, it wasn't going to happen.

Half the second shift went to 803 South after work at least a few nights a week. The jukebox had a lot of great selections and the crowd often sang along. I swear sometimes it was like being in a Hollywood musical.

This particular night we were drinking pitchers of warm beer and eating lukewarm hotdogs. The 1:00 a.m. closing time always came too soon. Some guy invited everyone over to his apartment to keep the party going. Sure!

We ended up in a basement apartment somewhere off Reading Road with about 50 other people. I was sitting on the floor between Linda and Debbie, who sat behind me on the couch. The room was really crowded, smoke-filled and very warm.

Linda and Debbie worked at Saint Joseph. Linda was a large-but-beautiful nurse with waist-length fiery red hair and gorgeous green eyes. Debbie was some kind of supervisor in the kitchen. I ended up dating Linda's sister and later, being Debbie's roommate. But that was later.

That night I had an elbow on one of Linda's and Debbie's knees. The room started to spin. I heard someone say something about me turning green. Seconds later Linda and Debbie each had an elbow and were dragging my puking ass to the bathroom.

We were in the only bathroom in an apartment with about 50 beer-drinkers. People started knocking on the door. The guys could go outside but the girls really didn't have any other options.

I sat in just my penny loafers and tighty-whiteys on the edge of the bathtub with my head on the toilet seat. Linda was the first to break. She dropped her pants, raised my head off the toilet seat, and sat down to do her business with my head resting on her ample thigh. I vaguely recall resting my forehead on a number of thighs.

I remember Debbie washing my white izod shirt in the sink while Linda dried my sky blue pants with the hair dryer. I have no idea how they got them off of me, but was grateful. By the time I could stand up without barfing, my pants were dry enough to put back on. We left shortly thereafter.