basement

I think it was a Friday. My friend T called me up and said the magic words, “Let’s go get drunk.” But I was twenty and the only place we could think of that we could both for sure get in was one of the clubs where all the bands played. So we went to a show we really had no interest in going to, because T could sneak me beers and we could in fact, get drunk.

I realized I knew some people there when we got in. Some people in my group of friends I’d been exiled from by P were playing as well as this weird nu metal band full of younger kids. It was a weird bill. But it was basically free to get in and there were copious amounts of draft beer to be drank.

I remember what I was wearing for some reason. Long black skirt, gray v-neck t-shirt. Boots. Too much make up. Whatever. About three beers into this experiment of getting drunk for the hell of it and listening to the nu metal band and noticing that the kid playing the bass had pretty eyes when someone else gave me a CD.

Later I would get an email from this guy. The CD guy. And later still I would find out I’d been videotaped drunk at that show by this guy. And even later still we would date and it would  be wonderful for awhile and then it wouldn’t. This would be the person I would be with when I turned twenty one. And we would fight and make up and fight again.

It wasn’t him. It wasn’t me. It wasn’t anything but people that shouldn’t have dated because they were both too damn stubborn and too different to work. People who were too young to know what they wanted and too entirely inexperienced at being grown up to make it work.