was a slimy little bastard. But there was a sort of salty, crusty, dick-in-your-face sex vibe coming from him. He was the kid who’d pinch your boob, or stretch out his open palm, one finger sticking up, on the seat of your chair as you sat down. Then smirk knowingly at his buddies when you shot up, shrieking. He talked, quite loudly, about getting a ‘woody’. He was slightly feral, ferrety, weasely, and seemed always to be in total, swaggering control. He wore net T-shirts to show off what he considered impressive pecs. He seemed completely oblivious to what seemed obvious to me. He was born to end up in a checkerboard suit selling used pintos.
Lee-Anne, on the flip side, the pack leader of the girls, had her own brand of charisma. She was tough, a tomboy, and reckless. She came from a wealthy family who lived in a big old lake front house with acres of garden all around. None of the prissy-clean rich girl ways for Lee-Anne though. Tight corduroy pants, running shoes, sweatshirts and stringy hair were her style. She was strong and athletic and swore like a stevedore, even though she went to St. Etienne Catholic School, where the nuns, she told everybody, were afraid of her. I learned a lot of great cussing from Lee-Anne.
It was Steve who suggested the vodka. Barbara balked at first, but Lee-Anne, not to be outdone in daring-do by Weasel Boy, took the suggestion to heart and basically bullied Barbara into acquiescence. This raiding of the parent’s liquor cache was a new thing for me and behind what I hoped was a steel cool exterior, sat a bowl of lime green Jell-O. With the music of The Rolling Stones playing on the family hi-fi, out came the 40oz., springwater-clear bottle of vodka. Blue plastic glasses were proffered to each of us, with the same inferred threats no doubt later used by Jim Jones handing out glasses of spiked Kool-Aid. Not all of us fell sway to the dark influence, but I, in spite of the vague cigarette nausea, managed a healthy searing gulp.
The circle of glasses was quickly empty and I was wondering how I was going to get out of doing this again. I didn’t think my stomach was going to handle another shot. Relief came when somebody asked if there was any beer. The refrigerator, kept especially for this purpose in the basement, was checked. Sure enough, it was full of Labatt’s 50. Bottles were handed out. I took one, saying I liked beer better than vodka, more flavour. Right. Actually, I figured I could just nurse the bottle and nobody would be the wiser. The boys began passing the bottle of Vodka back and forth, then offered it to one of the girls who had declined beer. She took a tiny lady-like swallow and passed it back to Steve.
“You call that a drink?” Steve challenged. “Typical fucking girls. Girls just can’t drink like men.”
“Yeah, man,” said one of the Weasel Boy’s pals. “Girls shouldn’t even drink. Only sluts drink.” This brought a round of solid agreement from the male chorus.
Lee-Anne, slouched in the bean bag char, couldn’t let it pass.
“Go to Hell,” she countered. “You wouldn’t know what to do with a slut if you found one. And since when do you consider yourself a man, Steve?” Laughter from the girls.
“You think you can drink?” said Steve, standing in front of Lee-Anne’s chair, drawn up to his full height of 5’4”.
“I can drink as much as you, asshole.”
“Prove it.”
Lee-Anne stood up slowly; she was at least two inches taller than Steve. She folded her arms across her chest.
“No problem. Go ahead. Drink up.”
Had this been the Wild West of the late 1800s, no tenser stand off could be imagined. The gunslingers squared off. The barroom went dead quiet. Somewhere in the distance a dog barked. We mere townsfolk stepped back to give ‘em room.
“Ladies first,” said the Testosterone Kid.
“Tell you what, you do your best, and I’ll drink anything you can’t finish.” The bottle, it should be noted, untouched a mere twenty minutes ago, was still three-quarters full. Steve paused, eyeing the level of vodka. For the first time, he seemed unsure.
“Then I guess it’s half each.”
“Guess so.”
“Go on, Steve!” “She’s bluffing!” “She can’t handle it,” came the encouragement of Kid’s gang. The girls remained silent.
“I don’t know about this,” Barbara ventured.
“Be cool,” Lee-Anne growled, “Yeah, Stevie, half each, if you can handle it. Go on.”
Steve looked like his mouth may have written a check his body couldn’t cash. I actually felt pity for him. I’d been there, one foot off the gangplank and no where to go but down. Best to retain some dignity and put on a brave face.
He put the bottle to his lips and drank, and drank, and drank some more. Then he started to cough. He turned a quite beautiful crimson shade, his eyes watered and his nose ran and he gagged. I was sure it was all going to come right back up. Everybody was laughing at him, Lee-Anne loudest of all. Somehow he managed to keep the vodka from coming out his nose. He sneezed three times. Slowly he regained his lost composure. He looked at the remaining booze in the bottle. Not even close to half gone, but still, he’d consumed a sizeable whack of alcohol. He looked woozy. He looked the colour of sea kelp. But he was on his feet.
“Shut up, you guys. She’ll never beat that. Your turn.” He passed the bottle to Lee-Anne.
Lee-Anne smiled and I knew just from looking at that smile there was no way she was going to be outdone. She wasn’t doing it for womankind though, she was doing it for herself, for the hell of it, for the sheer pleasure of making him look like a dickless idiot. I didn’t have a good feeling about this.
“That’s it, Stevie? Can’t even finish your half? Guess I’ll have to drink yours too.”
“Lee-Anne, you don’t have to do this.” She looked over at me, almost as surprised to hear me speak as I was.
“What do you have to do with this Rose? Stay out of it.”
She was right of course. I had nothing to do with it. I was a visitor to the party. My rank did not include permission to interfere in hierarchy rituals. People glanced over at me. I shrugged, feigning nonchalance, but they’d turned away by then. I was not noteworthy.
“Bottoms up.” Lee-Anne toasted the room. She raised the bottle to her mouth and poured it in. She was not so much taking swallows as just letting it flow down her throat. From the level of expertise, I was betting she’d done this before. The chanting started.
“Chug, chug, chug, ...”
I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. The level of the bottle of harmless looking, water- coloured liquid was rapidly lowering. It was as though someone had pulled the plug in a bathtub. It slid down her gullet smooth as rain through a tin trough. I was impressed.
Chug, chug, chug,......”
There rose a mighty cheer, as the last drops of vodka disappeared. Lee-Anne raised her hands, one clasping the bottle, high over her head in victory. Even Weasel Boy was impressed.
“Shit,” he muttered, eyes wide.
Lee-Anne bowed to the crowd, and promptly flopped down in the beanbag chair. She accepted the congratulations of her followers with all the self-contained grace of Queen Victoria. I raised my beer bottle in recognition
