We lived warmly in the light of liquor and promise.  Waiting for the school bus, Billy, Mike and I would stand beside the road and pass around a bottle of Southern Comfort, let the alcohol kill the germs of our doubt.  We would say things like “I can’t wait to graduate, I’m just gonna party, not worry about a thing, man.” We would wonder what Sue Collins looked like naked and say how we’d like to take a shot at that, then silence and someone would say something crazy like “I wonder what Sister Roslyn looks like naked.”  We would look at whoever was stoned enough to say something like that, then we would all laugh.  “You’re crazy.”  “I bet she has a nice ass though,” and we’d all laugh some more.

We would hear the screeching and grinding of the school bus going up Crossland Road long before it arrived, giving us time enough to secret the bottle in my St. John’s Catholic School gym bag, to straighten our school ties and to pass out gum to mask our whiskey breath.

“Let’s rise for the Pledge of Allegiance,” Sister Alphonsus said every day before class and after prayer.  I wouldn’t hear much else until lunch, when we would go out to the cemetery beside the school and furtively pass the bottle around for our second buzz of the day.  I was happy sitting there, my back against the cold of a gravestone, smoking a cigarette, never talking about school or work or dreams or anything that would stick.  The warmth in our bellies was enough.

Senior year was our best year. We wore our shades even when we didn’t need to and talked about girls and the parties we wanted to have, until the bell rang, and it was time for class. 

We were a universe of our own, either feared or shunned, until Lydia and Rachel Tidwell tentatively crossed over that invisible barrier separating Us from Them.  

We knew the Tidwells from church and school but had never taken much notice of them until our Senior Year, their Sophomore year.  Before then, they had been children.  Supposedly identical twins, Lydia was taller, fairer, blonder than her sister Rachel, but by our Senior year both had taken on the shape of new womanhood -  round on top, narrow waists, hips flared to long and tapering thighs, all barely concealed within and under their blue-checked schoolgirl uniforms.

While the girls had begun to gravitate toward us early in our Senior year, they were not fully committed until around Christmas break, at which time they made the first move to speak. Billy, Mike and I were sitting outside at our usual place in the cemetery, my back against the age-blackened gravestone of Armen Peake, b 1865 d. 1898, A Choir of Angels Sings Him Gently Unto His Sleep. 

Lydia sauntered up boldly, her sister slightly behind. “Do you boys want to be dead or somethin’?  You’re always sitting out here in the cemetery.  Kind a creepy.”

Billy, the wordsmith of our little group, answered.  “Anything would be better than having to go back in there and listen to some nun spout off a bunch of trash.”

This seemed to shock the girls, but only a little.  “What were you passing around before? We seen you hiding something.”

“What would you girls know about it?  You’re just kids.  Don’t you have to go take a nap or somethin’?”  Billy flicked his cigarette butt aside with a flourish.

“We’re not that young.  We got left back.”  Lydia answered as Rachel told her to shut up.

“Still too young to know what we’re up to out here.  You would just go back in and blab it.”

“Would not.”  The girls answered.

“Alright we’ll give you a test.  We’re smoking dope.  What do you think about that?” Billy responded, and now I told him to shut up.

“Big deal. We do much better things than that.”  Lydia answered as the girls turned together and headed back toward the school.

We looked at each other.  “What do you think they meant by that?” Mike asked. 

“I don’t know but I’d like to find out.” Billy answered and I put the Amen to that.

The last days before break passed in a haze of whiskey, class, mumbled prayers, cold, slightly suggestive conversations, snow, furtive looks, bus rides and notes passed in a code the girls used previously only with each other.  Poor Michael was left out of this changed universe, now neatly balanced between Ying and Yang.  The girls took our numbers down last day before break as they were not allowed to have boys call.

After Christmas, Rachel called and said that Lydia and Billy were going to meet down on the lake to skate.  Why don’t I come too because she would be bored if she had to skate alone?  I agreed, grabbed my skates and put my bottle in the inside pocket of my parka.

A half mile stretched across the flat grey and white lake from our dock, half pulled up on the shore, half still submerged in the grey ice, to their dock on the scenic side.  As I skated across the ice, the wind flapped the green and white canopy covering their dock above the small red spot that grew into Rachel as I approached.

We skated on the lake until dusk, her curfew, then slowly slid back over to her side of the lake.  We stopped, eye to eye for a moment.  I bent down and with numb lips kissed her lightly on the cheek.  She said goodbye and that she would call tomorrow.  I never felt so warm, a warmth surpassing even the familiar warmth of a whiskey buzz.  Turning to skate back to my side of the lake, I passed Lydia and Billy as they slid slowly along.  “Wait for me at the dock.”  Billy yelled as he passed.

I skated over and sat on the wooden dock, pulling off my skates and putting back on my keds.  Taking out the bottle from my parka, I took a hit and watched as Billy came skirring back toward our side of the lake.

“How’d it go?”  I offered him a hit.

“Cool.  Real cool.” He said breathing hard.  “She loves to kiss.  I probally could have gotten somewhere if we weren’t outside in this cold.  Listen to this.  Their parents are going out for New Years and I got Lydia half convinced to invite us over when her parents are gone.  They’ll be all alone.”

“No way.”

“Yes way.  I think a little more and she’ll fall over and let us come over.  And we’ll be in … like Flynn. She’s a bit scared of getting’ caught is all.”  I held out my hand for him to slap.

“Good work, man.”

“You gonna owe me big time.”  He took a swig from the bottle and handed it back.

As night fell on December 31^st we headed out onto the ice, the bottles of champagne in my bag clinking dully like covered bells.

“Do you ever think about Tony?” I asked.

“No. Not any more. I told you, man, it’s all about the moment.  Tony told me that before he left for ‘Nam.  People like us die young, even if they live a lot of years, they still die young.  Have fun while you can and don’t worry about a thing.  I don’t give a shit about nothing no more.”  I knew he was lying.  I knew he thought about his brother all the time just like I thought about Craig. But he was right too.  People like us don’t live long even if they don’t die at a young age.

Still, I knew how he really felt inside, beyond brave talk and the warmth of booze.  After all, the pain of losing our brothers created the bond that had brought us together in the first place.

“Tonight, I just want to have some fun,” he continued.  An opportunity like this don’t come around all the time.  Lydia’s built like a brick shithouse, Rachel too, man.”

“You done good, but Rachel she ain’t no slut or nothin’.” I answered.

“They all are, man, if you catch ‘em right.”

We got to the dock and crunched across the beach.  The girls lived in a large white and black house with a high deck overlooking the lake.

“Here we are boy-o.  Lydia told me to knock on the bottom door under the deck.”  Billy knocked and Lydia came to the door.  She stepped out and kissed Billy.  Rachel smiled at me as we stepped inside the basement. 

The basement had been finished and fitted out for the girls.  Each had their own room.  A TV, a stereo, a big couch and La-Z-Boys fitted out the shared play room.

“Hey, Danny-boy brought some champagne.  You girls ever have it before?  Lydia, go get some glasses.  You gotta try this.  It’s really good.  What kind of records you got?”

“We got the Bay City Rollers,” Rachel answered nervously.

Billy and I laughed.  “The gay shitty holers?  You got to be kiddin’ me.  No Zeppelin, Sabbath, Aerosmith?”  Billy asked.

“No.  We got the Beatles though.”  Rachel responded.

“That’ll have to do.” 

Lydia came back with some Dixie cups and we convinced the girls to try the champagne.  They liked it and began drinking in surprising quantities. 

“Slow down there girls.  We got a few hours to go.”  Billy implored.

We laughed and danced, and drank and listened to music, even the Bay City Rollers.  After awhile, Billy turned the lights down and sat on the couch with Lydia.  He gave me a look that said “come on, get busy.”

I looked at Rachel. Her skin was flushed and her hands were on her knees as she looked down.  Thinking she might get sick, I led her to her room, knocking the teddy bears and fluffy puppies off the bed. I laid her down gently and lay down next to her.

“Are you alright Rachel?  Rachel?”  Her eyes were closed.   I brushed her hair back from her face then put my nose into the folds of her dark hair, breathing in the light floral scent, watching the soft rise and fall of her chest.  My face hot and my mind buzzing, I put my hand to her breast softly, and gently kissed her lips.  Her navy blouse was half out of her skirt. I pulled the blouse from its constraints and lifted it up to feel the softness of her skin.  Warm, her body was as beautiful as any goddess of marble.  Lifting the sheer white fabric of her bra, I gently kissed her naked breasts.

Her eyes opened and she screamed.  I heard Lydia yell to Billy to “get him off my sister!” Hands quickly grabbed my neck and shoulders and pulled me off.  Dragged and wrestled out the door, I heard Rachel crying and Lydia screaming.  Billy looked at me.  “What the fuck is wrong with you!”  I barely saw the right cross as it crashed into my skull.  After I landed on back in the snow, Billy leaned down and whispered.  “You better not have blown this for me.”

“I thought you said you just wanted to have fun.  You don’t care about nothing.”

“I don’t.”

I was left in silence as he slammed the basement door shut. How long I laid there I don’t know, but I lay there looking up into the dark sky until the cold numbed my neck and legs and my vision began to clear.

I called Billy the following day.  He told me that I fucked up.  “Lydia thinks you’re some kind of rapist or something. If I hang with you, man, she won’t have nothin’ to do with me.”

“What does Rachel think?”  Billy hung up the phone without answering.  I tried to call him back during the break but he wouldn’t take my call.

The rest of the Christmas break passed away slowly.  On the first day back, I sat alone in the graveyard as Billy, Lydia, Rachel and Michael walked by silently on their way to class.  Rachel looked at me with a look more of pain and sadness than of anger.

Sitting against the stone that marked the resting place of Armen Peake, I poured out all my whiskey on the ground beside the headstone.  “Might as well have some whiskey, Armen, while the Angels sing you to sleep.  People like us die young.  Have fun while you can and don’t worry about tomorrow.”

I chucked the bottle behind me listening for the crash of glass. The bottle landed silently in the grass.  I put my shades in my pocket and walked into class, the first time in a long time that I had gone into class without a buzz.