The thing you had to respect, though, was that the private school girls knew how to party. They always brought a bottle of something. They shared their pot. They danced, whether anyone else was dancing or not. They had good advice about the college admissions process. Most importantly, they always showed up.
That August, just before school started, we were eager for another legendary party. We thought all parties should be legendary. We tried hard. We shouted Here’s Johnny! when we walked in the door. We made party mixtapes. We got so good at beer pong it wasn’t fun anymore so we made up new games; we set up empty bottles and shattered them with a bowling ball Richard bought at a thrift store (we called it Bowling Rock), we chanted the sacred team songs. Everything was exactly right, but something was always wrong.
One night, at Ham’s, I found a bottle of whiskey in Ham’s dad’s office and I took it outside. I went and stood at the edge of the yard. I wanted to think about how I was watching my life more than living it. I looked at the sky and it felt true. It made me feel sad and kind of restless. It was like sitting next to a girl and the movie is boring, but it’s making her cry and you feel like you’re not supposed to touch her, until you realize maybe she actually wanted you to touch her. But by then it’s too late.
The feeling never really went away. It was there at all our parties. It was there when I drove home with the radio loud so I wouldn’t pass out and when I stared at my ceiling because I couldn’t sleep. We never talked about it, but I felt like a lot of the other guys were feeling it, too.
The juniors partied hard, but us seniors all sort of stood off to the side. We drank too much beer and felt weird about dancing so we just watched the private school girls. They were the ones partying. We were just going through the motions. Looking back, if it hadn’t been for those private school girls, I don’t know if we would have even had parties that year. We would have missed those good times. And that would have been a tragedy.
* * *
• • •
IN THE FIRST MONTH of senior year I decided to get a blow job from Haley Moreland. We were eating pizza in Max’s basement after the first day of tryouts. We didn’t have to try out, of course. We were the team. Except there were like thirty kids at tryouts.
This is a hungry bunch, Coach said as we watched the kids lining up to get their numbers. We knew he was right, and we worried about it. The kids ran so fast and worked so hard and some of them jogged laps during breaks, showing off.
They were the ones trying out, they wanted a chance to be with us. But we had to work to keep up. So we were hard on them. They got hit hard in the clearing drill. Max picked out this one blond kid who was really good and kept muttering pussy dick right in his ear.
It actually kind of annoyed me. The blond kid would be good for the team, and I tried to get Max to lay off him. You’re an asshole, I told Max during a water break. Pussy dick isn’t even a thing. But actually, we all thought it was pretty funny. And we needed to blow off steam somehow, because on the whole, that day sucked.
We knew what was up. We’d had too much fun that summer. We were in shitty shape. Coach knew it, too. At the end, he clapped his hands and thanked everybody for coming out. Then he said, I want to see my seniors.
All of the new kids left, heads down, hopes high. They still had two more days to try out, years of high school ahead of them. We only had this one year left.
Sit down, gentlemen, Coach said. We sat in a circle around him. The best seniors, the six of us, were right in the middle. Coach was looking right at us.
You worked hard today, Coach said, I know you worked hard. But . . .
As he let that word hang in the air, I got cold. Even though I knew what was coming, I listened to his speech with my whole fucking heart. I remember the pressure, he said, college staring down the barrel. And this is the best time of your life, your golden years.
I felt a little lighter at that. It wasn’t all bad. Coach wanted us to have fun, to enjoy this time. I sat up straight. I glanced over. Max and Dave were smirking on my left. Ham and Alan looked bored and angry. On my right side Richard was watching Coach seriously, his face calm, nodding slightly. I tried to make my face look like Richard’s.
But I also want you to be state champions. And this is your last year to do that.
When he said that, it was the first time I realized we might not win that year, that things could be taken away from us. I have faith in you, Coach said, and I felt both cold and hot in my chest, and my lungs felt so big I worried my eyes were gonna water. They didn’t. But it was a good speech.
Then Coach made each of us set goals, going around the room saying them out loud. I said I wanted to get my face-off percentage over sixty and Coach said, Good man, and I knew he meant it.
Coach had done a good job. He was right. He just needed to motivate us. But still we were all annoyed after. So we went to eat pizza in Max’s basement, and Dave imitated Coach’s voice and said, Let’s all set goals, gentlemen, and then we went around and said which girls were going to blow us before Christmas.
All of the other guys listed three or four girls. Max named five, and two of them had already blown him, which shouldn’t count. I only said Haley Moreland. I’m a one-girl kind of guy, I said. Everyone had to respect that. I wasn’t just some follower, bragging about his conquests. I was a one-girl kind of guy.
But it was a mistake. A couple of days later it was obvious I was fucked. Haley and I had first period together, BC calc. She was a junior but she was a year ahead in math. I kept looking at her all through class. She was supposed to give me a blow job. I kept trying not to look at her and then looking at her anyway.
I had known Haley since we were little. Her mom was friends with my mom. There were pictures of us playing basketball together when we were seven or eight. Sometimes we talked between classes. So it shouldn’t have been weird when I tried to talk to her that day. I had to get a blow job, was all. I’d heard she’d blown one of the seniors last year, a guy who ran track with her.
But whatever I said didn’t work. I made a stupid joke. She kind of laughed but mostly groaned. I wanted to punch myself in the face. I had set Haley as my goal because she was easy. And I had always liked her. I’d always thought she was pretty. But as she walked away, I felt my chest tighten and that’s when I realized that I had fucked myself over. I had it bad for her.
* * *
• • •
I MADE A FOOL OF MYSELF around Haley for months before I got the balls to ask her out. I didn’t want to ask her to a movie or anything in case she thought I was lame. So I just asked if she was going to the party at Dave’s house.
It was December, the last day of exams. Dave called it The Party WAGLER. It stood for The Party Where We All Get Laid (Even Richard).
Obviously we couldn’t tell people that, so we said “the Waggler” was a new dance. But we can’t show it to you, we told people. It’s way too sexy. If we dance the Waggler, you will be overcome with lust.