THE NEXT DAY I woke at noon with a banging hangover. It was my first and I didn’t like it. I shaved and showered and headed downstairs, hoping to avoid Robert Workman and both having to explain to him what happened last night and try to say no if he offered me another drink of rum and Coke. After all, I had, in fact, enjoyed the taste of the blend of liquor and soda. Thankfully, he wasn’t there, so I headed out of the dorm once again into the frigid Evanston air on my way to see Kathy Blazer. We had made another friendship date a week ago for 1:00 p.m.
When Kathy came downstairs she had on a red-and-white short summer skirt. It was totally inappropriate for this time of year. On a pretty girl with a good figure, seeing that outfit would have turned me on. But on Kathy, it looked rather odd. But no matter how the dress looked being worn by her it was still a thing of absolute beauty. Kathy strode proudly through the door from the stairway to the lobby doing the best she could to wear that dress well. I had never seen her like this before. She had a smile on her face the size of Texas and her eyes were literally sparkling. Something wonderful that she was feeling on the inside was manifesting itself significantly on the outside. As she approached me, I saw that she was wearing the reddest shade of lipstick I had ever seen. And she wasn’t walking toward me, she was bounding. She was obviously ecstatic about something. Kathy Blazer almost looked pretty. “Hi, Turf,” she said as she continued making a beeline straight into my personal space. She grabbed me confidently about the shoulders and kissed me with an odd blend of passion and affection right smack on the lips. I couldn’t believe it. I was shocked. And it had tasted good.
“Why are you so happy today, Kathy?”
Immediately the look of happiness and joy on Kathy’s face evaporated.
“You don’t remember?” she said.
Suddenly I felt a pit in my stomach.
“Remember what, Kathy?” Looking back, I might have seemed insensitive to her feelings in that instant, but I honestly had no idea what she was talking about.
“You asked me to marry you last night and I said yes.”
Instantly, I was both saddened and terrified. I was saddened because I had hurt her feelings and terrified that maybe she would figure out some way of forcing me to go through with a marriage.
“Oh my god!” I said. “I sincerely have no recollection of having asked you that.”
“We were in the restaurant. It was about eleven o’clock.”
What had I done? All I could remember about last night was acting goofy, being loud, eating an occasional bite of pizza, and falling over repeatedly into Kathy’s sweet-smelling lap. I also remember her fingers tugging at and playing with my hair and gently massaging my scalp. Had the memory numbing effects of the alcohol been so strong that it had blotted out events that apparently had ranked among the most important of a young woman’s life?
“Turf, don’t you remember that we kissed over a hundred times and you were rubbing my calves and thighs when you were lying in my lap?”
I could have been cruel and said, “But, Kathy, surely you realized I was blitzed out of my mind.” But I didn’t. I only apologized repeatedly and profusely. I didn’t want to hurt her any further.
Not only had damage been done to her, but it seemed to be increasing as she lobbied for validity to whatever happened last night with snippets of heart-wrenching explanations.
“Do you remember you said you loved my lips?”
“I’m sorry, but I don’t, Kathy.”
“Do you remember saying you loved the feel of my legs?”
This she asked a little too loudly, and before I knew what I had done, I looked away from her to see if anyone was in earshot. Kathy’s eyes became sad before I could answer yet again, “No, Kathy, I’m sorry but I can’t.”
She looked at me deeply in that intense instant; I peered into her not pretty eyes and saw how I had caused harm to a good human being.
I honestly had no recollection of anything I had said or done that evening except what I have already acknowledged. Still, that did not assuage the guilt I felt at having hurt her. She was my friend and a friend of my family. I hadn’t planned to hurt her.
Damned alcohol.
A few more snippets emerged from her lips as well as more apologies from mine. Suddenly, she got up slowly from the couch. Her cheeks were now a two-lane highway of tears. She was sobbing.
“I’m sorry, Turf. I’ve got to go back upstairs. I don’t think we should see each other again.”
What had I done to have possibly hurt Kathy this much? I analyzed the questions as quickly as possible. What I concluded was that she had been a damaged human being before last night. Somehow, I had lifted her up and, within fourteen hours, dashed her further down than she had ever been before.
Again I told her that I was sorry—meaning it with every fiber of my being, hoping she would forgive me, shrug it off, and smile again.
But she didn’t. There was no reasoning with her.
Kathy Blazer turned away from me and headed to the door at the end of the dorm’s lobby, wearing the saddest face that I had ever caused to that point in my life.
I sat there stunned, speechless, embarrassed, lonely. Somehow, I had hurt a friend. And I felt like crap.
Then she opened the door and disappeared behind it.
I never saw Kathy Blazer again.
At that moment, I didn’t know what to do with myself. For several minutes I sat there almost crying, desperately trying to visualize any of the actions Kathy told me that I had done. I couldn’t remember a single kiss or rubbing her legs and thighs. I could imagine it. And I could imagine how that pronounced attention could have affected her. But I simply couldn’t visualize any of it, except falling repeatedly into her lap.
Was that what a blackout was? It certainly seemed like one. I had never had anything like that happen to me before. I was going on logic. In fact, I concluded that that is exactly what had happened. In the middle of my first drunk, I had blacked out for hours and had wound up hurting a friend of mine terribly. And she had not forgiven me when I asked for her forgiveness. That was another of life’s lessons I learned that day—that people don’t always forgive you, even when you ask for it sincerely from the deepest part of your heart.
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