As if you needed an excuse to get drunker than usual. You were at college, weren't you? What, if any, reason was there to go to college other than to find out what was too much in the world of liquor? William Blake probably was a Phi Delta Epsilon or some such shit. "You never know what is enough until you know what is too much." Yeah. That was exactly the thought I had in my mind as I was pouring rum into my pie hole as fast as the Cherry Seven-Up could carry it down.
That first hard rain usually fell in the morning, followed by a cold front which included a hard, driving wind. That wind was crucial to the effect, which was evidenced by the multicolored leaves blowing hard from their homes. Squirrels would be hastily chewing the rinds from the acorns as they swished their robust tails and watched you take your best girl through the quad to that all-important football game. They might wink, in appreciation of the fact that humans can mate in any season.
Rum can be made to taste just like sugar water with enough Cherry Seven-Up to go along with it. That, however, does not dilute the alcoholic nature of the liquor. I'm sitting in the stands at a famous Southeastern Conference football stadium, and my girl is with me and we're having the afternoon of our lives. The problem is the paper cups. I've seemingly poured one too many drops of wax-dissolving alcoholic rum into this cup and it can't be overridden by the soothing qualities of Cherry Seven-Up. Oooops. The bottom of the cup gives up just as Our Team scores a touchdown and we all stand up to cheer. The large man sitting in front of me is not amused as the full contents of my drink spill, violently, from the bottom of my cup onto the very crown of his head.
It wasn't so much the fist in my face that bothered me, because I was pretty much past the point of feeling any pain. It was the fact that my girl saw me just take it and say, "Well, I guess I deserved that," without doing anything about it. You girls can say what you will about pacifism and world peace, but when your man gets hit in the face, you do NOT want him to just admit that he might have had it coming. Do you?
The cool wind blew across the stadium and you could feel the season change right there, even while you were watching. Summer was long gone and there wouldn't be any skinny dipping for quite a while. You might have thought back to your girl laying there by the edge of the creek, naked, while you got another beer out of the cooler. Man, did she look good or what?
As the chilly winds blew across your bruised face and you tried to act like it didn't matter, you caught something out of the corner of your eye. What was that? Oh, yeah. It was the loss of her respect for you.
Homecoming. Yeah, I'm coming home, all right.
Alone.