For much of the rest of that year, I drank.

On a bright weekday afternoon, Paul and I gathered together a few dollars and headed to the Santa Maria Market. We bought two shot glasses and a $6 bottle of Appleton's Rum. Over about an hour, we had six shots in my brother's dorm room before stowing the bottle under a desk, wandering to my dorm room, reading Calvin and Hobbes, laughing, and slowly repeating "Holy Shit" at the magnitude of what was happening to our bodies.

Or.

I spent the night at Paul's house to avoid the stringent curfew of the dorm.We drank vodka from black film canisters. I laid down in the remarkably cool bathtub and Paul sat on the toilet and we talked about fuck knows what.

Or.

I spent the night at Daniel's house and we headed out to the night club Arribar, where I did not dance or talk to anyone but just downed the dollar shots that came with cover and played pool on the warped table in the far back corner.

Or.

The whole of us would grabbed taxis down on a friday afternoon to the Arabian shisha restraunt where we had shawarmas and pipas and tried not to be spotted by Chaplain's assistants who were said to sometimes drive the area and report those students who were in violation of the school's contract.

I held onto the vestiges of my moral purity by claiming that the bible made no invocations against drink but merely against drunkness, which I defined as damn near alcohol poisoning.

Weeks after my night of entrenched sobriety the whole crew returned to Steve's house for the another night of unsupervised fraternalizing. Again my intention was wholly for an evening of vicarious inebriation. So again I sat and watched the action, taking on the role of caretaker (in an apparent bid to avoid the spills and broken vases that marred our previous outing) I settled in for a night few others would have enjoyed. Indeed, the abstainers from the last night out had opted out of this venture (evidently the act of watching someone else's decline into slurred speech and rambunctious singing appealed less to these others [including my brother] or perhaps they knew what a return to another of these parties would inevitably mean). As I watched, I took slight puffs of the heavy cigars being passed around, I promised myself they represented something far more sophisticated and less morally complicated than the cigarettes which were also making the rounds.

At about midnight the heavy drinkers settled into their fitful sleeps on the couches of the downstairs living-room. Only Steve (who had tried to be the voice of reason) and I remained alert. We turned to each other and then to the bottle of Vodka on the balcony table.

-I'll go mix a chaser to smooth the taste, Steve suggested after the requisite fabricated discussion of moral imperatives

-We should play some sort of game to get this stuff down, I recommended, knowing that this particular brand of Vodka had survived until this time in the night because of its extremely harsh afterburn.

We agreed that our game would involve a test of pain: a person would burn a cigar into the right side of his left palm (where it was thought that scars would not remain [and they did not]). If the person could hold the cigar for five seconds, the opposing person would drink twice; if not, the failed burner would drink a single.

We both failed once and succeeded once. Three generous drinks taken from a hard plastic cup and chased down by Tang with a generous amount of powder. I felt the burn and then the warmth. I settled into a living room couch and feel asleep to the strains of one of the lesser Pink Panthers.

In ninth grade, I went to a get-together with some of my friends at Steve's apartment. Not quite like the house parties of the popular imagination (no girls for one thing). Steve had an amazing apartment on the top of his building (itself on the top of a large hill), which afforded a glorious view of the city. The boys sat on his balcony, and then on the roof above it, passing around ciggarettes, cigars, and cheap hard liqour mixed with some unidentifiable juice. I abstained from all of this; there was no room for substance abuse in the religion of my forefathers. Still I enjoyed the drunkness of others, I enjoyed the fact that this group had trusted me enough to invite me to the gathering, I even enjoyed the heavy smell of tobacco as it tapered upwards.

That evening, Marc (drunk beyond measure) thought that Derek (who had misteriously disappeared) must be dead. The fright brought Marc to the verge of religious hysteria (which continued even after Derek emerged from his mysterious disappearance [a/k/a the washroom]). Marc asked someone to explain the gospel to him (a superfluous act for any of us members of a Christian school, including Marc). I read to him from the bible, he accepted Christ. It was the last conversion I can take credit for (and itself a total sham.)

In the morning, Steve noticed that nearly all of the family fish had died.

-The theme of my message here tonight is redemption. The grace of Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ is still relevant to those of you that have been Christians since the age of four, a wondrous message that needs to be shared (etc.)(or some such other similar message).
-Worship God, be the salt of the earth, and remember to come back to the Lord to confess your many sins. (oh how many they are, were; who can really tell [other than the all important God (who sees all)])
-Walk the countryside saying 'Jesus have mercy on me, a sinner'

Eight grade this was it for me: penitence and evangelism.
Ninth Grade I began to drink.