Chivas Regal

Paul and I went to the market down the block from our school. The shop owner did not mind at all that we were buying a bottle of alcohol when we were clearly underage. We stowed our bottle far in the bottom of Paul's backpack making sure that it did not hit anything hard (the clink of glass would have alerted the ever vigilant authorities). Then we were off to my dorm where Paul would be spending the night.Since our last drinks we had rejected the faith of our forefathers. We had equated Christianity with repressive authoritarianism. We had fetishized alcohol as pure pleasure, an experience so all-encompassing as to have the power to upset religous hierarchies. Drinking was to us the embodiment of rebellion and the individual. So after months of quiet philosohpical recalibrations we finally had liqour within our grasps again, and it felt so fucking right.

As we were not about to take any chances, our drinking started after everyone had gone to bed. In my room, we poured our libations into a ceramic coffee mug that we shared between the two of us. At first the drink burned (it had been quite a while) so we took our time. We sat reveling in this historic moment and reading Far Side collections. As the night went on we sipped the whisky with more abondon. At some point it became obvious that even by our ridiculous standards this was drunkenness- not a sin anymore. We stood and punched each other to test theories of alcohol and pain. We laughed. We rejoiced. Mugfulls of Chivas flew down throats like single ounce shots. The bottle exhausted itself.

Paul fell asleep the wrong way on my spare bed on top of the covers. I vomitted in the sink.

And I have never been happier.