“Right.” I slammed mine back, already well into my first experience of being drunk. “Let’s go!” I have no memory after that and only learned the remainder of that night’s story from Melanie, who shared her recollection with me over the next few days.
We reached Lynn’s house to find the high school party in full swing, mainly populated by her sister and brother’s eleventh and twelfth-grade friends. Their parents were in Hawaii and mine were safely ensconced at a Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra concert.
Apparently none of my friends could tell I was blind drunk, and my intoxication didn’t stop me from drinking several beers while there. From what Melanie said, I was fun, funny, and relaxed at the crowded house party. After a few hours, Melanie and I walked back to her house and crept inside, her family now home and in bed. I was making noise and goofing around, ignoring her repeated requests to speak more quietly. She led me down to their unfinished basement in an attempt to keep me from waking her parents and three older brothers on the top floor.
Once downstairs, I tried to recreate our childhood playacting games, beginning with Aquaman, my favorite, where I played the lead and Melanie played Aquagirl. But Melanie wasn’t playing along.
“C’mon, Mel, be Aquagirl,” I implored. Melanie shook her head.
“I think we should go to bed; I’m tired.” Ignoring her growing frustration, I began to set up the ironing board. “What are you doing?” she asked.
“It’s an underwater rock—I’m gonna swim over it,” I announced, backing up to the far wall. “Watch out!”
“Lori! No!”
I ran and leaped, hurdling the ironing board. I ran back and forth, jumping over it several times before catching a toe and crashing, ripping my elbow open on the rough concrete wall and smashing the iron into pieces. I crumpled to the floor, then bounced back to my feet, oblivious to the pain.
“You’re bleeding, Lor,” she said resignedly. “Don’t move, you’re getting it all over. Here.” She pressed a rag from a nearby laundry basket to the large gash. “Hold this on it, press hard.”
Still drunk herself, Melanie somehow controlled the bleeding, while steering me, loudly babbling about Aquaman, up two flights of stairs to her bedroom and into my sleeping bag.
I remember the morning. I woke up in Melanie’s bright bedroom, unsure of who or where I was for several long moments, my mind completely devoid of memory, my head pulsating painfully. I moved my arm to rub my face and a sharp pain seized my elbow. The smell of vomit and blood hit my nostrils in a rush and I gagged, but my stomach was empty. Inspecting my elbow, I felt encrusted blood and puke all over my arm, neck, and the side of my face. With my good arm, I touched my head, where dried vomit clumped in my hair. Just then, Melanie entered the room.
“Your mom’s on the phone,” she said, squatting beside me. “How’re you feeling?” Her nose wrinkled at the harsh smell.
“Terrible. I am so sorry.”
“It’s okay,” she smiled. “You were pretty funny.”
“Does your mom know?”
“Yeah, but she’s just worried about you. She won’t tell your parents.”
“I know she wouldn’t. I feel so crappy, I don’t even care,” I moaned as I tried to get up. We walked slowly down the stairs, Melanie assisting me, my head spinning, stomach cramping. I reached for the phone with bloodied fingers and took a deep breath, summoning my most normal-sounding voice.
“Hi Mom.”
“What time did you get up?” I tried to gauge her tone.
“Just now, we stayed up late talking,” I lied.
“Uh-huh. Time to get home, we have things for you to do,” she said icily. She knows. I’d later discover she and my dad saw the party from the street as they drove home from their concert.
I showered, scrubbing hard in an effort to wash off my embarrassment and shame along with the filth. I ate a piece of dry toast and gathered my things. Mrs. Solesky had washed and dried my clothes while I’d slept, and I apologized and thanked her for everything. She smiled sympathetically and gave me a warm hug. I promised her I’d be back to take the sleeping bag to the dry cleaners and replace the iron.
Filled with shame and dread, I shuffled the full 120 feet from the Soleskys’ house to ours slowly, like a death row inmate on his last day. I found my parents sitting quietly in their recliners in the living room, unusual for a Saturday morning.
“Were you at the party at the Rowans’ house?” my mom asked before I’d even taken a seat.
“Yeah.” So intense was my hangover, I didn’t even consider lying.
“Were you drinking?”
“Yeah.”
“Where?”
“Melanie’s. And at Lynn’s.”
“The Soleskys were out? You said they’d be home.”
“Yeah.”
“What were you drinking?” Dad finally joined in.
“The Polish stuff. And then some Crown Royal. And beer.”
“You drank the Polish stuff?!” they exclaimed in unison, eyebrows raised. I nodded. My head ached more from the movement. I thought I detected a smirk on Dad’s face. His moustache turned down slightly when he was amused.
“Well,” Mom said. I waited several moments for more. She appeared uncharacteristically at a loss for words. “You’ve probably suffered more than you would from any punishment we could give you. Go help your dad clean the garage.” She banished me with a wave of her hand.
That was the last time either of them spoke to me about drinking. Socially, I was incapable of having just one drink. I didn’t drink daily and often went several weeks between drinks. Where some binge drinkers aim to get blind drunk, my goals were less clear: I simply couldn’t stop once I started, even knowing the result could be a blackout.
Drinking eased my social anxiety. When I drank, I didn’t worry about not fitting into my gender, or my skin. I was popular, and I enjoyed it, but I lived in constant fear of someone learning the truth about me. I had the high social standing that came with being an athlete and a good student. No one teased me, bullied me, or made me feel like the outsider I knew myself to be. I was keenly aware of the privilege I enjoyed as a white, middle-class, non-marginalized person, and I was terrified of losing it. Drinking helped me maintain my facade.
After graduation, many of my classmates came out as gay, lesbian, or bisexual, but I’m not aware of any other transgender people who attended school with me. I have tried for years to explain the dynamic around LGBTQ awareness at Bishop Carroll High School in the early 1980s, but I’ve never been able to. While the student population had its fair share of entitled frat-boy types, I don’t remember witnessing or hearing of anyone being called out or teased by any of the masters of the universe for being different or queer.
As an androgynous-looking teen, perceived by others as a tomboy, I certainly could have been targeted, but I never was, perhaps due to my popularity. My high school was an extremely classist place where it was very easy to determine where kids fell on the social and economic spectrum. As long as they fit in economically and didn’t challenge the status quo in any other ways, even the most effeminate boys and butch girls studied with, interacted with, socialized with, or were themselves members of the popular crowd.
Still, I tiptoed carefully, walking a tightrope between finding some comfort in my skin and maintaining a school wardrobe that wouldn’t attract negative attention. Working after-school and summer jobs at various places from Dairy Queen to an athletic shoe