Loren McAuley

'My best writing comes when I can get it out in one long breath, whoosh, no censor. Then I read it, decide if it stays or goes. The work of editing comes then and only then.' - Loren McAuley

When I was ten years old my family moved to a bigger apartment on the other side of Prospect Park in Brooklyn, New York. It signaled a move up to my mother, who was always complaining how she was suffocating in the tiny place they'd had since they had married, the apartment on the garden level of a brownstone on third street.

The new place had two big bedrooms, one for my parents and one for me and my two younger brothers, Thomas and Evan. It also had french doors and huge windows that overlooked the street and the ballfields beyond. It was in a cheaper neighborhood, so we could afford all that. We were on the first floor, and my mother quickly got into the habit of hanging out the window to gossip with her friends and to keep an eye on us playing out front. My father took to golfing on Saturday mornings when he hit it off with a new neighbor who went religiously. Saturdays were his one weekend day off, besides Wednesday. He worked on Sunday, as a salesman in a furniture store in the garment district, in the armpit of the city, as he put it.

When my dad golfed he left before five. I'd watch as he pressed his clubs with their silly woolen covers together so they wouldn't jiggle and wake us up. I knew my mother loved those mornings. As soon as she heard the latch on the front door mom got up and twirled around like she just won the lottery. I listened to her sing to the radio, her slippers flap flapping on the linoleum. Then she started the coffee she brought back to the big armchair and sat there for however long it took me and my brothers to get up.

That summer we joined a beach club, one way out on Rockaway. It was nothing but a rundown clubhouse and a stretch of sand that was set aside for any veteran who had the $50 membership, and the $1.50 entrance fee. It was called something army-like, like Fort Milton Beach Club. Uncle Ted, my mother's younger brother, and dad were members because they had served in the army together. Serving in the army was how dad got his citizenship. Mom always asked Aunt Teresa, who was married to Ted, to go. She got on the phone, asked, do you want to go to the beach today? again? and Aunt Teresa always said she had no money but that she'd go cushion diving for change if it meant getting out. She had four kids by then, and was full-blown crazy staying at home with them. Uncle Ted was on the road all the time, driving a moving truck. I heard how he came home with a paycheck every couple of weeks that he complained hit his hand and flew right out the window. He swore Aunt Teresa and the kids just sucked it dry. He managed to keep a portion of it for himself though, to spend over the bar, when he got home.

Those Saturdays at the beach felt like girls' day out, despite my brothers and my two boy cousins, Michael and Jack. My older cousins Frances and Colleen corrupted me with stories of boys and how to steal makeup, how to sneak out at night. We ate tuna salad sandwiches that crunched with sand. Skin burned at our shoulders and on our noses, in the cracks of the back of knees. When everyone went in the water I hung behind, alone with my mom and aunt even though mom didn't like it (ssshhh! little miss big ears is here!) because she knew I liked to listen. "Go in the water! What are you? some old stick in the mud?" Then she laughed like she realized what did it matter? My mother always laughed on days like this, away from the apartment, away from my father. They talked about my father and uncle, hushes and giggles and slaps of the hand. I watched my mom and aunt pull slowly on the couple of beers they stowed in the silver cooler, the ice sloshing inside before it all melted. When dad and Uncle Ted came they drank sweet cherry colored cocktails from a huge plaid thermos that they poured into plastic cups, but when they were here with just us, it was beer. My aunt kept tugging a big towel around her shoulders to hide the ripples of flesh that shook when she laughed. My mother was beautiful. She sat in a low sand chair, her long legs in front, one outstretched, one bent at the knee. I saw how her bathing suit burst at the top, how her arms were thin and graceful like a dancer's. Dark hair, red lips. She was beautiful. Sexy, too. I knew that from what my father said. Things I heard when they fought--about her old boyfriends, about how she danced, how her clothes fit. My brothers ran for cover when they fought. I stayed. I put my ear to the door a couple of times. I wanted to run but I didn't, even though the words made me sick and crazy. I stayed because I was curious about who they were, what they did together. My mother was beautiful and sexy. I knew that. Like I knew my aunt was frigid and my uncle a drunk, my grandmother a bossy bitch and my grandfather a no good barflying leech. And lately, that my two girl cousins were sluts in training. Lying there on the blanket, I knew I knew a lot. When I looked at my mother, then down at my own ten year old self, flat as a board, legs sticking out like plucked toothpicks, I also knew that I would never be that beautiful. I didn't know if I wanted to be or not. It was a feeling of not caring, of floating, salt bound, on top of a wave.

*

Dad and Uncle Ted would come every once in a while, and of course it was all different then. We had to leave two hours earlier in the morning for one thing because dad held the firm belief that the beach, which was a private beach and never got crowded, would be filled by noon and we wouldn't get a spot. That one time that I remembered everything, he got up at dawn and sprinkled ice cold water on top of our heads, which sent Thomas into such a fit that he wet the bed. Mom got up then, nightgowned and pale. She screamed what an idiot he was then she rushed into the bathroom before he got to her, his arm barely missing the closing door. Me and my brothers knew to go about our business. We pulled on our bathing suits and went into the kitchen. I dragged down the cold cereal, milk and juice and put it all on the table. "Here you go. Come and get it," I said, just like mom did. She had taught us how to fend for ourselves early, she said it was the only way to survive motherhood. Years later when she was a grandmother a few times over, she'd express amazement at how young kids were kept nowadays, how helpless. How mothers just let their kids walk all over them.

"What are you doing there, miss?"

"Nothing."

I never could come up with a better answer for those questions and I waited for what I believed was the just consequence of repeating the wrong answer to a question heard a million times. My mother emerged from the bathroom then, showered and perfumed, hair wrapped turban style on top of her head, already in her suit which clung to her figure like only thick nylon can, and click, my dad turned and softened. He joked about what a scrooge he was, what a stinking Lincoln scrooge he was on such a beautiful day! and mom actually smiled, twirled around like she was on a dance floor. They both started making sandwiches and packing blankets and towels, putting batteries in the portable radio, mixing their cocktail concoctions in their thermos. Everything blew out of the room, like air from a tight balloon. I knew they'd decided to get ready like normal, like what I knew to be the true way to do things, and that I'd take that feeling, no matter how temporary. That it was just as good a reason to be happy as any other.

It usually took forever when we got to the beach to drag all the crap they brought from the Buick dad had bought recently, a big old green thing with worn leather seats he got for fifty bucks off a famous restaurateur from Sheepshead Bay, some guy he had sold a couch to. But Grandma Emma had come so it went faster because she was more organized. She hustled us kids out and settled on a blanket, shoved a treat in our mouths. Then she came back onto the skimpy boardwalk to supervise the next movement, her flowered dress flapping in the breeze like some flag saying hurry up, hurry up, to the others dilly-dallying at the car.

I stuck close with Frances and Colleen who surveyed the scene, tall and skinny in skimpy bathing suits that sent their father into redfaced fits whenever he glanced at them. My dad ran back from the ocean and dragged Evan and Thomas in. When he started throwing them into the waves my mother stood up, shielding her eyes in their direction. Dad's rough-housing made her nervous, it feels like acid on my skin, was how she described it. She never learned how to swim and was terrified of the water. "Jesus Christ, Hugh! Stop it! Christ!" she kept screaming, but he never stopped. When he got out dripping wet, his thin body a white mass of muscles, trunks plastered onto thighs that had played soccer for years in the cold of Ireland's mud fields, fine reddish hair like silk threads on his skin, I thought as I watched him from far away that he looked like some golden ancient fish thing, a thing you caught and tossed back because you didn't know what it was, it could be good, it could bad, you just didn't know.

*

I laid on the blanket. I listened. I watched as they drank, as they nodded off. As they told nasty jokes so low even I couldn't hear them. Dad could be a prince when he wanted to be. He played with the boys for a long time, let them bury him up to his chin so they had to feed him his cocktail through a straw. Later he fell asleep in my mother's lap, his big head half on half off her thigh. All of us circled around that big head. I could see it, we were somewhere hovering above him, happy, upset, angry. Waiting. Like planes at an airport. Whatever he wanted. I wondered how I got so wise, how I had figured it out already.

Around three, they ran out of drinks. The sun was dropping but still blistering, and we were all burnt to a crisp, my mom and dad whoozy, hot and moist as baked bread.

"I think I'll get some cigarettes. I'm out." Uncle Ted got up, wobbled a bit as Aunt Teresa stared at his back zigzagging up the sand till he disappeared over a dune.

"Well, you know dam well he's not coming back." She directed that to mom and grandma Emma, whose loyalties lay squarely with Ted so they didn't say a word. I scrounged around for any food left since I knew that these days at the beach usually didn't end with any kind of dinner. Aunt Teresa finally handed me one of her sorry sandwiches, squashed and wrapped in waxed paper, bologna, the only thing my aunt said she could afford. I gazed at them all around me as I munched slowly on it, the mustard warm as soup, the meat greasy and slick. My mom threw her head back and wiggled her body into the low beach chair so that she was practically lying down. Evan was snoozing under the umbrella and Thomas was busy making a sand tunnel with the cousins. Dad found a lone beer in the bottom of the cooler and waved it at my grandmother with a ha! since beer was her drink of choice. Grandma got up at that, "I just don't know where the day went," she said and she started packing her own basket. She always brought the best stuff to the beach, fried chicken and tiny tomatoes bottled in sugared vinegar, tins of cookies that my mom never bought because they were too expensive for such a small amount.

"Ma, what are you doing? We're not going yet. It's not even four o'clock."

Grandma gave mom a look. She rolled her checkered napkins and tucked them back into the holders on the top of her basket, rubbed the goo off the nice flatware she'd brought. "I'm going to go see what Ted's up to, that's what," and she shook sand out from her thick sandals and put them on.

"Ma, don't be long?" my mother called after her, but grandma didn't look back.

"Don't you worry about me," was all she said as she headed down the other side of the big dune.

"Well, that's a fine how do you do."

"Shut up Hugh."

"Shut up? Well now, it's not me going over the hill to wet my whistle. And you know dam well that's what she's up to."

Teresa smiled but didn't say a thing, she knew better than to interfere between my parents, especially when it was Hugh she was agreeing with.

one two three "You know, your mother's some piece of work," Dad started. "Went to see where Ted got to, my left eye. four five six You have nothing to say about that, Claire? You don't think it's odd that we brought your mother here to this beautiful beach to enjoy the day and she's off in the clubhouse throwing down a few with her son and not here with her grandchildren? seven eight nine "You don't think that's the least bit odd, do you? and ten that's okay with you, that's just okay with you!" bingo!

It went on like that. If I stared at the water hard enough their voices were swallowed in the waves or the squeals of the kids running around me. If I concentrated I could be on another blanket with another family. I kept my eyes away because if I looked up he might feel them on him and he might start on me. He wouldn't start on the boys, they were still too little, but me, I was old enough.

My mother shushed him and I knew that was the wrong thing to do. Dad got close to her face and hissed out some words. I could smell that last warm beer on his breath from where I sat. He stood up straight and put his hands on his hips. In the sunshine he looked like a statue some kids had sprayed with pink paint, on his shoulders, his face, the front of his knees.

"Well I'm not going to sit here spinning cotton. I should go up there and find out what's for. If we're ever going to get out of this bloody place. What do you say, Claire? Teresa? Want to find out where the other two have gotten themselves off to? See what trouble they've fallen prey to? like we don't know already?"

My Aunt Teresa just smiled again. She never argued with him anyway, there was an understanding between the two of them that was never messed with.

"No, Hugh. I'm content right where I am. I am curious though where they are and what they're doing." She stuck her elbow into my mother's side, they were sitting that close in the sand. "You go, Claire. I'll stay with the kids. I don't mind."

I saw that my mother considered it, but she must have decided not to give my dad an inch. She was good at stuff like that, being like granite even if it got her absolutely nowhere.

"No, I'll stay put. Besides, I want to get out of here at a decent hour. Really, Hugh, just go on up there and get them out of there. Could you do that for me?"

"Sure thing." He sounded happier than he had all day at the notion of getting them out of the clubhouse.

My mother watched his retreating back, then straightened and looked around like she was speaking to the whole beach. "Oh this is a fine thing. This is swell. They all go off having a good time for themselves and we get stuck here with these kids. Just plain swell."

*

We were all alone again. Just us girls. The sun slipped. My mother got so antsy she started snapping at her bathing suit so often it sounded like someone beating a drum. Even after a day at the beach and now as angry as a hornet, she looked perfect. She looked like Jane in the Tarzan movies in her jungle print suit, all lipsticked and coiffed in the middle of the tropics. She was tan too, compared to the rest of us, especially my Aunt Teresa who was practically maroon from spending the day outdoors. My mother was "black Irish" as my dad put it, a measure of Spanish blood running through her veins. She took to the sun and got as brown as a nut.

"Where the hell are they, Teresa? Jesus H. Christ!" She kept muttering as my aunt looked over her shoulder at the dune they had all crossed over.

"Relax, Claire. Why not enjoy their absence? Like I do."

I let out a laugh and my mom caught it, what are you smirking at, young lady? which wiped the smile off my face. I looked at my aunt for support, but she was busy staring down Frances, who was hiphopping around, flicking her painted fingernails in her mother's direction.

"Ma, I need to take a shower, please."

"I can't spare the quarter for it. So pipe down."

"But I can't stand it, there's sand all up my you know what." Frances stuck a thumb inside the crotch of her bathing suit and pushed out a huge wad.

"Oh, that's a nice thing to do in public. Go over under the boardwalk and dig it out if you're so uncomfortable. Here's your brother's shovel, to help you out."

Frances flopped down on the blanket on top of Colleen who was reading a comic book, "Ma, look what this idiot did!" Thomas found a stray package of cupcakes at the bottom of the ice chest that looked like it was there from the last time we came. He tore open the plastic and it gushed out and down his front like a chocolate and cream geyser.

"Oh Christ, you little …. !" My mother ran over and slapped the package out of his hand, looking frantically around for a napkin or towel. "Jesus H. Christ!"

"Here, Claire." My aunt produced a grimy piece of paper bag from under her chair. "Wipe the big chunks off with this, Thomas, and then go soak yourself in the ocean. The salt will disinfect you as well." But my mother didn't smile. Frances and Colleen whined how starving they were, how they never got anything to eat all day. Thomas and Jack ran down to the ocean and could be seen scrubbing at their hands, face and hair with wet sand.

"That's it. Come on Teresa, let's pack up. At least if we go by the Clubhouse the kids can get some pretzels or chips from the bar. And we can get the hell out of here."

It never took as long to pack up as it did to unpack. As if the whole day didn't amount to anything now that we had to leave. Mom and Aunt Teresa got up and started to round everything up, pails and towels were thrown into the bags just as they were, full of salt and sand. Newspapers and paper plates and cups were thrown away and pretty soon we were trudging toward the boardwalk.

I heard them ahead of us. My mom saying how when she got her hands on him she was going to kill him and I wondered how many times I had heard her say it, how easily it came out of her mouth. I knew a lot of what they said to each other didn't mean a whole lot if you counted the number of times my dad said he was going to leave her, walk out and not look back. And vice versa. They never did any of it.

"You go in, Teresa. I might be tempted."

Mom knew she might stay in the clubhouse herself. I could see it happen. She'd walk in. My dad would coax her over with a smile on his handsome face, then there'd be a snuggle, and he'd pour her a drink of whiskey or rum or some other rotgut into a glass and she'd get a taste and she'd fall, fall into that warm place they went, where there were no problems, no rent, no bills, definitely no kids. I didn't know if I was jealous they could do that, or relieved. But I admired my mom for knowing her own weakness. I looked over at the clubhouse. It looked small and dismal in the dark, but there was that glow from behind the windows, that yellow glow like some weird inside kind of sun for those who didn't get outside much, and I could understand its appeal. I'd been in there a couple of times, to get my dad cigarettes, or to use the restroom since they were cleaner than the ones by the boardwalk. When my dad was in a good mood he'd take us to the Clubhouse at the end of the day and while they had their cocktails, he'd give us dimes for bags of chips and pretzels, maybe a quarter to play pinball. It wasn't much that was for sure, but I liked the dimness and the smell, pine oil and stale beer. If you went in there during the day, you felt like you were entering another world, from bright sunshine into some cool, dark cave.

My mom lit a cigarette and leaned against the Buick. She looked dark, like the shadows ate her up.

"You know you girls could really do something great with your hair."

Colleen and Frances and I got inside the Buick and Frances started telling me about Colleen getting her period last week and how stupid she was about the whole thing, which got Colleen crying and yelling that Frances was such a pig that she actually put her used sanitary napkins back into her underwear drawer. They calmed down after a while and asked me if I wanted to sleep over tonight, if their mom and my mom said yes, and I said yes because I did, I always did.

The door flew open.

"You girls have any money on you? any change?"

It was Aunt Teresa. She rummaged through her beach bag, then quickly felt through the pockets of the coverall she wore over her suit. 'I know I don't have a measly dollar. Dammit."

"Jesus Christ, Teresa, what's the matter?"

"Oh, it's them in there. They won't leave till we get the money to buy them all another round. Even your mother …" and she stopped short, because she always knew when to stop short.

"Well, I'll just go see about another round." My mother snubbed out her cigarette and snapped her tight bathing suit over the round moon of her butt. She walked toward the bar, her hips swinging because of the high heeled beach sandals she liked to wear.

"Claire wait, do you think that's a good idea?" But she was already at the door, it swished open and a breeze of murmurs and laughter and clinking glasses blew out, then just as quickly shut behind her. I wanted to float inside too, but I settled back against the seat of the Buick, snug beside my two older cousins who smelled of damp leather, those two girls who knew so much more than me though they weren't that much older. They knew about things I didn't really care about. The things I cared about, I knew about already.

"Aunt Teresa, are they going to come out? ever?"

It was about fifteen minutes since my mother's rear end had disappeared around that golden door. I knew to nudge only as far as I could get away with and stopped when I saw my aunt not about to answer me. She hopped onto the hood of the Buick and swung her legs out. Her boys were digging in the sandy dirt in the parking lot around the Clubhouse. There was an old beat up picnic table not far away where my brothers were busy pouring melted ice from the cooler onto its top and wiping it off with their hands.

"It's a beautiful night alright," Aunt Teresa said with all the softness of a woman who had a few moments to sit and not be anything to anybody.

I walked over and hopped up on the car and put my arm around her shoulders. She went stiff at my arm flung on her, but she soon let it be. Her skin was on fire and her heat eased into my body like I was sitting on top of a radiator.

"It is a beautiful night, Aunt Teresa. The stars are so bright. Look at those, right over us."

She raised her head, her pale red hair falling away from her face and light blue eyes, and I could see the girl my uncle Ted had married, the woman my dad said every guy in their barracks had had a crush on, including him. She was still in there.

"You know when I was little, Mary, my father would get us to memorize a different constellation every weekend, the weekends he was home mind you. It was our entertainment. Back then, we didn't have television. Didn't cost anything either, which was the main reason it was popular with the McNamara family. Pity I don't remember one damn thing he taught me. I couldn't name a constellation if my life depended on it."

We sat not speaking, just looking up, till our necks began to ache. "Well, I guess we don't know the important stuff when we hear it," she said and smiled, then the door burst open.

"Here we go, mother, here we da de da go!" Uncle Ted fell through the door which swung open with a crack as loud as a car backfiring and he stood there in the light that disappeared slowly as the door eased back. "Here we go, mother. Oops, mother, where'd you go?" He looked over his shoulder. "I lost my mother, Teresa. I assume I must go back in."

Aunt Teresa threw off my arm and ran towards him. "No Ted, don't go back in, please. Your mother'll find her way out."

"No, no, no. I got to find her. She's in there all by herself. It's not safe. I got to go get her." He swayed on his feet and I knew he was headed for a lights out if Aunt Teresa didn't catch him, which she did with the timing of an acrobat. "Come on, Ted, come over here. By the kids. The kids are here, in Hugh's car. I'll get them out, you just lie down for a while. For just a minute."

He fought, but still stumbled toward the car where Teresa flung open the door and said to Colleen and Francis that the party was over, their dad needed to lie down. I stayed put staring up at the sky again, wondering if my parents were never to come out, would I care one bit. I realized that I did, and it wasn't a happy realization. It made me feel uneasy, like an unwelcome surprise.

"Well, well, here they come."

My mother came out first, hobbling out on her high heels, her arms crossed stiffly in front of her, which made her boobs pop even further out the top of her suit. Then my grandmother and father, laughing, swaying, arms around each other, like I'd never seen them, and never would again. He was whispering something in her ear, a dirty joke no doubt, and she cackled right out, her hen cackle my mother always called it, like an old lady without a care, which was maybe what she was. They made it to the cars, our Buick and Uncle Ted's old battleax, a beat up DeSoto that barely had a floor anymore by the driving pedals.

"I want to go home with Uncle Hugh. I want to go with Uncle Hugh, please!"

Both Frances and Colleen were crying at their mother. "Please, Ma, don't make us drive home with daddy!"

Uncle Ted got out of our car and took a few steps and yanked up the waist of his swim trunks. "What are you talking about? You don't want to drive home with me? What's wrong with your daddy?"

My grandmother put her basket into the trunk of the Buick and threw a glance in Teresa's direction as if the disrespect she heard from Ted's girls lay only at her feet. "Tsk," she said loudly and then got in, rolling down the window so she could get a view of what happened next.

Aunt Teresa grabbed both girls' hands and tugged them toward the DeSoto. "Now, get in and stop bellyaching. I don't want to hear it. Boys, get in."

Frances and Colleen started screaming as they got into the Desoto's back seat along with their two brothers who liked to sit on the floor so they could fly upwards every time their father hit a good bump in the road.

My mother walked over to Teresa and leaned into the window. "Why don't you boys sit up on the seat? And you girls, roll up your windows, lock your doors." She tapped on the glass to say goodbye and walked back to the Buick where she got Evan and Thomas in next to Grandma Emma. I slid in without saying anything. I could hear Frances and Colleen still crying; it sounded like cats.

We pulled out onto the road, Uncle Ted in front because dad said he wanted to keep an eye on him, which was a joke because dad was almost as drunk as he was, he just could hold it better. My mother turned to check on us kids every two seconds asking if we were alright, as if that could save us if we ran into oncoming traffic.

Uncle Ted drove so slow I thought we'd never get home. He swerved left to right and I could see my cousins' heads jerking back and forth, then Frances turned full around and stuck her face against the back window, her mouth open in what I was certain must be a cry for help. We got onto the Rockaway bridge and it had never looked so scary, huge pillars on either end, fog crawling upwards, the top completely lost in clouds. It looked like the gateway to heaven and I thought it might as well be as we got on and started across, Uncle Ted slowing even more, barely squeezing past cars going in the opposite direction, the whiz of their passing like some eerie sound from a horror movie, making me gasp, making me wet my pants.

"Jesus Christ, Hugh, he's going so slow. And he's all over the goddam road."

My father thumped on the wheel. "What do you want from me, huh, Claire? Just what do you want from me?" She stared at him. My father's face was as still as stone, his hands planted firmly on the wheel, at ten and two o'clock as he had always lectured my mother was the safest way to steer. He was trying to get us home, such as the effort was, he was trying.

It seemed a year before we made it off the bridge and left the water and the vision of sure death behind. We still had a ways to go, but I felt I could breathe again. Dad pulled up next to Ted at the light and made my mom roll down the window. When Ted rolled down his window Frances and Colleen could be heard still screaming and Uncle Ted let out a roar to shut up and he swung his big arm back at them but instead got one of the boys. Then they were all crying and Teresa yanked at her hair like an actress in a silent movie and I could hear my grandmother belch and tsk beside me.

Ted leaned out the window so he could catch my father's glance. "Christ, Hugh, I need a drink," he said and he put the DeSoto in drive and kept going down the road.

We got home not too much after that. We followed Uncle Ted until he landed himself in someone's front yard, convinced he was in the garage of his old house, the one he had shared with grandma and mom long ago. Dad nudged Ted over and got in and drove the DeSoto while my mother, who had never gotten her license, said she could make it the last few blocks. We all ended up in our apartment, grandma, the cousins, Aunt Teresa and Uncle Ted, who immediately looked in the refrigerator for a beer, found one and then promptly passed out on the sofa. Frances and Colleen were happy as larks, apparently forgetting they had a party to get to. They went from room to room and settled on my mother's, where they rifled through her drawers to see if she had any sexy lingerie. They kept saying how we had nice things, how we were rich. How they wanted to live here, that it was so much better.

My mother, grandmother, Aunt Teresa and dad sat in the living room, all popping beers and talking, Teresa taking Ted's feet and holding them on her lap, rubbing at his ankles like she was kneading out all his worries. They didn't seem to notice that we all stunk to high heaven, especially me since I pissed my suit, or the sand and grime we brought in on the floors, the bed. They didn't worry how they'd get home, but then again the next day was Sunday.

I laid down on my mother's bed, watched my cousins violate what little privacy she had in this apartment, turned my ears toward the living room, and listened. They were already spinning out what had happened, how one after the other went into the Clubhouse, how they stayed and never came out, how we all got into our cars and drove home and Ted practically crashed through someone's living room. They made the funny parts bigger and the other parts disappear. I knew that they'd all remember it differently. When told at a party the wrong way, they'd get into a fight over it. It would become one of their stories they dragged out like costumes out of a trunk, when they needed to remember how crazy they used to be, how fun. When they got really old, they'd wonder if it had happened at all, Fort Tilton? Pilton? is that it? where's that? until I filled in the blanks. When I told them what I heard, what I know to be true.